Relatives and friends gathered to pay respects on Monday to the four who died on the Causeway during Hurricane Fabian and then to watch the burial of the Police car that three officers had been driving.

Chief Inspector Tracy Adams said the ceremony had been suggested by New York body the Critical Incident Stress Foundation which had been on the Island to help Police deal with their loss.

?The whole process is to bring closure.? said Chief Insp. Adams. ?It?s the first of a kind for the Bermuda Police service.?

A convoy of Police vehicles left Police headquarters with the battered Mitsubishi Lancer Echo 3 on board and headed to the Causeway where P.c. Stephen Symons, P.c. Nicole O? Connor and St. George?s duty officer Gladys Saunders had been swept to their deaths, along with fisherman Manuel Pacheco on September 5, at the height of the storm.

At around 2.45 p.m., the last time the group had been heard from alive, Police Commissioner Jonathan Smith threw two wreaths into the sea at the point where the vehicle left the Causeway. As the floral tributes from local officers and from the US Drug Enforcement Administration hit the water Stephen?s grandmother Cecily Tuzo said: ?Right now I feel very hurt.?

A minute?s silence signalled by a Police siren ensued as relatives hugged each other and shed tears.

The convoy then moved to the landfill site at the Airport where the Commissioner placed roses in the front and back seats of Echo 3, which bore the sprayed-on call signs of colleagues as well as photos of the deceased.

As relatives clutched each other a digger loaded on earth while Police stood in salute.

Mrs. Tuzo said: ?It gives me a little bit of closure but I still feel hollow inside knowing that my child won?t come back.?

She said she was sorry the other families would not able to get closure from having the bodies returned.

Stephen?s ex-wife Sherri Simmons said the ceremony demonstrated the esteem in which the officers were held among their colleagues.

Initially viewing the ceremony as quite unusual she said: ?It was a fitting way to help heal the pain, not that anything will ever.

?It was a very respectful ceremony. I can fully understand it.?