MURDERED teenager Caroline Glachan was laid to rest yesterday in a hillside cemetery six months after she was found battered to death.

Hundreds of mourners attended the service in a small chapel yards from the home where the schoolgirl had lived with her mother in Ladyton, near Alexandria.

Scores of 14-year-old Caroline's school friends joined with family and friends in paying their last respects and many more lined the streets outside, holding single red roses.

Many of her close friends were so upset they had to be led from the church in tears as Father John Mone spoke about the ''evilness'' which killed Caroline.

He said: ''There is a power here this morning which is stronger and more powerful than that which took Caroline's life.

''It is reflected over the last six months in the courage and faith that Margaret and her family have shown, in the love and support that Caroline's friends have given each other, and in the prayers that have been said constantly and fervently.''

Fr Mone, chaplain of Our Lady and St Patrick's School where Caroline was a fourth-year pupil, made an emotional appeal for anybody with information about the teenager's death to come forward.

As the cortege of cars left the chapel for the cemetery in the Vale of Leven, traffic lights were turned off to allow the mourners to pass through the town.

Caroline's battered body was found on the banks of the River Leven in Renton, Dunbartonshire, less than a mile from her home on Sunday, August 25. Although it has never been revealed how she died, police said she was ''the victim of a brutal and violent attack''.

Despite an intensive police investigation, Caroline's killer remains at large.