THE funeral cortege for Samantha Derbyshire was given a guard of honour by police as it travelled through Horwich today.

The service, held at St Mary’s Church, was attended by dozens of Samantha’s colleagues from Greater Manchester Police.

Ms Derbyshire worked as a civilian call handler for the force and was a special constable serving with the Bolton division, who was due to start as a regular police officer in the coming months.

The 23-year-old was killed on July 5 when her Ford Fiesta struck the central reservation beside the outside lane of the northbound M61 between Junctions 4 and 5 at 3.30am.

Left stranded, she got out of the vehicle to examine the damage and was struck and killed by a HGV.

Hundreds of people have paid tribute to Ms Derbyshire, who was a former Horwich St Joseph's RC High School pupil and who worked at Starbucks, Middlebrook Leisure and Retail Park for five years.

Greater Manchester Police described her death as a ‘great loss to the force’ while family and friends paid tribute to ‘funny, clever and amazing friend’ and a ‘fun loving, beautiful, amazing daughter, sister, granddaughter, and niece’.