Thai beach victim Hannah Witheridge 'irreplaceable' says friend

A friend of Hannah Witheridge, the 23-year-old who was murdered in Thailand last week, has told the BBC that she is "irreplaceable".

Hannah was due to go back to her postgraduate Speech and Language Therapy course at Essex University after her summer break.

But her housemate Lucy Dunkley will be starting the new term without her.

Hannah was found dead, along with 24-year-old David Miller, on the island of Koh Tao.

Lucy told BBC Essex that she has only good memories of Hannah.

"No-one could say a bad word about her," she says.

"She was just one of those beautiful, bubbly people, amazing on the inside and out. She was just a brilliant person and she is just irreplaceable.

"I'll never meet anyone like her."

Lucy says she met Hannah last September at the start of their course.

"I remember she opened the door, she was so friendly and we got on right away," she remembers.

"We stayed up quite late, chatting and sharing our experiences up to that point, it was like I'd known her for ages. I just knew it was going to be a good year.

"It was just the best fun. Our house was always the party house.

"Everyone used to come here either for coffee and TV after uni, or we'd have parties here or we'd do dinner parties.

"She was a great cook and so it was just brilliant living with her."

Lucy and Hannah were both training to help people with speech difficulties, and Lucy said Hannah wanted to go on to work with children.

"She always got along really well on placement," she says. "The children always loved her. She was a real natural with them."

Lucy says Hannah had been really excited about going to Thailand and had planned to go on her own but ended up going with four friends.

"Obviously Hannah, she was so sociable and so friendly she was brilliant, [and it was] the more the merrier."

The BBC's Jonathan Head says Thai police suspect two different samples of DNA taken from Ms Witheridge's body are from two Asian men.

Police in Thailand say they are investigating new evidence suggesting the murders may have taken place because of "sexual jealousy".

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