Tributes for friends whose car plunged into a loch

TRIBUTES were paid last night to two young friends who were killed after a car crashed into a Highland loch.

Kirsty Bryden, 20, and Roddy MacInnes, 21, died after their car left the A830 road between Fort William and Mallaig and went into Loch Eilt at Morar on Tuesday evening.

Miss Bryden, the daughter of a Northern Constabulary police officer, was driving the white Toyota car when the accident happened.

Mr MacInnes, a fish farm technician, and Miss Bryden, a restaurant general assistant, were former schoolmates and lived less than a mile apart in the village of Lochailort, a few miles from the crash scene.

The accident happened about 10pm on Tuesday. The pair were taken to Belford Hospital in Fort William but died of their injuries.

Northern Constabulary said only one car was involved in the crash.

A small group of family and friends, led by Kirsty's father, went to the scene of the crash yesterday to lay flowers.

Martin Sullivan, headteacher of Mallaig High School, where the pair attended, said: "There is deep sadness in the school and in the community at these two young deaths.

"Although Kirsty and Roddy both had left school, they had a great number of friends and touched many lives here."

"We are all thinking of their families and wishing them well."