One of the children shot dead in Friday's school shooting massacre was British, it has been reported.
Six-year-old Dylan Hockley, whose family moved from Eastleigh in Hampshire to Newtown, Connecticut, nearly two years ago, was among 20 children and six adults killed by Adam Lanza. His older brother Jake was also at Sandy Hook school but was not among those killed.
His parents had chosen to live there because it was so safe, Dylan's mother Nicole had told the Newton Bee local newspaper before the shootings.
"The schools here have been amazing, and the people in my neighbourhood are incredible. Newtown is a wonderful place to live and we're looking forward to being here a long, long time," said Nicole Hockley, a marketing consultant, who is American, and whose husband Ian works for IBM.
She had lived in Britain for 18 years before the family moved to the US in January 2011. Dylan's grandmother Theresa Moretti told the Mail on Sunday: "They chose that town to live in specifically because the school was so good. My daughter told me: 'It's safe and lovely here, Mum.'
"On Friday I was out buying Christmas presents for Dylan and his big brother Jake who is eight. I got a garbled message on my answerphone from my daughter. She was almost incoherent. I called her back and she told me what had happened. She kept saying: 'Mum, how do you tell an eight-year-old his six-year-old brother is dead and not coming back?'"'
Moretti said Jake was also at the school on Friday and heard the gunfire, adding that the family lived almost opposite Lanza and his mother.
The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office said it did not comment on consular cases involving children.
