'We're all to blame': Mum and daughter lay dead for months

BBC News

2 days ago

How did a mother and her 18-year-old daughter lie dead in their home for months and nobody knew?This is just one of the questions examined during the inquest into the deaths of Alphonsine Djiako Leuga and Loraine Choulla.Loraine had Down's syndrome and her mother was her carer. They were known to social services. And yet they had "lain undiscovered for some time" in their home in Radford, Nottingham, last May.It's a tragic case that has left people in the community not only blaming the authorities, but also themselves.
"What went wrong? Did the system fail her? That's the question," a friend told the BBC.She had met Alphonsine, who was born in Cameroon, outside the Victoria Centre in Nottingham when they had just arrived in the UK in 2016 from Italy. She had two daughters with her at the time.It was a time of desperation."I met them on the street. They had nowhere to go," she explained."She was speaking French. I spoke in French."They all stayed with the friend, who did not want to be named, at her house for up to eight weeks."I took her in because she is a Cameroonian. I am a Cameroonian too, my kids are not home either," she added.
Later in 2019, Alphonsine, 47, and her two daughters moved into their council house in Hartley Road and got to know locals in the community. The older of the two children, who is in her 20s, moved out in April 2022, the inquest heard.One shopkeeper affectionately called Alphonsine "Cameroon woman", and described her as an easy-going person with a happy daughter.But hard times followed, and Alphonsine would go on to tell locals her heating had been cut off and Loraine was not going to school, which had affected her benefits and ability to pay the bills. A local business let her buy food on credit."Whenever she would get money she would clear her bill," the employee said."Maybe £20 worth of items... just little meal for a few days."She would buy frozen food and dry items and what her daughter wanted, according to the staff member, who did not want to be named.But it was winter, it was cold and she could not heat her home as December approached.The house appeared unkempt and had signs of disrepair.The shop worker said at this time, Alphonsine visited the store with a swollen face."I was asking, 'are you ok? 'What's happening'? She said the cold is too much," they said.The inquest - which began on Monday at Nottingham Coroner's Court - heard Alphonsine had begun to disengage with housing and social services in 2021, refusing access to her house.
'System is wrong'
It meant inspections did not take place and her gas supply was subsequently capped. When she asked for it to be turned back on, she didn't grant access to her property. Alphonsine and Loraine remained without hot water and heating from 2023.By January 2024, Alphonsine was critically ill having just spent days in hospital with very low iron levels.On 2 February, she told an ambulance call handler she needed help for herself and her daughter."Would you send an ambulance? Please come, please," were the last words she said on the phone before the call ended.The ambulance never came as it had been wrongly labelled as an "abandoned call", and Alphonsine died first - between 2 and 8 February - of pneumonia, leaving Loraine, who relied "entirely" on her mum, to fend for herself.She died weeks later of malnutrition and dehydration.When news of their deaths emerged, the community was left shocked and with questions: How could this happen? How did they not see the signs?"It's so upsetting. She and her daughter were probably in that house undetected for maybe months," the shop worker said."It means there is problem in the community. Everybody is by themselves. Nobody can check [on] each other."I believe someone like that should be more supported. The system is wrong."
Next-door neighbour Deborah Williams described seeing the mother struggling with Loraine at times, who was non-verbal and physically strong for her age.She told the BBC she would overhear Alphonsine helping her with her language skills."You'd hear her mum trying to support her with speaking. It was almost like you could tell that mum was reading baby books and wanting her daughter to copy," she said.Deborah said the pair were good neighbours and recalled last seeing them at the start of 2024.At this point she said the garden was overgrown, there was mould on the windows - which were left ajar in winter - and the back gates were in need of repair.But the "telling signs" went unnoticed among the wider community.
"I live in the area, where it's a not a bad thing to keep yourself to yourself," Deborah said."You do kind of want to be invisible. You don't want any trouble. You don't want to draw attention."It just never really occurred to me that it could be that severe a situation, but those are telling signs that something is not right."In happier times, she described seeing the pair out and about with matching hairstyles. "Mum's deciding that she's going to have a yellow or an orange weave, the daughter's going to have the same one as well," Deborah recalled. She had had two visits from social services enquiring about the whereabouts of the pair and felt the council, as a landlord, had a responsibility to them.Social care staff attempted to visit Alphonsine and Loraine in early 2024 but when it appeared to them the house was empty, they left. The coroner said there were "missed opportunities, particularly by Nottingham City Council social care teams, to escalate concerns" around the pair and to involve police in welfare checks.Deborah added Alphonsine and Loraine's quiet nature - they weren't a nuisance or noisy - meant no action was triggered."That's a sad thing," she said. "The daughter was so reliant on the mum - she wouldn't even know how to get a key and to let herself out."She can't shout, raise an alarm of some sort. They [Loraine] didn't have the functionality to do something like open the front door, because that person, your person was everything. That person was responsible for your life."
When police discovered the pair, there was evidence teenager Loraine had tried to feed herself, the inquest heard.There were two unopened tins of tuna found in the microwave and half-eaten food in the bedroom, including bread and raw pasta.Jamil Ellahi, who owns a barbershop opposite their home, said he felt angry when he found out about their deaths."I felt sad because obviously I'm across the road and used to see her every week or so," he said."I blame myself. I blame everybody who lives round here, because we should have been more of a community and we should look after our neighbours."The ignorance of not talking to [a] neighbour next-door, not knowing the name, that's the problem."Jamil thinks if communities were more sociable, problems would not go under the radar."We're all to blame. You can't just put the finger on one person, or one society, or one group. It's all of us."We all, we all have to take a lesson from this."Additional reporting by Asha PatelIf you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this story, support is available via the BBC Action Line.