It is thought that two-year-old Isabella Jonas-Wheildon had been dead for about three days when the girl’s mother, Chelsea Gleason-Mitchell, and her partner, Scott Jeff, were captured on CCTV wheeling the toddler’s body around Ipswich in a pushchair. Footage shows the pair pushing the child’s body to a service station, a pub and to shops to buy video game equipment in the days after her death.
Police believe that the child – described as “perfect in every way” by her family – died on the evening of 26 June 2023 after a campaign of abuse by Jeff, 24, who had only been in her life for 36 days. On Friday, Jeff was sentenced to 26 years in prison for Isabella’s murder. Her mother received a sentence of 10 years for allowing her daughter’s death.
At sentencing, Mr Justice Garnham said Jeff carried out a cruel campaign of violence and abuse that ended with the toddler’s death.
Addressing Gleason-Mitchell, 24, Garnham said she had been so concerned at saving her relationship with Jeff that she had let him abuse her daughter.
He said she was “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”.
In a victim impact statement Isabella’s father, Thomas, said he missed his daughter every single day.
He described her as “perfect in every way” and that “loved going to visit farms and the zoo”.
“That light inside of me when I’m around Isabella is now gone forever,” he added.
On the morning of 30 June last year, Gleason-Mitchell, a former nursery worker, sent her friend Joanne Gardner a Facebook message saying Isabella had died in her sleep three days before and was in her pushchair in the bathroom.
“We can’t call police as she developed bruises and we will get done for it,” a message read. In a subsequent voice message, which Gleason-Mitchell asked Gardener to delete, she said: “I feel like we’re just going to bury her and hope for the best.”
Gardner called social services and then dialled 999. Police officers found Isabella dead in a locked bathroom at a temporary housing unit run by Ipswich borough council at 1.07pm that day. Her body was in a pushchair shoved into the corner of a shower and covered by a pile of blankets.
A postmortem examination found the child had “extensive external traumatic injuries to the soft tissues of the body including head, neck, torso, limbs”. The court heard she had sustained fractures to both wrists and a “complex pelvic fracture involving several bones”. The child’s cause of death was given as “bone marrow embolism caused by skeletal trauma”.
Sally Howes KC, prosecuting, told Ipswich crown court, that the damage caused to Isabella’s pelvis was severe and that the likely cause was “either kicking or stamping or both”. The BBC reported that Prof Anthony Freemont told the jury the toddler’s injuries were usually only seen in “high-velocity traffic accidents” or when “being kicked by a horse”.
Cocaine and a biproduct of cocaine were identified in Isabella’s blood, though the concentrations were low and it was not possible to determine exactly how much she had ingested and when.
Howes said Isabella could have been exposed to secondhand smoke from a person smoking crack cocaine, and analysis of hair samples suggested there had been “passive exposure to cannabis”.
Jeff and Gleason-Mitchell denied Isabella’s murder. Jeff also denied two counts of child cruelty, but was found guilty of all charges after a seven-week trial. Gleason-Mitchell admitted causing or allowing the death of a child and two counts of child cruelty. The jury acquitted her of her daughter’s murder.
At trial, the prosecution’s argument was that Isabella’s fate was sealed as soon as Jeff started a relationship with her mother towards the end of May 2023. Up to that point she had been a “healthy, contented, well-cared for little girl”.
When Gardner first met Gleason-Mitchell while living in temporary accommodation in Bedfordshire in 2021, she was still in a relationship with Isabella’s father, Thomas Wheildon. Gardner told the court the pair had been good parents: “I couldn’t fault them. They were brilliant parents, they loved her to bits.”
But from May 2023 to her death, Isabella was subjected to “a regime of escalating brutality” by Jeff, “which was callous, cruel and ultimately fatal”, Howes told the court. Isabella’s mother “stood back, watched, did nothing and allowed this to happen”.
After meeting Jeff, Gleason-Mitchell left her home in the Biggleswade area of Bedfordshire, initially telling family and friends the couple were going on holiday. The couple stayed at hotels in Great Yarmouth, a caravan park and went “camping in a very small tent on Caister Beach” in Norfolk before ending up in Ipswich.
At one point, Gleason-Mitchell contacted housing services at Great Yarmouth borough council, saying she, her daughter and Jeff were homeless. She falsely claimed she was escaping domestic abuse by her ex-partner in Bedfordshire and that Jeff was Isabella’s father.
The couple were eventually offered a flat in Ipswich on 19 June, 11 days before Isabella’s body was found there. Despite the hot weather, the child was frequently seen wearing a heavy winter coat and large sunglasses to hide injuries.
Jeff and Gleason-Mitchell blamed each other for what had happened to Isabella. Jeff told police in a pre-prepared statement that he “didn’t assault or commit any unlawful act in relation to Isabella at any time”. He said he had “started to notice bruising on her face” and “raised concerns with my partner who suggested those marks were nothing to worry about”.
Gleason-Mitchell told police “she didn’t kill her daughter and she thinks it’s the harm Scott Jeff did to her that killed her”. She said the “violence started when there were problems with potty training”, adding: “If Isabella said she was a mummy’s girl, Scott would hit her.”
During the trial, members of Isabella’s family in the public gallery cried when horrific details of what happened to the toddler were read out.
After the verdicts, Gleason-Mitchell’s sister Jade told the East Anglian Daily Times: “We feel relieved that justice has been served because she was everything to us. Isabella was beautiful, perfect in every way that you could imagine. We’d give anything to have them both back because they were the perfect little team.”
DCI Craig Powell, from Suffolk constabulary, said the family had remained “dignified and brave” throughout the trial.
“The murder of any child is, in my opinion, the worst crime imaginable. When they are killed at the hands of those who were supposed to protect and care for such a young and innocent life, it is somehow even worse. Tragically, this is exactly what happened to two-year-old Isabella Wheildon.”
Source: theguardian.com
