wow : Mother guilty over fire deaths of four sons
A woman has been found guilty of the manslaughter of her four sons who died in a house fire while she was out shopping.
Deveca Rose, 30, had left her two sets of twins alone when a fire ripped through her terraced house in Sutton, south-west London, on the evening of 16 December 2021.
Leyton and Logan Hoath, aged three, and four-year-olds Kyson and Bryson Hoath were unable to escape the locked house and died under a bed, her trial at the Old Bailey heard.
Rose, who was found not guilty of a single count of child cruelty, was granted bail and will be sentenced on 15 November.
The guilty verdict was reached with a majority of 11 to one among the jurors after more than three hours of deliberations.
Judge Mark Lucraft KC called it a “tragic case”.
The family had been living in squalor, surrounded by rubbish and human excrement, before the tragedy, the trial had heard.
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.”
