Despite the brutality of the attack, Mr Boxall, a vicar at the Open Gateway Community Church in Thamesmead, south London, said he and his family were praying for the assailants. “We want them to know we forgive them. That does not mean that what they did ‘doesn’t matter’. Of course it does,” he said.
“Forgiveness means that we refuse to be shackled by bitterness and our prayer is that forgiveness will allow the girls to be released from the burden of what they have done.”
Miss Boxall was adopted by Mr Boxall and his wife after being abandoned as a baby by her alcoholic mother.
The couple, who have four natural sons, were working in Rio de Janeiro as missionaries at the time.