Girl who stabbed father gets joint funeral

LONDON - A 16-year-old girl who stabbed her father to death before killing herself has been laid to rest in a joint funeral, a media report said Saturday.

Margaret Pierides knifed Costas, 48, in the chest during a row then stabbed herself in the stomach at their 750,000-pound home last month, Daily Express reported.

Weeping friends of the schoolgirl, who had just begun training to become a beautician, wore splashes of her favourite colour, pink, in her memory at the funeral Friday.

They were among hundreds who came to pay their last respects to popular Greek Cypriot businessman Costas and his daughter.

Margarets devastated mother Bernadette Bass walked from her home to the church in front of the hearses with her four remaining children.

She had fastened a message to a bouquet of flowers shaped like a high-heeled shoe. It read: To my special Margaret. The most beautiful baby and girl in the world. Sweet dreams, daddy will take good care of you. Miss you so much, mummy.

Other floral tributes read No.1 Boss and Daughter and Daddy.

The afternoon service at St Peters Church in Sible Hedingham, Essex, saw father and daughter laid to rest in neighbouring plots, with Margaret in a pink coffin painted with roses.

It is believed the fatal row erupted after Costas banned his daughter from drinking alcohol at her younger sisters birthday party.