UPDATED WITH SENTENCE: Couple convicted of causing death of son and burying his remains in garden

This press release was originally published on 05 December 2024.

Update: On 12 December 2024, Tai-Zamarai Yasharahyalah, 42, was jailed for 24 years and 6 months. Naiyahmi Yasharahyalah, 43, was jailed for 19 years and 6 months.

The parents of a four-year-old boy whose skeletal remains were found buried in a garden in Handsworth have been convicted of causing his death.

Tai-Zamarai Yasharahyalah, 42, and Naiyahmi Yasharahyalah, 43, both of Morland Road, Glastonbury were found guilty today (5 December 2024) at Coventry Crown Court of multiple charges including child cruelty, causing or allowing the death of a child, and attempting to pervert the course of justice.

In December 2022, police discovered the remains of Abiyah Yasharahyalah in the garden of the family’s former home in Handsworth. Forensic evidence revealed that Abiyah, who died in 2020, had suffered severe cruelty and neglect.

The court heard that the couple had prioritised their cultural beliefs, including strict dietary practices and a rejection of conventional medicine, over the welfare of their child with disastrous consequences for Abiyah. When his body was exhumed, he was found to have suffered severe malnutrition, rickets, anaemia, stunted growth, bone malformation and deformity, bone fractures, pseudoarthrosis, severe dental decay and infection and poor immunity.

The defendants denied causing or allowing Abiyah to die and claimed that their conduct throughout was in accordance with their cultural beliefs. However, the Crown Prosecution Service proved in court that the couple, both separately and together, neglected Abiyah by failing to provide him with adequate food and medical care.

Photographs of Abiyah taken between July and September 2019 showed that he had swollen wrists, knees and ankles with an unusually prominent forehead which supported a diagnosis of severe vitamin D deficiency. The length of his thigh bone was also much smaller at 131mm and was equivalent to that of a 14-month-old child. There was also evidence of five bone fractures which occurred around three to seven weeks before his death.

James Leslie Francis, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “Abiyah’s parents deliberately and wilfully neglected him by restricting him to a strict vegan diet and showing a callous disregard for his health and wellbeing. While they were free to behave in a way that damaged their own health, they owed him a duty of care and their actions led to his premature death.

“Afterwards, they buried his body to hide their crime, without notifying the authorities. If his malnutrition and health issues had been treated, it is highly unlikely that he would have died suddenly and unexpectedly at his age.

“Working closely with medical professionals and our partners in the criminal justice system, we were able to prove the full extent of their neglect and today, justice has been achieved.”