Deveca Rose, 30, left her two sets of twins alone in the terraced house in Sutton, south west London (Picture: PA)
A mum has been jailed for 10 years after her four ‘polite and carefree’ sons were killed in a house fire after she locked them inside to go to Sainsbury’s.
Deveca Rose, 30, left her two sets of twins alone in the terraced house in Sutton, south west London, when the huge blaze broke out on the evening of December 16, 2021.
Leyton and Logan Hoath, aged three, and four-year-olds Kyson and Bryson Hoath screamed out for help, and a neighbour desperately tried to break down the front door.
Firefighters found the bodies of the boys under beds, and also discovered the house covered in human excrement and rubbish.
Rose, who had split up with her partner and suffered from mental health problems, was found guilty on four counts of manslaughter.
The children’s father, Dalton Hoath, said in a statement that she had left them alone once or twice to go to the nearby shop before.
Mr Hoath, who had split up with the defendant, added that he was ‘devastated’ and his world had been turned ‘upside down’ by the loss of his ‘young, boisterous lads’.
Kyson and Bryson Hoath, aged four (left), and Leyton and Logan Hoath, aged three (right), who died in a fire after being left home alone (Picture: Family Handout/PA Wire)
The scene in Sutton, south London (Picture: Aaron Chown/PA)
Deveca Rose, 30, was found guilty at the Old Bailey over the deaths of her four young boys in a fire after she left them home alone to go to Sainsbury’s (Picture: Metropolitan Police/PA)
Paternal great-grandmother Sally Johnson said: ‘I was aware that she would leave the boys by themselves in the house. When I asked her about this, she would say, “Oh no, I just went to the pop shop” which is a local shop just seven houses away.
‘I do not know how often this happened but I remember several times I phoned the house and Kyson answered the phone and told me, “mummy has gone to the pop shop”.’
Paternal step-grandmother Kerrie Hoath described the boys as ‘polite, carefree and very much loved’ but recalled Rose not allowing her into the house.
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The Old Bailey heard Rose and the children had been living in squalor, surrounded by rubbish and human excrement before the boy’s deaths.
Four boys ‘cruelly taken from us in a senseless act of negligence’
In a statement after the guilty verdicts in October, the boys’ family said: ‘Bryson, Kyson, Leyton and Logan Hoath were cruelly taken from us in a senseless act of negligence.
‘The impact this has had on us, their father Dalton, and our family cannot be overstated.
‘The last three years have been a nightmare. Over this time we have had to listen to a number of false narratives and speculation around what happened that night, which have included lights on a Christmas tree and that the boys were left with a babysitter. Today these have been shown to be false.
‘Bryson, Kyson, Leyton and Logan were left alone by their mother Deveca Rose, and today she has been found to be responsible for their deaths.
‘Our family will now take time to heal and let the boys rest. We wish to thank the Courts, the members of the Jury and the Police Investigation Team for the work they have done to en
There were no working toilets in the house, and buckets throughout the property were used instead.
The children had not attended school for three weeks before their deaths.
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 hid her face with a thick padded hood as she appeared at the Old Bailey to be sentenced today.
When she arrived back at the property to the scene of the fire, she told firefighters she left her children in the care of a friend name Jade.
This prompted firefighters to go back into the house to search for her.
But police concluded she either did not exist or had not been at the house that day.
When a cigarette or tea light in the living room sparked a fire, the boys were trapped and ran upstairs calling for help.
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