THE body of a Merseyside soldier shot dead by a rogue Afghan policeman was repatriated to the UK.
Corporal Steven Boote, 22, from Birkenhead, was among five soldiers shot dead at a checkpoint in Helmand Province on November 3, in an attack claimed by the Taliban.
Yesterday, hundreds of people turned out to pay their respects to the soldiers as hearses carrying their Union flag-draped coffins were driven to the High Street of Wootton Bassett, in Wiltshire, for a memorial procession.
Cpl Boote’s family and friends held aloft a banner, which read: “Welcome home, our hero Steven”.
Families had attended a private chapel ceremony at RAF Lyneham before the procession took place.
After Cpl Boote died, his family said they did not believe British troops should be withdrawn from Afghanistan.
Speaking on behalf of Cpl Boote’s parents, family friend Pam Mullin, 43, said his father Tony, a former Navy man, believes his son would have died in vain if they pull out before seeing through their mission in the war zone.
Warrant Officer Class 1 Darren Chant, 40; Sergeant Matthew Telford, 37; and Guardsman Jimmy Major, 18; from the Grenadier Guards, died alongside Cpl Boote and Corporal Nicholas Webster-Smith, 24, from the Royal Military Police.
Two days later, Serjeant Phillip Scott, 30, of 3rd Battalion The Rifles, was killed by an improvised explosive device near Sangin, in Helmand.
Under cloudy skies and drizzling rain, soldiers lined the streets of the town alongside Royal British Legion veterans, shopkeepers and residents to pay tribute to the fallen men.
As the cortege passed along the High Street, silence fell, broken only by the chiming bells of St Bartholomew and All Saints Church.
