Mum who left sons home alone jailed for fire deaths

A woman has been jailed for 10 years for the manslaughter of her four sons who died in a house fire while she was out shopping.

Deveca Rose, 30, had left her two sets of twins alone when a fire ripped through their terraced house in Sutton, south-west London, on 16 December 2021.

Four-year-olds Kyson and Bryson Hoath and Leyton and Logan Hoath, three, were unable to escape the locked house and died under a bed.

Rose was found guilty of four counts of manslaughter following a trial at the Old Bailey last autumn.

She was cleared of a single count of child cruelty.

The family had been living in a house with “rubbish all over the floor and human excrement”, the trial heard.

A fire investigation report concluded the blaze had been started by either a discarded cigarette or upturned tealight and spread due to the rubbish on the floor.

Sentencing Rose, Judge Mark Lucraft KC said that none of the shopping she had gone out to buy on the day of the fire was “essential or vital”.

This was a “deeply tragic” case with the lives of four young children “gone in just a few moments through an intense fire,” Judge Lucraft said.

He added that he had factored into his decision that her eyesight had deteriorated so much that she now could not see the boys in pictures or videos.

“You will have to live with the knowledge you bear responsibility for the deaths of your four children,” Judge Lucraft added.

During the sentencing hearing Rose sat in the dock with an anorak hood over her head and wearing headphones – her defence barrister said this was for medical reasons.

The court heard victim impact statements from the family of the children describing the effect of the tragedy on them.

In a statement read on his behalf their father, Dalton Hoath, described it as the “worst day of his life” when he lost his four “beautiful boys”.

“Their lives had only just begun,” he said. “It was every parent’s nightmare – I am devastated.”

The children’s great-grandmother Sally Johnson cried as she told the court: “They were my life. I now feel so empty.”

She said the only comfort at this time of distress and sadness was that “they are now all together forever and need never be alone again”.

Ms Johnson finished by stating she would like to use the children’s favourite word “Why? Just why?”.

The boys’ step-grandmother Kerrie Hoath said they had been “cruelly taken away from us” by their mother.

She said the boys were “beautiful, loving children” who did not deserve what happened, adding: “The impact they have made on us in their short lives cannot be measured and will never be forgotten.

“We miss them every day and will always hold them in our hearts.

“While there will be better days to come, the hole that has been left by our children’s deaths cannot be filled.”

‘Asked for help’

At her trial Rose had suggested someone called “Jade” was with the children when she went out, said Judge Lucraft.

“The true position was that you left four boys aged four or under on their own,” he said.

In mitigation, Laurie-Anne Power KC said that Rose had “asked for help and it was not forthcoming”.

Her four children were “loved and cherished” and “looked after by her and her alone, while struggling with what are described by experienced psychiatrists as complex psychiatric mental health needs”.

“She should not be punished any further than she has been for the lies she has told,” Ms Power said. “She perhaps suffered the greatest loss of all.”

Although Rose’s mental health had some influence on her actions, the judge said he did not find her responsibility was substantially reduced.

‘Acts of heroism’

There were “missed opportunities” to remove the children when conditions at their home started to deteriorate, the defence said.

During the Covid pandemic, with very little support, she had visited her GP and said she could not cope.

By their acquittal of the defendant on the count of child cruelty the jury had been of the view she “was trying her best”, the defence added.

Judge Mark Lucraft KC said that the firefighters who had attended the scene had also been impacted by the deaths of the children.

Charlie Pugsley, London Fire Brigade’s deputy commissioner for fire safety, said: “This was a truly tragic incident and we continue to support all our firefighters who attended on the night.

“I want to pay a particular tribute to the incredible acts of heroism from those who first arrived on scene, and went above and beyond to do all they could to save the children.”

“This fire will be remembered as an incredibly difficult incident which has had a tremendous ongoing impact for everyone involved,” he added.

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