Ned Kelly was NOT a victim of Police Persecution

The "Fitzpatrick Affair" happened in April 1878, when Ned Kelly was about 23 years old. It resulted in warrants being issued for his arrest on the serious charge of Attempted Murder, and began the last chapter of his life, which up to that point had been one of relatively minor but escalating criminality. 

As we have seen in our review of Neds Charge Sheet, it had begun at age 14 when he was alleged to have assaulted a Chinaman. The case was dismissed. The following year he was charged with highway robbery as an accomplice of Harry Power, and that case was dismissed as well. However later the same year, 1870, for his part in the McCormick incident he was convicted and served 3 months for Assault and Indecent behavior. A few months after that, in 1871 he was convicted of horse stealing and returned to Prison, this time for three years.  In 1876 he narrowly avoided another conviction for horse stealing, and in 1877 he was fined for drunkenness, riding on a footpath and resisting arrest.  In 1878 further warrants for Horse stealing were issued, but attempts to execute these warrants resulted in the so-called “Fitzpatrick” Incident, following which warrants for Attempted Murder were issued. From that moment on Kellys criminal career became something altogether different, something desperate and dangerous.

In my review of all these cases up to this point, April 1878, in each one I have been trying to identify the Police corruption and Judicial persecution that the Kelly sympathisers claim was the true cause of all this supposed Kelly criminality, but I have been unable to find it.  I have also repeatedly asked readers to point out their evidence of the Kelly Family being picked on and hounded by the authorities, but they have not provided it. What I am asking for is evidence of police action involving the Kellys for reasons other than legitimate Police interest in allegations of criminality, for the things alleged in the pro-Kelly literature and the Jerilderie Letter like being Irish, for being Poor, for being selectors, for no reason other than a desire of the police to harass and vilify and  interfere in the lives of the otherwise God fearing law abiding citizens of the Kelly legend. 

Apart from some disputation about the role of the hated Fitzpatrick, there has been no attempt by anyone to challenge my repeated claim that none of these interactions between the Kellys and the Law support the Kelly Legend story of  an unjustified campaign of Anti-Kelly police and Judicial persecution, harassment and corruption. 

Not only that, none of these events had anything whatsoever to do with Ned Kelly defending the rights of the downtrodden, the Poor and the marginalised, these people he later referred to as the "suffering innocents", in his attempts to create an image of himself as their champion. In fact, in two cases his criminality involved wrongs against his own people, the McCormicks and Wild Wright, and the Public brawls were about his ego and his desired image of “flashness”.

In every case to April 1878, Police interaction with the Kellys, and Ned in particular has resulted not from Police interference or gratuitous provocations but entirely from choices made by Ned Kelly  – to assault the Chinaman, to join Harry Power, to involve himself in the McCormicks dispute and send those testicles, to try to double cross Wild Wright and sell the borrowed horse, to violently resist arrest, to violently refuse handcuffs, to steal Lydekers horse and foal, to steal Whittys horses….and none of it to do with anything noble or revolutionary or about  social justice.

Furthermore, there is plenty of evidence that rather than exhibiting bias against the Kellys the Judicial system was lenient, tolerant fair and on occasion even tried to be helpful in its dealings with the Kellys.  For example Ned received the benefit of considerable doubt when the charges of assault against the Chinaman were dismissed, because the witnesses who backed Ned were all associates of his and almost certainly lied. When Ned Kelly co-operated with the Police to help them catch Harry Power they dropped charges against him and offered him an opportunity to escape the life of criminality they could see him being drawn into. They even loaned him money – which he didn’t repay. And after his first spell in prison, a good Policeman visited him at home to offer further support. And for good behavior in both cases his time served was reduced in keeping with regulation practice.

Never-the-less, Ned Kelly writes in the Jerilderie Letter:

“ There was never such a thing as Justice in the English Laws but any amount of injustice to be had…”

Kelly sympathisers read this and nod their heads in agreement, feel sorry for Ned Kelly and never doubt for a minute he was telling it like it was. Poor persecuted Ned! No wonder he did what he did! But as we have seen in a closer analysis of what really happened to Ned Kelly, and why it happened, at least up until April 1878, his complaint that there was no such thing as Justice is simply wrong. The Police and the Judiciary did not persecute or entrap or provoke or in way involve themselves in the lives of the Kellys except when the Kellys invited them to do so, by assault, by obscene abuse, by highway robbery, by stealing horses and cattle, and by refusing to comply with Lawful   requests from the Police such as to be hand-cuffed, or to accompany a Policeman to a Station.

