Father found guilty of manslaughter over obese daughter's death

The father of a disabled girl who died after becoming morbidly obese has been found guilty of her manslaughter by gross negligence.

Kaylea Titford, 16, weighed more than 22 stone when she was found dead by paramedics at her home in Newtown, Wales, in October 2020.

Prosecutors said the teenager, who had spina bifida and required the use of a wheelchair, was living in conditions “unfit for any animal”.

Kaylea’s mother, Sarah Lloyd-Jones, 39, had already admitted manslaughter by gross negligence.

But her father Alun Titford, 45, denied the same charge – telling the court he “wasn’t a very good father”, and had nothing to do with Kaylea’s care.

Teachers at Newtown High School, where Kaylea was a pupil, described the 16-year-old as “lively” and “fiercely independent”.

At one stage she was even considered for a Paralympic basketball team, the court heard.

But the school’s headteacher said that Kaylea did not return to class after the COVID lockdown, with teachers given “multiple excuses” by Kaylea’s mother as to why her daughter was not attending.

Jurors at Mold Crown Court were told that the last contact teachers had with Kaylea’s parents was on 9 October 2020, the day before she was found dead.

Prosecutors say Kaylea’s parents “seriously neglected” their daughter, with a pathologist’s report concluding the teenager’s cause of death as “inflammation and infection in extensive areas of ulceration arising from obesity and its complications, and immobility in a girl with spina bifida and hydrocephalus”.

Attending paramedics told the jury that Kaylea’s room was “dirty”, with several soiled incontinence pads upon Kaylea’s mattress, on the floor and wrapped around her legs.

Her bed was surrounded by “junk food cartons” and urine-filled plastic milk bottles.

Later, Alun Titford told police the family would have takeaways, including Chinese and Indian food and kebabs, five nights a week.

The jury heard that when paramedics moved Kaylea’s duvet, a smell of “rotting flesh” filled the room.

Paramedic Gareth Evans told the court the smell made him “wretch” and he believed it was from a “putrification of sorts”.

He described Kaylea’s wheelchair as being stacked “high with pillows” and her mechanical hoist, which could help move Kaylea out of bed, as being “covered with cobwebs”.

Two police officers, also in attendance, told the jury they “felt physically sick” at the smell in Kaylea’s room, and saw “live maggots wriggling” on the mattress of her bed.

“It was a shocking situation to see someone in”, officer David Wilkinson told the court, “I didn’t want to see what I saw”.

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