A wicked couple left a two year old girl dead in the shower for days after her mother’s boyfriend brutally kicked the toddler to death. Little Isabella Wheildon was described as a “healthy, contented, well-cared for little girl” before she endured horrific abuse when Chelsea Gleason-Mitchell began dating Scott Jeff, prosecutor Sally Howes KC told the court.
The tragic tot died in temporary accommodation in Ipswich and her body was discovered on June 30 last year. During her murder trial at Ipswich Crown Court, jurors heard that she had been dead for several days before her body was found concealed under blankets in a shower.
She had sustained “extensive external traumatic injuries to the soft tissues of the body including head, neck, torso, limbs” and other areas. Injuries to her pelvis were consistent with “stomping or kicking”, but Gleason-Mitchell “stood back, watched, did nothing and allowed this to happen”.
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It is also believed that Isabella’s mother and her then-partner continued to transport her body around in a pushchair. The judge addressed 24 year old Gleason-Mitchell, saying: “You felt able to go shopping with Jeff, the two of you pushing Isabella’s body around in a pushchair covered with a blanket, as if you were enjoying a family day out.”
He recounted how the pair left Isabella’s lifeless body in a bathroom at a homeless hostel and caught a train to Bury St Edmunds, where Gleason-Mitchell was spotted “sitting happily with a glass of wine in a pub … smiling and laughing.”, reports the Mirror.
They were apprehended and arrested in Bury St Edmunds in the early hours of July 1. Yesterday, Jeff received a life sentence for the murder of the young girl and will serve at least 26 years behind bars.
The toddler’s mother was sentenced to 10 years for her role in causing or allowing Isabella’s death. During the sentencing at Ipswich Crown Court on Friday, Judge Mr Justice Neil Garnham told Jeff, also aged 24, that he had inflicted a “cruel campaign of violence and abuse which ended in her death on June 26” the previous year.
He condemned former nursery worker Gleason-Mitchell for being a “weak and spineless person” who “stood back and let that abuse and violence happen to your little girl”. He criticised her for prioritising her own comfort and desires, and for preserving her relationship with Jeff to such an extent that she would permit “so concerned about her own comfort and pleasures, and about maintaining a relationship with this man, that you would tolerate anything, including these dreadful assaults on your daughter.”
The judge noted that the two defendants had been involved previously in 2019, which had ended.
After her subsequent relationship with Thomas Wheildon, the father of Isabella, fell apart, Gleason-Mitchell reconnected with Jeff in May 2023, according to the judge.
Gleason-Mitchell and Jeff took Isabella on a holiday to the Norfolk coast, initially staying in hotels before spending four nights camping on Caister beach, all while seeking council accommodation. The judge noted that Jeff took over Isabella’s potty training, becoming intolerant of her accidents and punishing her when they happened.
He said her injuries were hidden with a puffer jacket and sunglasses, revealing that her arms were broken and her pelvis was “in effect shattered”. The judge stated that the pelvic injury, which led to her death hours later, was inflicted by Jeff either stamping on her or “kicking her between her legs with enormous force”.
Her official cause of death was listed as “bone marrow embolism caused by skeletal trauma.”
Jeff, who has no fixed address, denied her murder but was found guilty in an earlier trial. He was also convicted of two counts of child cruelty.
Gleason-Mitchell, also of no fixed address, had previously pleaded guilty to causing or allowing the death of a child and two counts of child cruelty.
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