Tragic Negligence: Mother Jailed After Four Young Boys Perish in House Fire During Shopping Trip

By Joshua Omoniyi 

A devastating case of maternal negligence has resulted in a 10-year prison sentence for 30-year-old Deveca Rose, whose four young sons perished in a house fire while she went shopping. The tragic incident, which occurred in Sutton, south London, claimed the lives of twins Leyton and Logan Hoath, aged three, and their older brothers Kyson and Bryson Hoath, aged four.

The court heard that on the fateful evening of December 16, 2021, Rose made a non-essential trip to Sainsbury's, leaving her young children alone in a hazardous environment. The house on Collingwood Road, described as cluttered with rubbish throughout, became a death trap when either a discarded cigarette or an upturned tea light ignited the fatal blaze.

In a heartbreaking detail revealed during the trial, the terrified children ran upstairs calling for help as the fire spread. Despite a neighbor's desperate attempts to break down the locked front door, the boys were found unconscious under beds by firefighters. All four children were rushed to separate hospitals but succumbed to smoke inhalation.

Judge Mark Lucraft KC, delivering the sentence, emphasized the preventable nature of the tragedy, noting that the house's smoke and carbon monoxide detectors were either non-functional or had dead batteries. Rose's attempt to claim she had left the children with a friend named Jade was later exposed as fabrication by police investigators.

The children's father, Dalton Hoath, shared his devastating grief in a victim impact statement, revealing he had contemplated suicide multiple times following their deaths. "I will never recover from losing my funny, beautiful boys," he stated, adding that he must "fight for all of us left behind and live with this massive pain in my heart before I meet them again."

The case has highlighted serious child protection concerns, as it emerged that social services had closed the family's case just three months before the tragedy, despite previous concerns raised by social worker Georgia Singh.

This heart-wrenching incident serves as a stark reminder of parental responsibility and the devastating consequences of negligence, leaving a family and community forever scarred by the loss of four innocent lives who, in the judge's words, were "deeply loved" by all who knew them.