Noah Woods poignant tributes paid by other children as they leave flowers, teddy bears and football

Noah Woods poignant tributes paid by other children as they leave flowers, teddy bears and football Children have paid moving tributes to Noah Woods after the body of a young child was found following the three-year-old's disappearance on Tuesday The little boy gently threw his prized football into the playground where Noah Woods was last seen. It was his touching tribute to the tragic three-year-old whose disappearance touched a nation. Noah vanished from this very spot on Tuesday and a body of a child was found in a nearby pond yesterday afternoon. The lad was in a family group of two mums and four children who came to pay their respects this morning. They lay flowers at the playground fence before heading off to school. The ball lay just feet from the blue merry go round on which Noah had been playing on less than 48 hours before. It was a poignant reminder of the terrible events of the past 48 hours. I watched one woman weeping openly as she took her two children in their red uniforms to school. She was not alone. The whole village of Brantham on the Suffolk/Essex border is in mourning today. Dozens of tributes to Noah were laid at the playground. Light rain started to fall but it didn’t stop people arriving at Merriam Close. Huddled under umbrellas they laid their flowers. By 8.30am I’d counted 120 floral tributes One of tributes read simply “ Sorry we couldn’t do more Noah”. Another said “RIP Noah - sweet angel.” There was a Bluey Butterflies toy with a handwritten message saying: “I am so sorry Noah that we were not close enough to you last night. Sleep tight angel boy.” And there were several teddy bears and a cuddly green frog. Mums stopped on the school run. A taxi driver pulled over to lay a bunch of red roses. Just before 9am the recycling team went by on their weekly round and paused to pay their respects Yesterday this street was so busy a team of traffic marshals were called in to help stop gridlock. Cars were parked on verges for miles outside the village. Not today. Apart from the school run there was barely anyone around. The village leisure centre opened its doors to allow anyone who needed it space to grieve and reflect. Formal identification of the child’s body is expected in the next 24 hours. It was pulled from the nearby Decoy Pond by police frogmen yesterday afternoon - barely 300 metres from where Noah went missing. Reports on Wednesday morning suggested that police had searched the pond, which is large and more of a lake, but tragically they proved to be incorrect. Family liaison officers are now with the Woods family as they try to come to terms with their grief.