Dad of obese Powys teen Kaylea Titford guilty of her manslaughter

A jury of eight men and four women returned an unanimous verdict finding Alun Titford, 45 and of Colwyn, Newtown, guilty of manslaughter at 2.14pm at Mold Crown Court on Tuesday, February 7. 

Titford, who faced a three-week trial, had denied the charge and also a second alternative charge of causing or allowing the death of a child. 

However, a jury agreed that his self-admitted ‘lazy behaviour’ in not caring for Kaylea, 16, amounted to a criminal act.  

His partner and Kaylea’s mother Sarah Lloyd-Jones had already pleaded guilty to manslaughter by gross negligence in December 2022.

READ MORE: 'Independent' Kaylea Titford died in squalor at her parents' Newtown home

Both will be sentenced at Swansea Crown Court on March 1. 

Mr Justice Griffiths said: “There can be no doubt this case passes the custody threshold.”

The judge told jurors he would give them a 10-year exemption from jury service, saying there had been a “lot of difficult and a lot of expert evidence”.

He added: “The subject matter was, no doubt, unusually distressing.”

Titford was released on bail ahead of his sentencing hearing next month.

The judge told jurors they would be able to contact support services, including Samaritans, following the trial.

Asked during his evidence why he had let his daughter down so badly, the removals worker said: “I’m lazy.”

Alun Titford arriving for the beginning of his trial in Mold. (Image: Press Association)

The court heard that Kaylea, who had spina bifida and used a wheelchair, died after suffering inflammation and infection from ulceration, arising from obesity and immobility.

Emergency service workers, who were called to the house after she was found on October 10, described feeling sick due to a “rotting” smell in her room.

Following her death maggots were found which were thought to have been feeding on her body, the jury was told.

The court heard that her bedsheets were soiled and she was lying on a number of puppy toilet training pads.

Her room was said to be dirty and cluttered, with bottles of urine and a chip fryer with drips of fat down the side, as well as a full cake in a box.

The court heard that Kaylea had attended Newtown High School, where she was described as “funny and chatty” by staff, but did not return following the coronavirus lockdown in March 2020.

Titford, who had six children with Lloyd-Jones, said the family would order takeaways four or five nights a week and he thought Kaylea had put on two or three stone since March.

The prosecution alleged that Kaylea had not used her wheelchair, which became too small for her, since the start of lockdown.

Caroline Rees KC, prosecuting, asked Titford: “She hadn’t been out of bed, had she?”

But he claimed he had seen her in the kitchen of the house in her wheelchair during that period, despite telling police in interview that he had not seen her out of bed.

The court heard that Kaylea had been discharged from physiotherapy and dietetics services in the years before her death and had last been seen by a social worker at home in 2017.

Titford claimed Lloyd-Jones, who was a community care worker, was responsible for looking after Kaylea.

He said he used to take her to medical appointments and care for her but stepped back when she reached puberty as he was not “comfortable”.

In cross-examination he accepted he was as much to blame for Kaylea’s death as her mother.

• Additional reporting by the Press Association.