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Girl rescued from slums of Rio fell into a rootless life
Paul Cheston, Courts Correspondent18 Nov 2009
Rescued by her adoptive family from the ghettos of Rio de Janeiro, teenager Rosimeiri Boxall seemed destined to have a comfortable life ahead of her in south London.
Instead, she deliberately rejected all the advantages offered to her.
When she died, she was leading a rootless life in the kind of borderline criminal sub-culture her parents hoped they had kept her from.
The Rev Simon Boxall and his wife Rachel, both Anglican missionaries in Brazil, found Rosimeiri in a Rio children's home, abandoned by her alcoholic mother. The couple, who had four sons, adopted her in 1991.
In 2005, when she was 16, the family returned to the UK when Mr Boxall became vicar at the Open Gateway Community Church in Thamesmead.
Rosi was unsettled and her school work suffered. She was asked to leave in 2007 and began learning child care at Plumstead College.
But she spent increasing amounts of time away from home.
At 18, she dropped out of the course. When she died, she was living in temporary accommodation in a Blackheath house owned by Greenwich council.
