A man who murdered his four-month-old son has been jailed for life.
His partner, Georgia Wright, also from Workington, was convicted of two counts of child cruelty.
In October 2021, Kelly rang an ambulance saying the couple’s son Dallas wasn’t breathing.
Paramedics attended and baby Dallas was taken to hospital but couldn’t be saved.
Kelly denied any involvement in his son’s death throughout the investigation and up to the first day of trial, when he admitted he had shaken Dallas, but claimed he hadn’t meant to cause him serious injury or death.
The pathologist determined that the cause of death was a non-accidental traumatic head injury. Fingertip bruising was present, consistent with gripping or squeezing.
Dallas was also found to have six rib fractures, five of those fractures were found to have occurred around the time of Dallas’s death. The other fracture was older – around six to 12 weeks prior to Dallas’s death.
Kelly and Wright would have been aware of the previous rib fracture and yet took no action to seek treatment for Dallas.
The Crown Prosecution Service said: “As parents, they both failed; Dallas missed medical appointments, and was exposed to their drugs, which clearly took priority in their lives.”
Detective Superintendent Jenny Beattie, of Cumbria police, led the case.
She said: “I really do want to praise my team for their determination and work throughout this distressing investigation.
“No-one wants to believe that someone is capable of causing harm to a baby and in this case this helpless little baby’s father was the person responsible for causing his death.
“It was our job as the investigation team to get the truth for Dallas and find exactly who was responsible for causing his death and bring justice, which we did in collaboration with CPS and prosecuting KC.
“One of the main lines of enquiry was to interview the Dallas’ mother and father. They were interviewed multiple times and Reece Kelly specifically lied even when presented with nationally accredited expert medical evidence which stated that he had caused significant harm to his child.
“But he continued to deny being involved and causing any harm to Dallas whatsoever and throughout the investigation they both lied to police and other about their chaotic lifestyles and how they weren’t caring for their son as any responsible parent should.
“Some of the evidence my team had to work through was distressing and included videos of Dallas being left unsupervised in his bedroom.
“Everybody knows that medical and health advice is for a child of that age to sleep in the same room as their parents, but these two chose to actually sleep downstairs away from the baby.
“Their style of parenting was to watch him on a baby monitor rather than engage with him.
“There were videos we uncovered where Dallas was seen in a distressed state and instead of going to comfort him he was left.
“There was another video where Dallas was left and the end credits of a film were left repeating for over 50 minutes and that was heard on over 60 occasions.
“Myself and my team have watched that video and it is extremely distressing. We would describe it as torturous.
“The constabulary is really strong at providing internal and external support for officers and staff in any distressing case or investigation that has an impact.
“But more than anything else it was about getting the truth for Dallas. Dallas can’t speak for himself, there wasn’t a voice for him, and we felt like it was our duty to get the truth about what had happened and get justice.
“Everyone on the team was heavily invested in this case.
“The jury themselves saw through the lies of Reece Kelly and Georgia Wright and despite having to sit through distressing evidence they were able to see through those lives and convict them of the offences.”