I will pause here and wait for the Kelly sympathisers to respond and point out the evidence in support of Ned Kellys claim “ There was never such a thing as Justice in the English Laws but any amount of injustice to be had…” I want to read why it is they think up to this point, Ned Kellys problems were created by the police and the “authorities” rather than by his own deliberate choice. Perhaps the Neducator, the anti-Book madman, the NKF Key Master, Bob and the other hangers on who were always so ready to attack me on my other forums could instead make an attempt to do something constructive and defend the Kelly Legend?

If they don’t produce anything, I will assume they have nothing apart from blind faith, and conclude that Neds claim in the Jerilderie letter, like so many of them, and the Legend of Ned Kelly itself is delusional. 

Imagining Ned Exhibition

How often do you see a photo of the back of the armour? And is that Dees family reflection?

Or the side?

Great Depiction of the Gang by Chevalier Matania, 1930. 

This work was on loan from “The Collection of Leigh Olver” 

the Kelly descendant whose Mitochondrial DNA matched that of the Bones identified as Neds.

Autumn colour in the Streets of Bendigo

The two huge works on the left are amazing carpet reproductions of famous Nolan Paintings

Cabinet contains old Ned magazines and comics  

Ned the Gay Icon

I finally got to see this exhibition, and I am not sure it was worth the effort, but as the photos show, I did get to see Neds armour, his gun, the Jerilderie Letter and Neds Death mask, among other things. I was particularly on the look-out for the Banker Letters that the NKF members got so excited about in January, because it had been suggested then that if found to be genuine they might be included in this exhibition but they weren’t. NKF members trumpeted that these letters debunked Ian MacFarlanes book, claimed they had more information to be released in due course and harshly abused me for expressing scepticism about these letters and their credulous over-the-top reactions to them. Well, these letters seems to have sunk without trace, they haven’t dared to mention them again anywhere so I guess that concludes that particular saga with the NKF red-faced.

Neds Snider enfield Rifle

Actually that rifle of Neds has inscriptions carved into it which would further embarrass one of the NKF members who already has egg on his face from the Letters saga. He is the so-called “Neducator" who claims Neds girlfriend was a distant relative of his, but he has never had the courage of his convictions to make his evidence publicly available for scrutiny, so who knows? The Exhibition reports that, as you can dimly see on the above photo 

“The first and clearest of these (inscriptions) is on the right hand side of the butt and reads NK son of Red. The conjoined NK is reminiscent of Neds brand which was a reversed K and E conjoined. Neds father was known as Red Kelly. The second inscription on the left hand side of the butt is a cryptogram. The upper drawing is of a deer, beneath which is the letter K and the number eight(k8) and below that is a heart shape with the letters U and R inside it. The Cryptogram reads Dear/Kate/You are/in my heart. It is know acknowledged that Neds sweetheart was Kate lloyd, daughter of Tom Llloyd. At the time this would not have been widely known”

However the Neducator might have approved of this information:
 “For Kids: During his life Ned Kelly was already well known. Some people thought he was bad, that he had broken the Law and done terrible things. Other people thought that there were reasons for what had happened and that Ned had just been trying to help his family. The story of Ned kelly and the Kelly Gang was talked about In Australia and over seas and people wrote books plays and films about it.
In this room you can see lots of different pictures of Ned. Can you find the postcards? And the cards from chocolate boxes? Do you think people would have liked to collect the whole set? Why?"


Call me old fashioned but I am nauseated by this sort of  propagandist approach to history for kids. It is misrepresentation to write that  “some people THOUGHT  Ned Kelly had broken the law and done terrible things” - the FACTS are that he DID break the Law and do terrible things. By all means discuss WHY he might have broken the Law or done terrible things, or the fairness of the Laws, but to begin by suggesting there was some sort of balnced debate about whether he even broke the Law or was just trying to help his family is a dumb way to tell history unless you are wanting to persuade young minds to a particular view of it. 

