To lose one child must be unbearable. To lose four simply unthinkable.
‘Bryson, Kyson, Logan and Leyton were my boys, they were my babies, they were my life, they were my world,’ said Deveca Rose, paying tribute to her two sets of twins, aged just four and three, days after they were killed in a house fire. ‘They lit up everybody’s world and I will always be sorry that they went so soon.’
Fine words, but today they are irredeemably tarnished by what we now know happened on that fateful evening in December 2021.
That the 30-year-old single mum loved her children there can be no doubt.
But, equally, their short lives should never have been allowed to end in the way they so tragically did.
Because in the months leading up their deaths, they had been living in increasingly squalid and chaotic conditions as Rose’s mental state deteriorated.
Kyson and Bryson Hoath, aged four, died alongside their brothers, Leyton and Logan Hoath at their home in Sutton, south London, in December 2021
Deveca Rose left her two sets of twins in the locked terraced house when the fatal blaze broke out on the evening of December 16, 2021
Home was a rented house in south London, the carpets calf-deep in rubbish and the toilet and bath so full of trash they could not be used. Living in one room, the family made do with buckets and pots instead, with faeces on the floor and walls.
The garden was equally messy, attracting rats and other rodents.
Neighbours would hear their mum shout and swear at the boys. The older two had also been absent from school for weeks.
On the evening they died, it is claimed Rose locked the football-mad toddlers inside on their own, something she had done before, and set off to walk five minutes to Sainsbury’s.
While she was gone a fire caused by a discarded cigarette or overturned tea-light started downstairs, quickly catching hold in the rubbish.
By the time a neighbour realised what had happened and kicked in the door, the heat was so intense he could not enter. A child’s voice could be heard repeating ‘there is a fire here’ over and over again.
Instead, it would be left to firefighters to retrieve their limp and unconscious bodies from under the bed they had been hiding beneath. Taken outside, they were laid on the pavement side by side as efforts to resuscitate them were carried out in vain.
When their mum returned to the scene her first instinct was to shift the blame, spinning a story about how she had left the children in the care of a mystery woman called ‘Jade’, a former lesbian lover of Rose, or so she claimed.
But police concluded that she had not been babysitting – and doubt whether she existed at all.
Firefighters carried the four boys from the burning building but they were all declared dead a short time later
Rose was subsequently charged with four counts of manslaughter, and yesterday, after a two week trial, an Old Bailey jury deliberated for three hours and 22 minutes to find her guilty by a majority of 11 to one.
She was not, however, guilty of child cruelty.
Judge Mark Lucraft KC said it was a ‘tragic case’ as he adjourned sentencing to November 15 and granted Rose continued bail.
Last night [thursday] the boy’s family on the father’s side welcomed the convictions, saying that the boys died from a ‘senseless act of negligence’. ‘The last three years have been a nightmare,’ they said. ‘Over this time we have had to listen to a number of false narratives and speculation around what happened that night, which have included lights on a Christmas tree and that the boys were left with a babysitter. Today these have been shown to be false.’
But at the same time serious questions, raised during the trial, remain about the failure of social services to intervene.
The court heard that in the three years prior to the fire, social workers from Sutton Council had visited – or tried to visit – Rose on numerous occasions. During that time, they noted worsening conditions at the house and the Rose’s spiralling mental state.
But when Covid broke out in early 2020, follow-ups were neglected, only resuming in July 2021 after an incident involving the children’s behaviour at school.
In the months leading up their deaths, the boys had been living in increasingly squalid and chaotic conditions as Rose’s mental state deteriorated
Rose, depressed, dishevelled and smelling badly, refused to let the social worker see the children, claiming they were asleep. Further appointments were avoided or put off.
Incredibly, the court heard, despite ‘alarm bells ringing’, rather than intensify their efforts to intervene, in mid-September social services did the opposite.
Due to Rose’s ‘non-engagement’ they decided that the case should be closed. And that was that. Three months later the children died.
Last night, family members and local residents told the Mail of their dismay at learning of what had preceded the children’s death.
