Mourners at the funerals of a wife and daughter murdered by a bankrupt millionaire were told yesterday that it would be understandable if they could not forgive.

Jill Foster, 49, and her 15-year-old daughter Kirstie are believed to have been shot dead by Christopher Foster, 50, before he set light to their mansion in the village of Maesbrook, in commuter-belt Shropshire.

CCTV footage recovered from the charred embers of Osbaston House showed a man, believed to be Mr Foster, firing a rifle at a horsebox as the blaze took hold. It is thought that Mr Foster, whose fortune had turned to debt, then turned the gun on himself.

Family and friends packed into St John’s parish church a tiny church only a short distance from the family home, for the double funeral of Mrs Foster and her teenage daughter. Some stood outside to listen to the service relayed over a loudspeaker.

There were far fewer mourners for Mr Foster’s funeral later in the day at the same venue. Both services were presided over by the Venerable Tony Sadler, the former Archdeacon of Walsall.

Members of Mrs Fosters’ family have already spoken of their distaste that Mr Foster is being buried in a plot in the same graveyard, and only a short distance from the shared grave of his wife and daughter. Anne Giddings, her sister, had told one newspaper that she had wanted Mr Foster buried “as far away as possible” from her sister and niece.

She said: “I am gutted to think that beast will be buried in the same cemetery as my sister and her beautiful daughter. He will be lying right next to them, just a few feet away.”

Mrs Giddings and her brother Roger were in the congregation as the two coffins, each adorned with pink floral arrangements, were wheeled into the church.

Mr Sadler spoke of Kirstie as a popular girl who loved horses and had her heart set on studying at the Equestrian College at Gloucester University.

In his address Mr Sadler referred to the brutal way in which they had met their deaths. However, he suggested that the sadness of these latest events should not be allowed to diminish the happiness of their earlier lives together.

The priest also made a direct reference to the rift within the families. He suggested that the deep hurt comes as a result of an extreme difficulty in being to find forgiveness for what happened.

He said: “As Christians we are required to forgive but for many at the moment that is a step too far. The wounds are too raw. Even if we spoke words of forgiveness with our lips, they would be shallow and meaningless.

“It is hard at the moment, and no one is going to point the finger and say you must do it. Many make the intellectual decision to forgive someone before they have forgiven them in their hearts. True forgiveness cannot be rushed. Living with unforgiveness may be the honest thing to do for the moment.”

Enid Foster, 78, the dead man’s mother, and his brother Andrew were among the mourners at the earlier funeral. Mr Sadler urged the congregation to “remember him too as they mourn his loss”.

The congregation was told that Mrs Foster’s family intend to set up a charitable trust in Kirstie’s memory under the name The Kirtie Foster Trust to Assist Riding for the Disabled.

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