SUNDAY, July 18, marked 25 years since the tragic death of Launceston College student Caroline Dickinson.

The ‘quiet, loving and gifted’ girl, aged 13, was on an end-of-term school trip to France with fellow students and teachers on July 18, 1996, when she was raped and murdered by Francisco Arce Montes.

On that fateful night, Caroline had been sleeping in a dormitory with four friends in an unlocked youth hostel at the peaceful village of Pleine Fougeres in Brittany when the murderer struck, supposedly at random. She was to be found dead in her bed by her fellow classmates at 7am the following morning.

The inquest later revealed that Caroline had opted to sleep on a mattress on the floor between two bunk beds so she could stay in the same room as her friends. It is believed that at around 4am, Arce Montes attacked Caroline where she slept, smothering her with a wad of cotton wool. Her room mates had mostly slept through the attack, although one girl thought she had heard Caroline’s heels ‘drumming on the floor’ but believed it to just be a bad dream.

Following a flawed investigation by French police, it was many years before Arce Montes received a 30-year prison sentence in 2004.

Flowers, gifts and messages were laid in the grounds of Launceston College in the following weeks in memory of the ‘gentle and intelligent’ girl.

A keen ballet dancer and member of her school’s wind band, Headmaster of Launceston College at the time, Alan Wroath, was quoted as saying Caroline was “the sort of girl you would hope was your own daughter”.

Caroline’s parents John and Sue Dicksinson had said that her death had robbed them not only of a daughter but of someone who had already become their very best friend.

In a written statement issued to the press at the time, they said: “On Thursday when we were given the news, our lives changed forever. We have lost a quiet, loving and gifted daughter.

“Caroline had so much to look forward to and so many plans for the future which we were doing all we could to help her fulfil.

“Though the circumstances in which Caroline died are a revelation of real evil, the care, love and support we have received from everyone in Launceston and far away is a great help which we really value.”