Stranger is charged with abduction of Cleo, four
A36-YEAR-OLD stranger was yesterday charged with abducting four-year-old 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 police 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 coastal 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 that she seems to be so welladjusted and happy, and it was really heartwarming to see that 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.
The lights were on and she was alone playing with toys in a house less than a ten-minute drive from her family home, police said.
“My name is Cleo,” the smiling girl told the police officers who rescued her and asked her name as confirmation that they had found the right child. Kelly was arrested in a nearby street at around the same time, police said.
Detective Superintendent Rod Wilde, who is heading the police investigation, said specialist child interviewers had travelled to Carnarvon from the state capital, Perth.
“The main concern around that is Cleo’s welfare,” he said. “We have experienced people that will undertake that, and it’ll take as long as it takes. We’ll sit down with the family and work out the appropriate time.”
Media reports have said that 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 the man a suspect.
“It wasn’t a random tip or a clairvoyant or any of the sort of things that you might hear,” Western Australia’s 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 yesterday, with what media reported were self-inflicted injuries. Asked about reports claiming Kelly was injured after banging his head against a cell wall, Western Australia Police Deputy Commissioner Col Blanch only replied that there were “no serious injuries”.
A police statement said Kelly’s “medical matter does not relate to any police involvement with him”.
Mr Wilde said Kelly had since returned to the police station and was “speaking to officers”.
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’s Premier, Mark McGowan, visited the family yesterday. “She’s bubbly, playing, friendly, sweet,” he said after his visit. “She was just delightful.”