Stranger charged with Cleo abduction
A 36-YEAR-OLD stranger has been charged with abducting four-yearold Cleo Smith from a camping tent in Australia more than two weeks ago.
Police charged Terry Kelly, a local resident, with forcibly taking a child among other offences, a statement said.
Kelly appeared briefly in court in the town of Carnarvon, Western Australia, where a magistrate refused to release him on bail.
Police visited Cleo’s family in Carnarvon as they prepared to gather crucial witness evidence involving Kelly, who is suspected of snatching her from a campground north of the west coast town of 5,000 people on October 16.
“I can only see her on the outside, but from that point of view, I’m amazed she seems so well-adjusted and happy, and it was really ... heartwarming to see she’s still bubbly and she’s laughing,” Detective Senior Sergeant Cameron Blaine said.
“I’m sure that it has had an impact, but just to see her behaving quite naturally like a four-year-old girl should do and just enjoying being in the presence of her little sister and her family was good,” he added.
Mr Blaine was part of a four-member police team that used a battering ram to smash into a locked house early on Wednesday and rescue Cleo. Kelly was arrested in a nearby street at about the same time, police said.
Detective Superintendent Rod Wilde, who heads the police investigation, said specialist child interviewers had travelled to Carnarvon from the state capital Perth, 900 kilometres (560 miles) to the south.
“The main concern around that is Cleo’s welfare,” Mr Wilde said of the interview.
“We have experienced people that will undertake that and it’ll take as long as it takes,” he added.
Police would not comment on whether Cleo was interviewed before Kelly was charged.
Media have reported Kelly raised suspicion among other residents when he was seen buying nappies and was known to have no children, but police have disclosed little information about what made him a suspect.
“It wasn’t a random tip or a clairvoyant or any of the sort of things that you might hear,” police minister Paul Papalia said.
“It was just a hard police grind.”
Kelly was taken from police detention to a hospital late on Wednesday and again on Thursday, with what media reported were self-inflicted injuries.
A police statement said Kelly’s “medical matter does not relate to any police involvement with him”.
Wednesday was the first full night Cleo spent at home with her mother, Ellie Smith, stepfather Jake Gliddon and her baby half-sister Isla Gliddon since the family’s ordeal began.
As they slept, public buildings in Perth were illuminated with blue lights to celebrate the success of the police investigation.
In Carnarvon, balloons were raised on buildings and signs were posted welcoming Cleo home.
Western Australia premier Mark Mcgowan also visited the family on Thursday and commented on how “well-adjusted” the child and her parents seemed.
“She’s bubbly, playing, friendly, sweet. She was eating an icy pole, she spilt it every way. She told me it was very, very sticky, which I believed, and she was just delightful,” he said.