A vulnerable teenager lived in conditions "unfit for any animal" and was let down by those responsible for her care before her death. Kaylea Titford weighed 23 stone at the time of her death in October 2020 had a string of health issues and had been in a wheelchair since she was young.
The vulnerable 16-year-old girl who depended entirely on others for her care was left in "unbearable" living conditions, before she was found unresponsive on October 10, 2020, a court case has heard. Her mother Sarah Lloyd-Jones, 39, admitted manslaughter by gross negligence but her father, 45-year-old Alun Titford, denied the offence and stood trial in February where he was convicted by a jury. The pair were sentenced for their daughter's death on Wednesday, March 1 in Swansea Crown Court.
As the pair were sentenced, the court heard how they spent a staggering £1,000 on takeaways and fast foods in the three months before her death. These included 93 takeaways in the month before her death.
Read more: Inside bedroom of teenager whose parents let her die on blood-stained sheets infested with maggots
Mold Crown Court had previously heard in the case of Titford that when paramedics found the body of Kaylea Titford at the family home in Powys the teenager was lying in soiled clothing and bedding on a mattress crawling with maggots and flies. The 16-year-old's hair was dirty and matted, and her body was unwashed and her skin was ulcerated. Police officers noted an "unbearable" rotting smell in the room.
Kaylea had spina bifida and hydrocephalus - a build up of fluid on the brain - and used a wheelchair from a young age. She attended Newtown High School where she was described as "funny and chatty" by staff, but became confined to her home after the coronavirus lockdown began in March 2020.
At Titford's trial, prosecution counsel Caroline Rees KC said the teenager had been living in "squalor and degradation" and that when paramedics found her dead she was lying on filthy "puppy pads", with maggots and flies on her body and milk bottles filled with urine around the bed. She said: "Kaylea Titford was living in conditions unfit for any animal, let alone a vulnerable 16-year-old girl who depended entirely on others for her care." Lloyd-Jones and Titford, of Newtown, Powys, are to be sentenced today at Swansea Crown Court.
Kaylea was grossly obese with dirty and matted hair, an unwashed body and ulcerated skin. The family home was a mess, including Kaylea's bedroom. Around the bed, which was filthy with maggots, every surface was covered. In the corner was an old fridge, a pressure washer, a chip fryer with drips of fat down the side. The room was littered with debris and rubbish, including old food and wrappers. On a table was a full cake in a box from the teenager's birthday weeks earlier.
When Titford was interviewed by police he told them he was “not a very good dad” and his wife looked after Kaylea and did the housework, the court heard. He said his daughter had outgrown her wheelchair and he did not think he had seen her out of bed since before lockdown. Titford told police the family would have takeaways, including Chinese and Indian food and kebabs, five nights a week. Asked when he last asked Kaylea how she was he said: “I didn’t ask her. Like I say, I’m not the best of people. Nobody ever thinks their child is going to end up like that.”
He said that the last time he saw his daughter before she was found dead on October 10 2020 was 13 days earlier on her 16th birthday when he entered her room. He insisted nothing was wrong at the time. He failed to notice her squalor or deterioration. The court heard that it was this laziness that led him to text his daughter when she was screaming the night before her body was found rather than check on her. “If you have a bad chest, stop screaming,” he wrote. At 8am the next morning, her mother discovered Kaylea dead in bed.
In interviews with police, Titford blamed the Covid lockdown for the fact Kaylea had not seen a medical professional in the nine months before she died. Covid, the prosecution suggested, provided a useful cover for Titford, allowing the family to “hide her away”. Her father's defence, that it was not his responsibility to look after Kaylea, did not wash with the jury. The court heard how when Newtown High, Kaylea's school, reopened in September 2020 after the coronavirus closures they consistently contacted parents to ask about her absence only to be met with varying excuses.
In the sentencing at Swansea Crown Court on March 1, Ms Rees said: "Kaylea was a vulnerable girl. She depended on others to care for her welfare. She had a diagnosis spina bifida - that meant Kaylea had very little feeling from the waist down, very limited in mobility and could not use her legs.
“She was a wheelchair user from a young age. It is the prosecution’s case that both parents shared duty to care for Kaylea. That duty would have included taking reasonable steps for her health and welfare needs which included her nutrition, her mobility, to provide her with a clean and hygienic environment to keep her clean and to seek appropriate medical assistance when required.
"Despite her particular needs, Kaylea had not seen any medical profession for about nine months before her death" Ms Rees said: “As her condition deteriorated, as so did the expenditure of fast food.”
