Tributes Paid to Jamie Clark
18 June 2010, 12:23 | Updated: 18 June 2010, 13:02
Family and friends have gathered in Stopsley in Luton today, for the funeral of the youngest victim of the Cumbria shootings.
23-year old Jamie Clark was one of 12 people who died after the taxi driver went on a horrific rampage in Cumbria on June 2.
The estate agent, of St Pierre Avenue, Carlisle, was driving through Seascale on his way back from a viewing when Bird opened fire on him.
He was laid to rest at a private service for family, friends and colleagues at the Vale Crematorium in Stopsley today.
Speaking ahead of the service, Jamie’s dad, Richard, told us what he loved most about his son:
“I think it’s just all the little things he used to do: his love of Star Wars. He likes sciencey fictiony things, he liked technology, in some respect he was a lot like me. And he enjoyed doing some things that I used to do and that’s what gave us such a great friendship as well as him being a son that we could talk about things on the same wavelength.”
Asked about Derrick Bird he said:
"I don't think I am every going to understand . Something happened and he has gone over the top. You can't blame his family for any of that. That is down to the individual. What he did is so horrific.
"I have no anger against the family. They have offered to apologise. They don't need to.
"I have been through all the emotions. I don't know where I stand. We are never going to forget Jamie.
"The funeral is the hardest thing I ever have had to do in my life."
He said he had no criticism of the Cumbria police on the day:
"From what I have seen and heard their course of acton was totally correct.There is no way you can send the emergency services in when there is a reisk of them being killed."
To hear the full interview with Richard Clark click here.
Mr Clark's fiancée Leanne Jarman revealed she herself was in one of the villages where Bird killed two other people.
The 21-year-old described how she was bundled into a cafe in Egremont by a police officer just half an hour before the man she planned to marry became Bird's youngest victim.
She said she heard the shot that killed Susan Hughes, and was trying to call Mr Clark - who she was due to marry in 2012 - when Kenneth Fishburn was also killed.
That day teaching student Miss Jarman, from Carlisle, was working as a summer temp for Belvoir, the lettings firm that had employed Mr Clark at their Cockermouth office for the past two years.
When she heard news of his death, she said:
"I will never forget that day – it was the worst day of my life. I screamed the place down when I heard.
“Jamie and I had a future ahead of us, we were getting married, and we were going to get a mortgage. So I have gone from being completely excited about the future to being terrified of it. Completely terrified of how I am going to manage without him. It’s never going to stop hurting.”
To hear the full interview with Leanne Clark click here.
Leanne has opened a Facebook has been flooded with messages of sympathy from friends and relatives.
Before moving to Carlisle, Jamie had lived with his father Richard, 56, mother Jane, 51 and older brother Andrew, 26, at Northall near Leighton Buzzard, Beds.
Jamie had been a popular pupil at Edlesborough School in Bucks and Cottesloe Secondary School in, Wing, Bucks. He later attended Dunstable College to study photography.