A woman whose four young boys died in a fire after she left them alone at home while she went to Sainsbury’s has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Deveca Rose had left her two sets of twins, aged three and four, in the locked terraced house when the blaze broke out on the evening of December 16th 2021.
The 30-year-old defendant, who had split up with her partner and suffered from mental health problems, was found guilty of four counts of manslaughter following a trial at the Old Bailey.
On Friday, Rose, who was on bail throughout her trial, sobbed with her head covered in the dock of Court One as she was sentenced by Judge Mark Lucraft KC.
In a televised hearing, the judge sentenced her to 10 years in prison.
Judge Lucraft said it was a “tragic case” in which the four young boys were left by Rose in an “unsafe” house when a fire broke out.
He told Rose: “You were not there and the children were too young to know what to do. As a result of what you did, they were all killed.”
None of the items Rose had gone to Sainsbury’s to buy that day was “essential or vital” and the children suffered “acute physical suffering” before their deaths, he said.
Even though Rose had struggled with her health, the judge did not accept it reduced her responsibility for what happened.
He added that the lively and engaging boys were “deeply loved” by all those involved in their care.
Earlier, the boys’ father Dalton Hoath said losing his four sons – Leyton and Logan, aged three, and four-year-olds Kyson and Bryson – was “the worst day of my life”.
In a statement read by a relative on his behalf, he said: “Their lives had just begun but were cut so short. It was every parent’s worst nightmare.
“I’m not a great talker but even if I was I could not put it in words. I simply want to join them.
“I will never recover from losing my funny, beautiful boys. I have to fight for all of us left behind and live with this massive pain in my heart before I meet them again.”
Great-grandmother Sally Johnson wept in court as she told of the “horror” and “pain” of her loss.
She said: “The thought of them crying and screaming out will haunt me forever.
“My only comfort is they are now together forever and need never be alone again. I’m afraid I will never be able to forgive.”
Quoting her great-grandsons’ favourite word, she said: “Why? Just why?”
Previously, the court had heard how Rose and the children had been living in squalor, surrounded by rubbish and human excrement, before the tragedy.
Prosecutor Kate Lumsdon KC had told the court: “There was rubbish thickly spread throughout the house. The toilet and the bath were full of rubbish and could not be used. Buckets and pots were used as toilets instead.”
Rose had gone to the supermarket, leaving the boys at the rented home in Sutton, south-west London.
When a cigarette or tea light in the living room sparked a fire, the boys were trapped and ran upstairs calling for help.
A neighbour tried to break down the front door before firefighters in breathing apparatus went in and found the children’s bodies under beds.
They were rushed to two separate hospitals, but attempts to save them failed and they died from inhalation of fumes later that night.
Rose arrived home while firefighters were still tackling the blaze and she was taken in by a neighbour.
She had claimed she left the children with a friend called Jade, which prompted firefighters to go back into the house to search for her. Police carried out extensive inquiries to find Jade and concluded she either did not exist or had not been at the house that day.
In police interviews, Rose admitted leaving the boys alone in the house on two earlier occasions.
Jurors were told that social worker Georgia Singh had raised concerns about the family, but the case was closed three months before the fire.
Previously, a health visitor had also expressed worries, but they were not followed up after she retired, jurors were told. The children had not attended school for three weeks before their deaths.
Rose, of Wallington, south London, attended much of the trial by video-link from home on medical advice and declined to give evidence in her defence.
The court heard there was evidence suggesting she was probably depressed and may have suffered from a personality disorder, but the prosecution asserted that was not a defence.
In mitigation, her barrister Laurie-Anne Power KC highlighted that Rose had struggled with “complex psychiatric mental health needs”.
She told the court: “There is nothing I can say to mitigate the loss to the Hoath and Rose family.
“Even though she is criminally responsible for the deaths of those children, she has suffered the greatest loss of all.” - PA
