KATIE Rough's death is one of the most harrowing crimes to happen in recent years and the events surrounding it stunned York.

I was the reporter covering the late shift on the night she died and first heard something major was unfolding when a colleague saw a post on Facebook.

The post referred to a large police presence in Alness Drive, Woodthorpe, and we immediately set about trying to establish what was happening.

North Yorkshire Police sent me a short statement confirming a seven-year-old girl had died earlier that afternoon and a 15-year-old girl had been arrested around 9pm.

After minutes of the story breaking on The Press's website, thousands of people had read the story or reacted to it on our social media channels.

I got to the freezing cold scene in Alness Drive early the next morning and was joined by regional media who had picked up the story overnight.

It was the leading story on all of the major news channels throughout the morning and by lunchtime most of the national newspapers had sent reporters to York from London.

A black Peugeot 206 was abandoned at the top of the street close to a cut leading to the field where Katie was found and police tape stopped anyone going further.

No one knew who the car belonged to and at that stage it was unclear who the seven-year-old girl was.

As is the case with most major stories, the police did not release much information and it was up to reporters to piece together what had happened.

The first person I spoke to was a neighbour who lived at the top of Alness Drive, Rob McCartney.

He told reporters about seeing Katie's mum running around and screaming for help in the moments after her daughter was injured.

A short time later Katie's grandparents arrived to lay flowers and this was the first time reporters in the street were given any idea who the girl was.

A card inside the flowers read "Night night my darling princess, Katie."

The morning was a mix of speaking to neighbours in the street and monitoring social media to pick up snippets of information about what may have taken place.

At the same time, TV reporters were busy doing live pieces to their respective channels and drones were flying overhead to take pictures of the scene.

Around mid-morning police extended the cordon and moved journalists to the bottom of Alness Drive to give forensic teams space to investigate and photographers set up ladders as they scrambled for pictures of officers arriving.

By this time huge satellite broadcasting vans with towering dishes were parked in the street and most of the cars in the normally quiet area belonged to journalists, photographers and police.

As the day went on mourners arrived with flowers to lay at the scene.

Some we would later find out were family members, but others were complete strangers who were either affected by the events or had children of a similar age.

All of them spoke about how shocked they were to hear about the death of a young girl in their neighbourhood.

After spending most of the day in Alness Drive, I drove to a street in Foxwood where more police vans were parked.

Other reporters quickly began to gather in the street to speak to neighbours of the family, but we were turned away.

Police released another statement later that day to identify Katie and tributes were paid from her friends and school.

It was a day many in York will never forget and the community continued to rally around the family in the days after Katie's tragic death.