Thousands pay last respects to Pc Dave Phillips killed in hit-and-run in Merseyside

The widow and two young daughters of an officer killed in a hit-and-run in Merseyside have led thousands of mourners at his funeral.

Pc Dave Phillips, 34, died shortly after he was knocked down by a stolen Mitsubishi pick-up truck while trying to stop the vehicle with a stinger device in Wallasey in the early hours of October 5.

Today, his wife Jen and the couple's young daughters, seven-year-old Abigail and Sophie, three, followed her husband's coffin to Liverpool Anglican Cathedral.

Once the family had entered the huge cathedral, which was shrouded in fog, hundreds of police colleagues from around the country queued to get into the service, forming a snake of uniforms back down into the city.

Pc Phillips's coffin was carried through the streets of Liverpool to the cathedral in a black hearse with his collar number 6554 picked out in white flowers down the side.

The funeral procession, which stopped at Merseyside Police HQ, was led by a pipe band from the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

Pc Phillips's sister, Hannah Wieldon, told the congregation her brother was a "sheer force for good" and "no man embodied the spirit of a true hero more".