THE minister of Dunblane Cathedral has reached out to the grieving citizens of Newtown, Connecticut.

The Reverend Colin McIntosh, who leads the Church of Scotland congregation in the town near Stirling, said he had left messages of support.

He said the people of Dunblane, where gunman Thomas Hamilton shot dead 15 children and their teacher Gwen Mayor at the local primary school in March 1996, could understand the "numbing incomprehension" that residents would be feeling..

Rev McIntosh's comments came two days after the shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School Connecticut, in the US, which claimed the lives of 26 people, most of them young children.

He said that, like Dunblane, the US town would try to find a balance between memorialising the dead and moving forward but he added that there would be problems for a "long time to come".

Within Dunblane Cathedral there is a permanent sandstone memorial to the children who died in 1996.

Rev McIntosh, who was minister of the cathedral at the time of the massacre, said: "I think we will be hesitating to try to give any advice but there do seem to be similarities between the community in Newtown and our community here in Dunblane.

"So perhaps we can begin to understand what they're going through, and the sheer numbing incomprehension they must all be feeling at the moment.

"There will be big questions and dilemmas for them as there were for us.

"It is a question of how do you strike the balance. The answer, I suspect, will be different for every community but there will be problems for a long time to come."

Rev McIntosh said religious faith could provide support to the families in Newtown as it did for many in Dunblane.