Liam Payne fans gather for Liverpool vigil

A young woman, with long, straight reddish brown hair, looks at floral tributes to Liam Payne with a sorrowful expression.
The singer died in a fall from a hotel balcony in Argentina on Wednesday [PA Media]

Fans of the One Direction singer Liam Payne gathered at Liverpool's waterfront for a vigil after his death in Argentina.

Payne, 31, fell from a third-floor hotel window in Buenos Aires on Wednesday, according to the Argentinian authorities.

A group of Directioners, the name given to followers of the X Factor-formed boy band, gathered at the Royal Albert Dock earlier.

The fans wrote messages in tribute to the Wolverhampton born singer, who pursued a solo career after One Direction split in 2016.

A crowd of about 50 people gather around a tribute consisting of bunches of flowers, balloons and notes leaning against railings on the dockside.
The vigil saw fans leave floral tributes, balloons and notes at the Royal Albert Dock in Liverpool [PA Media]

One memorial card said Forever Young, a nod to the Alphaville track of the same name that One Direction covered.

Fans lit candles and had cardboard signs with the band's lyrics on them, including one saying "I'm missing half of me when we're apart", from the band's single If I Could Fly.

Photographs of Payne, flowers, teddy bears and balloons were left at the bridge, and the group sang One Direction songs.

A young woman, with her black hair tied into plaits, writes on a piece of pink card which contains a number of messages as well as the words "RIP Liam" and "Forever Young". She steadies the paper on the back of another woman as she writes.
Liam Payne's father has travelled to Buenos Aires to arrange repatriation of his son's body [PA Media]

Argentina's National Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor's Office No 16 said it was investigating the incident at the Casa Sur Hotel as an "inconclusive death".

Payne's father, Geoff Payne, travelled to the Argentinian capital on Friday to arrange the repatriation of his son's body.

His former bandmates - Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson - released a series of heartfelt statements describing their devastation.

The Girls Aloud singer Cheryl, Payne's ex-partner and mother of his seven-year-old son Bear, also released a statement saying the boy must now "face the reality of never seeing his father again".

Additional reporting by PA Media.

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