The moment Keli Lane was found guilty of killing baby Tegan

FOR months she had sat quietly in the dock listening to claims that she killed her baby daughter Tegan 14 years earlier. As a guilty verdict was delivered, Keli Lane shattered her silence with a piercing scream of “No!” and collapsed to the floor.

THE notorious case of Keli Lane has captured the public’s imagination for years.

The aspiring sports star managed to hide the birth of three babies from all those around her — and while two of them were put up for adoption, the second child, a little girl called Tegan, hasn’t been seen since Lane left hospital with her two days after her birth.

Keli Lane pictured outside court during her trial for killing her daughter Tegan.

Lane maintained she handed Tegan over to the child’s father, a man called Andrew Norris or Morris, so that he could raise her.

But in 2010 she was found guilty of her daughter’s murder, later sentenced to 18 years in prison, and her attempts since to appeal the conviction have failed.

Now she is making a renewed bid to clear her name, talking to the ABC’s Exposed: The case of Keli Lane from Silverwater Women’s Correctional Centre.

“The biggest hope for me is that someone comes forward with my daughter,” she says.

“She’d be an adult now. So she obviously has had a whole life perhaps not knowing she is my child.”

In 2010, Lisa Davies covered the Keli Lane case for The Daily Telegraph and was in court for the dramatic moment the guilty verdict was delivered.

This is an edited version of her account of that day:

FOR months she had sat quietly in the dock of Sydney’s King St Supreme Court, silently listening to prosecution claims that she killed her baby daughter Tegan 14 years earlier.

But on December 13, 2010, Keli Lane shattered her silence with a piercing scream of “No!” and collapsed to the floor as a jury found her guilty of murder.

Struggling to her feet after the jury members filed into the courtroom at 2.20pm to deliver their verdict, a nervous Lane had barely reached a vertical position before the jury foreman softly announced “guilty”.

As she uttered her distraught shout, her legs gave way and she crumpled sideways. A loud bang was heard — the sound of her head striking the wooden dock — as her mother also let out a scream from the public gallery.

Lane’s legal team sat stunned, while those representing the Crown also appeared shocked.

As the 35-year-old lay convulsing on the floor and howling, sheriffs and lawyers rushed to her aid and medics were called to the court.

Keli Lane is surrounded by the media as she arrives at court during her trial.

The court was briefly cleared as Lane was treated, before the jury returned to be formally discharged by Justice Anthony Whealy.

Lane’s eyes stared emptily at the men and women who, moments before, had sealed her fate.

As Justice Whealy thanked them for their service, many of the jury members cried and none of them could bring themselves to look at Lane.

It was a dramatic and unexpected end to the four-and-a-half-month trial of torment for the former water polo player, who had continually denied charges that she murdered her two-day-old daughter in 1996.

BEHIND THE SCENES: Keli Lane’s army of supporters working to clear her name

The day of the verdict began like any other for Lane since the trial began in August — with a solemn walk along Elizabeth St from her lawyer’s office.

The journey took less than 10 minutes but there was nothing easy about it, thanks to the big elephant that walked beside her.

That charge. The trial. Those lies. The secrets she had so desperately tried to keep. Lane heard the whispers, and she saw the looks, as she walked. “Baby killer”, the strangers in the street were clearly thinking. But others stopped her in support, as well.

“I can’t believe what they’re doing to you,” one man said early in the trial.

“Hang in there.”

At 10.55am on December 13, 2010, Lane began that walk for the final time. But she was completely unprepared for what lay ahead.

There had been a phone call minutes earlier, the jury had sent a note.

Once inside the court precinct, Lane tried to contain her fear. But the tears came anyway.

She mouthed to her mother and close friend “Where’s Patrick?”, referring to her then boyfriend, Patrick Cogan, who sent a dozen roses to court one day in a show of support.

Her ex-husband, who could not be identified, sneaked into the back of the court, along with her brother Morgan.

Her father, former policeman Bob Lane, had been waiting at their Manly home, too frail to endure the strain.

Keli Lane was supported by her father Bob during an inquest into her daughter’s disappearance, which eventually referred the matter to police.

Eventually, after much confusion, there were two notes — one from the foreman, one from another juror.

The court was told there was a unanimous decision on some charges, but not another — the one that mattered, the murder charge.

For the three charges of making a false statement under oath about the adoption of her first and third born, the jury was unanimous — guilty. Lane sobbed as the foreman convicted her, disbelieving.

She hunched toward the mahogany dock for support, her strong leg muscles suddenly unreliable.

The foreman told the judge the six women and five other men were unable to reach a verdict on the main charge — that she murdered two-day-old Tegan on September 14, 1996, after leaving Auburn hospital.

At 12.35pm, Justice Whealy told them they could reach a majority verdict — 11-1 — if they so desired.

They again retired but at 2.20pm they filed back into the courtroom.

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After the drama had subsided, Justice Whealy was asked to consider bail. It was a hopeless request, with the law stating Lane must receive at least 10 years jail on a charge of murder.

“I feel great sympathy for the accused, particularly the great weight these verdicts will have on her and her situation,” Justice Whealy said.

But he said “even though it’s difficult for me to come to this conclusion [it would be] a very unfair result” to grant Lane bail because “it would hold out false hope” to her.

Lane was then escorted handcuffed from the court complex by corrective services officers and driven to jail.

This court report was originally published in The Daily Telegraph on December 14 2010, and is edited here for clarity on dates