Stepfather beat little girl, two, force-fed her until she was sick and gave her cold showers as punishment in regime of escalating brutality that ended in murder, court hears

A two-year-old girl was force fed until she was sick, given cold showers and beaten by her stepfather in a punishment regime of escalating brutality that ended in her murder, a court has heard. 

Ipswich Crown Court was told that Scott Jeff, 24, left little Isabella Wheildon with multiple fractures and soft tissue injuries while her nursery nurse mother, Chelsea Gleason-Mitchell,  also 24, stood back, watched and did nothing.

The toddler was believed to have died from her injures on June 26 last year while staying with her mother and Jeff at the East Villa temporary accommodation unit in Sidegate Lane, Ipswich, Suffolk.

But the couple are said to have kept her death a secret, and carried on pushing around her lifeless body in her chair with the hood pulled up to shield her face, even allegedly taking her corpse on a shopping trip to buy computer gaming equipment.

Isabella was said to have been dead for several days before police found her body under blankets in the shower of a bathroom attached to a room where she had been staying at the homeless unit. 

Gleason-Mitchell wept in the dock as Prosecutor Sally Howes KC detailed how her daughter had died while Jeff sat passively, sometimes raising his hands to his face.

Isabella Wheildon, two, who was found dead at a homeless unit in Ipswich, Suffolk, pictured with her mother Chelsea Gleason-Mitchell who denies her murder 

Isabella was found in her pushchair inside a locked bathroom before being declared dead at the scene

Scott Jeff also denies the murder of Isabella. He is standing trial at Ipswich Crown Court along with Isabellas mother

The court heard how Jeff had texted a friend Hannah Smith on the evening of June 26, saying: I am so stressed, I actually cant cope. When she replied, Why, whats up?, he responded: Absolutely everything.

Miss Howes said that earlier in the day, Jeff had done a google search asking: What happens when my child is breathing, but not responding?

Miss Howes said it was the Crowns case that CCTV pictures of Isabella being wheeled around after June 26 had been taken following her death.

She added: Scott Jeff and Chelsea Gleason-Mitchell are in effect pushing around a dead child in that wheelchair.

Miss Howes said that they had taken Isabellas 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 showed Jeff putting Isabellas 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 Isabellas 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.

Gleason-Mitchell (pictured) and Jeff were arrested on suspicion of murder in Bury St Edmunds in the early hours of July 1

She said that Gleason-Mitchell messaged Miss Gardiner that evening, confirming Isabellas death, saying: She stopped breathing in her sleep.

Her friend urged her to go to the police, but Gleason-Mitchell replied that Isabell 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 they had left Isabellas body in the bathroom when they 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 a JD Wetherspoon pub in the town. They were arrested on suspicion of murder in Bury St Edmunds in the early hours of July 1.

Jeff initially made no comment when interviewed by police, but gave a prepared statement on July 2, denying any responsibility for Isabellas death and insisting he had never beaten her or harmed her, other than when he tried to revive her.

He said that he had started to notice bruising on her body five days before her death, but had accepted Gleason-Mitchells explanation that they were nothing to worry about.

Jeff claimed he had woken up to find Isabella floppy and unresponsive and could not find a pulse. He said it quickly became apparent that she had died.

Isabellas body was discovered on June 30 after a friend of Gleason-Mitchell reported getting a message from her, saying that her daughter had died in her sleep

He accepted that they should have called emergency services, but had not done so.

Jeff said: Having not contacted the police or ambulance service initially, it became harder to do so afterwards, although I knew we would have to do so at some stage. In part at least our failure to do so arose from us being in denial about what had happened.

In a later statement given before the post mortem was carried out, he suggested that Isabella may have hurt herself by slipping over in the shower, and that he believed her death was a tragic event arising from unseen natural causes.

Gleason-Mitchell told police that Jeff had beaten Isabella constantly until her death, punching and kicking her from head to toe, hitting her backside with a shoe and making her scream and cry.

The assaults left her covered in bruises, with two black eyes, a bloodshot eye and a soft spot on her head.

She added that Jeff would push her out of the way if she tried to intervene, and she didnt say anything to anyone due to her mental health.

Gleason-Mitchell who has ADHD also claimed that he gave Isabella cold showers and would force feed her to the point of her being sick.

She claimed that the abuse started when they went to stay in Great Yarmouth, and that when Isabella had wet her nappy, Jeff had stated: If this carries on, she is going to get killed.

The homeless families unit in Ipswich, Suffolk, where Isabella was found dead

Gleason Mitchell added in her interview that Jeff wanted to bury Isabella in a forest or a lake and that they had gone to Bury St Edmunds to try and escape what had happened.

Miss Howes described Gleason-Mitchell as having laid the blame for her daughters death squarely on Scott.

The court heard how Isabella was found to have low traces of a cocaine derivative in her body, suggesting she may have been nearby when crack cocaine was smoked. It was also stated that cannabis traces were found in her hair.

Miss Howes said there was evidence that both defendants were habitual drug users.

She said that a safe, proper and obvious inference can be drawn that both wilfully exposed Isabella to drugs.

Gleason-Mitchells mother and sister had been in touch with her repeatedly asking when she was coming home, she added.

Miss Howes presented the jury with a series of CCTV images which she said showed the body of Isabella shrouded in a blanket as she was being pushed around in her chair.

Inquires by police led them to the East Villa unit, operated by Ipswich Borough Council, said Miss Howes. 

