A couple convicted of causing the death of their three-year-old son after his severely malnourished body was found buried in their back garden have been jailed for 44 years in total.
Tai, 42, and Naiyahmi Yasharahyalah, 43, were on Thursday, December 12, handed lengthy jail terms for what prosecutors described as a case of “breathtaking” neglect.
Their son, Abiyah Yasharahyalah died in early 2020 from a respiratory illness. He had been restricted to an extreme vegan diet and suffered from a list of other problems including rickets, anaemia and stunted growth.
Jurors at Coventry Crown Court heard the couple shunned mainstream society and lived “off grid”, creating their own bespoke belief system drawing on various elements from New Age mysticism and West African religion.
London-born Tai, a medical genetics graduate who also used the first name Tai-Zamarai, and former shop worker Naiyahmi tried to treat their son’s final illness with garlic and ginger instead of contacting the NHS.
The pair, whose diet largely consisted of nuts, raisins and soya milk, were both “extremely thin” when they were arrested on December 9, 2022, leading to the discovery of their son’s body five days later.
They denied the charges against them, telling the court they did not act willfully and believed Abiyah would recover from a flu-like condition.
Jurors unanimously convicted them after hearing how they kept the body of Abiyah in their bed for eight days, before ‘embalming’ and burying the toddler in an 80cm-deep grave at the back of their then-home in Clarence Road, Handsworth.
Tai was jailed for 24 and a half years, while Naiyahmi was given a 19 and a half year sentence.
The judge, Justice Wall told them: “Abiyah died as a result of your willful neglect of him. He was severely stunted in his growth – at almost four years of age he was buried in the clothes of an 18-month-old.
“I accept that there was no deliberate infliction of physical injury by either of you.
“It is difficult to imagine a worse case of neglect than that which the court has encountered in this case.”
Although the couple had enjoyed the benefits of the NHS during the first 30 years of their own lives, the judge said, they had denied Abiyah this advantage “for misplaced ideological reasons.
“I am sure each of you played a part in starving him and failing to get medical care for him when the need for it was obvious to you.”
Former fitness instructor Tai told police in an interview that he had carried out an ‘eight-day ritual’ hoping that Abiyah would come back.
Speaking further, he said he eventually decided to conduct a burial in accordance with his culture on what he regarded as sacred ground.
The pair said they were living in a “kingdom” set up by Tai, which involved an unsupplemented vegan diet and adherence to a slick law legal framework he had invented.
Jurors heard they married in 2015 and changed their names from Donald Nnah and Donna Graham after forming what they viewed as their own religion.
A post-mortem examination of Abiyah’s skeletal remains and other tests failed to identify how he died, but suggested he was also suffering from severe dental decay and six fractures to his right arm, legs and ribs, possibly caused by a fall about six weeks before his death.
The couple were arrested in December 2022 while living in a caravan in Glastonbury, Somerset, having previously spent time living in a shipping container.
Police visited the property three times: in February 2018 when Abiyah was alive, also in September 2021 after his death, and then in March 2022 to assist in the couple’s removal for non-payment of rent.
Opening the case for the Crown at the start of the trial, prosecutor Jonas Hankin KC claimed the couple had jointly neglected Abiyah by failing to provide him with enough food or any medical help.
During his closing speech to jurors, Mr. Hankin alleged it would have been obvious to both defendants that Abiyah, whose teeth would have been wobbly, was in considerable pain from abscesses and other ailments.
Referring to a comment made by Abiyah’s mother that “nature has a way of doing things,” Mr. Hankin told the court: “That is their attitude, ‘we’re right and nature will decide’. It is breathtaking arrogance and cruelty.”
The severe malnutrition suffered by Abiyah was a rare case in the UK, the barrister said. With the defendants having “for reasons best known to themselves” driven themselves and their son into conditions more commonly seen in the developing world.
Linda Ikeji
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