Four boys died in rubbish-strewn house fire - court

The four boys were found together under a bed

Four young boys died in a fire surrounded by rubbish and human excrement after their mother left them home alone to go to Sainsbury’s, a court has heard.

Deveca Rose, 29, denies the manslaughter of her two sets of twins, Leyton and Logan Hoath, aged three, and Kyson and Bryson Hoath, aged four, and child cruelty.

The four children died after a discarded cigarette or upturned tea light sparked a blaze at their terraced home in Sutton, south London.

The boys are believed to have run upstairs and cried for help but were unable to escape the locked house and died under a bed, the Old Bailey was told.

Deveca Rose, pictured arriving at the Old Bailey in January, left the boys to go to a supermarket

The court heard the sets of twins were left unattended at the house in Collingwood Road at about 18:30 GMT on 16 December 2021.

While Ms Rose was at the supermarket, neighbours realised the house was on fire and could hear the children were inside.

Kate Lumsdon KC told the jury that neighbours kicked down the front door but the fire was too advanced for them to enter.

Firefighters found the boys unconscious in the upstairs front room.

Ms Lumsdon said: "There was rubbish all over the floor of the house and human excrement. There was a mattress and a door on the stairs.”

'Friend did not exist'

Attempts to save the children were made on the pavement outside, but jurors were told there was nothing that could be done, and they were pronounced dead in hospital.

The cause of death was later given as inhalation of fumes.

Ms Lumsdon said Ms Rose, of Wallington, south London, had claimed she left the children with a woman called Jade, which prompted firefighters to go back into the house to search for her.

But the prosecutor told jurors there was no sign of the friend, and extensive inquiries led to the “firm conclusion” that Jade either did not exist or played no part in events of that evening.

The trial continues.