Deveca Rose has been jailed for 10 years for the manslaughter of her four sons who died in a house fire on Collingwood Road, Sutton, while she was out shopping.
Tragedy: the four boys, Bryson, Kyson, Leyton and Logan, all aged under five, who died in December 2021
Rose, 30, had left her two sets of twins alone when a fire ripped through their terraced house a week before Christmas 2021.
Four-year-olds Kyson and Bryson Hoath and Leyton and Logan Hoath, three, were unable to escape the locked house and died under a bed.
Rose was found guilty of four counts of manslaughter at her trial at the Old Bailey in October. She was cleared of a single count of child cruelty. Her sentencing hearing had been delayed since November.
During the hearing today, Rose sat in the dock with an anorak hood over her head and wearing headphones. According to her lawyer, this was for medical reasons.
At the time of the fire, the children had been left home alone. Rose had gone shopping at Sainsbury’s. She had left her children for little more than half an hour.
Sentencing, Judge Mark Lucraft KC said that none of the shopping she had gone out to buy on the day of the fire was “essential or vital”.
This was a “deeply tragic” case with the lives of four young children “gone in just a few moments through an intense fire,” the judge said.
“You will have to live with the knowledge you bear responsibility for the deaths of your four children.”
Neglect: Deveca Rose – Sutton social services were aware of the conditions in her house
The court heard victim impact statements, including from the boys’ father, Dalton Hoath, who described it as the “worst day of his life” when he lost his four “beautiful boys”.
“Their lives had only just begun,” he said. “It was every parent’s nightmare – I am devastated.”
Social workers at Sutton Council had raised concerns about Rose and the state of her home on Collingwood Road three years before the blaze.
One social worker made two visits to Rose in July 2021. After the second visit, she emailed her managers with concerns about the cluttered home with a “strong, unpleasant smell”. She also said she was worried about Rose’s mental health.
Despite this, no further visits were made and her case was closed in September 2021, three months before the fire.
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