There could be no doubting the love and respect which road crash victim Robert Giles earned during his short life.

The funeral yesterday of the 23-year-old from a family of travellers was one of the biggest seen in Sussex in recent years.

Flowers really did arrive by the lorry load. A flatbed truck packed with floral tributes was one of many vehicles in a convoy from the Giles family home to Durrington cemetery in Worthing.

An estimated 400 people attended the service for Mr Giles, who lived at Withy Patch, Lancing, one of a network of Romany campsites established in the Eighties by West Sussex County Council.

Mr Giles died earlier this month when his car veered off Old Shoreham Road, Shoreham, less than a mile from his home.

The vehicle crashed through a brick wall, stopping just inches from the front door of a family's home.

Mr Giles was freed from the wreckage by firefighters but died at Worthing Hospital.

Mourners congregated before the funeral at Withy Patch, with a line of cars and vans covering a half-mile stretch of the A27.

Two of the guests chose a more traditional way of travelling to the cemetery, turning heads as they rode along the A27 in a pony and trap.

Three police motorcyclists were also on hand as traffic queues began to build up when the main family funeral party, in two hearses and five limousines, set off for the four-mile journey to say farewell to Mr Giles.

At the cemetery there were so many other vehicles that friends of the family had to park on grass verges.

Even the central reservations at the junction of the A24 was used for parking.

It is not yet known what caused the accident which claimed Mr Giles' life.

An inquest will be held.