The parents, who were sentenced to more than six years in prison in early March for the manslaughtered death of their daughter, an obese teenager who died in appalling conditions, were given an increased sentence on appeal on Friday.
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16-year-old Kaylea Titford was found after her death at the family home in Newton, Wales in October 2020 in what the court described as “unworthy of any animal”, in dirty clothes and sheets.
The teenager weighed 300 pounds at the time and died of inflammation and infection from an ulcer that resulted from her obesity and immobility.
His father, Alun Titford, 45, who denied the facts, was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison in early March. His mother, Sarah Lloyd-Jones, 40, who pleaded guilty, was sentenced to six years in prison.
On Friday, in an appeal by the Attorney General’s Office, the sentence was increased to ten years for the father and eight years for the mother.
“The circumstances (of Kaylea’s death) can only be described as extreme. Kaylea lived in unimaginable misery,” said Judge Andrew Popplewell, one of the three judges presiding over the trial, on Friday.
For the attorney general’s attorney, the original sentences were “unreasonably lenient” and did not reflect “the guilt, the seriousness of the crime and the seriousness of the aggravating circumstances.”
On October 10, 2020, emergency workers called the teen’s home to confirm her death and described a “rotten” smell in the bedroom. Maggots were found at the crime scene, and experts assume that they fed on the corpse, it said at the first trial.
Kaylea had lived there motionless in dirty sheets and lying on dog mats. Her room was dirty and full of urine bottles.
According to the prosecution, the young woman, who had been nutritionally and physically neglected since 2017, had not left her bed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her wheelchair had outgrown her and she had not returned to school after restrictions were lifted.