Kaylea Titford: ‘Revolting’ pictures reveal how obese girl, 16, died in ‘squalor and degradation’
Jurors have been shown pictures of the “revolting” bedroom where an obese teenager was found dead.
Kaylea Titford, 16, weighed 22st and 13Ibs, with a body mass index of 70, when she died in October 2020 at her home in Powys, Wales, where she was found lying in soiled clothing and bed linen.
Her father Alun Titford, 45, denies manslaughter by gross negligence and is standing trial at Mold Crown Court.
On Friday, the jury was shown photographs and body-worn footage of Kaylea’s living conditions, with the prosecution describing them as “squalor and degradation”.
The images – which the defence conceded were “revolting” and “horrific” – reveal how the disabled teenager, who had spina bifida and was wheelchair-bound, was forced to lie in soiled clothing and bed linen.
The mattress Kaylea slept on
The court was earlier told that police described an “unbearable” rotting smell and maggots and flies on her body.
Pictures released on Friday showed larvae and puparia on the teenager’s bedding and fly dirt on a hoist used to lift her.
The bedroom was also seen to be full of clutter and debris, including cooking equipment and piles of clothing.
The conditions were previously described by prosecutor Caroline Rees as “unfit for any animal”.
Larvae and puparia found in Kaylea’s bed clothes
Kaylea, who depended entirely on others for her care, was found lying on filthy “puppy pads” and had not been washed for weeks, jurors were told.
She had dirty and matted hair and ulcerated skin, including pressure sores on her legs.
Defending Alun Titford, David Elias KC told the jury to “divorce” themselves from the “graphic nature” of the images.
“The horror at the end of the case is not the benchmark necessarily for guilt or innocence.
“It is revolting, it is horrific, there is no dispute about it, but you have to look at how it got to that point.”
Fly dirt seen on the hoist used to lift Kaylea
Kaylea’s bedroom
Kaylea and her family were “let down” by health and social services, Mr Elias said in his closing speech.
“Not every family who is let down ends up in the situation we have seen, thank heavens, but it is important evidence, we submit, in the context of this defendant’s behaviour.”
Kaylea was discharged from physiotherapy in 2017 and a year later was discharged from a dietetics service because her mother, Sarah Lloyd-Jones, failed to make a new appointment.
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In April 2017, a social worker agreed with Ms Lloyd-Jones that there was no role for the team specialising in children with disabilities, the court heard.
Ms Lloyd-Jones, who has six children with Titford, has pleaded guilty to manslaughter by gross negligence, the jury were told.
She was responsible for most of Kaylea’s care when she reached puberty, with Titford stepping back because he wasn’t “comfortable”.
Kaylea Titford had spina bifada
Titford, a removal worker, worked up to 50 hours a week and 15 days straight before Kaylea died.
Mr Elias said: “Here is a defendant who was working throughout, who we say quite rightly because he was entitled to, because of everything that she had done so well, truly believed until the day Kaylea was found that Sarah Lloyd-Jones was doing the right thing, was giving the right treatment, and didn’t know that she wasn’t.”
Alun Titford pictured arriving at Mold Crown Court in Flintshire, North Wales
He said it was “reasonable” for Titford to believe his partner was looking after Kaylea and dealing with the danger of the pressure sores on her legs.
“It was Sarah who was dealing with that, and that’s not passing the buck, that’s what was happening.”
Titford, of Colwyn, Newtown in Powys, also denies an alternative count of causing or allowing the death of a child.
The trial has been adjourned to Monday when Judge Martin Griffiths will sum up the case and the jury is expected to begin deliberating.
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Thousands of trans rights activists gather in London after Supreme Court ruling on definition of a woman
Thousands of trans rights activists have been demonstrating in central London days after the Supreme Court ruled the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex.
Trans rights groups, trade unions and community organisations came together for what was billed as an “emergency demonstration” in Parliament Square in Westminster.
Activists demanded “trans liberation” and “trans rights now”, with some waving flags and holding banners.
Campaigners in Westminster. Pic: PA
Graffiti was seen on the statues of suffragist leader Millicent Fawcett and South African statesman Jan Christian Smuts in Parliament Square.
The Metropolitan Police said it had launched an investigation after several statues were vandalised and it was investigating the incidents as criminal damage.
Chief Superintendent Stuart Bell said it was “very disappointing to see damage to seven statues and property in the vicinity of the protest”, adding: “We support the public’s right to protest but criminality like this is completely unacceptable.
“We are now investigating this criminal damage and urge anyone with any information to come forward.”
Meanwhile, a rally and march organised by Resisting Transphobia has been taking place in Edinburgh on Saturday afternoon.
Graffiti was daubed on the statue by trans activists. Pic: PA
Graffiti on the statue of South African statesman Jan Christian Smuts in Parliament Square. Pic: PA
In a long-awaited judgment delivered on Wednesday, the UK’s highest court ruled the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 “refer to a biological woman and biological sex”.
