MORE moving tributes have today been paid to a Suffolk soldier killed in Iraq.Staff sergeant Sharron Elliott, 34, originally from Hadleigh, was one of four people killed on Remembrance Sunday when a bomb exploded near their patrol boat in the Shatt al-Arab waterway.

MORE moving tributes have today been paid to a Suffolk soldier killed in Iraq.

Staff sergeant Sharron Elliott, 34, originally from Hadleigh, was one of four people killed on Remembrance Sunday when a bomb exploded near their patrol boat in the Shatt al-Arab waterway.

Today, her childhood friend Emma Billett, of Spring Road, Ipswich, said: “I will always remember Sharron for her smile, that's the image I have embedded in my mind.

“Before she joined the army we were so close. As our lives took separate paths I saw less of her but she would always pop and see me on her trips back to Hadleigh.

“I would be at work and she would just bounce in with a big smile, lighting up my day and it was as if she'd never been away.”

Ms Billett added: “Her determination to get things done was always there.

“When she was training for her army fitness test, we would drive out to Layham and then Sharron would run back to Hadleigh puffing and panting, while I drove alongside her giggling.

“When she qualified as an aircraft technician, being the first woman to do so, I was so proud of her and admired her determination.

“We shared so many good times and I feel privileged to have known such a fun, out-going and caring woman.

“I just cannot believe I will never get the chance to see her smiling face again.”

As reported in later editions of yesterday's Evening Star, Staff Sgt Elliott's body was flown back to RAF Brize Norton yesterday where a private ceremony took place, attended by friends and loved ones.

Her body and those of her three colleagues Sunday arrived back in Britain yesterday.

The four, together with the body of a fifth soldier killed earlier this month in Basra, were flown into RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire for a private repatriation ceremony attended by families and loved ones.

As well as Staff Sgt Elliott, of the Army's Intelligence Corps, warrant officer Class 2 Lee Hopkins, 35, of the Royal Signals, and two Royal Marines, corporal Ben Nowak 27, of Liverpool and marine Jason Hylton, 33, of Derbyshire, were also killed.

The body of Kingsman Jamie Hancock, 19, of Wigan, who was killed by small arms fire in Basra on November 7, was also on returned home.