A CANDLELIGHT vigil is being held for Gaia Pope in Swanage on Saturday.

The community will be gathering at the amphitheatre in Prince Albert Gardens to pay their respects to the 19-year-old.

The vigil will start at 4.10pm, with people gathering at 3.45pm. It has been advertised publicly on Facebook by the Find Gaia group.

“Please dress warm and bring a drink so that we can toast a great woman and celebrate the joy she brought to so many lives, as well as the community that wrapped itself around us during a very hard time,” a member of the group said.

Gaia’s body was found deep within “very thick gorse and undergrowth” close to the cliff edge near Swanage, police have confirmed.

Search teams discovered the teenager’s body eleven days after she was last seen, and after hundreds of town residents, Gaia’s family, friends and supporters carried out their own searches of the Purbeck countryside.

The spot where her body was found was around a mile along the coast from Swanage - and police say the undergrowth was so dense it would have made it “incredibly difficult” for even high-tech thermal imaging equipment to see her.

A Dorset Police spokesman explained: “We deployed significant resources, including dedicated search teams, police dogs and dive teams and utilised the assistance of partner agencies such as the coastguard, NPAS helicopter, Dorset & Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service and volunteers from Dorset Search and Rescue, Wessex 4x4 and public volunteers.

“The area where Gaia was found was deep within very thick gorse and undergrowth, close to the cliff edge. This would have made it incredibly difficult for even the NPAS helicopter to see her using high-tech thermal imaging. It also required the expertise of specialist recovery officers to reach her.

"We would like to pay a special thanks to everyone who assisted with all the searches, from the specialist teams to all the volunteers.

"Our thoughts remain with Gaia’s family at this difficult time.”

Three people arrested in connection with Gaia's disappearance during the search, Rosemary Dinch, Paul Elsey and Nathan Elsey, were released without charge.

Investigators have since confirmed there is no evidence to suggest any third party was involved in Gaia's death, and the case has been passed to the coroner's office.

A post mortem examination, carried out earlier this week, did not identify any injuries to suggest any other person was involved in her death. The official cause of death is yet to be determined, and toxicology tests taken - sent away for laboratory analysis - are likely to take a number of weeks.