Fallen Afghanistan heroes hailed

Hundreds turn out for funerals of two servicemen

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THE widow of a soldier killed in Afghanistan paid tribute to her “beautiful man, protector and love” at a funeral service yesterday at the chapel where they married.

Sergeant Phillip Scott, 30, of 3rd Battalion The Rifles, was killed by an improvised explosive device near Sangin, in Helmand Province, on November 5.

Sgt Scott was born at Malton, North Yorkshire, but lived in Edinburgh.

Hundreds of mourners gathered at the picturesque Aske Hall Chapel, near Richmond, North Yorkshire, where Sgt Scott married his wife Ellen about a year ago.

In a tribute by Mrs Scott, read out on her behalf, she described her husband as a “strong, kind and gentle man”.

She said he would “live on” in their two young children, Ellie, 3, and Mikey, 1.

About 500 people attended the funeral at the chapel, in the grounds of the Marquess of Zetland's country estate.

Meanwhile, the girlfriend of a soldier shot dead by a rogue Afghan policeman spoke movingly yesterday of her “overwhelming sense of pride” in her “strong, brave soldier” as he was laid to rest.

Territorial Army volunteer Corporal Steven Boote, 22, from Birkenhead, Liverpool, was killed with four other soldiers at a checkpoint in Nad-e-Ali on November 3 by a man being mentored by British forces.

Yesterday, hundreds of mourners attended Cpl Boote’s funeral with colleagues from his regiment, the Royal Military Police, at Port Sunlight, Merseyside.

His girlfriend, Emma Murray, said she had been struck from the moment she met him by his “positive energy and the love he had for life and an enthusiasm he would share with everyone he met”.