Kaylea Titford: aibu not to understand why safeguarding concerns were not raised beforehand?

[LumpenProle1]

Lockdown started in March 2020 and the poor girl died in October, in a badly neglected state.

Surely this neglect just didn’t come out of nowhere in 7 months? Surely no one becomes 22 stone in 7 months?

I don’t understand why concerns were not evident in school or at the GP beforehand? It seems this serious neglect was likely to have been evident and it seems strange that someone outside the home did not raise concerns.

I’ve decided I’m going to request the sentences be reviewed as I think they are unduly lenient and it was a clear case of unspeakable child cruelty. The starting point for gross negligence manslaughter is 12yrs..how can this be one of the worst cases ever according to experts that see numerous distressing deaths from child abuse and neglect, and the killers end up with sentences of only 6yrs and 7.5yrs?! When animal cruelty carries a sentence of 5yrs? Kaylea was a human being who was deliberately and slowly killed by neglect- caused by cold and calculated cruelty lasting months. Isn’t her life worth more than the prison sentence for beating a dog?

If you feel the same, send an email or call as well
www.gov.uk/ask-crown-court-sentence-review

Authorities have blood on their hands here too.......her parents repeatedly cancelled appointments which in itself is a massive red flag. They pulled her out of school, nobody visited or set eyes on her.

I honestly don't understand how this has been allowed to happen. My ds also has Disabilities, when he was at home during lockdown his teacher made it clear ds and the other dc had to be physically seen on zoom. He didn't say why but it was obvious to me it was because of how vulnerable they are and sadly children and adults with disabilities are at greater risk of abuse.

During COVID, Community nurses (in my area anyway) were training up family members to do catheter care such as bladder wash outs and bag changes.

In lockdown, I used to get regular phone calls from school asking me questions about my
disabled child.. was there enough food? How was it going etc?

I find this case heartbreaking, and like others I can’t believe the leniency of the sentences .

Disabled people and their families were left high and dry during lockdown, all the usual support systems just fell away. I can confirm this as the parent of a disabled DC, we were absolutely abandoned.

That is not in any way to excuse the unspeakable conduct of this poor girl's parents. But I can quite see how this could have gone unnoticed by the authorities. It was widely known that many people were forced to spend lockdown with their abusers, and nothing was done.

wicked wicked people
may she rest in peace

i am glad at least the lazy father got a longer sentence
the mother was of low average intelligence, asked the father for help, and pleaded guilty

I have an autistic child, We got no contact during the first lockdown only one phone call, I said I was really struggling and could he go into school a couple of days and got told lockdown is hard for everyone. No one saw him on zoom as they didn’t have online lessons and he wouldn’t have engaged anyway. He did however go back to school after the first lockdown whereas kaylea didn’t however there were a lot of parents who kept their vulnerable children out of school as they didn’t want them to catch covid so that wouldn’t have been a big red flag at the time. Obviously our situation was nothing like kaylea and we got through it but I can see how things went under the radar in lockdown

What would have happened if you would have said no thing ps weren’t going ok? I said thst at one point and just got told lockdown is hard for everyone

In the judge’s summary he made it clear that they were offered repeated and direct help. But they did not accept it / did not engage. They said they didn’t need it.

I too was astonished with the leniency of the sentences. Category B is 8-12 years. They should have been higher.

This is the most bizarre case. In many ways it's a lot more shocking than cases of one-off violence and cruelty, because it was sustained over such a long time.

The sentences are bizarrely lenient.

I’m not defending in any way but from what I recall the offer of help had happened pre lockdown and it was to do with going on courses for managing Kayleas food and weight rather than someone directly coming out to the house to assist during lockdown

When I was 17 I had what I later found out was an inflamed gall bladder.

I was in so much pain I could not move.

My mother had a nap and came down stairs about 12 pm.

I begged her to call a doctor, I could not get to the phone myself.

My brother came home (he would be 19) and went back out to his evening job.

My dad called the Dr when he came home from work at about 6pm. It was the only time I saw him go against her wishes.