‘Nothing will bring those boys back,’ said a close relative on the father’s side. ‘I’m disgusted with social services and how they’ve handled it.’
A neighbour added: ‘I think what a lot of people don’t understand is that their mum was struggling. She could not deal with four children under the ages of five. Social services have powers. Deveca was crying out for help. And they did not help her.’
When Rose and her family moved into their mid-terrace house in Sutton in 2019, they did not go unnoticed by neighbours. Twins are rare and two sets of twins rarer still and so it was the four boys, born just 11 months apart, were quickly nicknamed The Quad.
For their mother, the challenges of parenting the boisterous children ramped up within weeks of their arrival when she and their father, Dalton Hoath, split up. While the 31-year-old would move on to another relationship and have more children, he continued to see his sons, as did his relatives.
Rose worked as a part-time carer for the elderly and disabled, but was signed off as unfit to work in April 2021.
The boys always seemed well-dressed, polite and respectful and as they progressed to nursery and school, and their teachers saw no cause for obvious concern.
While Rose was gone a fire caused by a discarded cigarette or overturned tea-light started downstairs, quickly catching hold in the rubbish
‘Kyson and Bryson were lovely children, very similar, always in uniform and well kept,’ said Emma Atkins, the older boys’ primary school teacher. ‘Their reading diaries were kept up to date and it was clear they were being read to at home. Deveca kept on top of any issues.’
But the situation at home was deteriorating.
The children’s paternal great-grandmother Sally Johnson visited regularly but said she ‘struggled’ with her relationship with Rose.
‘She was a nice girl but I found her aloof and very haphazard,’ she said. ‘There were times I visited when the children had odd socks on and odd shoes on their feet. They were always well fed and clean but Deveca seemed in a world of her own.’
She also told the court how on several occasions she had rung the house only for one of the boys to answer and say their mum was at the ‘pop shop’ – a nearby corner shop.
‘I was aware that she would leave the boys by themselves in the house,’ she said. ‘Often she would ask me to look after the boys for an hour or two and then she would not pick them up until much later in the evening.’
While initially Mrs Johnson was allowed into the kitchen and bathroom, after 18 months Rose only let her into the front room, where she had moved a microwave, freezer and hot plate.
If Mrs Johnson asked to use the toilet, she was told to use the one in a nearby shop.
Another neighbour told the Mail of visits by the boys to her house.
‘They used to say ‘Can we come in?’ and… One by one they used to use the toilet. I did not understand why. Deveca would be saying: ‘No, no, no, you can use the toilet at home’.’ But the toilets at home were unusable.
The neighbours recalls: ‘My youngest one upstairs would be in his room, playing on his computer, and the boys would be running around. My son would say to me: ‘They smell of wee and poo’.’
Rose, pictured outside the Old Bailey, was found guilty following a trial at the Old BaileyÂ
To that background, Rose’s interactions with Sutton Council are all the more concerning.
Rose had a long history of contact with social services – it is unknown why – and was deeply suspicious of them.
‘When people like social services hear you’re depressed they just think something’s going to happen,’ she told police. ‘I hate social services with a passion.’
Susan Hamilton, a health visitor, had been assigned to the family and visited on five occasions – but was only able to enter the home three times from November 2018 to January 2020.
Home visits in September and October 2019 were thwarted by Rose, who would not let Mrs Hamilton into the house, saying she was off to work. But it was clear that conditions in the home had declined and she was aware Rose suffered with her mental health.
In January 2020, Mrs Hamilton carried out a final ‘handover’ visit, having just retired. While noting a slight improvement in the house, she observed that there were still problems. The plan was for follow-up visits to be carried out by colleagues.
Mrs Hamilton: ‘I think that was the plan, however, unfortunately we had Covid and it wasn’t possible unfortunately to visit in the home face-to-face.’
Laurie-Anne Power KC, defending, asked: ‘A vulnerable young woman with mental health issues with four young children living in conditions you yourself do not believe to be satisfactory? Covid did not prevent that continued oversight because there were conditions put in place to continue safeguarding vulnerable families at risk during Covid.’
