Baby died in car crash after being ‘thrown from seat'
Harry Kiely died from injuries sustained on July 13 in 2022, after his mother Morgan Kiely, then 19, had consumed rose wine during an afternoon at Clacton beach.
Chelmsford Crown Court heard that Ms Kiely and her friend Stevie Steel had been 'relaxing in the sunshine' and planned to drive and drop Harry at his grandmother's house before they went to a Wetherspoons pub.
A friend offered to take the women and Harry in his car but Ms Kiely and Ms Steel, both described as 'a bit tipsy', went on to drive themselves.
Ms Kiely, now 22, is accused of manslaughter by gross negligence, which she denies. The court was told that Ms Steel, 23, of Dartford, had previously admitted causing death by dangerous driving by due care while over the prescribed limit.
Prosecutor Mr Alex Stein told jurors that Ms Kiely was the passenger in a car driven by Ms Steel, with Harry in a child seat in the back of the car, sat behind his mother.
Mr Stein claimed: 'That car seat had not been properly strapped in and more significantly he [Harry] had not been strapped into the seat itself properly.'
He detailed that Ms Steel became distracted, hit a parked car and the car rolled and Harry was thrown out of the car through an open window.
Mr Stein added: 'He landed on the tarmac and as a young infant he had no way of protecting himself,' Mr Stein added. 'He suffered a devastating skull fracture. It's a very, very sad case.'
Chelmsford Crown Court heard that Ms Kiely and Harry had been picked up by Ms Steel at around 3pm on July 13.
They went to the beach but stopped via Aldi on their way where they bought three bottles of rose.
'Tipsy and happy' at time of driving
Ms Kiely and Ms Steel were described as being 'just a bit tipsy and happy'. Their plan was that Harry would be at Ms Kiely's mum's home whilst they went to the pub.
At the time of the collision, Harry was in a child seat at the rear of the car with his mum in front of him and Ms Steel driving, there was 'no suggestion' that the car had been speeding.
The car carrying Harry hit the corner of a parked vehicle, ending up on its roof and Harry was 'thrown or fell' out the nearside window.
Chelmsford Crown Court heard Kiely 'loved her child' and there is 'no evidence to suggest that she was anything other than a loving and caring mother'.
Mr Stein added: 'Whatever happened that day she certainly did not mean for it to happen.'
A 999 call made to emergency services after the collision was played to jurors. During this Ms Kiely was said to have been heard saying 'my baby, my baby, is my baby okay'. Emergency services attended but Harry was declared dead at just after 9pm on July 13.
Mr Stein said: 'We will anticipate that she [Kiely] thought she had secured Harry properly.
'No parent would want to admit to themselves that they were the cause of their own child's death, but the evidence we say is quite clear that she failed to look after Harry properly that day.'
Kiely, of Ryde Avenue in Clacton, is accused of manslaughter by gross negligence. She denies the charge. The trial continues.
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"His whereabouts are now unknown. The investigation is continuing."Delrieu later told us there had been "one arrest [of an Iraqi] linked to Sarah's death", but declined to give any further information, citing operational secrecy. We do not believe Jabal has been arrested."As long as it is profitable, they're going to continue," said Marconville, lead prosecutor at the regional Court of Appeal for northern France, agreed: "It's like chess. And they have [the advantage] on the board. So, they're always one step ahead of us." It is a gloomy assessment, backed up by some of our own findings during this investigation, and it shows how difficult it may be for UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to deliver on his promise to "smash the gangs".The UK-French "one-in, one-out" pilot scheme, now in force, will "deliver real results", says Mr Starmer. The deal will see some of those arriving in small boats detained and returned to France. 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We staked it out for three days but lost track of them when they left Sarah's death, and extensive publicity it attracted, the gang changed its name from The Mountain, to Ghali Ghali. It is an unusual Arabic and Kurdish phrase that may perhaps be best translated as "Exclusive". For a time, we heard lots of talk of Ghali Ghali, both online and at the train and bus stations in Calais and beyond. The gang was known to be cheap and relatively reliable. Some people who had failed to cross the Channel with the group said they had been reimbursed promptly. For plenty of migrants, the gangs are seen primarily not as dangerous criminals but as entrepreneurs offering a valuable the gang changed its name twice more - firstly to al-Millah, the nickname of the shadowy third gang leader, and then to Kaka, which means Brother but is also, we believe, another of his nicknames. More recently at least two other names have been many other gangs, who advertise prominently online, particularly on TikTok, using videos of crossings and other scenes, and seeking to appeal to particular ethnic groups, our gang has kept a low profile, working with a wide range of nationalities, particularly from Iraq and Africa, and seeming to rely for business on reputation and word of that reputation has continued to be affected by news of more deaths in the Channel. We discovered at least seven more people - after the initial five on Sarah's boat - had died in two separate incidents while attempting to cross with the land, disturbing evidence of the gang's violence has also emerged. Earlier this year, two sources told us the shadowy figure, al-Millah, was running the gang's operations in the forest near Dunkirk. Independently, our sources both described a scene, one winter's day, when he ordered his small hands to stand in a line, before tying one of them to a tree and beating him severely. It seems the boss suspected the man of stealing is "the leader" a young Somali woman told us, separately, by text. "No [migrants] meet