Police arrived at the unit and found Room 15A was empty after staff opened the door, but officers were then greeted by a very strong smell when the bathroom was unlocked.

Miss Howes said: PC Ryan Wegg saw an object in the shower area with blankets piled on top. As he removed the last blanket, he saw the face of a young child who was not moving. He was aware of severe bruising on her face. She was cold to the touch.

Isabella was declared dead at the scene by a paramedic and a later post mortem showed she soft tissue injuries to her head, neck, torso, limbs and back.

She also had fractures to both her wrists, and a complex pelvic fracture involving several bones, likely to have been caused by kicking or stamping.

Some injuries had allegedly occurred up to two weeks before her death and others as little as six hours before she died.

Miss Howes said it was clear that Isabella had a number of episodes of violence inflicted on her over a period of time.

Gleason-Mitchell and Jeff were arrested on suspicion of murder in Bury St Edmunds in the early hours of July 1.  

They both deny Isabellas murder between June 26-30 last year. Jeff denies one count of causing or allowing the death of a child and two counts of child cruelty.

Miss Howes told jurors that Gleason-Mitchell had admitted to causing or allowing the death of a child and two counts of child cruelty.

Isabellas cause of death was given as a bone marrow embolism due to bone marrow from her fractures getting into her bloodstream, and causing embolisms in her lungs which reduced her capacity to breathe.

Miss Howes said it was the prosecution case that Isabella was a healthy, contented and well developed little girl before Jeff came into her life in May 2023, when he started a relationship with Gleason-Mitchell.

She added: From that time up to her death, Isabella was subject to a regime of escalating brutality which was callous, cruel and ultimately fatal.

It is the prosecution case that her mother Chelsea Gleason-Mitchell stood back, watched, did nothing and allowed this to happen.

The court heard how Gleason-Mitchell grew up in Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, and had got a childcare apprenticeship at a nursery in the town.

She shared a flat with partner Thomas Wheildon when she fell pregnant and had Isabella, later returning to work at her nursery, but the couples relationship fell apart in April last year, said Miss Howes.

Gleason-Mitchell then went to live with her mother until May when she started a relationship with Jeff who suggested that he might be the real father of Isabella as they had sex shortly before she realised she was pregnant.

She left her nursery job on May 24, and a week later headed off with Jeff and Isabella to stay at the Nelson Hotel in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk.

Gleason Mitchell told her sister Jade Anglum in a message that she was trying to get her head in the right place and was going to give her relationship with Jeff a go again, said Miss Howes.

The couple stayed four nights in the hotel before renting a caravan for four nights at the Haven holiday park in nearby Caister-on-Sea where they were captured on CCTV walking around on numerous occasions without Isabella, suggesting they had left her unsupervised.

The court heard how Jeff had claimed he was getting DNA tests done to see whether he was Isabellas father, and later falsely claimed to Miss Anglum that a paternity test had proved he was.

They later checked into the St George Hotel in Great Yarmouth, which was used by homeless families, on June 9, even though Gleason-Mitchells sister was pleading with her to come home, said Miss Howes.

A receptionist at the hotel said they remembered Gleason-Mitchell and Jeff regularly going outside to smoke, leaving Isabella in the room, and returning smelling strongly of cannabis.

A 14-year-old boy who was staying in the hotel with his mother went into the couples room to roll a cannabis joint and saw Jeff kicking Isabellas 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 Isabellas pushchair in the shower, and turn the water on.

He added that he, Jeff and Gleason-Mitchell later went out to smoke the cannabis, leaving Isabella alone in the room.

Another adult resident of the hotel said she heard Isabella crying constantly one night and knocked on the door at 2am. When she was let in, she saw Jeff repeatedly hitting the wall with a towel in his hands, said Miss Howes.

The couple left the hotel on June 12 and started camping in a small tent on the beach at Caister, having earlier gone to Great Yarmouth Borough Council to ask for accommodation.

The court heard that Gleason-Mitchell and Isabella had been offered accommodation by the council, but Jeff had not, so she had turned down the offer.

Jeff had asked for work at the Old Hall Hotel in Caister, telling staff that he and Gleason-Mitchell had been escaping from domestic violence, but was told no jobs were available.

Miss Howes said they were shown great kindness by staff at the hotel and regulars at the bar who gave them meals, groceries, towels, £20 in cash and allowed them to use showers.

Isabella was said to have been seen at the hotel in a pushchair, wearing a zipped up puffa jacket with the hood up, despite the hot weather.

One staff member was so concerned that she contacted police who carried out a welfare check on Gleason-Mitchell on the beach when Jeff was at the hotel, said Miss Howes.

The officer told her that she had to accept any accommodation offered to her or Isabella would have to be taken into care by police.

After camping for four days on the beach, the couple moved to the Wild Duck holiday park in Belton, Norfolk, where they were once again seen walking around alone, leaving Isabella unsupervised.

They left the site on June 19 and caught a train to Ipswich - with Isabella wearing her puffa jacket and sunglasses to apparently hide her black eyes - after being told that they had got a place at the East Villa unit in the town, said Miss Howes.

Voice notes made by Jeff on his phone on June 21 showed him saying he was f***ing fuming that Isabella kept wetting herself, despite his efforts at potty training, she added.

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.

The couple went with Isabella out on June 26, visiting a barber shop so Jeff could get a haircut. They returned at 3.15pm, and CCTV showed Isabellas legs and feet moving in her pushchair.

Miss Howes said it was believed to the last image of Isabella, and that she had died later that day.

The trial, set to last between six and eight weeks, continues.