Mrs Hamilton acknowledged that point but could not clarify why her team did not follow up after her departure.
Georgia Singh, a family support officer, said the family was seen again in July 2021 after an incident involving the children’s behaviour at school.
When Ms Singh visited, Rose told her she was stressed about the involvement of children’s services and had ‘dissociated’ the day before while caring for the children, which she described as fainting and falling asleep.
Ms Singh said she returned days later to find Rose dishevelled and smelling of body odour.
Rose arrives at the Old Bailey in central London in JanuaryÂ
Three times Rose refused to let her see the children, saying they were asleep.
Ms Singh said Rose became ‘manic’ as she left, pilling rubbish bags into the bin as they spoke.
The social worker sent an email to her manager detailing her concerns.
‘The front garden is full of rubbish, this was worse compared to visit on Monday, there were rubbish bags in front of the front door which meant I had to climb over them to get into the property,’ she wrote. ‘The living room was still cluttered… there was a very strong unpleasant smell… I am concerned about her mental health and the fact that she refused to let me see the boys.’
Ms Singh tried to contact Rose on six further occasions but was put off or asked to meet in the park.
She said Rose then stopped offering new dates. Asked what happened next, Ms Singh replied: ‘It was decided that the case would close due to non-engagement.’
It was a decision that Ms Power returned to when summing up the case to the jury: ‘It is the job of people put in a position of authority charged with overseeing the health and safety of children to be robust and proactive, not to tiptoe around.’
In the three weeks before the fire, the boys were absent from school and nursery, Rose telling teachers that she was concerned about the rise of Covid.
At about 6pm on the day of the fire, a neighbour heard Rose screaming and swearing at her children, ending with her shouting: ‘Why would you f****** do that?’.
The children were crying. At 7pm, CCTV showed Rose going to Sainsbury’s on her own to buy ‘non-essential items’, explaining later that she had to go because ‘I was f****** going crazy because they [the boys] were pulling open rubbish bags.’ When she returned, the house was on fire and the children lay in the street.
Rose followed Kyson and Bryson to hospital where they were pronounced dead, while the younger boys had died at another hospital.
She was heard screaming: ‘Not my boys, not my boys,’ and then ‘not my babies too’.
In interviews with police, Rose claimed she had left the children with ‘Jade’, a friend with whom she had had a sexual relationship.
She originally described ‘Jade’ as black but then said she was tanned with olive skin.
Rose, who did not give evidence in the trial, told police that on the day of the fire the children wanted to watch a film and have snacks so she went to Sainsbury’s, leaving the children with her.
She said: ‘When I returned, the whole road was full of people. I looked around, I saw Jade, I saw my neighbours and random people from the area.
‘I went straight to the front door and the boys were on the floor outside. Police guided me to a car and all I could see was the boys on the tarmac being worked on by ambulance services.’
After being told of her younger sons’ deaths, she said ‘they would take me to say goodbye’.
‘They didn’t. They arrested me for child neglect.’
Last night, the London Borough of Sutton robustly defended its interventions with the family.
‘Three successful visits took place, including two undertaken by a qualified social worker,’ said Jonathan Williams, Director of Children’s Services, commenting on contact following the referral from the pre-school.
‘The final outcome ascertained that the boys were happy, healthy and maintained a good relationship with their mother. The social worker was also able to conclude that the minor incident had been addressed and there were no other safeguarding concerns. The case was subsequently closed.
‘Following the closure of the case, the younger children continued to attend pre-school and the older children attended school. No concerns about safeguarding, welfare or the children’s development, between that point and their tragic death were raised with the Council.’
He said that a multi-agency review subsequently ‘found that the children were happy, healthy, well-presented, well-nourished and had a positive relationship with their mother’. And he added: ‘The multi-agency review that took place did not query the professional practice and the Government’s national panel agreed that a local child safeguarding practice review was not required.’
Whether that will satisfy the family of the four boys or the wider public remains to be seen.
