JURORS in the west Cumbria baby death trial have heard descriptions of how the child’s parents reacted when they were arrested.
When a police officer told 31-year-old Reece Martin Kelly he was being arrested on suspicion of murdering his four-month-old son he was heard to say: “Jesus Christ… No, don’t do it. Swear down on my mam’s life.”
The officer’s account of the arrest, carried out at the defendant’s Workington home just after 8am on Friday October 22, 2021, was read aloud to the jury by prosecutor Tim Evans on the second day of the Carlisle Crown Court trial.
Kelly denies murdering his son Dallas, who died on October 19, 2021, four days after the defendant made a 999 call and asked for an ambulance to come to his home.
Prosecutors say he 'violently' shook the baby, causing a traumatic and fatal head injury.
The defendant has admitted manslaughter, accepting that he shook the child 'gently' but he denies murder, saying he had no intention to harm his son. Dallas’s mother Georgia Wright, 23, denies 'causing or allowing' Dallas’s death.
Both parents deny child cruelty.
Reading from the statement of the police officer who arrested Kelly, Mr Evans described how he reacted to being arrested on suspicion of murder. After he was then cautioned, Kelly said: “Oh no. God.”
He appeared to be in shock, said the officer. She told him to sit down, at which point Kelly said: “What you mean? What happened? What? What?”
A second officer made a statement about the arrest of Georgia Wright, arrested on suspicion of causing or allowing her son’s death.
She too appeared shocked, putting her hand on her chest but she was not tearful or distressed. Asked by the officer how she felt, she replied: “Numb."
At the police station, when asked if she needed a solicitor, she replied: “No. I have nothing to hide.”
Mr Evans also read aloud statements from the paramedics who were called to the defendants’ home on October 15, 2021 after Reece Kelly made the 999 call for an ambulance.
The first paramedic said in her statement that the ambulance crew arrived at 12.25pm, two minutes after the call was made because they were already in the area.
As he opened the door to the paramedic, the defendant said “save my baby.”
The paramedic found the baby lying on the floor near to the living room door, with a mobile phone that was being used on speaker phone, which she assumed was connected to an ambulance control room worker.
The paramedic said the crew spent 12 minutes at the scene treating Dallas and it took minutes to transport him to West Cumberland Hospital in Whitehaven for further treatment. During that time, she was performing CPR on the child.
A trainee paramedic who was also with the ambulance crew said Kelly appeared to be 'frantic', shouting that his baby was not breathing.
The trainee paramedic said: “He kept asking me if he was breathing. I tried to reassure him that colleagues were working on him in the ambulance.”
Kelly then told her: “I don’t know what to tell her; you’ve got to get him breathing.”
He was clearly emotional, she said.
Kelly, formerly of Hunday Court, Workington, told the paramedic the child had been suffering from reflux and when he woke up his breathing had been shallow. As he was giving his this information, the police arrived.
One of the police officers, in another statement read to the court, said Kelly was found sitting on the sofa with his head in his hands and he started crying. He told the officer that his son had a hole in the heart.
Asked about what happened that morning, Kelly said he had put his son in his cot and he had, as far as he knew, gone to sleep. He later went upstairs and found Dallas in his cot but not breathing.
He tried to rouse the child, with an up and down shaking motion.
In a defence statement, Kelly said that when he shook Dallas, he held him in front of him, holding his torso under his arms. The statement said: “He shook him for seconds only; he didn’t think it was that hard. He didn’t mean to hurt him.”
Earlier in the trial, the jury heard that both parents used illicit substances, including cocaine, cannabis, and prescription drugs such as gabapentin. Even when his son was in a Newcastle hospital dying, said Mr Littler, Kelly continued using drugs.
Dallas suffered six rib fractures and 'fingertip' bruising to his chest. A Home Office pathologist told the jury those injuries were not consistent with attempt to resuscitate Dallas after he stopped breathing.
The prosecution case against Wright, from Workington, is that she knew the risk involved in leaving Dallas in Kelly's sole care but failed to protect her son.
The trial continues.
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