For two years the body of three-year-old Abiyah Yasharahyalah lay underground in the back garden of a terraced house in Birmingham.
The little boy was buried by his parents, who believed he would be reincarnated if they followed a ritual while interring the body. Tai and Naiyahmi Yasharahyalah would later claim that in performing the ceremony, they were trying to preserve their son’s soul.
Abiyah died in 2020 following a respiratory infection. This was not the full extent of his poor health. He was in a severely malnourished state and suffered with a list of other problems. Only when his body was exhumed by police in 2022 did the scale of his parents’ neglect emerge.