Fairy Meadow: Kane Kelly, 29, admits to 2014 New Year’s Day beach rape
A Illawarra man - known for six years as ‘Profile A’ - has admitted to the brutal rape of a young woman on a Wollongong beach and other vicious attacks after police found his DNA on an item he threw away.
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An Illawarra man - who for six years had been known as ‘Profile A’ - has admitted guilt to a violent rape and a number of vicious attacks after police found him using DNA technology.
Kane Dalton Kelly, 29, faced Wollongong Local Court on Wednesday, where he pleaded guilty to four counts of commit act of indecency with person over 16, three counts of sexual intercourse without consent and assault with act of indecency, after a spate of indecent and sexual attacks on multiple women between 2012 and 2014.
Police finally charged Kelly in September, after police obtained a covert sample of his DNA in July from an item he left behind in a public place, which matched him to the 2014 rape.
A set of agreed police facts tendered to the court on Wednesday revealed Kelly targeted five random women who were isolated or alone between 2012 and 2014, and more often than not, attacked them from behind.
On Wednesday, Kelly admitted the spate of attacks began on February 1, 2012, when he followed a young woman who was running along Kenny Street in Wollongong. He followed her while riding on his pushbikes, before he exposed his genitals and started touching himself while looking at her.
The second attack occurred just days later on February 5, a few hundred metres from where the first incident took place.
A then 22-year-old woman was walking along a deserted Ellen Street about 10pm, when a man pushing a bike snuck up behind her and grabbed her. After grabbing her Kelly committed an indecent act, before the woman was able to break free.
The woman’s pants were forensically analysed by police following this incident, which returned a profile of an unknown man, dubbed ‘Profile A’.
Just under a month later, police allege Kelly attacked three women in a 45-minute window, this time on Northfields Ave near the University of Wollongong.
Between 5.45pm and 6.30pm on March 1, he exposed himself and acted indecently towards the women on separate occasions, before fleeing on a bicycle.
One of the women notified a uni security officer about the incident, who followed Kelly until he was apprehended by police.
Once arrested, police found Kelly, who was riding a pushbike at the time, in possession of a backpack, which allegedly contained a balaclava a pair of large framed black sunglasses.
Each of the women who reported the indecent acts on March 1 were shown “computerised identification presentations” of Kelly, but did not identify him. He was released without charge and the matters were suspended.
However, Kelly attacked again just under two years later on January 1, 2014, when he left a 22-year-old woman fearing for her life after a violent rape.
Court documents revealed the woman was walking along Fairy Meadow Beach around 2.30am, when Kelly approached her from behind, and pushed his forearm against her throat.
At the time, the woman told police she couldn’t breath and kept saying “don’t kill me, what do you want,” to Kelly, before he allegedly said “I just want sex.”
Kelly then dragged the woman into the sand dunes, before he ordered her to take off her clothes, and commenced a vicious rape for at least 30 minutes.
The 29-year-old only stopped the rape when the woman saw people in the sand dunes and screamed out to them for help.
Kelly then fled the scene, however left his shirt behind. Police seized the shirt and it was forensically analysed for any DNA.
The shirt returned a DNA reading that matched that of Profile A from the indecent act in 2012.
The attacker remained at large for several years before Wollongong detectives reopened the case and arrested Kelly after a covert operation to obtain his DNA from an item that was “handled and discarded by him in a public place”.
Kelly, who has been in custody since his arrest, will be sentenced in the NSW District Court at a date to be fixed next month.