Workington baby killer Reece Kelly has had extra time tacked on to his life sentence minimum term for possessing indecent images of children aged as young as four or five.
Late last year, 31-year-old Kelly was convicted of murdering his four-month-old baby son Dallas, and of child neglect amid a chaotic, drug-fuelled lifestyle.
A jury at Carlisle Crown Court found him unanimously guilty after hearing that Dallas had been shaken violently while Kelly was alone with the tot and his mum was at work.
Dallas sustained catastrophic injuries, was in cardiac arrest when paramedics arrived at the family’s home on October 15 2021, and died in hospital four days later.
Kelly, previously of Hunday Court, Workington, admitted manslaughter but denied he intended to cause his young son really serious harm.
However, jurors dismissed his denial after hearing that Dallas’s injuries were consistent with a multi-storey building fall or a fatal road crash. He died from a traumatic brain injury and had also sustained eye and spinal bleeds, along with fingertip bruising behind his chest.
During Kelly’s crown court trial, he was dubbed a monster by the baby’s mother, who learned only on day one of the trial that her former partner was admitting responsibility for their son’s death.
Kelly was handed a mandatory life sentence and ordered to serve a minimum of 18 years behind bars before being eligible for parole.
But he was swiftly brought back to court after it emerged he had committed other, separate offences.
“His phone was seized on his arrest,” Tim Evans, prosecuting, told the crown court today. “Examination and analysis of that phone featured in detail in the murder trial.
“There were numerous messages to do with the organisation and delivery of non-prescription class C drugs. These were the basis of child cruelty matters and, indeed, some of the difficulties withdrawing from the drugs leading to the offences of violence he committed against his child.”
But analysis of Kelly’s handset also revealed the presence of deeply disturbing sexual abuse images involving young girls, some aged just four or five.
Twenty-nine illegal still downloaded pictures were classed in category A, the most serious bracket, showing penetrative sexual activity between adults and females. There were four images classed in category B and 136 in category C.
When initially brought to court, Kelly pleaded not guilty to wrongdoing and claimed someone else had been using the handset. His trial had been due to take place this week.
But this morning, appearing remotely over a prison video link from HMP Frankland, Kelly admitted three counts of making indecent photographs of children between September 16 and October 22 2021.
Of Kelly’s phone, Mr Evans said: “It was in his possession throughout the period of time covered by the murder indictment, the cruelty indictment and this offending; these images.”
Defence solicitor Tariq Khawam said the mitigation available to Kelly was limited. “He has pleaded guilty,” said Mr Khawam. “Other phones were seized from the defendant. Nothing of this nature was located on those phones.”
Judge Nicholas Barker concluded that the High Court judge who had originally sentenced Kelly for murder and cruelty would have treated the indecent image offences as an aggravated feature.
Judge Barker imposed a 10-month prison term for the latest offences.
“That sentence will be served consecutively to the minimum term which was passed in your life sentence,” he told Kelly.
Judge Barker also ordered that Kelly should be permanently deprived of the phone on which illegal images were found.
