Body of little girl, two, was ‘wheeled around in pushchair for three days and taken on shopping trip after she was murdered by her mother and her boyfriend’, court hears

The body of a toddler who died after being subjected to ‘a regime of escalating brutality’ was wheeled around in a pushchair for three days by her mother and her partner, a court heard today.

Ipswich Crown Court was told how Scott Jeff, 24, had repeatedly beaten two-year-old Isabella Wheildon and gave her cold showers as a punishment, leaving her with multiple fractures and soft tissue injuries.

Jurors were told how Isabella’s, nursery nurse mother Chelsea Gleason-Mitchell, 24, ‘stood back, watched and did nothing’ as Jeff carried out his ‘callous, cruel and ultimately fatal’ assaults.

Isabella 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 a shower in the bathroom attached to a room where she had been staying at the homeless unit. 

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

Prosecutor Sally Howes KC said it was the Crown’s 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 Isabella’s body to the nearby Applegreen service station to buy a bottle of lemonade just after midnight on the night of June 26. 

It is alleged that CCTV at the unit showed Jeff putting 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, it is alleged that they took Isabella’s 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.’

Isabella’s 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’ three days earlier and was in her pushchair in a bathroom. 

The friend Jo Gardiner had 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’.

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

Isabella’s 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’

The couple told other residents of the unit that they had left Isabella’s body in the bathroom when they were 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 in the town.

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 Isabella’s 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.

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

Isabella’s 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 couple’s 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 Isabella’s 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-Mitchell’s 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 couple’s room to roll a cannabis joint and saw Jeff kicking 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.

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

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

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 Isabella’s 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.