Crime This article is more than 14 years old

Girl, 15, sentenced to eight years over bullying death of Rosimeiri Boxall

This article is more than 14 years oldHatice Can detained after court told of 'cruel, abject' treatment of vicar's daughter who jumped to her death

A 15-year-old girl who caused a vicar's daughter to jump to her death as she attempted to escape being bullied and beaten was today ordered to be detained for eight years.

Hatice Can and Kemi Ajose, 19, both from south-east London, slapped and punched Rosimeiri Boxall before she jumped from the third floor window last May.

Can was led away in tears after being told her sentence must be a deterrent to others. Ajose, who has a history of mental health problems, was ordered to be detained without limit of time at a psychiatric hospital.

The judge, Peter Thornton QC, said Can had led the attack and would have been sentenced to longer had she been older.

"This was cruel, abject bullying," he said. "It was ugly, vicious and repeated.

"As was once said, bullies are always cowards at heart and may be credited with a pretty sure instinct in scenting their prey.

"Rosi was the quiet one, which no doubt is why you picked on her."

He said neither defendant had shown "a flicker of remorse" and that Ajose had continued to bully vulnerable women while in custody at Holloway prison, in north London. "You tried to get several of them to hang themselves with their bedding," Thornton told her.

The pair, who were 13 and 17 at the time of Boxall's death, blamed each other for telling the 19-year-old to jump when she climbed up to the window.

Can shouted: "Serves you right, bitch" at Boxall as she lay dying.

They were convicted of manslaughter by an Old Bailey jury last month.

Boxall and Ajose had been best friends, sharing the latter's flat in Blackheath, south-east London. But they fell out when an argument between Boxall and Can, who also ended up at the flat after running away from home, escalated.

Can became jealous of Boxall over a boy and attacked her with Ajose after drinking alcohol in the afternoon.

The jury saw part of the attack on Boxall by Ajose in footage filmed on a mobile phone by a neighbour. Boxall's hair was pulled, hairspray aimed at her face, and the sound of her being slapped and punched could be heard around the courtroom.

Boxall was abandoned in an orphanage in Brazil by her mother, who was an alcoholic, before being adopted by her missionary parents when she was three.

Her adoptive father, the Rev Simon Boxall, who runs a community church in Thamesmead, south-east London, said he and his wife, Rachel, would pray for the pair who had driven his daughter to her death.

"We want them to know that we forgive them," he said.

Thornton said Rosimeiri Boxall had been given "a wonderful chance in life through her adoptive parents" but Ajose and Can had "taken all that away".

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