Kaylea Titford: Newtown community still reeling from death of 'naturally talented' teen

The community in Newtown is still reeling from the death of disabled teenager Kaylea Titford.

The Titford family were well known in the close-knit area, according to Montgomeryshire MS Russell George. He said her death in October 2020 still casts a cloud over the town, with friends and neighbours questioning if they could have done more for the popular teen.

They are asking how the 16-year-old, seen pushing her wheelchair through the streets of this Powys town, is now dead - neglected by her parents, isolated from the world during the Covid lockdown and left bedridden, living in squalor to become morbidly obese.

Her former basketball coach, Steve Cox, volunteers with N-Able, a disability sports group which meets weekly at Maldwyn Leisure Centre. Surrounded by houses and a stone's throw away from Newtown High School - which Kaylea attended - it is a popular meeting place and somewhere the promising wheelchair basketball player went to from around 12 years of age.

Steve Cox remembers her natural ability.

He told ITV Wales: "I knew her from fairly young and then when she came here she went straight to the basket and put it in straight away - first shot. I got in touch with other people and said we’ve got somebody here who can pop the basket quite easily - take a look and I recommended that she goes higher up the ladder.

"She had a natural talent definitely but unfortunately we couldn’t push it any further."

She also did wheelchair tennis and Steve said they hoped sport would give her focus.

“We had high hopes she’d move on in sport, something to live for, something for good”.

He first met Kaylea in primary school when he worked as a Teaching Assistant. He said she was a “lovely person” and as she grew older she had a great sense of humour.

“We tried playing tricks on each other. She was deep. She could read my mind before I got anywhere near her... We would have a card game and I’d cheat and she picked it up straight away and got to be a better cheat than me so it was a challenge for both of us."

He said she had many friends and was sociable but as she got older her interest in sport waned.

He said it was “upsetting” to hear of her death: "I think it came as a shock to everyone in the local area, comparatively speaking Newtown isn’t a big town so it hits one, it hits a lot of people."

Looking misty eyed he added: "If you hurt one you hurt six in this area so it’s a big shock. Upsetting for a lot of people."

In the centre of Newtown, down a quiet lane is the office of Conservative Senedd Member Russell George.

The death of his constituent weighs heavily on his mind.

“Kaylea lived in Newtown and I live in Newtown as well.

"Kaylea had lots of friends, she had a very large extended family, she was very popular in the town. If you didn’t know Kaylea, the chances are you knew somebody who did know her but because she was part of those clubs and other activities across the town, I think there’s a greater sadness about what happened in the town and people questioning how this could’ve happened."

He admits there are many conversations around the death of Kaylea who was born with spina bifida.

“You were either a friend of hers or somebody who knew her and because she was a part of life in Newtown and part of activities and clubs that took part in Newtown than inevitably people talk about Kaylea and what happened and people feel very sad about what happened and I suppose there’s a sense of questioning - ‘could something more have been done and how come this wasn’t prevented’ and I think there’s also conversation around perhaps how lockdown had a consequence here.”

The politician is right - many questions have been raised around lockdown and there will be a UK wide inquiry. From March 2020 Kaylea was not seen by anyone outside her immediate family.

Teachers at Newtown High School telephoned to check in and when it was time to return they contacted her mother Sarah Lloyd Jones daily. We now know they were fobbed off and met with excuses around the teens' non attendance.

They were told her wheelchair was broken, she was anxious, she had a stomach ache but in reality she was unable to get out of bed. At nearly 23 stone she was too big to fit in her wheelchair, she was dirty and unclean, she had sores and ulcers all over her body and she had received no medical attention for months. Behind the closed blinds of her bedroom in Colwyn she was living in filth, unable to leave the bed, surrounded by junk food and urine filled bottles.

She had slipped through the net.

Mr George said: "The reality is that if you’re in a lockdown you’re just not seeing people move between homes and other venues and people don’t ask the same questions that they would in a normal situation.

"It’s a shock that this happened in an area like Newtown. There’s a perception that in cities people don’t know their neighbours but they do here. In a small community, where you tend to know your neighbours, you tend to know people walking up your street, then there’s a bigger shock here.

"People are questioning or talking about how this could’ve happened to somebody they know.”

A review is underway into what lessons can be learned from Kaylea's death, just a few weeks after her birthday. It will involve the local authority and health board.

Mr George admits he has had “informal” conversations with decision makers in the area but he is waiting for any investigations to conclude before commenting further. When that will be, we do not know.

Was Kaylea let down and who is responsible for her neglect? I asked.

“Ultimately accountability as we know lies with the parents," he said.

"Neglect took place... So that’s where accountability lies but also of course there’s going to be questions about how the local authority and the health board handled the situation and we don’t know what’ll come out of that.

"It’s a difficult issue because of course you can pick up the phone and you can ask if people need extra help and support but when they don’t, you question what more could’ve been done. I don’t want to point the finger at anyone because the finger is firmly pointed sadly at the parents."

Those parents, Alun Titford and Sarah Lloyd Jones have now been sentenced.