A dad who was found guilty of killing his teenage daughter texted her "stop it'" as she screamed upstairs on the night she died alone.
Schoolgirl Taylea Titford, 16, was found abandoned in conditions "unfit for any animal", wrapped in "severely soiled" clothing and bed linen and surrounded by maggots following her death at the family home in Newton, Powys on October 2020. The teenager's parents, Sarah Lloyd-Jones, 40, and Alun Titford, 45, were sentenced at Swansea Crown Court.
At the time of her death, Kaylea weighed 22st 13lbs with a BMI of 70. Her parents had 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.
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Lloyd-Jones previously pleaded guilty to manslaughter by gross negligence and will spend six years behind bars, while Titford was convicted of the same offence following a trial and has now been sentenced to seven years and six months behind bars.
During the trial, it was heard that Kaylea, who had spina bifida and used a wheelchair, died after suffering inflammation and infection from ulceration which arose from obesity and immobility. However, the court heard the teenager had been "fiercely independent" before lockdown - and even took part in high school PE lessons in her wheelchair.
Emergency service attending the house on October 10 said they felt sick due to a "rotting" smell in her room. Maggots were also found which were believed to have been feeding on her body, the jury heard.
Her room was also said to be dirty and cluttered with bottles of urine and a chip fryer with drips of fat down the side. Kaylea attended Newton High School but failed to return after the coronavirus lockdown in March 2020. When asked why he had let his daughter down so badly, Titford said: "I'm lazy."
The removal worker who had six children with Lloyd-Jones, said the family would order takeaway four or five nights a week and he thought Kaylea had put on two or three stone since March. The 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.
It was alleged by the prosecution that Kaylea had not used her wheelchair because it was too small for her. Caroline Rees KC, prosecuting, asked Titford: “She hadn’t been out of bed, had she?”
However, Titford claimed that he had seen her in the kitchen of the house in her wheelchair during that period, but, he told police in interview that he had not seen her out of bed. The court heard how Kaylea had been discharged from physiotherapy and dietetics services in the years leading up to her death - she was last seen by a social worker in 2017.
Prosecutor Caroline Rees KC added that 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 heard that Kaylea had repeatedly told her mother she was concerned about her legs - but Lloyd-Jones replied: "For f**k sake."
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”. In cross-examination, he accepted he was as much to blame for Kaylea’s death as her mother.
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 added: "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.
"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."
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