Mother left four boys home alone ‘several’ times before fatal fire, court told
Old Bailey jurors have heard a statement from the boys’ paternal great-grandmother Sally Johnson.
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A mother left her four young sons home alone to go shopping “several” times before they were killed in a house fire while she was at Sainsbury’s, their great-grandmother has said.
Deveca Rose, 29, had left her two sets of twins locked in when a fire ripped through her rubbish-strewn rented terraced house in Sutton, south-west London, on the evening of December 16 2021.
Leyton and Logan Hoath, aged three, and Kyson and Bryson Hoath, aged four, were trapped inside the property and ran upstairs shouting for help, the Old Bailey has heard.
Firefighters found the boys unresponsive and not breathing under beds and they died after being taken to two hospitals later the same night.
On Tuesday, jurors heard a statement from paternal great-grandmother Sally Johnson in which she recalled several occasions when she phoned the house only to be told by Kyson that their mother was at the “pop shop”.
She said: “I offered to look after the boys if she was struggling. I think she was finding it difficult to raise the boys in that house. Often she would ask me to look after the boys for an hour or two and then she would not pick them up until much later in the evening.
“I would often try to help her by giving her food, things for the house, cleaning products to use.
“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’.”
Mrs Johnson also said in her statement that Rose was a “good mum to the boys” and took care of them, ensuring they were always clean and tidy.
She said: “They were always taken to the park whether rain or shine because she wanted them to get fresh air and she would always take them out on activities.”
Mrs Johnson said she had a great relationship with the twins, saying: “They really were my world.”
She told jurors that the boys’ father Dalton Hoath also had a good relationship with the boys and would see them regularly.
But in her statement read to the court, she said that she found their mother, who worked as a part-time carer, to be “aloof”, “haphazard” and a bit “dysfunctional”.
The last time she communicated with Rose was earlier on the day of the fire when she texted asking for food suggestions for an early Christmas buffet for the boys, having organised a “Santa’s grotto” in the garden.
When she heard the house was on fire, she rushed to St George’s Hospital where two of the boys had been taken.
She said: “When I arrived at St George’s, Kyson had just passed away and medical staff were still working on Bryson.
“Shortly after this, I could hear Deveca screaming, saying ‘not my boys, not my boys’. I heard a scream and ‘not my babies too’.”
Paternal step-grandmother, Kerrie Hoath, described the boys as “polite, carefree and very much loved”.
However, she said in a statement read to the court that Rose would never allow her into the back of the house.
On one occasion she dropped the boys home and she asked to use the toilet only to be told by Rose: “No, there is a Tesco down the road, you can go there,” the court heard.
Mrs Hoath said: “The atmosphere was always tense when I was there. It was like Deveca did not want me to be there.”
Teacher Emma Adkins said Kyson and Bryson were “happy, bright, bubbly children” who were progressing well at primary school.
Another teacher, Hannah Ofoego, had spoken to Rose about them playing “make believe Squid Games” in November 2021.
Jurors were told the dystopian survival Netflix series had been an issue affecting the school at the time.
Nursery assistant Katarzyna Thomas, who knew all four boys from their time in pre-school, said they would “brighten up the room”, were “full of character, very affectionate and cuddly”.
Jurors heard that a friend of Rose’s had called her on the night of the fire and asked what had happened.
Rose allegedly told her she had gone to the shop and had been “less than 10 minutes” before she began crying “my babies, my babies”.
Rose, of Wallington, south London, has denied four counts of manslaughter and child cruelty and the trial continues.