Paramedic: “No signs of life whatsoever”

Wednesday 16 March 2016

The first paramedic who looked after Morgan Huelin as he lay on a roadside said there were “no signs of life whatsoever” when he arrived at the early morning scene last July.

Andrew Langlois was giving evidence before Jersey’s Youth Court on the second day of the trial of five teenagers who all deny perverting the course of justice over Morgan’s death.

The core of the prosecution’s case is that the five moved Morgan’s body from a nearby house so that the police wouldn’t find a stash of drugs on the property. The prosecution’s side of the case is expected to conclude today, leaving the defence to start their evidence.

It is not yet clear whether the defendants will take the stand.

Detective Constable Paul Lovesey, who took an initial statement from one of the defendants who turned up at the police station voluntarily to give evidence, also gave evidence yesterday.

He said that he was told by a senior officer before he interviewed the suspect that “if he mentions anything about moving the body, then nick him”.

Mr Langlois, the paramedic who was in the first ambulance to arrive on the scene, described finding Morgan lying by the side of the road, not breathing.

He said: “There was something wrong about it, the whole thing. We were expecting to go to someone convulsing or fitting, when we arrived it wasn’t what I expected. It didn’t appear to be someone who had had a fit.

“We wanted the Police to attend as we weren’t comfortable with what was going on.”

He went on to describe speaking to three of the five defendants, who said they ‘thought his name was Morgan’.”  

He also said there was a black rucksack and a mobile phone lying next to Morgan – his evidence followed that of a passer-by who said she found two of the defendants standing over Morgan’s body, but they hadn’t called an ambulance, and appeared “unsure what to do”.

In total, Morgan was treated by four paramedics – statements from two of the others were read out in Court, and they described their efforts to revive him, which continued in the ambulance on the way to the Hospital.

They also reported noticing four cigarette burns on his forearm.

Later, the Youth Court heard from police crime scene investigator Graham Dryland who said that he had taken blood and mucus samples from the garage where Morgan spent the night. He also confirmed that a bong that was presented to the court had been found in the house where they had stayed.

A series of text messages between one defendant and a friend was also read out to the court, in which the defendant wrote that once Morgan had got back to the house “he drank an entire bottle of codeine and used a bong”, and then said that in the morning “we all had to carry Morgan out on to the road because he was barely breathing”.

Because the Court proceedings have been opened, nothing that might lead to the identification of the defendants can be reported.

The case continues.