The small garden at the back of his neat Victorian-terraced home should have been a happy place where little Abiyah Yasharahyalah could go and play. Instead, it was his grave.
This wide-eyed little boy died aged three from a respiratory illness while suffering from bone fractures, severe malnutrition, rickets, anaemia, stunted growth and severe dental decay. His final days would have been spent in agonising pain. But his parents Tai and Naiyahmi Yasharahyalah never even called a doctor.
The injustice didn’t end there. His parents didn’t report his death to the authorities or give him an honourable funeral. They buried him in the back garden of their home in Handsworth, Birmingham and later moved more than 100 miles away, leaving no trace of his tragic little existence. It was only a social worker’s chance discovery on social media that finally led to Abiyah’s skeletal remains being found some two years later.
Last week, after an eight-week trial at Coventry Crown Court, Tai Yasharahyalah, 42, and Naiyahmi Yasharahyalah, 43, were found guilty of causing his death. They were convicted of child cruelty for failing to provide adequate nourishment or summon medical care and perverting the course of justice.
During a sentencing hearing at Coventry Crown Court today, Tai was handed a sentence of 24-and-a-half years and Naiyahmi was jailed for 19-and-a-half years. The prosecution had previously said: “It was an act of breathtaking arrogance and cruelty.”
While the crime itself is horrific, the full story of why it happened – and how easily it could have been prevented – is all the more chilling. The wide-eyed little boy from photographs had everything he needed for a good start in life – a mid-size home in a thriving community, a mum who was with him 24/7 and a father who was a medical genetics student with a big future ahead of him.
But, during the trial, the court heard how it was becoming a father that sent Mr Yasharahyalah on a fateful path. He claimed he was so desperate to protect his family that he became obsessed with internet conspiracy theories and eventually decided they needed to turn their back on modern Western medicine and cut themselves off from the world.
His wife created their own ‘Kingdom of Yasharahyalah’, renounced their citizenship, adopted a strict vegan diet and decided to rely only on natural remedies. They even put a sign outside their home declaring themselves separate from the UK and saying they did not respect the authority of local officials.
The court heard how this all meant that when three-year-old Abiyah fell ill with the symptoms of a cold sometime around December 2019 and January 2020, the couple didn’t take him to the doctor for what could have been a simple treatment but decided to treat the toddler with raw garlic and “various other pastes”.
It did little to help and Abiyah died at some point between January 2020 and when the couple were evicted from the property in March 2020. During the trial, Prosecutor Jonas Hankin KC told the court it would have been clear to both defendants that Abiyah was in considerable pain before his death, especially as his remains had revealed five broken bones in his little body.
“They had control over their own lives, they were responsible for their actions. At any time they could have made different decisions or reversed decisions whose consequences were obviously detrimental,” he said. “Consider how easy it would have been to seek medical assistance.”
In reference to Abiyah’s broken bones, Mr Hankin added: “He must have been in very considerable pain from the moment the injury was sustained and thereafter for several weeks. Neither defendant was able to explain satisfactorily why the emergency services were not called.
“Neither of them is stupid. They were zealous in their beliefs.” During the trial Abiyah’s father claimed to now regret his decision to reject modern health care – saying he now believed he had been foolish to believe internet theories.
“I am completely ashamed”, he told the jury. “I felt overly protective. I thought I was doing the best for myself and my family.” Police and the prosecution had meanwhile painted a picture of Abiyah’s mum being somewhat under the spell of her husband and his ideologies. She had even been heard to claim “nature has a way of doing things”.
“She completely subscribed to his belief system,” Investigating officer Det Insp Joe Davenport told the court. “She said that she knew he was the love of her life the moment she met him. She has followed him willingly and has gone along with his ideology to the detriment of her own health and the health of her child.”
Bernard Tetlow KC, representing the boy’s father, however argued that the couple had honestly believed they were acting in Abiyah’s best interests. He said: “Tai and Naiyahmi were not saying to themselves ‘we realise our diet, we realise our healthcare is bad for us, but we are going to do it anyway’.
“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.” It was a sentiment echoed by his mother’s lawyers.
However, as Abiyah took his difficult last breaths, ravaged with disease and in pain from the broken bones, the parents did not ring 999. And when it was clear he had passed away, neither did they contact the authorities. Instead, The court heard they believed he would be reincarnated if they followed a certain burial ritual.
The boy’s father told the court that in his Igbo culture, it was believed every person had a physical and spiritual form, the latter of which could be saved. They feared bringing strangers into their home could scare off his spirit. So instead, they lit a paraffin lamp to act as a beacon, in case his spirit wished to return to his body. After eight days, they embalmed his body and buried him in the garden in an 80cm-deep grave.
After being evicted that March, the couple later moved to a caravan in Somerset and had another child. It was there that a visiting social worker began to sense there was something the pair were hiding. The social worker was alarmed by their squalid conditions. Pictures seen by the court showed the caravan cramped and dirty, and they used buckets for toilets.
The social worker then decided to check the pair’s social media accounts, and discovered a video from 2016 in which the father could be heard referring to a child called Abiyah. They then found images and videos from 2018, including pictures of Tai Yasharahyalah with a young child, which had captions including “like father like son”.
They then questioned Abiyah’s father, who claimed the child living with them was in fact Abiyah reincarnated, and that Abiyah was dead “in a physical sense”. It was those words on December 8 2022, that would change everything. The couple were arrested and police later found Abiyah’s remains at their former Birmingham home.
It was the help from the authorities that Abiyah could desperately have done with when he was alive. For then that garden would have held many happy memories – instead of becoming the unmarked resting place of a child let down by those who claimed they loved him. Today, there is some justice. His parents will now begin their sentences.
