The night before she was found dead in her bed, Kaylea Titford's father sent her a text telling her to "stop screaming". Despite living in the same house, he hadn't seen her for about two weeks, abandoning her to the filth and degradation in which she died surrounded by incontinence pads designed for animals, filthy sheets, bottles of urine, maggots and hundreds of insects.
How this 16-year-old's tragic death was allowed to unfold is difficult to comprehend. Her father, Alun Titford, put it down to his laziness and there will now be a wider investigation into all relevant agencies who might reasonably have been expected to step in at some point in her long, slow and squalid journey to an early death.
For a long time, Kaylea was living "in conditions unfit for any animal – let alone a vulnerable 16-year-old girl who depended entirely on others for her care" before she was found unresponsive on October 10, 2020, as a court case and these pictures released by police show. Her mother Sarah Lloyd-Jones, 39, admittted manslaughter by gross negligence but her father, 45-year-old Titford, denied the offence and stood trial. He was convicted by a jury on Tuesday. As shocking police bodycam footage and distressing images were shown to the court, all trace of the once "fiercely independent" 16-year-old who had tried out for the paralympics playing basketball had gone.
