Parents jailed after disabled teenager's screams for help were ignored and she died alone with maggots and flies on her body

• The parents of a disabled teenager in Wales, UK, were jailed for manslaughter by gross negligence.
• Kaylea Titford, 16, was found covered in flies and maggots.

The parents of a disabled teenager in Wales have been jailed for manslaughter by gross negligence.

The body of 16-year-old Kaylea Titford, who had spina bifida and used a wheelchair, was found with flies and maggots on it, and her nails had not been cut for at least six months.

She died at age 16 in October 2020. The 4ft 8ins teenager weighed 321 pounds at the time, and ulcers covered her lower body.

When her body was found, her bedroom was covered in bottles of urine from her catheter and soaked puppy pads on the floor.

Her father, Alun Titford, 45, was sentenced to seven years and six months in prison, while her mother, Sarah Lloyd-Jones, 40, has been sentenced to six years.

At the sentencing at Swansea crown court on Wednesday, the judge, Sir Martin Alexander Griffiths, described the teenager as "funny, determined, and fiercely independent."

He added that "this was a horrifying case; a case of sustained neglect, leading to the death of a completely dependent, bedridden, vulnerable, disabled child at the hands of her own parents."

Addressing the parents of the teenager who ignored numerous offers of assistance from health services and had a history of missed appointments, Griffiths said, "This was not a lapse on the part of the defendants. It was a long and sustained period of criminal negligence."

He noted that the 16-year-old was "morbidly and dangerously obese," saying that her parents made no attempt to control her diet, kept her in a too-small wheelchair, and left her bedridden. This led to increased weight gain.

Griffiths painted a horrifying picture of the state Kaylea was left to die in by her parents, saying that the emergency services found her "lying in her own filth, surrounded by flies which bothered her and maggots which fed on her. Her flesh was disfigured by ulcers, leaving her skin open down to the fat and, in one place, down to the bone.

"The stench created as her body rotted away alive, and from the excrement left to dry unattended around and on her body, and in the room, made paramedic and police officers of long experience retch and feel physically sick when they attended on the body."

The judge highlighted that Kaylea died alone.

"In her last hours, the night before Kaylea's body was found cold and dead, her father heard her screaming," he said. " Her father's reaction to the screaming was to text her telling her to stop twice. He did not go and see what the matter was or get whatever help she needed. She was left to die alone."

The court heard that Titford had a history and had been voluntarily admitted to a psychiatric hospital, sometimes for mental health reasons and also because of drug-induced psychosis.

But the judge ruled that Titford had "no mental disorder, learning disability or lack of maturity which substantially reduces his responsibility".