Funeral date set for murdered Lindsay

Apr 20 2007

THE funeral of an English teacher from the West Midlands whose body was found buried in a bath of sand in a Tokyo apartment will take place next week.

The service in memory of Lindsay Ann Hawker is scheduled to take place at Coventry Cathedral next Thursday.

An inquest into the death of Miss Hawker, 22, whose family live in Brandon, Warwickshire, was opened and adjourned by the county's coroner earlier this month.

A post-mortem found that the English language teacher had been badly beaten and strangled.

Miss Hawker's father Bill and boyfriend Ryan Garside travelled to Japan in March to identify her remains and make televised appeals to find her killer.

CCTV images released by Japanese police showed Miss Hawker chatting to the prime suspect in the investigation, 28-year-old Tatsuya Ichihashi, who fled from the apartment where her body was found.

Ichihashi is believed to have approached Miss Hawker, who worked for a language school, about private English lessons after following her home from a railway station.