Parents guilty over death of son, 3, whose body they buried in Birmingham back garden

A couple have been found guilty of causing or allowing the death of their three-year-old son, whose body they buried in a shallow grave in their back garden.

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Tai and Naiyahmi Yasharahyalah, 42 and 43, were also convicted of child cruelty and perverting the course of justice.

Abiyah Yasharahyalah died after a respiratory illness while suffering from fractures, severe malnutrition, rickets, anaemia, stunted growth and severe dental decay.

Jurors were told his parents shunned mainstream society as they set up their own “kingdom”, and were motivated by a belief system including a restrictive vegan diet.

Prosecutors said it would have been obvious Abiyah was in considerable pain and neither parent could explain why they didn’t get help.

The court heard they kept his body in their bed for eight days after he died at the start of the pandemic in early 2020.

They then “embalmed” him and put him in an 80cm-deep grave in their garden in Handsworth, Birmingham. He wasn’t found for more than two years.

“Neither of them is stupid. They were zealous in their beliefs,” prosecutor Jonas Hankin KC told Coventry Crown Court.

He added: “One parent could not have secretly buried Abiyah’s body in the garden without the support of the other. Each played a part in burying Abiyah or agreeing to his being buried.”

Abiyah had six fractures to his arm, legs and ribs, according to examination of his skeletal remains.

However, his exact cause of death could not be identified due to the state of the body.

The couple were arrested on 9 December 2022 while living in a caravan in Glastonbury and Abiyah was finally found five days later.

A two-month trial heard London-born Tai, a medical genetics graduate, had carried out an “eight-day ritual” in the hope his dead son would “come back”.

Defence lawyers argued the couple buried Abiyah in the hope he might be “born again”, rather than to hide the death.

“They genuinely believed they were doing the right thing. They genuinely believed that their diet and the belief in natural and holistic medicines was the best way,” Bernard Tetlow KC told the trial.

The couple are said to have “invented” a belief system featuring aspects of Nigerian Igbo culture that Tai adapted to form a system he called “slick law”.

They told police they had renounced British citizenship and lived an “off-grid” existence – at one point even living in a shipping container.

The court heard officers visited the Birmingham house three times – in February 2018 when Abiyah was alive, in September 2021 after his death, and in March 2022 to help evict the pair.

On the second occasion, Tai became aggressive and was arrested for being disruptive after officers asked if a child lived at the property.

However, a welfare check did not identify Abiyah as being missing due to confusion over records related to the address.

A child safeguarding practice review is ongoing into the case.

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Tai and Naiyahmi Yasharahyalah denied the charges and claimed they thought their son would recover from his poor health.

Despite studying a medical-based degree, Tai also claimed to have been unaware of the risks of a strict unsupplemented vegan diet.

But after 21 hours of deliberations, the jury today unanimously convicted the pair. They will be sentenced next Thursday.

Speaking after the verdicts, Detective Inspector Joe Davenport said Tai was “a very arrogant man, a fantasist, and someone who looked to manipulate people”.

He said Naiyahmi “was incredibly weak-minded” to put her devotion to her husband ahead of her own child.