Cleo abduction accused Terry Kelly in court as pictures reveal doll obsession

Terry Kelly regularly bought Disney princesses and other girls’ toys from Carnarvon’s main toy store in the years before he was accused of abducting Cleo Smith.

Cleo Smith’s alleged kidnapper Terence Kelly.

Terry Kelly regularly bought ­Disney princesses and other girls’ toys from Carnarvon’s main toy store in the years before he was ­accused of abducting four-year-old Cleo Smith.

There was nothing unusual to locals about a single, childless man purchasing children’s toys three or four times a year – Mr Kelly is from a big local family and has many young relatives – but the purchases are of particular interest to detectives now.

When four police officers raided Mr Kelly’s house at 12.46am on Wednesday, they knew Mr Kelly was not there because they had been watching and waiting for him to leave.

He was sitting in his car when he was detained and ­arrested in a nearby street, detective Rod Wilde told reporters.

Mr Kelly had been in custody for some 40 hours before he appeared in a special late afternoon sitting of the Carnarvon Magistrate’s Court on Thursday.

Police had intended to charge him on Tuesday but the interview process was delayed when Mr Kelly harmed himself twice and was taken to hospital twice. On the first occasion, he bashed his head against a cell wall.

A collection of Terry Kelly’s dolls.

In court, a heavy-set Mr Kelly was dressed in black and uttered several outbursts, including “what the f..k are the media doing here?”

The magistrate replied that it was an open court. Several charges against Mr Kelly were read out. And when the magistrate asked him if he understood those charges, he nodded.

Earlier, the ­detective in charge of the investigation into Cleo’s ­abduction told how police officers had entered the house where they found her not knowing if she was alive.

In the event, they found her playing with toys.

Police only began watching Mr Kelly when he became a suspect on Tuesday afternoon. As a result, they do not yet know what he did or where he went as the town of Carnarvon and a team of 140 police searched for Cleo.

Accompanied by her mother Ellie Smith and her stepfather Jake Gliddon, Cleo took the first steps towards recording details of her ordeal on Thursday. The process could take some time.

The Australian has been told specialist child interviewers were among those present in the offices of the state’s child protection ­department, called Communities, when Cleo arrived there via a back entrance with Ms Smith and Mr Gliddon.

Cleo Smith with parents mother Ellie Smith and step-father Jake Gliddon. Picture: Colin Murty

In the meantime, police continue to piece together Mr Kelly’s movements between October 16, when Cleo vanished from her family’s tent at the Blowholes Campground, and November 2 when police rescued her from a small public housing duplex in an area some local Aboriginal families call The Bronx. Everything Mr Kelly did in that time period is now considered highly important to the ongoing investigation into Cleo’s abduction.

Some shopkeepers have told The Australian they believe they saw Mr Kelly walk by in the 18 days Cleo was missing. Two ­detectives visited stores on both sides of the town’s main shopping strip, Robinson Street, asking the business owners to review and hand over CCTV footage that they hoped would show him ­hiding in plain sight.

Mr Kelly is thought to have bought items from Carnarvon Toyworld sometime in the past three weeks. Late on Thursday, the staff were searching archived ­security footage for images of him.

“He was in here three or four times a year buying girls’ toys – Disney princesses and other things like that,” one worker told The Australian.

A room full of Terry Kelly’s dolls.

Detective Cameron Blaine, the officer who asked Cleo her name during her rescue, revealed that since being returned safely to her relieved family, Cleo was showing signs that she was well adjusted. She was also showing signs that she wanted her mother close.

“There was one occasion when she asked Mum to just come and lay beside her and she asked Ellie to look at her while she fell asleep,” Mr Blaine said. Mr Kelly became a suspect after what police say were pieces of information that led them to identify him as an “irregular” in the Blowholes Campground.

“The information acted on from last night onwards starts out really small and quickly snowballs,” Inspector Rod Wilde said.

A sign celebrates the finding of Cleo Smith in Carnarvon on Thursday. Picture: Getty Images

“There were car movements, and there were phone movements. The jigsaw fit the puzzle.

“But it took really good intelligence analysts and detectives and specialists to look at all of that information, put it together and go, ‘You know what, that doesn’t seem right to me; I’ve been doing this a long time, and we’re going to act on it’.

“That’s how we get results.”

In relation to the process of learning from Cleo the details of her ordeal, Inspector Wilde said: “The main concern around that is Cleo’s welfare when we conduct child interviews, so we have specialist interviewers who we’ve brought up from Perth.

“They will sit down, sit down with the family.”