Ms Rees said the serious failings of the defendants were "hidden from" the outside world by the national Covid pandemic which meant Kaylea had little contact with people outside the family home. She says Kaylea "lived and died in squalor and degradation".
On the morning of October 10, 2020, a 999 call was made by Titford’s grandmother before paramedics attended and found Kaylea’s body. The emergency crews reported the horrendous smell in the room. Her clothes were soiled with faeces and urine, her back was purple and covered in sores. Her armpits were almost black. The court hears the child had been unable to move herself and her parents had seemingly not helped her. Patches of her skin were raw and split. The inside of her tights were described as being "red raw".
Prosecutor Ms Rees said Gareth Wyn Evans, clinical leader of the paramedic - attended at the house, dressed in protective equipment including a mask. “He saw her body sitting upright in bed with her head tilted onto her chest. He noticed that the room was very cluttered and very untidy and the bed sheets were dirty….The room was unkempt.
“Mr Evans touched her arm and it was clear she had died and rigour mortis had set in..............Mr Evans pulled back the bedding and was immediately hit by a rotten and damp and musky smell which he thought may be gangrene. His colleague noticed the horrendous smell which was so strong it filled the room- smelling as if it was rotting flesh."
The court was told that Kaylea’s case death was: death as a result of inflammation and infection in extensive areas of ulceration arising from obesity and its complications and immobility of a girl with spina bifida and hydrocephalus. The prosecutor says Kaylea had not showered or used the toilet for around six months prior to her death, and that her neglect had lasted for months. She says the girl had been bed-bound for months and ate, slept, and defecated in her bed.
The court has also heard that after the defendants were arrested they both sought to deny responsibility during their interviews.
Ms Rees: "Kaylea had suffered severe physical neglect by those who had a duty to care for her." Ms Rees says the teenager’s final months of life must have been "horrendous", trapped in "appalling conditions" in a filthy bed with weeping sores and ulcers on her body, and maggots feeding on her body.
The court heard of a text sent by the girl to her mother in August 2020 telling her the flies landing on her body were "doing her head in" - Lloyd-Jones replied: "They like you LOL". Other texts sent by the bed-bound teenager talked about her "leaking legs" and about her soiling herself.
The court has also heard that after the defendants were arrested they both sought to deny responsibility during their interviews. In mitigation Lewis Power KC for Sarah Lloyd-Jones said that her guilty plea to manslaughter was an "epiphany of insight"
The barrister said that during the Covid lockdown his client developed a worsening depressive state was "effectively impotent to provide for her daughter’s needs" and "withdrew from everyday responsibilities leading to the catastrophic outcome". He said that his client did not seek to blame anyone else and was "contrite and remorseful" and that, by her pleas, "accepts she failed her daughter".
David Elias KC, barrister for Kaylea’s father Alan Titford said the defendant accepted many times that he had been "lazy" and "could have done more for her". The barrister said there was an "acceptance of wrong-doing" from the time of his first police interview, and he asks the judge to give some credit for his remorse.
The barrister turns now to the pre-sentence report on Titford which talks about the defendant’s "lack of self-confidence" and his tendency to overly rely on others.
Mr Elias said all the evidence showed that Sarah Lloyd-Jones - who worked as a professional carer - was the main carer for Kaylea, and that as far as his client was concerned she had been doing a good job. He said while it was accepted that by the time of the teenager’s death the conditions in Kaylea’s room had been "appalling" he says the defendant "rightly relied upon his wife to provide care as she had done previously".
Mr Elias said up until late 2019 care for Kaylea had been "at least satisfactory", and he says there is no reason why the court could not come to the conclusion that the offending was a "lapse".
In summing up, Mr Justice Griffiths said Kaylea "made a success of her life", and was a determined and fiercely independent who was an accomplished wheelchair-user who was competitive in national wheelchair sports. He said she did not want people pushing her chair or open doors for her and Kaylea "did everything she could for herself".
The judge said he could not say one parent was more to blame than the other for the teenager’s death, and says each is equally responsible and equally culpable. He said he had no doubt Kaylea experienced suffering and degradation before she died. "By the time of her death she was lying in her own filth, surrounded by flies which bothered her and maggots which fed on her", he said.
The judge says the behaviour of the defendants towards their daughter was criminal throughout the lockdown period. He says: "This was not a lapse in care, it was a long and sustained period of criminal negligence".
Kaylea's father Alun Titford was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison while Sarah Lloyd-Jones, Kaylea's mother was sentenced to six years in prison.
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