him. They are all family… they are also theifs [sic]."We had met the woman, who gave her name as Luna, at a food distribution point run by local charities outside Dunkirk. She had paid the gang for a crossing, she said, but had waited for two months in the forest camp and been disturbed by the abuse she had her texts, she described how she feared one of al-Millah's henchmen, whom she called "Abdulah"."He put a gun in [sic] my head one night. He is a very dangerous guy he slap me so many times," she wrote - before sharing a brief video she had secretly filmed of on that video, and on other details, we believe this is the same Abdullah our undercover reporter would go on to meet in the forests around Dunkirk.A few days later, on what she said was her 13th attempt, Luna crossed to the UK with a different gang. She has since broken off contact with us. Mobile phone number It was at this point that we stepped up our investigation - trying to engage more directly with the gang and penetrate its its leaders had repeatedly changed phone numbers, we managed to confirm, that one mobile number belonging to al Millah remained in later learned the phone had been handed over to Abdullah, who had apparently taken over the running of operations in weeks ago, we made a strategic visit to Brussels - a common transit point for migrants heading to the coast of northern France. Having already used multiple fake identities to contact Abdullah on his mobile, we now rang him knew it was important to be careful when making such a call. The gang would often ask customers to send a pin to confirm their location, and then to make a video call to back that up and to ensure they were on a street near Brussels' Gare Du Midi, our Arab-speaking colleague, posing as a migrant called "Abu Ahmed", came straight to the point."Hello. Brother, I'm travelling alone. I want to leave quickly, please. Do you have a departure tomorrow, the day after, or this week?""Tomorrow, God willing," Abdullah replied."I prefer to pay in the UK if possible. My money is in a safe place there."This was not an unusual or suspicious request for us to make. Although some people carry cash with them, many others arrange to pay the smugglers through bank transfers or via intermediaries in a range of countries including Turkey, Germany, Belgium and the UK. The money sometimes goes directly to the gang, or it can be held "in trust" to be handed over only after a successful crossing. Birmingham New Street concourse We wanted to expose the gang's links in the UK, having already tracked one member to Wakefield."OK. The price is €1,400," said Abdullah - over £1,200. He seemed in a rush.A few hours later in a text, he sent us a UK mobile phone number and indicated his own name "Abdullah" should be used as a payment reference, along with the single word "Birmingham".Leaving our colleague Abu Ahmed to make his own way to the French coast, we rushed to Birmingham to arrange payment. Handing money over to criminals is not something we do lightly - but in this instance we decided there was a public interest in doing so as it was the only way we could further expose the gang and its wider network.A few hours later, having arranged for a separate BBC colleague, who also speaks Arabic, to pose as one of Abu Ahmed's relatives in the UK and to hand over an envelope containing the cash, we staked out a meeting place in the centre of Birmingham's New Street. Abdullah had given us a UK phone number for his contact, and we arranged to meet the man beside a giant metal sculpture of a colleague stood, silently, as the crowds flowed around him. We sat on benches nearby, scanning each face, waiting to see if someone would show up, or if the gang had become suspicious of our minutes later, and on time, someone showed up."Greetings, brother.""It's all here," said our colleague, holding up the money to show to a bearded man with a glass eye. The man said his name was Bahman, and that he had been sent by his uncle. Bahman appeared relaxed and unsuspecting as the two men briefly chatted in the middle of the busy concourse, as we secretly filmed their encounter."Cash is a problem. I swear, it's a problem," said Bahman, implying that he was not simply a "runner" sent to collect the cash, but someone with at least a passing knowledge of the broader operation. He did not explain why cash was a "problem" but took the money - an agreed payment of £900, about three-quarters of the total smugglers' bill - and boat passengers can deposit money for their crossing in holding accounts in the UK and elsewhere using "hawala" brokers. It is a global honour system, widely used in the Middle East, in particular, that enables the transfer of money via mutually trusted third there is a fee payable to businesses offering such a service. The fact that Bahman did not ask for any extra money strongly suggested he was not simply an agent or middleman, but directly linked to our gang in France. Final downpayment We then travelled back to Dunkirk, where our colleague Abu Ahmed was finally in a credible position to make direct contact with Abdullah in the told us he had received confirmation from Birmingham that most of the money for a crossing had been handed over. We had deliberately left a sum unpaid to give our colleague a good reason to meet Abdullah in his camp, rather than joining the group later as it headed south along the coast to attempt a two undercover security guards watching his back from a distance, Abu Ahmed walked towards the forest, following the directions that Abdullah handed out, one texted detail at a time, until he was told to leave the road and clamber down a steep bank. There, he handed over another €400 (£348) to Abdullah, as agreed, before making his excuses, explaining he was staying with other friends in Calais who were also seeking to cross to England. Two days later, our undercover reporter received confirmation from Abdullah that an attempted crossing would be made early the next morning."We are waiting for you near the main station in Boulogne," Abdullah said in one of several brief voice weather forecast in the Channel was ideal. Hardly a breath of wind. As we