Other restorative justice programmes available in British jails involve face-to-face meetings between perpetrator and victim. But through the project, Boyce has not met her attacker. He is serving three life sentences and has refused all her requests to meet him and has never expressed any remorse.

For a few minutes after she finishes, no one speaks. Most are having trouble even looking at her. There is, at its simplest level, a collective shame in being male. Finally David, a crop-haired 20-year-old in for drug crimes, finds his voice. "To sit and talk like that," he tells Boyce, "to go so deeply, so intimately, you are one brave, brave lady." The others break into spontaneous applause. 

It takes time, and patience, but slowly a discussion starts. Most of the participants preface their questions with a disclaimer. Yes, they've committed crimes, but nothing like what Boyce has suffered. They are anxious to separate themselves from her assailant — though this is a Category-B prison with lifers and sex offenders. 

Tony, young, black and slumped in his chair in a blue and white tracksuit, is the first to admit he is struggling with what he has just heard. "I'm finding it hard to believe 100 per cent that you can forgive. How do you do that? Did you just wake up one morning and think, ‘I forgive him'?" Geoff, in his thirties and from Liverpool, picks up on this. He recounts how he has tried writing to the parents of the man he murdered, but they want nothing to do with him. 

Boyce leans forward and explains that for her, there was no one particular moment in the decade since she was attacked when she embraced forgiveness. "Everyone is different and everyone's understanding of forgiveness is different," she stresses, "but for me, forgiveness is a journey, not a destination." 

The purpose of these three days is to encourage greater victim-awareness in those attending. Yet from starting out with a victim's story, the workshop naturally evolves to encourage participants to consider their own motivations, and their need to forgive and to be forgiven. 

This progression is not without obstacles. Grant, a slight, balding former drug dealer in his early forties, can't see any connection between himself and what he has just heard. "On a personal level," he tells Boyce directly but politely, "I couldn't forgive the man who raped you until he was dead." She nods. "But if I didn't forgive," she replies, "who am I affecting? Him or me? I would be the one suffering."