A mum has been jailed for 10 years after her four ‘polite and carefree’ sons were killed in a house fire when she locked them inside to go to Sainsbury’s. Deveca Rose, 30, left her two sets of twins alone in the unsafe terraced house in Sutton, south-west London, when the huge blaze broke out on the evening of 16 December 2021.
Leyton and Logan Hoath, aged three, and four-year-olds Kyson and Bryson Hoath screamed out for help, while a neighbour desperately tried to break down the front door.
Firefighters found the bodies of the boys under beds and also discovered the house covered in human excrement and rubbish. Rose, who had split up with her partner and suffered from mental health problems, was found guilty on four counts of manslaughter.
Judge Mark Lucraft KC said: ‘There are no words to describe this case other than a deeply tragic one.’
The children’s father, Dalton Hoath, said losing his four sons was ‘the worst day of my life’. Mr Hoath, who had separated from the defendant, added that he was ‘devastated’ and his world had been turned ‘upside down’ by the loss of his ‘young, boisterous lads’.
