Olivia Burke
Warning: This article contains descriptions of child death that some readers may find upsetting
A young mum has been found guilty of manslaughter after her baby was flung from a car when she failed to strap him into his car seat properly.
Morgan Kiely's six-month-old son Harry suffered 'unsurvivable' injuries when the Ford Focus driven by her friend struck a parked car, rolled over and ended up on its roof.
The former carer, who was 19 at the time, had visited a beach in Clacton, Essex, with her baby and her pal Stevie Steel when horror struck on 13 July, 2022.
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Chelmsford Crown Court heard how the women had taken three bottles of prosecco with them for their trip to the seaside, which they consumed over several hours.
After deciding to leave, Kiely put Harry into his car seat in the rear of the vehicle before climbing into the front passenger seat, while Steel drove.
As the pair made their way to a relative's house intending to drop the tot off before heading out to continue drinking, the Ford Focus hit a parked car.
The court heard how Steel, who was travelling within the 30mph speed limit, was 'distracted' before the collision, which left her car on its roof.
Both the driver and Kiely were left suspended upside down by their seatbelts, while Harry was tragically thrown from his seat through an open window.
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Members of the public who heard the crash, including a retired paediatric nurse, rushed over to help.
Harry had sustained a horrific skull fracture and was treated at the scene for more than an hour, before being rushed to hospital where medics continued resuscitation efforts.
Sadly, he was later pronounced dead at 9pm that evening.
Judge Robert Jay told Kiley in court: "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."
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Kiely, now 22, was convicted of manslaughter by gross negligence on Friday (July 25) by a jury at Chelmsford Crown Court. The mum was given a two-year suspended jail sentence.
Steel, of Crayford, Kent, previously admitted to causing death by careless driving while over the drink drive limit.
An expert witness at the trial told jurors it was 'highly likely' that the straps of Harry's car seat had not been correctly secured before Steel set off from the beach.
Kiely's former partner, Mitchell Bassett, had briefly joined them on the sand on that fateful evening and had offered to give them a lift home, the court heard.
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"Alarm bells should have been ringing in your head at that point," Judge Jay told Kiely. "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. Harry’s safety was your responsibility. It should have been your primary concern that day."
A 999 call made after the accident and bodycam footage recorded by a responding police officer were both played in the courtroom during the trial.
Sentencing Kiely, the judge told her: "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."
In the wake of Harry's death, the court was told that the mum gave up her job as a carer and now has a four-month-old baby.
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In court, Kiely's solicitor Benjamin Summers described her as a 'devoted and loving mother' who was 'deeply caring'.
"Dreadful, dreadful, dreadful error, it was, but, we say, not making her grossly negligent at the time," he said. "We say it is not as simple as saying the failure to secure a child in a car seat, full stop, is enough."
Prosecutor Alex Stein said there was 'no evidence to suggest that she was anything other than a loving and caring mother' and that Kiely 'loved her child'.
"Whatever happened that day, she certainly did not mean for it to happen," he added.