A mum accused of leaving her children to die in a house fire forced her children to use a bucket as a toilet and filled her bath with rubbish, a court heard.
Deveca Rose is accused of the manslaughter of Kyson and Bryson Hoath, aged four, along with Leyton and Logan Hoath, aged three, who died at their home in south London on 16 December 2021.
The mum reportedly left the children alone to go to Sainsbury’s after being heard shouting and swearing at them by a neighbour. Jurors have heard that their house was full of rubbish, which caused the fire to spread. Rose denies four counts of manslaughter and one of child cruelty, reports the Mirror.
She claims she had left the children with a woman called ‘Jade.’ Jurors were told Rose cried in her police interview as she remembered returning to her road and realising the fire was at her house.
“I realised oh my God, it’s my house and oh my God, it’s my kids,’ she said. She told police: “It’s just hard, cause I don’t know, it’s probably been just over 24 hours ago I was a mum, I had four little boys and now I don’t have any, so it just hits me time and time again.
“I don’t really care about the stuff and the house, obviously, I would have liked to have their birth certificates, but everything in the house, all their stuff gone.’ The police officer asked if she had ever let the children at home alone.
She said: “I’m not gonna lie because I’m being very, very honest- maybe once or twice. ‘Okay I’d say twice. The electrics been faulty and one time I had to go to shop to top up. They were already sleeping in bed so what I did was put my iPhone camera on a chest drawers and FaceTimed.
“That gave me anxiety. The shop was literally just across the road. The second time I didn’t leave them to go anywhere it was just a power cut, I thought it was the electric but actually it was the whole road.
“I just went out and wandered down the road to see if the light’s were on- not really that far.” She said: ‘The only reason I had to do that was I did not know any of my neighbours, I only started talking to my neighbours at the end of last year.
“None of my friends live in Sutton, now I’ve got friends in Sutton, but I didn’t and I didn’t have anyone to call to say come and sit with them for a minute. She described ‘Jade’ as being ‘black, my build, my height, olivey skin, quite dark.”
Rose said Jade’s mother is Italian and her father is Irish and said she did not remember she was wearing on the day of the fire. When asked if she trusted Jade she said: “To be honest I don’t trust anyone, I’ve got a lot of reasons why I don’t have full trust in anyone.
“Anyone can switch up on you at any time and I’ve learned that lesson many times. It’s not about trust per se – it’s just, she never had a problem with the kids and the kids never had a problem with her, they’d happily play with her.”
She added: ‘She’s a bit of a flirt, most of my friends are the same.’ She said she was worried Jade had left the children to go and have sex.
She said: “I literally said, if she’s gone to f-k someone I’m going to be mad ‘ The officer asked if Jade had done that before and she replied: ‘She’s not left my kids to go f–k someone before but she’s left me to go f-k someone before.
“Like we’ve been on a day out and she’ll just go.” She said her relationship with Jade had previously been sexual but they were later just friends.
Rose said she had not been in contact with Jade until she saw her in Mitcham a few days before the fire when she gave her keys to her house. She said they had previously been in contact on Snapchat and Taimi, an LGBT dating app.
She said she did not know Jade’s surname. “It begins with an “O”, I can’t pronounce or spell it, I don’t know I couldn’t really tell you most people’s surnames.”
Asked how she now feels about Jade she said: “Well I don’t know her side of the story but like I strongly dislike her cause, I don’t know what happened, I don’t know how it started. ‘I’ve got questions in my head but I’m more angry at myself then her cause they’re my kids.
“I’m angry they’re gone, I’m angry I chose to go to the shop, I’m angry I didn’t let one of them come with me, I’m angry I can’t answer anyone’s questions.” In a second police interview Rose said that Jade was white but didn’t ‘look English’ and looked tanned.
She said she did not save any friend’s phone numbers and would only speak to them when they rang her. Rose said she had not smoked inside the house on the day of the fire.
She said she was working with mental health services but did not like social services, saying she had dealt with social services her whole life. She said: ‘When people like social services and that hear you’re depressed they just think something’s going to happen.’
She added: “I hate social services with a passion.’ When asked about the state her house was found in with rubbish on the floor she said: ‘You guys might see that as struggling, I see it as organised chaos.
“I’ve got four kids and one toilet so they would use buckets. I was keeping stuff in the bath because I needed to rinse all of that stuff, you can’t throw it in the bins like that.
“It was organised chaos. I had an airfryer, and toastie machine, I didn’t use the oven.” Rose denies four counts of manslaughter and one of cruelty to a person under 16. The trial continues.
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