Mother due to be sentenced over the deaths of her four sons in fire
Mother due to be sentenced over the deaths of her four sons in fire
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A woman whose four young boys died in a fire after she left them home alone to go to Sainsbury’s will be sentenced later. Deveca Rose had left her two sets of twins in the locked terraced house when the fatal blaze broke out on the evening of December 16 2021.
The 30-year-old defendant, who had split up with her partner and suffered from mental health problems, was found guilty of four counts of manslaughter following an Old Bailey trial. On Friday, Rose, who was on bail throughout her trial, will return to court to be sentenced by Judge Mark Lucraft KC.
Rose and the children had been living in squalor, surrounded by rubbish and human excrement, before the tragedy. 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.”.
Rose had gone to the supermarket, leaving Leyton and Logan Hoath, aged three; and four-year-olds Kyson and Bryson Hoath at the rented home in Sutton, south-west London. When a cigarette or tea light in the living room sparked a fire, the boys were trapped and ran upstairs calling for help.
A neighbour tried to break down the front door before firefighters in breathing apparatus went in and found the children’s bodies under beds. They were rushed to two separate hospitals but attempts to save them failed and they died from inhalation of fumes later that night.
