Cleo Smith’s kidnapper Terence Kelly set to face trial for allegedly attacking a police officer

The man who kidnapped Cleo Smith during her family’s camping trip near Carnarvon will face trial for allegedly attacking a police officer in the abduction’s aftermath in February. Terence Kelly will take to the stand on February 13 to defend allegations he attacked a police officer shortly after being taken into custody for abducting the young girl. It is understood the charge stems from violent behaviour that erupted while Kelly was being held in a cell in Carnarvon after Cleo’s dramatic rescue. Over the short period between his arrest and the alleged assault, Kelly was hospitalised twice after he tried to hurt himself by banging his head on the wall. He pleaded not guilty to the assault in the Carnarvon Magistrates Court in April. Kelly is due to be sentenced for the abduction of Cleo over two days in December by Chief Judge Julie Wager. Over those two days, the full scale of Kelly’s crimes will likely be revealed — including his actions in the days leading up to Cleo’s kidnapping, his movements on the night and how long he was in the Blowholes campsite before abducting her. Kelly has been locked up since his arrest in November last year, first at the Carnarvon watch house and then at Casuarina Prison — in one of the maximum-security jail’s most secure cells — where he arrived in the days after Cleo was reunited with her mother Ellie and stepfather Jake Gliddon. Cleo was found 18 days after she vanished from the Blowholes campsite on October 16 following a major police investigation that led detectives to Kelly’s Tonkin Crescent home. Police forced entry into the property in the early hours of November 3, where they found the little girl alone in a room. The dramatic rescue, as well as the little girl’s now famous words — “My name is Cleo” — was captured by detectives’ body-worn cameras. When Kelly is sentenced in December, what he did while he held Cleo in his home and the impact it had on the four-year-old over the 18-day period will also be considered.