Two-year-old girl who was beaten to death by her mother’s new boyfriend and then wheeled around in a buggy for days was ‘invisible’ to authorities across four counties, damning review finds
A tragic two-year-old girl who was beaten to death by her mother’s new boyfriend and then wheeled around in a buggy was ‘invisible’ to authorities, a review has found.
The lifeless body of Isabella Jonas-Wheildon was moved around for days before she was eventually discovered in a locked bathroom at a housing complex in Ipswich in June 2023.
Earlier in the month – despite the summer weather – the tot was wearing a winter coat, the hood pulled tight to her head to hide her injuries.
By mid-June, she had two black eyes and was made to wear sunglasses wherever she went.
Tragically, by the end of the month she was dead – her body being wheeled around without anyone realising. Her mother and her boyfriend piled shopping bags on top of her corpse and went to the pub.
A post mortem found that she suffered injuries to her head, neck, torso, limbs and back and had traces of crack cocaine in her blood.
The tiny child also had fractures to both her wrists, and a complex pelvic break probably caused by ‘kicking or stamping’.
An embolism caused by bone marrow from her fractures leaking into her blood stream killed her.
A damning safeguarding practice review has found that several authorities across four counties – Central Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Norfolk, and Suffolk – had contact with Isabella, her mother and partner. But opportunities to protect the child were missed.
The horrific abuse happened in plain sight in front of her nursery worker mother, 24-year-old Chelsea Gleason-Mitchell.
She was said to be a good mother to Isabella until she hooked up with old flame Scott Jeff, a drug-taking thug with a track-record of abusive relationships and the words Pure Hell tattooed across his knuckles.
Well-meaning strangers raised their concerns and at one stage they were even spoken to by a police officer before accepting a room in a council-run temporary housing unit in Ipswich.
Jeff kicked and punched the poor child repeatedly, force-fed her until she was sick and punished her for wetting herself with cold showers.
Even when she died her mother did not seek help. Had a friend not tipped off police who knows what would have happened next – the pair had discussed buying a shovel and burying Isabella’s body in a forest.
Jeff, 24, was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 26 years after he was convicted of Isabella’s murder at a trial last December.
Chelsea Gleason-Mitchell, aged 24 years, is serving a 10-year prison sentence for admitting, causing or allowing the death of a child.
Dr Russell Wate, author of the review into the child’s death, concluded: ‘Isabella’s voice or her lived experience was not seen at all during the last month of her life and not demonstrated in professionals’ actions.’
The review noted agencies had operated in ‘silos’ and were not focused enough on the child.
Dr Wate noted that information was gathered but not shared and ‘no multi-agency discussions took place’ – in particular during the final month of Isabella’s life.
He described how – before her death in June 2023 – Isabella had become ‘invisible’ to the authorities.
Her body was found after a friend of Gleason-Mitchell told police she had got a message from her, saying that her daughter had ‘died in her sleep’ three days earlier and was in her pushchair in a bathroom.
The friend Joanne Gardener did not know where Gleason-Mitchell was staying, but inquires by police led them to the unit, operated by Ipswich Borough Council, said prosecutor Sally Howes KC.
Police found Room 15A at the unit was empty after staff opened the door, but were greeted by a ‘very strong smell’ when the bathroom was unlocked, and found Isabella’s body.
Gleason-Mitchell had quit her nursery job in Bedfordshire and set off with Jeff to Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, telling her sister that she was ‘trying to get her head in the right place’ and was going to give her relationship with him ‘a go again’.
The trio stayed in a succession of hotels and holiday parks, even camping in a small tent for four days on the beach at Caister-on-Sea as they tried in vain to get council accommodation.
A 14-year-old boy who was a fellow guest at one hotel went to the couple’s room to roll a cannabis joint and saw Jeff kick Isabella’s pushchair, and slap her around the face with his open palm which made her cry, said Miss Howes.
She added: ‘Chelsea Gleason-Mitchell witnessed this but apparently did nothing and said nothing.’ The teenager said he then saw Jeff put Isabella’s pushchair in the shower, and turn the water on.
The couple and Isabella were finally offered a place by Ipswich Borough Council at the East Villa temporary housing unit.
Jurors heard how they caught a train to Ipswich on June 19 with Isabella wearing a puffa jacket and sunglasses to apparently hide her black eyes.
Voice notes made by Jeff on his phone on June 21 showed him saying he was ‘f***ing fuming’ that the toddler kept wetting herself, despite his efforts at potty training, he court heard.
A video clip on Gleason Mitchells’ mobile in the early hours of June 22 showed Isabella ‘lying motionless in her cot with two distinct black eyes’.
CCTV from the unit, showed her repeatedly being pushed around in her chair, wearing sunglasses with the hood up, concealing her head.
Footage taken at the unit on the afternoon of June 26, showed Isabella’s legs and feet moving in her pushchair, suggesting she was still alive.
Miss Howes said it was believed she had died later that day and that she was dead when later CCTV images were taken showing her being pushed around in her chair.
The prosecutor said that Jeff and Gleason-Mitchell had taken Isabella’s body to the nearby Applegreen service station to buy a bottle of lemonade just after midnight on the night of June 26.
CCTV at the unit also showed Jeff pushing Isabella’s body in her chair with Gleason Mitchell ‘smiling at his side’ as they headed out to the nearby Royal George pub just after 7pm on June 28.
The following day on June 29, they took her body into Ipswich town centre on a bus, visiting shops including Cash Converters and Cash Exchange, where they bought X-Box equipment and chargers.
Miss Howes added: ‘They put their purchases in a yellow plastic bag which they put in the pushchair on top of Isabella.’
She said that Gleason-Mitchell messaged Miss Gardiner that evening, confirming Isabella’s death, saying: ‘She stopped breathing in her sleep.’
Her friend urged her to go to the police, but Gleason-Mitchell replied that Isabella was ‘covered in bruises’ and had black eyes, and they could not do so as they would get into trouble.
Instead, she said that they planned to bury her and ‘hope for the best that nobody would find her’.
The couple told other residents of the unit that Isabella was visiting her grandmother, but left her body in the bathroom and went out in a taxi, shopping once again in Ipswich town centre and visiting a pub.
They then caught a train to Bury St Edmunds where they went to the town’s JD Wetherspoon pub. They were arrested on suspicion of murder in Bury St Edmunds in the early hours of July 1.
