Man who murdered partner’s two-year-old daughter before taking her body to pub and shops jailed | UK News

A man who killed his partner’s two-year-old daughter before taking her body in a buggy to the pub and shops has been jailed for life.

Warning: This article contains details that readers may find disturbing

Scott Jeff, 24, was found guilty last month of Isabella Wheildon’s murder as well as two counts of child abuse following an eight-week trial at Ipswich Crown Court. He must serve at least 26 years in prison.

Judge Mr. Justice Neil Garnham said Jeff subjected Isabella to a “cruel campaign of violence and abuse which ended in her death” on June 26 last year.

Jeff, who was not the toddler’s father, had been in a relationship with her mother, former daycare worker Chelsea Gleason-Mitchell, also 24.

Gleason-Mitchell was acquitted of murder but pleaded guilty to causing or permitting the death of a child and two counts of child abuse. She appeared to be shaking in the dock as she was jailed for 10 years.

The judge described her as a “weak and spineless person” who “stood by and allowed the abuse and violence to happen to your little girl”.

He said she was “so concerned about her own comfort and pleasure and maintaining a relationship with this man that you would tolerate anything, including these terrible abuses of your daughter”.

Isabella was found in a buggy in a locked bathroom at a temporary housing unit in Ipswich in June last year.

‘Escalating brutality’

The court heard she had injuries to her head, neck, torso and limbs after suffering “escalating brutality”.

The couple took Isabella on holiday to the Norfolk coast, where they first stayed in hotels, then spent four nights in a tent on the beach at Caister and began looking for council accommodation.

The court heard that Jeff wanted to punish Isabella as she wet herself with her injuries hidden with a puffer jacket and sunglasses.

Her arms were broken and her pelvis was “effectively crushed” when Jeff either stomped on her or “kicked her between the legs with tremendous force”, resulting in her death hours later, the judge said.

Prosecutors said Isabella died of “bone marrow embolism caused by skeletal trauma”.

Traces of cocaine and hashish were also found in the toddler’s system.

Sally Howes KC told jurors the toddler was a “healthy, content, well looked after little girl until Scott Jeff came into her young life” towards the end of May 2023.

From then on, she suffered “escalating brutality that was callous, cruel and ultimately fatal” at Jeff’s hands.

An autopsy showed Isabella had “extensive external traumatic injuries to the soft tissues of the body, including the head, neck, torso, limbs” and other areas, the lawyer said, adding that her mother “did nothing and allowed this (the abuse) to happen “.

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Pushed the body around in the buggy

Jeff and Gleason-Mitchell, both of no fixed address but formerly from Bedfordshire, had been staying at the temporary accommodation for 11 days when Isabella’s body was discovered on June 30.

Prosecutors said she died on June 26 after having trouble breathing. Jeff and Gleason-Mitchell claimed they tried to perform CPR on her, but she died at 23.37.

CCTV footage showed the pair going out to the shops 30 minutes later and were shown joking around, seemingly unfazed by Isabella’s death.

Over the next three days they pushed the toddler’s body around in a buggy and even took the bus into town to go shopping and go to the pub.

The judge told Gleason-Mitchell: “You felt able to go shopping with Jeff and the two of you pushed Isabella’s body around in a pram covered in a blanket as if you were enjoying a family day out.”

He said the couple eventually left Isabella’s dead body in a bathroom at a homeless hostel and took a train to Bury St Edmunds, where Gleason-Mitchell was seen “sitting happily with a glass of wine in a pub… smiling and laughing “.

The pair were arrested in the early hours of July 1 in Bury St. Edmunds, having fled Ipswich after the police found Isabella’s body.