Defendant: “We tried to call ambulance for Morgan but couldn’t get through”

Wednesday 16 March 2016

One of the five teens facing a trial for perverting the course of justice over events surrounding the death of 16-year-old Morgan Huelin last July has told the court that they tried to call an ambulance but could not get through.

The defendant – who cannot be named – told police in an interview on the evening after Morgan had died that they couldn’t get through to the emergency services.

Five teens all deny perverting the course of justice in relation to what they did after Morgan was found unconscious in a garage after a party – the Crown’s case is that they carried him down the road to avoid getting in trouble over drugs that were in the house.

On day two of the trial, a transcript of the interview was read out to the court, and revealed that one of the boys had told detectives that they had tried and failed to call 999 as they were carrying Morgan out of the garage.

In the interview, the defendant stated: “I woke up and [the first defendant] was shouting at me to get up and get downstairs. He sounded really panicked so obviously it was serious so I didn’t have time to put clothes on.

“I was the last to get outside and by that time they had already decided that they needed to take him out in the road and get away from all the drug-related things that they had.

Morgan was already in the recovery position, I think he was placed in that by [another defendant].

“I was being told that we would need to carry him into the road, because he didn’t want drugs to be found in the house.

“I didn’t know what to do. They seemed to know what they were doing. I thought that was the only thing that I could do at the time.

“Once we started carrying him out into the road we placed him down about 50 yards down the road.

“[The first defendant] tried to call on [another defendant’s] phone but he did not know the password and he used the emergency number thing and dialled 999 and he was showing me, like it wasn’t working, saying ‘what do I do?’. He was pressing the buttons and it didn’t even go to a call it just stayed on the screen.”

During the interview – carried out with his father present between 11.06 pm and 11.47 pm on the evening after the morning that Morgan died – the boy described Morgan as “quite a quiet boy” who he had never had a conversation with.

He went on to describe how Morgan had apparently been heavily intoxicated after a birthday party nearby before walking with the group back to a nearby house where they had arranged to stay the night. He said that Morgan had taken drugs once he got to the house.

During the interview, he said: “He was sort of like a zombie. He didn’t really talk much. He was just slow to move. He was… I think [another defendant] had to help hold him up and things like that to walk him home.

“He was doing drugs in the garage.

“I did see him drinking something, it looked like a medicine bottle. I heard a loud crashing noise so I presumed he might have pushed something over or fell or something.”