Soldiers' bodies are flown home

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They were flown into RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire for a repatriation ceremony attended by their families.

The men, all from 2nd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, based at Colchester, Essex, died in the past week.

Privates Nathan Cuthbertson and David Murray, both 19, and Daniel Gamble, 22, were blown up by a suicide bomber last Sunday.

On Thursday, Lance Corporal James Bateman, 29, and Private Jeff Doherty, 20, were killed when they came under Taliban fire.

Their deaths take the number of British service personnel killed in Afghanistan since November 2001 to 102.

Following a flypast, a moving ceremony took place at the rear exit ramp of the C-17 plane which flew the bodies home, a Ministry of Defence spokesman said.

As a military band played sombre music, a padre said prayers for the dead men before pall-bearers slow-marched the coffins, draped in Union flags, one by one across the runway to waiting hearses as families with loved ones looking on.

After the repatriation, the bodies were transferred into the custody of Wiltshire coroner David Masters, ahead of post mortem examinations.

The bodies will then be released back to the families for funerals to take place, a coroner's officer said. He said inquests into the soldiers' deaths would open in the coming week.