After Alder Hey

It's the last two paragraphs that interest me most in this account.
"There was a lot of anger among the Alder Hey families, because no one was prosecuted. Justice hadn’t been done, and people felt betrayed and let down." I find myself reflecting on the relationship between justice, anger and forgiveness. Ange here because justice has not been done. Implying that had justice been done, then the anger would not be there [though of course there are cases when justice may be done and it isn't felt to be justice in which case the anger remains]. Doing justice appeases anger and brings forgiveness, though is it really forgiveness if it is the meeting of the claims of justice? I think I ask this question because I think I was starting to believe that forgiveness is most fully about relinquishing a claim upon another for 'justice'? So is this another candidate for the continuum of forgiveness? -Excusing-justice- understanding-forgiving. Justice acknowledges a wrong and so is not excusing. But there is not necessarily a dimension of understanding that is of making a connection on the grounds of human compassion.

And this leads me to wonder whether there is not a need for 'letting off' in there somewhere? -Letting off acknowledges a wrong and decides not to hold onto the wrongedness, yet it also implies that the letting off has come about because either the wrong is not important or because the wrongdoer is not important enough to the one wronged.

"Forgiveness was a not a word I used at first, but hearing the bitterness and anger I knew I didn’t want to go down that road. So I prayed to be able to forgive. In the end I came to forgive the surgeon who did the illegal stripping, and the hospital management. I chose forgiveness because I did not want to be destroyed by bitterness. What happened was out of my control, but how I respond is within my control."

Clearly here 'forgivness' is antonym for '[holding on to] bitterness'; so whatever else it is for this writer, it is something about having potential for relationship with the wrongdoer that is not based on bitterness, that is on a desire for retribution or on hatred or wvwn perhaps on a claim for justice [which may be the same as retribution?].

I'm also interested that forgivness is a process that one can pray to be able to undertake...