Ralph Kelly - Too Soon, Too Late: How a family turned its own tragedies into a remarkable crusade to keep all our children safe

First published in 2019

Copyright Ralph and Kathy Kelly 2019

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

Allen & Unwin

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Australia

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ISBN 978 1 76063 278 6

eISBN 978 1 76063 680 7

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Cover design: Deborah Parry Graphics

Cover photograph: Steve Baccon

This book is dedicated to our beautiful and loving children

Thomas Andreae Kelly

6 January 19949 July 2012

Madeleine Grace Kelly

27 June 1995

Stuart William Kelly

15 January 199825 July 2016

Two livesTwo brothersTogether again

Brave, caring, courageous young men

To live in the hearts of others is never to die

You are the reason to live life to all it can be

Watching over your sister with love

To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to give of ones self, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have livedthat is to have succeeded.

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

The journey that the Kelly family has taken is one that no one should have to endure. It broke my heart to see what they have been through.

When Thomas was killed in Sydney, I was on leave with my family, but I knew about it immediately, thanks to a briefing from the acting commissioner. About two months later, Ralph came to my office in Sydney and I just let him talk. He was distraught, of course, as he talked about how much the family had loved Thomas. There was also a sense of unreality and shock: Could such a thing have happened to this normal Australian family? Were our streets that unsafe that an eighteen-year-old boy could be struck down and killed by an unprovoked stranger, moments after stepping out of a taxi? As a father, I could easily imagine myself in Ralphs place. Thomas could have been anyones child.

I gave Ralph my mobile phone number, not in my role as commissioner but as a fellow human. I had been a police officer for 37 years, but this was just two fathers speaking to each other. The connection and care I felt for what the Kelly family had been through was instant. Since then, when we have spoken, our conversations are primarily along the lines of, Are you okay?

There were bigger issues at stake. Thomass death was a tipping point in how long the community would put up with allowing such assaults. This was the moment when they said, Enough is enough.

Since around 2005, the misuse of alcohol had been taking a steeply escalating cost. Police officers were traumatised from having to step in and stop violent incidents, or from seeing the aftermath. The best police have a light touch, but a touch there must be. We came to the belief, after Thomass passing, that we had to put a case to the state government for greater control on our streets.

The then premier, Barry OFarrell, was very strong in proposing new laws. Its not just a matter of making laws, though. There were many examples from other countries where turning the police into a kind of occupying army for the purpose of maintaining order was counter-productive. Bad legislation is worse than no legislation, so great care had to be taken to maintain a balance.

In 2014, when the new laws came in, lives were saved from day one. We saw a positive impact immediately. We werent releasing crime statistics ourselves, because an independent body, Don Weatherburns Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR), was marking us very hard. BOCSAR found that the rate of violent incidents in the areas where the new laws were operating had plummeted. After two years, there was an irrefutable case to continue these improvements.

We couldnt bring back Thomas Kelly, but I am certain that the changes have saved many young people from becoming household names for the worst possible reason. We dont know who they are, but this does not mean they dont owe their welfare to the greater safety on our streets.

Laws were only part of the answer, not a total solution. The Safe Spaces and the other awareness-raising work conducted by the Thomas Kelly Youth Foundation chimed in with the advocacy the Kellys were carrying out. Ralph and Kathys involvement added significant weight to discussions at all levels.

After the deaths of Thomas and Stuart, the Kelly family could have hidden away and bemoaned the cruelty of their fate, but they went out into the public, took a powerful stance, and connected with people in a way that we in the police force never could. They have been driven by one overriding idea: to stop other parents from going through what they went through. They have been unwavering in this, and it has been my privilege to know them.

Commissioner of the New South Wales Police Force

20072017

I was not working the night Thomas Kelly was admitted to the emergency department of St Vincents Hospital in 2012. I was, however, on call and the medical world is small and I knew Ralph Kellys brother-in-law, Dr Gavin Barr, well and bad news spread like wildfire.

When a young person whose life is in really big trouble comes into the department, even for experienced medical staff the sadness is indescribable. An awful dark mist spreads over the whole hospital. Although everything was done for Thomas that a leading teaching hospital could offer, soon the staff knew that something very bad was happening. You never get hardened to that sorrow, that despair.

Victims of violence were a tragically common sight in our department. It wasnt just those who were as unfortunate as Thomas Kelly. Every night we had people coming in who had been injured by acts of violence, much of it with the modifiable element of alcohol and drugs. We also saw many of the perpetrators of this violence, who had themselves suffered injuries. I was vocal in letting the community and its leaders know that extent and that we in the hospital felt at times as if we were in a war zone. Something had to change before more lives were damaged and lost.

It is my opinion that many young people have become inured to violence. They had been exposed to it on television since early childhood. In the Kings Cross and Darlinghurst area around St Vincents Hospital, acts of violence were not like rare lightning strikes; they had come to be part of young peoples experience, particularly at night. I was able to voice my concerns through the media, but I could only imagine the true amount of grief that these violent acts caused for the victims and their families. I had not experienced that grief myself but had seen so much.