had often observed, French police were already positioned outside the bus and train stations in Dunkirk, Calais and Boulogne - the main gathering points for migrants moving to the beaches. But they made no attempt to stop anyone their aim appeared to be to gather information about numbers of people and locations, to help work out where they might later have the best chance of intercepting and destroying the inflatable boats the gangs would, inevitably, head the inflatable boats with knives before they reach the sea has become the police's main method to prevent launches. As a result, the gangs have begun to change tactics. Roughly half all the small boats crossing the Channel are now so-called "taxi-boats" - a police source told us - launched with few or no passengers and in secret. The craft then cruise along the coastline to pick up people waiting in the shallows."Forty-three tickets," said one of the small hands, addressing a bus driver, as he and a crowd of mostly African men and women clustered at the door, alongside our undercover colleague. It was a familiar scene, with different smuggling gangs all arranging for their customers to gather and to travel along the French coastline on public transport towards different launch colleague, Abu Ahmed, initially travelled with the migrants, but - for his own safety - we had agreed he would slip away from the group before nightfall, and before they got close to the beaches. 'Fifteen women. Forty people in all' From a distance, we watched Abdullah walk across a street in Boulogne, having accompanied some of his passengers there from Dunkirk and Calais. He wore black and carried a large backpack. More people arrived, and sat or lay near him, behind some bushes at a bus stop. They waited for several hours, until early evening, before getting on a local bus heading south towards Ecault beach, an area we knew was a favourite launch spot for the seven that evening, with our cameras in plain sight, we were openly following Abdullah and perhaps 40 other people, as they walked down a sandy path through the woods and towards the long straight expanse of Ecault beach. Many in the group hid their faces from us but made no move to discourage us from filming, as they moved, suddenly, away from the path and then sat down in a wooded one person in the group agreed to talk to us. It was Abdullah quiet, halting English, he told us he was an Iranian migrant, that his name was Ahmed, and that this was his second, or possibly third, attempt to Abdullah thought that by telling journalists this story, he was building a useful public alias that he might use later - like others in the gang have done - if he ever sought to claim asylum in the UK. Abruptly, the sound of police radios in the distance brought all conversation to an end. The group of migrants - including many Somalis, some Sudanese, and possibly some Iranian families - sat in total silence for perhaps an two French gendarmes spotted them through the undergrowth and walked, slowly, forwards. The younger officer held a canister of pepper spray in his right hand, and it seemed as if all eyes in the group were fixed on it."Women?" asked the older office in English."Babies?" he continued and walked around the group counting heads. We had heard the police tend to intervene more often when there are babies involved. The officers also checked our team's press cards as we sat nearby."Fifteen women. Forty people in all," the officer concluded, and then, affably enough, he offered a parting, "good luck".A few hours later, as darkness fell, one sombre-looking family left. Their child, a boy of perhaps 10 years old, was coughing heavily. A single policeman remained, leaning on a nearby tree and occasionally shining a torch towards the rest of the group, until about 23:00, when he tension quickly melted away. Grins flashed in the darkness. For all the weariness and the risk, the younger men in the group seemed buoyed by a collective sense of adventure. By 02:00, the last muttered conversations faded away. It was now a cold, silent night, broken only by snores, the occasional yelp of someone dreaming, and the hoot of a single owl. At about 06:30 the following morning, word spread through the group. The police had found whatever boat the gang had prepared for them overnight - we had seen Abdullah disappear into the darkness for at least an hour at one point - and destroyed people stood up, gathered their lifejackets and blankets and, following Abdullah and his team, began to walk back up the path towards the closest bus stop to head back to their camps and wait for another chance to we had another journey to make, and a confrontation. Back to Birmingham We had considered seeing if we could get a reimbursement from Abdullah by claiming that our colleague, Abu Ahmed, had changed his mind about the crossing. Instead, we decided it was more important to try to challenge the gang's UK-based associates. And so, later that same day, our undercover reporter called Abdullah one more Ahmed said his two friends in Calais also wanted to cross, and that he had left Abdullah's group on the bus because he preferred to travel with his friends. Could they pay in Birmingham too? Just like the last time?The next day, we were back at New Street Station again. It was a near identical repeat of our earlier visit there, except this time, when a different unnamed man - also young, and bearded - arrived beside the bull sculpture to collect yet more cash for the smuggling gang, we broke cover and walked straight up to him, our cameras rolling."We're from BBC News. We know you're linked to a people smuggling gang…"The man looked around, momentarily confused, his eyes darting. Then he turned and broke into a frantic sprint, heading to the station exit and across the street beyond before vanishing into the city.A few days later, we called Abdullah and by phone and asked him about his smuggling activities. At first, he denied any wrongdoing. Then offered us money. Then he said he needed to call his boss. Then he hung up. With additional reporting by our unnamed undercover reporters, Kathy Long, Paul Pradier, Marianne Baisnee, and Lea Guedj
