Cleo Smith: Why ‘damaged’ Terence Kelly remains high-risk as criminologist details kidnapper’s deep issues

The man who snatched a four-year-old girl from her family’s tent in the dead of night and held her captive inside his doll-filled duplex for weeks is a “damaged human” with slim prospects of rehabilitation, according to a leading criminologist.

In 2023, Terence Darrell Kelly was sentenced to more than 13 years in jail after pleading guilty to abducting Cleo Smith from a remote Western Australian campsite and hiding the little girl inside his housing commission home for 18 days until police rescued her.

The 39-year-old, now incarcerated in Perth’s maximum-security Casuarina Prison, must serve at least 11 and a half years of his sentence before he is eligible for release on parole.

Associate Professor Xanthe Mallett said Kelly’s prospects of rehabilitation remained slim given his medical, psychological and behavioural problems.

“Prison is really not set up to deal with the complexity of the case such as Kelly’s,” she said.

“We have to remember that he’s cognitively impaired. He probably has foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) and then there’s all of the other behavioural issues on top of that.

“Many of these things can be managed with some interventions, but some things, like FASD, can’t ever be cured.”

The Nightly is taking a fresh look inside the crimes and minds of Australia’s most recent high-profile criminals.

Kelly is among this new breed of infamous inmates who have been jailed in recent years for offending so shocking it horrified the nation and made headlines around the world.

However, Dr Mallett said that while Kelly’s crimes were extremely serious and have undoubtedly inflicted permanent trauma on Cleo and her family, his circumstances were unusual.

During his 2023 sentencing, District Court Chief Judge Julie Wager revealed Kelly had been exposed to severe and complex childhood trauma, suffered neurological impairment, has medical problems, likely has FASD and used methamphetamines to deal with his emotional pain.

Court-appointed psychiatrists reported Kelly had a severe personality disorder, depression, paranoid schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder and narcissism.

The report author said Kelly developed a fantasy world as a coping mechanism to escape his loneliness and that he longed for his own family, including a little girl who he could “dress up, play with and be with”.

Judge Wager said Kelly’s meth use — coupled with all of the above — had played a “significant role” in his offending.

The court heard Kelly was “off his chops” on methamphetamine when he entered Cleo’s family tent at the Quobba Blowholes campsite in WA’s Gascoyne on the night of October 16, 2021.

He was looking to steal money, when he saw sleeping Cleo, scooped her up instead.

Ellie Smith discovered her daughter missing when she woke at about 6am and called police.

For 18 excruciating days, Ellie and her partner Jake Gliddon did not know if Cleo was still alive.

The preschooler’s disappearance sparked one of the nation’s biggest search operations while detectives and intelligence analysts pored over phone, satellite and CCTV data.

WA Police immediately established Taskforce Rodia, which comprised 140 officers, in the race to find Cleo.

Weeks of meticulous and methodical police work — and the resolute belief Cleo could still be alive — produced the breakthrough her parents, and the country, were praying for.

Just before midnight on November 3, detectives busted into Kelly’s dilapidated duplex — just a few streets from Cleo’s home in Carnarvon — and found her alive, awake and alone inside a locked room, playing with toys on a mattress.

The extraordinary footage of her rescue, captured by police body-worn cameras, was beamed around the world.

Police Commissioner Col Blanch previously said that CCTV of a vehicle and mobile phone data had led police to Kelly and described Cleo’s rescue as the greatest moment in WA Police history.

Dr Mallett, from CQUniversity, recalls waking up to the incredible news.

“I was literally blown away, because everything we knew about stranger abductions told me the likelihood of that girl being found alive was astronomically small,” she said.

“Sadly, if a child is taken by a stranger, we have around three hours to find them before they’re likely to be killed. So to find her 18 days later, I just couldn’t believe it.

“It was quite astonishing and taught me to keep an open mind because fact is always stranger than fiction.”

After his arrest, Kelly participated in a police interview. Parts of the interview were revealed during his sentencing.

The court heard Kelly — an Indigenous man from WA’s Pilbara — initially felt euphoric after abducting Cleo, but guilt over holding her captive soon set in.

Despite this guilt, and his awareness of the police search for Cleo, he kept the vulnerable young girl locked inside his home — making no attempt to return her to her parents — before police identified him as a suspect on November 3.

“I wanted to hold onto her but I knew it was wrong”, he told police.

“I wasn’t planning on keeping her forever, you know?”

In sentencing him to 13 years and six months in prison, Judge Wager said Kelly’s actions were at the “highest level of seriousness” and that Cleo and her family would be “permanently impacted”.

Judge Wager said Cleo’s parents had suffered immeasurable “fear and distress” during the 18 days their daughter was missing.

In a victim impact statement, Cleo’s mother Ellie Smith and stepdad Jake Gliddon described their trauma and having their lives “ripped apart”.

Judge Wager said Kelly lacked concern for others and posed a high risk of reoffending.

Dr Mallett, recently appointed the Co-Director of the Queensland Centre for Domestic and Family Violence Research, echoed the judge’s concerns that Kelly might abduct another child.

“Possibly because he just wouldn’t necessarily realise what he’s doing is so wrong and obviously he’s not going to understand the impact on the victim either,” she said.

“Sadly, whilst taking all of his issues into account, I think … he probably does have a high risk of reoffending, because he’s such a damaged human.”

The criminologist — who has decades of experience in forensic science, criminology and gendered violence — said Kelly would not necessarily understand the gravity or consequences of his actions.

“It’s going to be very difficult for somebody like him to comprehend the impacts of his actions so when it comes to rehabilitation, people have to want to change and recognise the harm they’ve caused,” she said.

“It’s going to be very difficult for him to grasp the harm he’s caused and the longevity of that.”

Dr Mallett says Kelly’s offending was complex and that he does not fit the typical offender profile.

“I don’t think the public like that,” she said.

“I think they want a clear villain. They want it to be black and white.”

Kelly tried to overturn his sentence but the Court of Appeal decided its length was justified due to the seriousness of his offending and the need to protect the public.

“As tragic as the appellant’s background is, the sad fact remains that his risk of reoffending required that the sentence imposed upon him have regard to the sentencing objective of public protection,” the judges’ decision said.

“The appellant poses a well above average risk of reoffending and, should that risk eventuate, there is a high risk he would inflict serious psychological harm on any future victim.”

Kelly will be eligible for parole in 2033.