Man who took murdered toddler out in buggy jailed

A man who murdered his new girlfriend’s toddler and hid her body in a pushchair while out shopping was jailed for life yesterday. Scott Jeff, 24, will will serve a minimum of 26 years in prison after subjecting two-year-old Isabella Wheildon to a “regime of escalating brutality” before she was found dead in a bathroom on 30 June, 2023.

- ALEXANDER BUTLER

It is believed she died four days earlier and her mother, Chelsea Gleason-Mitchell, also 24, and then-partner Jeff had continued to wheel her body around in a pushchair, with the pair seen joking at the shops while pushing the buggy.

Gleason-Mitchell – who was cleared of murder – received 10 years in prison after admitting causing or allowing the death of a child.

Ipswich Crown Court judge Neil Garnham said GleasonMitchell had “stood back and let that abuse and violence happen to your little girl”, describing her as a “weak and spineless person”.

“You felt able to go shopping with Jeff, the two of you pushing Isabella’s body around in a pushchair covered with a blanket, as if you were enjoying a family day out,” he said.

The judge said the two eventually left Isabella’s dead body in a bathroom at a hostel for the homeless 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”.