It essentially means trans women who hold gender recognition certificates are not women in the eyes of the law.
This means transgender women with one of the certificates can be excluded from single-sex spaces if “proportionate”.
Demonstrators in Westminster
Baroness Kishwer Falkner, chair of the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), said on Thursday that the ruling means trans women can no longer take part in women’s sport, while single-sex places, such as changing rooms, “must be based on biological sex”.
The UK government said the unanimous decision by five judges brought “clarity and confidence” for women and service providers.
A Labour Party source said Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had brought the party to a “common sense position” on the subject from an “activist” stance.
Among the groups supporting the London protest were Trans Kids Deserve Better, Pride In Labour, Front For The Liberation Of Intersex Non-binary And Transgender people (Flint) and TransActual.
Pic: PA
Keyne Walker, strategy director at TransActual, told Sky News the government needed to put equality laws back on a “sound footing”.
Speaking from Parliament Square, they said: “The mood is jubilant and also angry and also people are anxious… Right now trans people are coming together to demonstrate to the country, and to everybody else, that we’re not going anywhere because we don’t have anywhere to go…
“Queer people have been through worse than this before, and… we’ll suffer through whatever is to come in the next few years.”
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The activist continued: “The government needs to immediately clarify how they are going to protect trans people and what this ruling actually means for spaces.
“It does not bring clarity… businesses and venues at the moment don’t know what they can and can’t do… the government needs to step in and put equalities law back on a sound footing.”
Protesters in Westminster in support of the transgender community. Pic: Daniel Bregman
It comes as Bridgerton actress Nicola Coughlan announced she has helped raise more than £100,000 for a trans rights charity following the Supreme Court decision.
Following the ruling, the Irish star said she was “completely horrified” and “disgusted” by the ruling and added she would match donations up to £10,000 to transgender charity Not A Phase.
The fundraiser has since raised £103,018, with a revised target of £110,000.
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Gender ruling – How it happened
Why was the case heard in court?
The Supreme Court ruling followed a long-running legal challenge which centred around how sex-based rights are applied through the UK-wide Equality Act 2010.
The appeal case was brought against the Scottish government by campaign group For Women Scotland (FWS) following unsuccessful challenges at the Court of Session in Edinburgh.
FWS called on the court to find sex an “immutable biological state”, arguing sex-based protections should only apply to people born female.
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Campaigners react to gender ruling
The Scottish government argued the protections should also include transgender people with a gender recognition certificate (GRC).
The Supreme Court judges were asked to rule on what the Equality Act 2010 means by “sex” – whether biological sex or “certificated” sex as legally defined by the 2004 Gender Recognition Act.
Delivering the ruling at the London court on Wednesday, Lord Hodge said: “We counsel against reading this judgment as a triumph of one or more groups in our society at the expense of another. It is not.
“The Equality Act 2010 gives transgender people protection, not only against discrimination through the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, but also against direct discrimination, indirect discrimination and harassment in substance in their acquired gender.”
A teacher who was upskirted by a pupil says women are being “specifically targeted” by misogynistic attitudes being expressed in classrooms.
Sally Rees, now the president of teachers’ union NASUWT in Northern Ireland, was visited by police officers in 2016 and told they had found a USB stick containing images filmed up her skirt by a pupil.
“You just feel so violated,” she told North of England correspondent Shingi Mararike.
“As a teacher, you give so much of yourself in the classroom, you want the best for your pupils and then to know that somebody has done that to you, it just completely shatters your sense of trust.”
Ms Rees was filmed multiple times over 14 months and after a “long drawn-out legal process”, the pupil was found guilty of five counts of outraging public decency.
Ms Rees spoke to Sky News as a new survey by NASWUT suggested nearly three in five (59%) teachers believe social media use has contributed to a deterioration in pupils’ behaviour.
At the union’s annual conference this weekend, members will debate calls on the union’s executive to work with teachers “to assess the risk that far-right and populist movements pose to young people”.
“We’ve seen the impact that Andrew Tate and other figures are having on… young boys’ reactions in the classroom,” Ms Rees said.
“One of the things we have to remember is that the majority of our workforce is female and so they are being very specifically targeted by these attitudes, specifically things around; ‘You can’t tell me what to do’, that a man has a right to dominate a woman and has a right to a woman’s body.”
Andrew Tate.
File pic: AP
The drama teacher said schools were now expected to deal with behaviour like this without enough support.
“We need to bring parents and carers into this because it starts in the home and then trickles into our schools,” she added.
“We end up with a blame culture that education is at fault, teachers aren’t dealing with it and yet teachers are the ones that actually end up being the victims of this type of behaviour.”
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When asked about the NASWUT survey, a spokesperson for the Department for Education (DfE) said: “Education can be the antidote to hate, and the classroom should be a safe environment for sensitive topics to be discussed and where critical thinking is encouraged.
“That’s why we provide a range of resources to support teachers to navigate these challenging issues, and why our curriculum review will look at the skills children need to thrive in a fast-changing online world.”
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