The exhibition, being held in an Art Gallery rather than a Museum was understandably focussed on cultural aspects of the Kelly story rather than true History, and it was a nice little window into the art and literature that has continued right to the present, and the small number of historical items like the armour and the gun helped to put these images into context. Overall one would probably come away with an impression that Ned was misunderstood, that the "Hero or Villain” debate was still unresolved, an impression that would not have been left if I had been the curator!

That Bloody Fitzpatrick

Ned Kelly admitted that he stole horses, but he claimed that was Whittys fault. Ned Kelly also admitted killing the Police at Stringybark Creek, but this time it was Fitzpatricks fault : “Fitzpatrick was the cause of all this” he wrote in the Jerilderie Letter, and modern day Kelly sympathisers believe it. But is it true?

I discussed this episode in detail last year in “The modern-Fitzpatrick-cover-up scandal” which you can read here. However this subject is worth revisiting, not just because it occupies an important place in the Kelly mythology but because since last years Post, Doug Morrisseys book has been published and it contains fresh insights. In a fascinating chapter called “That Bloody Fitzpatrick” Morrissey details the friendship that existed between Fitzpatrick and the Kellys, and writes “Ned and Fitzpatrick were larrikin friends sharing an interest in fast horses and shanty good times”. He also discusses Fitzpatricks relationship with Kate, Neds sister, and suggests that initially Ellen and Ned “may even have encouraged it” because for the Kellys as well as for the Policeman there were mutual benefits.

Essentially, for anyone unfamiliar with the Fitzpatrick Incident, what happened was that on April 15^th 1878 Constable Alexander Fitzpatrick went to the Kelly homestead to arrest Dan Kelly for horse stealing. There was a directive at the time that Police should not approach the Kellys alone, but because of his familiarity with the family Fitzpatrick ignored it and went by himself. Unfortunately there was a dispute, it escalated to violence, Fitzpatrick was shot in the wrist and eventually returned empty handed to complain that Ned Kelly had tried to kill him. Warrants for Attempted Murder were added to those already issued for horse stealing and Ned and Dan fled into the hills. Various embellishments are added to the story to further blacken the name of Fitzpatrick - such as that he was drunk, or that he made some sort of unwanted advance towards Kate - but they are not supported by facts or by consistency between the various versions and cannot be relied on.

Ned Kelly gave his version of events in the Jerilderie Letter, and denied wounding Fitzpatrick, or even being at the house at the time of this incident. This view is accepted as Gospel by Kelly Fanatics like those on the IO site and the Ned Kelly Forum but Morrissey wrote “As a template for what occurred, Neds Jerilderie Letter account is totally unreliable”. Morrissey was not the first Kelly scholar to hold that view - I pointed out last year that both Ian Jones and Max Brown also believe that Neds version was not the truth. However, this information is ignored in the modern Kelly myth, and there is almost no acknowledgement that Fitzpatricks relationship with the Kellys was complex, that he wasn’t the evil Villain they like to portray him as and that Kelly lied about him and about the Incident in the Jerilderie Letter. I called it a cover-up and a scandal.

  

This is some of what Ned Kelly said in the Jerilderie Letter about this episode:

“…(I) left the colony and became a rambling gambler soon after I left there was a warrant for me and the Police searched the place and watched night and day for two or three weeks and when they could not snare me they got a warrant against my brother Dan and on the 15^th April Fitzpatrick came to the 11 Mile Creek to arrest him….

Dans mother said Dan need not go without a warrant unless he liked and that the trooper had no business on her premises without some authority besides his own word. The trooper pulled his revolver out and said he would blow her brains out if she interfered in the arrest she told him it was a good job Ned was not there or he would ram the revolver down his throat…”

The Kelly fanatics believe this statement to be factually correct, but for a start, Ellen and Ned are mistaken in their belief that it was necessary to produce the actual warrant. It wasn’t . Modern Kelly sympathisers also dismiss Fitzpatricks claim that Ned was not only present but shot at him, as the lies of a corrupt Policeman, but again they are wrong - Ned WAS there and he DID shoot at Fitzpatrick :

Read what Alex Castles wrote in Ned Kellys Last Days (p123)

