Mother who wheeled her battered toddler’s dead body in pushchair for three days told police her boyfriend wanted her to take blame for girl’s death, court hears

A mother who carried the body of her abused toddler around in a stroller for three days told police her boyfriend had tried to make her take the blame for her death, a court heard on Wednesday.

Chelsea Gleason-Mitchell, 24, was seen pushing two-year-old Isabella Wheildon in a buggy with partner Scott Jeff as they visited several places including a pub and a shop where they bought Xbox equipment.

Prosecutors say Isabella suffered a ‘regime of escalating brutality’ before she died in a unit for homeless families in Ipswich, Suffolk, on June 26 last year.

Gleason-Mitchell and co-defendant Jeff, also 24, then took her with them for several days until police were told what had happened by a friend and found the girl’s body under blankets in the couple’s bathroom.

Jeff claims he had nothing to do with the numerous fractures and bruises on the toddler’s body.

But Gleason-Mitchell told police during an interview that he wanted her to take the blame for her death.

In a conversation read out at Ipswich Crown Court, she told officers: ‘He told me to lie and said it was all me.

“He wanted to lie so he wouldn’t get locked up and it was me [that would be] locked up.

‘It’s all his. “I didn’t do anything, but he wants to lie and say I did it so he can get away with it and I’ll be the one to go down.”

The former childcare worker claimed she wanted to contact emergency services after her child died, but Jeff was against it.

“He said, ‘Oh, don’t do that, because of the bruises on her.’ We are done with it,” she said in the police interrogation.

“I don’t know why I listened to him, but the whole time I was with him I was controlled by him and I felt like I had to listen to him.”

When asked why she had not called the police, she added that she had ‘panicked’ and said: ‘I think I was in shock.

“I should have called them…but I was losing my baby…that was going through my mind…I was a mess. I was panicking.’

Gleason-Mitchell also claims that Jeff wanted her to buy a shovel so they could bury Isabella in a forest or lake.

“I said, ‘That’s my child, I raised her for over two years of my life,'” she told officers.

“He kept saying that if the police found us, ‘You’ll be the one to go down because you’re the mother. I’ll get away with it.”

Describing how she continued to push Isabella around in her pram, the defendant added: ‘I was heartbroken that she was gone. She was the only thing that kept me going. I felt like I wanted to spend a last few days with her.

“I’d get caught somehow. I tried to find a way to turn myself in, but I was too scared.

‘It was because, knowing he had caused the bruises, I was afraid they wouldn’t listen to me. I would never hurt a child.’

Gleason-Mitchell admitted that CCTV footage showed her smiling as she walked around with her daughter hidden under a blanket, but claimed it may have been a ‘fake smile’ to avoid appearing suspicious.

‘I didn’t hurt her. That’s what I’m trying to explain,” she continued.

‘I wanted her with me, but I was also afraid because she had spots on her. I would have been blamed as her mother.”

The couple visited Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk at one point and Gleason-Mitchell claimed she went there to be closer to her family’s home in Bedfordshire.

‘I hoped that my sister could convince me to go to the police station. I listen to my sister, but not when I have other people around me,” she said.

The defendant told police she witnessed Jeff “constantly” hitting her daughter in the head, punching her in the face and force-feeding her until she became ill as she struggled to eat.

Isabella initially “screamed” when she was injured, but later became quieter.

“It’s like all her pain disappeared and stopped, like she didn’t know how to cry anymore and didn’t know what pain was anymore,” said the mother of the tragic child.

The court heard Jeff has denied harming the little girl other than when he tried to resuscitate her.

In a statement to police, he claimed he noticed bruises on her body in the days leading up to her death, but his partner told him not to worry about the injuries.

Gleason-Mitchell dismissed his version of events as “all lies” and told police that Jeff began abusing Isabella by hitting her on the hands during toilet training “for a little accident.”

The court was told Isabella was ‘a healthy, contented and well-developed girl’ before Gleason-Mitchell began a relationship with Jeff in May last year after splitting from her toddler’s father.

Jeff is said to have believed that Isabella could be his daughter, as he and Gleason-Mitchell had sex shortly before she realized she was pregnant.

But paternity tests later showed he was not the father.

Gleason-Mitchell quit her daycare job in Bedfordshire on May 24 and left with Jeff for Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, where she told her sister she was “trying to get her head in the right place and give her relationship with him” go again’.

The couple and Isabella stayed in a series of hotels and holiday parks and even camped on the beach before being given a place in the East Villa homeless unit in Ipswich.

The court heard Isabella’s body had multiple fractures to the front and back of her pelvis, which could only have been caused by ‘high impact or speed’, such as a stamping injury, and two broken wrists.

Gleason-Mitchell and Jeff, formerly of Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, deny killing Isabella between June 26 and June 30 last year.

Jeff also denies causing or permitting the death of a child and two offenses of cruelty to a child.

But Gleason-Mitchell has admitted causing or permitting the death of a child and two offenses of cruelty to a child.

Prosecutors say Gleason-Mitchell “stood back, stood by and did nothing” as Jeff carried out his “callous, vicious and ultimately fatal” attacks.

The process continues.