It was an image that no one in Mold crown court will forget: a teenage girl sitting up in her filthy bed, head slumped forward, surrounded by dirty incontinence pads made for puppies. Kaylea Titford, a “funny” and “fiercely independent” 16-year-old who was so good at basketball that she had try-outs for the Paralympics, was dead.
A police officer wearing a bodyworn camera made his way around her cluttered bedroom, every surface covered. There were teetering piles of detritus, one topped with a dirty deep fat fryer, grease dripping down the side. There was a pressure washer, an old fridge, McDonald’s cups, a two-litre bottle of Dr Pepper and an uneaten cake, bought for Kaylea’s birthday two weeks earlier.
