A “callous and cruel” drug-using thug who derived sickening “gratification” from beating a young child to death was today sentenced to a minimum sentence of 26 years.
Scott Jeff, 24, subjected two-year-old Isabella Wheildon to “a regime of escalating brutality”, leaving her with multiple fractures and bruises across much of her body.
Punishments for urinating included giving her cold showers and being forced to eat until she was sick.
When he finally died from complications caused by his injuries, he and Isabella’s mother, Chelsea Gleason-Mitchell, coldly dumped plastic bags over his corpse as they pushed him around for three days on trips to shops and pubs.
Jeff was found guilty of the girl’s murder and two counts of child cruelty last month following a six-week trial at Ipswich Crown Court, where he attempted to claim the “tragic event” was the result of “natural causes.” “.
Gleason-Mitchell was cleared of murder, but previously admitted causing or permitting the death of a child and two offenses of cruelty to a child.
The couple returned to court today, where prosecutor Sally Howes KC said Jeff had derived “gratification” from “repeatedly” abusing his partner’s daughter.
“There is a degree of outright cruelty and indoctrination of a child for one’s own purposes,” he added.
Isabella Wheildon had been subjected to ‘a regime of increasing brutality’ before dying in June 2023.
Gleason-Mitchell, who was unanimously acquitted by a jury, claimed she and Jeff had gone to Bury St Edmunds “to try to escape what had happened”.
Scott Jeff, 24, was found guilty of murdering two-year-old Isabella Wheildon.
His mother, Chelsea Gleason-Mitchell, coldly dumped plastic bags over his body as he was pushed around for three days during trips to shops and pubs.
Jeff was taken to the cells after learning the minimum length of his life sentence. Gleason-Mitchell, also 24, was sentenced to ten years in prison.
Moments earlier, they had sat in the dock listening to heartbreaking victim impact statements from Gleason-Mitchell’s distraught and tearful family members.
His mother, Ann Mitchell, revealed that she had “resorted” to holding solitary vigils at the crematorium where the boy’s funeral took place, “letting him know that his nanny is here.”
Recalling the girl who was once “happy” and “always singing and playing,” she added: “Sometimes I want to fall asleep and never wake up because when I do I remember that she’s not here.”
Gleason-Mitchell’s sister, Jade Anglem, said the loss had been “excruciatingly painful” and she was taking antidepressants to cope.
‘Every day has been hell. “I carry with me a feeling of emptiness,” he told the court.
CCTV from June shows Jeff carrying Isabella, who was wearing the dark glasses he had allegedly given her to cover her black eyes and heavy bruises.
Isabella, pictured here on a swing with her mother Chelsea Gleason-Mitchell, was found dead in a homeless unit in Ipswich, Suffolk.
Thomas Wheildon, Isabella’s father, said he had been unable to work “because I am always teary” and tried to find “comfort” by referring to her in the present tense.
Going back to the past tense in his statement, which was read in court, he said: “No parent should outlive their child.” A part of me died with her and that pierces my heart every day.’
He described the defendants as “two very evil, sadistic and violent people”, adding: “It is difficult to understand how you two acted towards Isabella.” You should have protected her.
Particularly striking was an image of Gleason-Mitchell appearing to “celebrate” with a large glass of rosé at a Wetherspoons pub in Bury St Edmunds after her daughter’s death, he said.
Isabella’s body was found under blankets in the shower area of the temporary accommodation the defendants had received in Ipswich on June 30 last year after a friend Gleason-Mitchell had confided in alerted police about death.
An autopsy revealed that she had fractures to both wrists and a complex pelvic fracture involving several bones, likely caused by “kicking or stomping” that was comparable to injuries seen in car accidents.
There were also soft tissue injuries to the head, neck, torso, limbs and back, as well as a torn perineum, while traces of cocaine were present in his blood, probably from having been near crack cocaine while smoking, and traces of cannabis. in her hair.
Isabella’s death on June 26 was caused by an embolism in her lungs after marrow from her fractures leaked into her bloodstream.
She was seen pushing the battered body of two-year-old Isabella Wheildon in a stroller with her partner Scott Jeff for three days after the girl’s death.
The court was told Jeff hit Isabella and put her naked in cold showers as punishment if she had accidents while potty training or because he was in a bad mood and “needed some drugs”.
There were also traces of cocaine in his blood, probably from being close to crack cocaine when it was smoked, and traces of cannabis in his hair.
But the couple kept his death a secret, pushing his body in the stroller with the hood up to hide his face.
CCTV showed Jeff pushing the pram with Gleason-Mitchell “smiling beside him” as they went to a pub on June 28.
The next day they went to Ipswich town center by bus before visiting shops where they bought aftershave equipment and chargers and X-Boxes.
Miss Howes said: “They put their shopping in a yellow plastic bag which they put in the pram on top of Isabella.”
They were eventually arrested in the early hours of July 1 after they were located at a Wetherspoons pub in Bury St Edmunds.
Gleason-Mitchell, a nurse at the daycare, told police that Jeff had “constantly hit Isabella, punching and kicking her ‘from head to toe’ and hitting her with a shoe as they moved through hotel rooms and camps.” in East Anglia after leaving Bedfordshire to escape the protective gaze of her family. The girl was forced to wear sunglasses to hide her black eyes.
Isabella’s other punishments for not potty training were cold showers and being force-fed to the point of vomiting.
Eventually, the boy stopped screaming and endured the pain and indignities in silence.
Her mother told police: “It’s like all her pain disappears and stops, like she doesn’t know how to cry and she doesn’t know what pain is anymore.”
Jeff, who had a history of abusive relationships and had “Pure Hell” tattooed on his knuckles, blamed his partner, although the jury picked up on this.
Sarah Wass KC, defending Gleason-Mitchell, said she had no previous convictions and was an exemplary mother before rekindling her relationship with her ex Jeff.
He described his client as “easy to bully and weak and possibly not the most intelligent young woman.”
Chris Paxton KC, for Jeff, accepted that Isabella had suffered “psychological torment” and “numerous assaults leading to her murder”.
His client was of good character in the past, he added, and was an immature 22-year-old when his victim died.
Speaking after their convictions, Detective Chief Inspector Craig Powell, of Suffolk Police, said: ‘The murder of any child is, in my opinion, the worst crime imaginable.
“When they are murdered at the hands of those who were supposed to protect them and care for such a young and innocent life, in some ways it is even worse.”