A monstrous mother has been jailed for 10 years after she left to her four young boys to die alone in a horror house fire while she went shopping with a friend.
Deveca Rose ‘abandoned’ her two sets of twins – Kyson and Bryson, aged four, and Leyton and Logan, aged three – in squalid conditions when the blaze broke out in December 2021.
The single mother, 30, left her children surrounded by rubbish and human faeces in a locked home in Sutton, south London, as she popped out to buy ‘non essential’ items at the supermarket.
As she was caged for a decade at the Old Bailey earlier today, the youngsters’ step-grandmother said justice had been done – but mourned for the boys after they were ‘cruelly taken away from us’,
Kerrie Hoath said: ‘The disregard she showed towards our boys has been echoed throughout this whole trial as our family had to endure three years of lies, delays and false narratives.
‘This time has been a nightmare and the toll it has taken on our family cannot be overstated.
‘We have heard speculation the fire was caused by lights on a Christmas tree, false claims the boys were left with a babysitter.
‘We thank the jury for seeing past that and delivering us a true verdict. Bryson, Kyson, Logan and Leyton were left alone by their mother Deveca Rose. She has been found to be responsible for their deaths.’
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
Kyson and Bryson Hoath, aged four, died alongside their brothers, Leyton and Logan Hoath, aged three, at their home in Sutton, south London
Firefighters carried the four boys from the burning building but they were all declared dead a short time later
She said the boys were ‘beautiful, loving children’ who did not deserve what happened, adding: ‘The impact they have made on us in their short lives cannot be measured and will never be forgotten.
‘We miss them every day and will always hold them in our hearts.
‘While there will be better days to come, the hole that has been left by our children’s deaths cannot be filled.’
The trial heard that a discarded cigarette or upturned tea light is thought to have sparked the ferocious blaze, causing the youngsters to run upstairs and start screaming for help.
Neighbours heard the boys desperately crying, ‘there’s a fire’ as flames engulfed the terraced home just days before Christmas.
One resident tried breaking down the front door but it was too late. Firefighters found the children’s limp and unconscious bodies underneath their beds.
They were rushed to hospital where they later died. Their cause of death was recorded as smoke inhalation.
The family had been living in squalor when tragedy struck. The home was so full of rubbish it made the fire spread quicker and human excrement was found smeared on the walls.
The children had also not attended school for three weeks before the fire broke out.
In a heartbreaking victim impact statement, the boys’ father Dalton Hoath said he ‘could not put in words’ how their deaths had impacted him, saying: ‘I simply want to join them.’
Their grandfather Jason Hoath said in his own statement: ‘It is nearly three years since we lost our wonderful fun-loving grandsons at the tender age of three and four.
‘The pain from this loss has shattered my life in every possible way.’
He said it was ‘too painful to describe’ seeing them trapped in an inferno and ‘devastating’ when the boys died later in hospital after ‘fighting so bravely’.
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 last autumn
The single mother left the boys, surrounded by rubbish and human faeces, in the locked home as she popped out to buy ‘non essential’ items at the supermarket
The boys’ aunt Casey Hoath read her statement in court and described her nephews as ‘funny’ and ‘full of character’.
‘This was my worst nightmare scenario with the people I love at the centre,’ she said.
In a victim impact statement, great grandmother Sally Johnson quoted her great grandson’s ‘favourite word – why’ as she told of her heartbreak at losing them.
Crying, she said: ‘The thought of them crying and screaming out will haunt me forever. My only comfort is they are now together forever and need never be alone again.
‘I’m afraid I will never be able to forgive… I would like to say their favourite word – why? Just why?’
She told the court her great grandchildren were her ‘whole world’, adding: ‘The horror, the pain remains with me three years on.’
Rose sobbed in the dock, wearing a hood over her head, as she heard the victim impact statements before she was jailed for 10 years on Friday on four counts of manslaughter.
The judge, Mark Lucraft KC, accepted Rose was the person in the dock and that there was a medical reason for her not showing her face.
As he jailed Rose, Mr Justice Lucraft said: ‘There are no words to describe this case other than a deeply tragic one.
‘The last moments of their young lives would have been with acute physical suffering as the fire took hold and they sought to get away from it.’
Kerrie Hoath, step-grandmother of the four boys killed by Deveca Rose, is comforted outside the Old Bailey after Rose was jailed
Ms Hoath (right) and aunt Casey Hoath (left) deliver a statement outside court. Kerrie said the family had endured ‘three years of lies, delays and false narratives’ after the boys’ deaths
Deveca Rose appearing at the Old Bailey in January last year. She spent her sentencing hearing hidden beneath a hood, which the judge accepted she would not remove
He told Rose: ‘Had you been at home you may have been able to extinguish the fire or if not you would have been able to get them out of the house.
‘You were not there and the children were too young to know what to do. As a result of what you did, they were all killed.’
During a trial at the Old Bailey last year, it was heard that the toilet and the bath were unusable because they were so full of rubbish, with bucket and pots used instead.
On December 16, Rose went to Sainsbury’s leaving the young children at the rented home alone.
She later arrived back while firefighters were still tackling the blaze and was taken in by a neighbour.
The boys were rushed to two separate hospitals, but attempts to save them failed and they died from inhalation of fumes later that night.
Rose claimed she had left the children with a friend called Jade, which prompted firefighters to go back into the house to search for her.
Police carried out extensive inquiries to find Jade and concluded she either did not exist or had not been at the house that day.
In police interviews, Rose admitted leaving the boys alone in the house on two earlier occasions.
Jurors were told that social worker Georgia Singh had raised concerns about the family, but the case was closed three months before the fire.
Previously, a health visitor had also expressed worries, but they were not followed up after she retired, jurors were told.
The children had also not attended school for three weeks before their deaths.
The fire-scarred house in Sutton, south London, where the four young boys met their horrific demise in 2021
Deveca Rose (right) pictured in 2023 outside Bromley Magistrates’ Court after she was charged with manslaughter
Sending her down, Mr Justice Lucraft told Rose: ‘There are no words to describe this case other than a deeply tragic one’
Rose attended much of the trial by video-link from home on medical advice and declined to give evidence in her defence.
The court heard there was evidence suggesting she was probably depressed and may have suffered from a personality disorder, but the prosecution asserted that was not a defence.
In mitigation, her barrister Laurie-Anne Power KC highlighted that Rose had struggled with ‘complex psychiatric mental health needs’.
She told the court: ‘There is nothing I can say to mitigate the loss to the Hoath and Rose family.
‘Even though she is criminally responsible for the deaths of those children, she has suffered the greatest loss of all.’
After the sentence was announced, one woman stormed out of the courtroom and was heard crying as she was led away, Sky report.
The judge described the victims as lively and engaging children who were ‘deeply loved’ by all who had a role in their care.
