The Lies about Police Persecuting the Innocent Kellys

My purpose in reviewing the criminal records of the Kellys is to find out how true was their claim to be ‘Police made criminals’ and to have been hounded and persecuted by Police and Authorities generally. Kelly writers invariably point to this statement by CH Nicolson, given to the Royal Commission in 1881 as proof that the Police did indeed have such a Policy:

“But I submit that Constable Thom would hardly be able to cope with these men; at the same time some of these offenders may commit themselves foolishly some day, and may be apprehended and convicted in a very ordinary manner.” This was the cause of my instructions to the police generally; and I had expressed my opinion since that to the officer in charge of that district, that without oppressing the people, or worrying them in any way, that he should endeavor, whenever they commit any paltry crime, to bring them to justice, and send them to Pentridge even on a paltry sentence, the object being to take their prestige away from them, which has a good an effect as being sent into prison with very heavy sentences, because the prestige these men get up there from what is termed their flashness helped to keep them together, and that is a very good way of taking the flashness out of them. 

This is how Peter Fitzsimons interprets that passage :

“From now on – and notwithstanding that at the time no member of the Kelly family is facing charges – it is official Police policy to look for an excuse to put the family and their cohorts behind bars, to take the flashness out of them, to give them a public lesson, to ‘bring the Kellys in on any charge’ and ‘root the Kellys out of the district’. All the Police need is the right opportunity”

Fitzsimons then goes straight on to cite a case that he believes proves the point : the arrest a couple of months later of Jim Kelly ‘for stealing a couple of horses in Wagga Wagga and – in the traditional Kelly manner – fiercely resisting arrest afterwards.’

This is complete rubbish from Peter Fitzsimons and is a good demonstration of the way in which Kelly mythology is created and sustained by disgraceful journalism. Fitzsimons disingenuously states that at the time no Kellys were even facing charges knowing full well that at that very moment in 1877 Ned Kelly was a full time stock thief. Does he not think the Police had their suspicions, were receiving complaints and were under pressure to do something? And did Fitzsimons deliberately ignore, or was his research so superficial that he missed the implication of Jims arrest in NSW occurring whilst hiding behind the alias “James Wilson”? How can arresting someone believed to be James Wilson be seen as an act of Kelly oppression? His flippant remark about the brutality with which Jim resisted arrest is another disgrace – “During all this time Smythe and Wilson were fighting most determinedly, the latter having got hold of a Iong brass candlestick, with which the ruffian beat Smythe severely about the head, inflicting no less than seven ugly wounds. Blood was flowing from Smythe in streams, completely blinding him.”The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser : Saturday 23rd June 1877

But there are a couple of other points that need to made about Nicolsons statement, which even Ian Jones admits is ‘ambiguous.’ Firstly, it was made after a visit to the Kelly house in April 1877, a very long time after start of  the extensive series of court appearances by Kellys and their relatives in the North East. It was over ten years after Red Kelly had died, seven since  Neds apprenticeship with Harry Power had ended, and was in the midst of Ned Kellys self confessed criminal career as a ‘wholesale and retail’ stock thief. Jimmy Quinns sequence of Court appearances had started in 1860! Its stupid and  dishonest to  suggest that a policy formulated in 1877  had anything at all to do with events that took place up to 17 or more years before, and yet this is what the Kelly legend teaches. Get real!

The other  way in which that quote from Nicolson is mangled by the Kelly sympathisers is to completely ignore the very important qualifications that Nicolson applies to Police behavior : he states at the very beginning that the police are NOT to  ‘oppress’ or ‘worry’ them ‘IN ANY WAY’. His advice was the very opposite of  what the Kelly sympathisers make it out to be – he said LEAVE THE KELLYS ALONE.

HELLO KELLY SYMPATHISERS IS ANYONE LISTENING? Nicolson did NOT say harass and persecute the Kellys, he said LEAVE THEM ALONE!

He said leave them alone OK? - but if they commit a crime, then  endeavor to bring them to justice, even if the crime and the sentence are paltry. He did NOT say, as Peter Fitzsimons tries to make out that they should go looking for an ‘excuse’ to put them behind bars. He said ‘LEAVE THEM ALONE’ unless they commit a crime. The truth is the Kellys, their extended contacts and the Greta Mob were a disruptive law breaking and distinctly anti-social  and criminal section of the local community and its obvious the police were fed up to the back teeth with the whole lot of them. Nicolson had decided that they had put up with this rabble for long enough - from now on if they put a foot wrong, the gloves were off.

The idea that the Kellys were persecuted is rubbish. Not one of the many charges and Court appearances of Ned Kelly, Dan Kelly and of Jim Kelly that I have examined in detail support the idea that they were based on Police prejudice or corruption. Instead what they mostly demonstrate is a colonial Justice system working with remarkable impartiality, such that quite often the Kellys received the benefit of some very considerable doubt. If you don’t believe me, go back and read my Posts.  The reality is that Ned Kelly lied when he claimed that 'there was never such a thing as justice to be found in the English Laws but any amount of injustice’  but he used his remarkable powers of persuasion to convince his supporters that it was true. Its pathetic but some of them still believe it today, though none of them seems willing to defend him here, and identify the unjust persecution they blindly  claim he suffered. 

Surely its time we STOPPED repeating Ned Kellys nasty self-serving lies about the Police? They did NOT persecute the Kellys but we know for a fact that the Police were lied to, harassed, vilified and murdered by the Kellys. And if it wasn’t for Thomas Curnow they would have murdered a whole lot more.  I’m over it!