A man who admitted abducting a four-year-old girl from a remote campsite in Western Australia and holding her for 18 days during a massive police search has been sentenced to 13 years and 6 months in prison.
Terence Kelly, 37, pleaded guilty to abducting Cleo Smith from the tent she was sharing with her family in the early hours of October 16, 2021, and was sentenced Wednesday in Perth’s District Court. Cleo’s disappearance triggered a police hunt that covered several square kilometers around the site and was later extended nationwide, as the state government offered a reward of one million Australian dollars for information leading to her location.
Chief Judge Julie Wager said Kelly’s actions were at the “highest level of seriousness.” “This isn’t a case of luring a child away … but the taking of a little four-year-old girl from the zipped-up family tent in the middle of the night when her parents assumed she was safe is even more concerning,” she said. The court heard Kelly was aware of the huge police search for Cleo, but went about his “usual business,” regularly leaving the child alone in a room that locked from the outside.
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