A father who was found guilty of killing his teenage daughter texted her 'stop it' as she screamed upstairs on the night she died alone.
Schoolgirl Kaylea Titford, 16, was found dead sitting up in her "severely soiled" bed surrounded by flies and maggots after becoming morbidly obese.
Her parents Alun Titford, 45, and Sarah Lloyd-Jones, 40, allowed her weight to soar and her health to deteriorate as they left her alone in her adapted room.
Shortly before Kaylea died, Titford heard her screaming and instead of checking on her, he texted her to stop.
Sentencing Titford to seven years and six months in prison, Mr Justice Griffiths said he "ignored the smell and the dirt and the flies and the chaos and the evidence of his own eyes and nose that she was not getting the care she needed."
He said: "I find it impossible to say that one parent is more to blame than the other. They were both equally responsible and they were both equally culpable."
The judge said Kaylea could "see and smell her own filth" and what was happening was "obvious to anyone who went into the room."
He added: "For a girl of her age and independent spirit this was a part terrible state to find herself in. In her last hours, the night before Kaylea's body was found cold and dead, her father heard her screaming.
"She had already turned her mobile phone off for the last time. Her father's reaction to the screaming was to text her telling her to stop twice.
"He did not go and see what the matter was or get whatever help she needed. She was left to die alone."
Titford was found guilty of gross negligence manslaughter after a trial at Mold Crown Court and Kaylea's mum had already pleaded guilty to the charge. She was jailed for six years.
A court heard the pair splashed out £1,035.76 on takeaways and fizzy drinks in the three months before their daughter's death while failing to keep her clean.
Prosecutor Caroline Rees KC said Kaylea sent a series of tragic messages to her mum as she pleaded for help to clean her "leaking legs" and to get rid of "baby flies" landing on her.
The court also heard devastating messages between Kaylea and her mum.
Kaylea repeatedly told her mother she was concerned about her legs - but Lloyd-Jones replied: "For f**k sake."
One message sent on September 12, 2020 - just one month before her body was found - showed Kaylea saying to her mum: "My leg is leaking."
Her mum replied: "For f**k sake, hang on" before Kaylea pleaded: "No mum, it's leaking."
Kaylea also messaged her mum just two weeks before her death to plead for help getting rid of flies in her room, the court heard.
She said: "It's little baby ones landing one me" while her mum replied: "They like you lol" - but Kaylea said: "No mum, they are annoying."
The court heard Kaylea also messaged her mum days earlier to say: "Can you come and check I haven't pooed in a minute because it stinks."
The response from her mum was: "FFS" before Kaylea replied: "Why do you get mad? It's not my fault."
The court heard the teenager had been "fiercely independent" before lockdown - and even took part in high school PE lessons in her wheelchair.
But spina bifida sufferer Kaylea was dependent on her parents to meet her needs at the end of her life due to her immobility.
Passing sentence the judge said they had committed “shocking and prolonged neglect over lockdown”.
He told the couple: "(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.
“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."
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.”
