The mother and father of a disabled girl who died after becoming morbidly obese and living in conditions ‘unfit for an animal,’ have been jailed.
Kaylea Titford weighed 22 stone and 13 lbs when she died in October 2020 at home in the town of Newtown in Powys, Wales.
The 16-year-old was found lying amid soiled clothing and bed linen, Mold Crown Court heard.
Her father, Alun Titford was today jailed for seven years and six months, while her mother, Sarah Lloyd-Jones was jailed for six years at Swansea Crown Court.
Her parents spent more than £1,000 on takeaways in her final months, the court was told, in what a judge called a ‘shocking and prolonged neglect over lockdown’.
Sarah Lloyd-Jones, 39, pleaded guilty to manslaughter by gross negligence last year but Kaylea’s father, denied the offence along with an alternative charge of causing or allowing the death of a child.
A jury later found the 45-year-old guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence.
Asked during his evidence why he had let his daughter down so badly, the removals worker said: ‘I’m lazy.’
The court heard that Kaylea, who had spina bifida and used a wheelchair, died after suffering inflammation and infection from ulceration, arising from obesity and immobility.
Emergency service workers, who were called to the house after she was found on October 10, described feeling sick due to a ‘rotting’ smell in her room.
During the opening submissions during the sentencing today Caroline Rees KC, prosecuting, said: ‘By the time of her death between October 9-10, Kaylea Titford was living in conditions unfit for any animal, let alone for a vulnerable 16-year-old girl who depended on others for her care.
‘Kaylea lived and died in squalor and degradation.’
Ms Rees told Swansea Crown Court how Kaylea Titford, who had spina bifida, had not returned to school in Newtown since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020, and had not seen a doctor for at least six months.
She said: ‘Because of the lockdown, Kaylea’s exposure to those outside her family was extremely limited.
‘This allowed both defendants to avoid the scrutiny of the outside world.’
Kaylea’s parents did not seek medical help for their daughter despite what must have been the obvious health issues she was suffering, the court heard.
Kaylea’s cluttered bedroom was described as ‘more like a dumping ground than an appropriate environment for a teenage girl’ and a police officer who entered the room described the smell as ‘like a decomposing body.’
Ms Rees said: ‘Kaylea had suffered severe physical neglect by those who had a duty to care for her.’
The court was told how Kaylea Titford’s skin was ‘severely inflamed and ulcerated, so deeply in areas that the fat was exposed’.
Maggots were observed on her ‘filthy’ body that were said to have been there ‘in life, as well as death’, Caroline Rees KC said.
Ms Rees said that when the teenager was moved from where she had died: ‘Police officers then observed her bed and saw maggots in various stages of development crawling over the bed.’
The court heard that her bedsheets were soiled and she was lying on a number of puppy toilet training pads.
Her room was said to be dirty and cluttered, with bottles of urine and a chip fryer with drips of fat down the side, as well as a full cake in a box.
Kaylea had attended Newtown High School, where she was described as ‘funny and chatty’ by staff, but did not return following the coronavirus lockdown in March 2020.
Titford, who had six children with Lloyd-Jones, said the family would order takeaways four or five nights a week and he thought Kaylea had put on two or three stone since March.
In total they spent more than £1,000 on fast-food in her dying months. Ms Rees revealed the below figures.
- 62 fast food / takeaway purchases in July 2020 – costing £277.87
- 82 in August – costing £363
- 93 September – costing £394.29
It was heard that £1,035.76 was spent on takeaways in the last three months of Kaylea’s life.
The prosecution alleged that Kaylea had not used her wheelchair, which became too small for her, since the start of lockdown.
Caroline Rees KC, prosecuting, asked Titford: ‘She hadn’t been out of bed, had she?’
But he claimed he had seen her in the kitchen of the house in her wheelchair during that period, despite telling police in interview that he had not seen her out of bed.
The court heard that Kaylea had been discharged from physiotherapy and dietetics services in the years before her death and had last been seen by a social worker at home in 2017.
Titford claimed Lloyd-Jones, who was a community care worker, was responsible for looking after Kaylea.
He said he used to take her to medical appointments and care for her but stepped back when she reached puberty as he was not ‘comfortable’.
Passing sentence on Sarah Lloyd-Jones and Alun Titford at Swansea Crown Court, Mr Justice Griffiths said they had committed ‘shocking and prolonged neglect over lockdown’.
‘(Kaylea) would not allow people so much as to push her wheelchair or open a door for her. Everything she could do for herself, she did,’ the judge said.
‘But she died just after her 16th birthday.
‘You, Sarah Lloyd-Jones, her mother, and you, Alun Titford, her father, caused her death by shocking and prolonged neglect over lockdown.
‘Which you, by your guilty plea, Sarah Lloyd-Jones, and the jury by a unanimous verdict, Alun Titford, have proved to be gross negligence manslaughter on your part.
‘For those crimes, I now pass sentence.’
An NSPCC Cymru spokesperson said: ‘This is an incredibly distressing case.
‘The conscious, prolonged neglect of Kaylea Titford by her parents, Sarah Lloyd-Jones and Alun Titford, ultimately caused the teenager’s death.
‘People will be asking how any child in our society could suffer like this without anyone intervening to prevent such a tragedy.
‘The forthcoming Child Safeguarding Practice Review must leave no stone unturned in establishing what more could have been done to protect Kaylea so other children do not suffer such appalling neglect unnoticed.’
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