A young mother has been found guilty of manslaughter after her six-month-old son was ejected from a car due to not being properly secured in his seat.
Morgan Kiely, who was 19 at the time, had been drinking at Clacton beach in Essex with a friend and her infant son Harry on July 13, 2022. However, as the friend drove off, the vehicle flipped onto its roof, and Harry was thrown from his seat through an open window, later succumbing to “unsurvivable” injuries, including a skull fracture.
Now aged 22, Morgan Kiely was convicted of manslaughter by gross negligence today at Chelmsford Crown Court, receiving a two-year suspended sentence following approximately five hours of jury deliberation over two days. Kiely chose not to give evidence during her trial, while a crucial witness claimed it was “highly likely” that Harry’s car seat straps were not done up.
The court was told that Kiely was a passenger in a Ford Focus driven by her friend Stevie Steel when the tragic incident took place, with Harry in a rear seat behind his mother. Steel, hailing from Crayford, Kent, had previously admitted to causing death by careless driving whilst under the influence of alcohol.
Kiely and Steel met up around 3pm and purchased three bottles of Prosecco en route to the beach in Clacton with Harry. They spent several hours on the beach and were briefly joined by Mitchell Bassett, Steel’s ex-partner, reports the Mirror.
Mr Bassett had offered to drive them from the beach after learning about their plans to continue their evening’s drinking.
Judge Robert Jay stated: “Alarm bells should have been ringing in your head at that point. You knew how much Stevie had drunk. You could and should have taken up Mitchell’s offer. A mother should not agree to travel with a drunk driver.”
The court heard that Steel became distracted whilst driving and smashed into a stationary vehicle on Cherry Tree Avenue. The Focus, which was travelling within the 30mph speed limit, overturned and came to rest on its roof.
The two women were left suspended upside down by their seatbelts, whilst six-month-old Harry was thrown from the car through an open window.
Judge Jay remarked: “This was not an accident that was likely to happen. Maybe 99 times out of 100 the car would not have rolled over at this sort of speed and Harry would have survived.”
Harry suffered a devastating skull fracture. Bystanders, including a retired paediatric nurse, raced to help.
Harry received emergency treatment at the scene for over an hour before being rushed to hospital where medical staff battled to save him. He died around 9pm.
During the trial, jurors scrutinised a 999 call from the incident, body-worn camera footage from a responding officer, insights from an expert witness on the child car seat’s mechanics, and evidence presented by Mr Bassett.
Judge Jay solemnly told Kiely: “Harry’s safety was your responsibility. It should have been your primary concern that day.”
The judge acknowledged her neglect on the fateful day as a deviation from her usual attentive care of Harry. “I think that it is obvious to everyone in this courtroom that you were a very good mother to Harry in all respects, and that this was a singleton failure,” Judge Jay remarked.
The court heard that Kiely, aged 22 from Ryde Avenue, Clacton, had ceased working as a carer and is now mother to a four-month-old baby. Benjamin Summers, defending, presented statements to the court painting Kiely as a “devoted and loving mother” to Harry, who was “deeply caring”.
It was revealed that Kiely had taken Harry on journeys to Liverpool and Scotland to meet family during his brief life and had recently resumed her role as a carer. Earlier, the jury had listened to an expert witness discuss the child car seat and its intended use.
The expert posited that while highly improbable, it wasn’t impossible for the seat straps to have been correctly fastened in the vehicle.
Mr Summers declared: “Dreadful, dreadful, dreadful error, it was, but, we say, not making her grossly negligent at the time. We argue it is not as simple as saying the failure to secure a child in a car seat, full stop, is enough.”