The Dr arrived and he called an ambulance.

When the ambulance arrived one of the drivers made a comment about how green I was. I had jaundice.

I wanted to tell the hospital staff how miserable I was and that I didn't want my mother in the room.

But I had been conditioned to be the good girl, to not complain and by this time my mother was in 'concerned parent' role.

Even when they asked her to step out so they could ask me questions in private I didn't tell them.

I'm not saying what I went through was anything like poor Kaylea endured but what I can say is that when you have been conditioned for years to accept certain things it doesn't always occur to you to ask for help.

If you experience of asking for help is for things to get worse you certainly don't ask for help.

RIP Kaylea.

This is what I emailed to the Attorney General requesting the sentences be reviewed as I believe they are unduly lenient. Link to the page is upthread if anyone wants to say their mind as well

“Good morning Sir/Madam,

I respectfully urge you to review the sentences given to Sarah Lloyd-Jones and Alun Titford for the manslaughter by gross negligence of their 16yr old daughter, Kaylea Titford. They were sentenced at Mold Crown Court on the 1st March 2023.

I believe that their sentences were unduly lenient for the months of child cruelty which caused Kaylea to die of neglect. Withholding care essential to life while ignoring that child’s incessant pleas for this care was absolutely cruelty targeted towards Kaylea, because they did not do this to their other children. Kaylea was targeted because she was disabled, meaning I think this is also a hate crime. They clearly did not even like their daughter given the cruel heartless texts they sent her in response to her increasingly desperate pleas for the care she needed, and finally her screams for help during her last desperate rally to get help were met with being told to shut up and be quiet. Not even prison guards do to this to inmates…and make no mistake Kaylea was their prisoner.

This is care Kaylea knew was essential for her to stay alive means their callous disregard and disgusting replies were absolutely unspeakable child cruelty. This cruelty went on for months in a mutual campaign knowing the end result would be to kill Kaylea in her bed. Her things, from a brighter childhood were all placed out of her reach to psychologically mock her and torture her. As was all the rubbish piled up in her “room” also done to psychologically torture her as it wasn’t a girls bedroom, a loved child’s room, but a dumping ground for broken and unwanted things, which is all Kaylea was to them- a broken and unwanted thing they wanted to hurry up and die already. Although Kaylea had hydrocephalus, an operation as a baby left her with full mental and cognitive capacity and she was not of low intelligence. She was fully aware of everything being done to her by her parents but literally trapped in a prison of a bed of her own shit, piss, pus and blood that she could not physically escape from.

Lockdown wasn’t the cause of Kayleas murder (oh excuse me manslaughter) despite what the justice implied as records show they were neglecting Kaylea for years before the pandemic. She was pulled from sports groups she enjoyed. Medical appointments were deliberately missed in order to get her dropped from essential care due to nonattendance. She was isolated from any friends- anyone she could have asked for help. She was force fed fatty food to make her even less physically well and to hurry her decline. The lockdown was their perfect opportunity to put her in the modern day equivalent of an oubliette- trap her in a small confined space with no escape and then toss food and water down the hatch until the person dies from living in their own excrement. Her being confined to bed was no different to an able bodied child being confined within a locked cage and then denied any access to a toilet or means to clean themselves.

They were offered help repeatedly and instead lied and lied to cover up their murderous campaign of child cruelty to Kaylea. If they accepted help, Kaylea would have lived, so they did not want her to live. Her mother as a professional carer knew exactly the care Kaylea needed and knew for a fact that refusing this care would result in unimaginable suffering for Kaylea and finally death by neglect. Yet she not only let it happen, she covered up what they were doing at every opportunity. And she made jokes “they like you, lol” about the flies feasting on Kaylea when Kaylea begged her for relief from the flies crawling on her and infesting her bed.

This is a distressing case to me as a survivor of child neglect. Neglect IS child cruelty. You fear telling anyone outside the family because you’ve been brainwashed by your abusers. I lived with intestinal worms and being bitten by fleas for years…I know what it feels like to be in a bed with insects feeding on your body. However I can only know how Kaylea must have felt during the first few months when it was cruel torture and suffering, but survivable. My neglect wasn’t as bad so I can only imagine the quiet desperation she felt as it worsened and became clear to her that she would die in her bed. I believe she had hoped her birthday might mean a change of heart from her jailers. But no, she was given mocking cards and a balloon placed out of reach pretending a love they did not feel or show when all she probably wanted was to be give a wash, her wounds attended to and the stuffed toy placed out of reach given to her to cuddle for comfort. They probably couldn’t even bare to touch her, denying her any human affection in her last weeks. After that, I believe she fell into deep despair until her desire to live urged her to scream for help in her last hours.

The sentences of 6yrs and 7.5yrs for this are an utter miscarriage of justice. This is one of the worst cases of child neglect & cruelty ever seen by the experts involved so for a crime where the sentences start at 12yrs, there is no reason to have cut it down. The argument they’re not dangerous is ableist…they’re absolutely lethally dangerous towards anyone disabled put in their care. They have shown no remorse because her death was the known and intended consequence of their deliberate withholding of necessary care. I cannot for the life of me even understand why this is not a murder charge.

Please, I beg you. Look at the sentences as even for manslaughter they are unduly lenient. In 4 or 5 years they could be out on licence and can carry on like they did nothing wrong when they deliberately took the life of their vulnerable and disabled child. The reason they let her suffer so much is because they knew they’d not get life if they let her suffer a long and horrendous death screaming in pain. If they’d cared even a tiny bit about Kaylea, they’d have given her a quick and painless death and served a longer sentence for murder. They are only “depressed” over knowing they’d have to go to prison for killing her…their choice of the death they gave her was specifically to get a lower sentence. Everyone knows that neglect is discounted in our society as not that bad of abuse…when it is terrible child abuse and cruelty. They were selfish. They made Kaylea suffer unimaginably for selfish reasons…because it was the surest way to kill her that resulted in least time in prison for them.

Deliberate neglect needs to be viewed for what it is. It’s not accidental oversight. It’s cruelty that is done for selfish reasons because the abuser knows it’s not treated seriously by the courts and they will get off easy.”

They were called numerous times during the pandemic by various authorities including her school during lockdown asking after Kaylea and they covered up what they were doing on every occasion. I read a list of at least a half dozen calls in the court documents where they refused help and pretended Kaylea was ok.

Ive just read that article. Its unimaginable.

I think the fact that it was the grandmother who made the 999 call says a lot about their mentality in terms of seeking out the authorities. I dont think grandmother lived with them, in which case they find their daughter dead and rather than call for an ambulance straight away they call for one of their mothers.

During the first lockdown lots of parents of disabled children cancelled medical appointments (and so did the nhs) because little was known about the risk of the virus to this potentially vulnerable group. Many genuinely caring parents chose to keep their disabled child isolated at home for their safety.

You can understand why K’s parents were tried for manslaughter not murder, but can anyone see the sense in it given the sustained vigour of the killing?

Manslaughter’s supposed to be a one-off accident. Nothing vague or unplanned about the months of K’s mistreatment, or screaming at her when she protested, is there.

I hardly dare type this but I reckon they weren’t up for having a disabled child so decided they weren’t going to have one. Their rage alone supports this.

I’d put them both away for life. They’re no good to man nor beast anyway, and who could guarantee the safety of their other DC. If they’re not lifers, they’ll have got away with murder once, which tends to act as an encouragement.

This one has more info - warning very distressing details 😢😫
www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/live-updates-kaylea-titford-death-26358778

And the fact it was a sibling of Kaylea that told her parents that Kaylea was dead in her bed the morning after she died in the night. They never checked on her, they knew the end was near for Kaylea and I think were that determined to go through with it.

God almighty, just horrendous

@Supersimkin2
I hardly dare type this but I reckon they weren’t up for having a disabled child so decided they weren’t going to have one. Their rage alone supports this.

Ive been thinking this too, so you are not alone.

The mother keeps being described as a professional carer, does this mean she works as a carer?