“As Senior Constable John Kelly reported, he had discussed the matter with Ned at Benalla and during the conversation the bushranger had freely admitted that he had shot at the former constable. ‘Ned what about Fitzpatrick? Was his statement correct?’ the Policeman enquired. ‘Yes, it was I that fired at him’ To this, Senior Constable Kelly was prepared to swear under oath”

And now, Ian Jones: “This confession may be discredited as another example of police perjury but it supports stories told by Kate, Jim and Brickey Williamson”

Of Fitzpatricks version he says “..it appears to be closer to the truth than Neds…”

Later Jones writes “If Ned had admitted that he shot Fitzpatrick, he would also have given credence to the rest of the troopers evidence and implicated his mother, Skilling and Williamson. So he lied”

Jones believes the reason Ned Kelly lied was to protect members of his family, which would have been an admirable act. It could be true. Its what the Mythmakers want to believe.  But given what we have observed of Ned Kellys tendency to look for someone to blame for his faults and his endless refusal to accept responsibility for his own misdeeds and his adoption of a criminal career, his lies were more likely aimed at trying to protect himself, and put the blame for what happened onto someone else - Alexander Fitzpatrick.

Jones chapter on this subject is called the Fitzpatrick Mystery, and the Iron Outlaw site calls it the same thing. But really the only way that this event can be construed as a ‘mystery’ is if you try to reconcile Ned’s account of it with everyone else’s - but you can’t. However rejecting Neds version for what it is, - a self-serving misrepresentation - in other words, lies - makes the Mystery disappear. The consensus of the experts is that Ned lied, that he WAS there and he shot Fitzpatrick in a chaotic scuffle precipitated by Ellen Kellys attempts to stop Fitzpatrick performing his legal duty. End of story.

At the end of its egregious vilification of Fitzpatrick as a “Real Villain” the IO site has this to say:

'The question still remains today, did the Kelly outbreak arise due to one constable's battle with the bottle and his countless lies and half truths?'

This really is a stupid question. It exposes the deep ignorance of leaders in the modern Kelly sympathiser crowd about an important and central event in the Kelly Outbreak, and a desperate hope like that expressed so often by Ned Kelly that someone else can be blamed for what took place -  anyone but their Ned. But the Police cant be blamed for trying to bring criminals to face justice - the answer to that stupid question is an emphatic “No” : the Kelly Outbreak arose from Ned Kellys horse stealing. 

Its time the Kelly sympathisers faced facts - Fitzpatrick was not the cause of the Kelly outbreak and Ned Kelly lied about it.

State Murder is Always Wrong

You made mistakes, but didnt deserve to die. 

Watching the mother of Myuran Sukumaran weeping and pleading for the life of her son on TV last night was heart wrenching. But there was never any real prospect that her pleas or those of our political leaders, human rights Lawyers, or even the United Nations were going to fall on anything other than deaf Indonesian ears. That system is mired in corruption and entrenched and outmoded and ignorant attitudes to drug addiction and use in society, and 19th century beliefs about crime and punishment. Widodo has proven to be a blind inflexible dogmatist, not at all the liberal reformer he promoted himself as. He has become a weak and discredited puppet of the Sukarno legacy. 

Eventually, inevitably the Death Penalty will be abolished as the place grows up, becomes civilised and modern, and perhaps the world wide revulsion at what has just taken place will hasten that development but for now the place is a pariah. 

Capital punishment by any means, for any crime is always wrong in my opinion. If you believe in the sanctity of human life, that killing is wrong and war is wrong and you want it to stop, then you have to stop killing. You just have to stop. Its really very simple.

But as long as you imagine you can find reasons  and circumstances where its OK to kill, and especially if its the State that is finding these reasons, then you are telling everyone that if YOU can find a good reason to kill, then you can. And so, in Indonesia a majority of people support the Death Penalty, whereas here in Australia and so many other countries where the Government has declared that the sanctity of human life is so great that no crime is sufficiently horrible that that sanctity should be violated, a huge majority do not support it. 

Sadly our Governments stance in opposing it in the case of these two Australians exposes a kind of hypocrisy about the moral principle that underpins our legal approach to Capital Punishment. We should have opposed its use for the Bali bombers, we should oppose its use in the USA  where not long ago a botched execution by lethal injection dragged on for an hour, in Saudi Arabia where a few days ago a screaming woman was held down by Police and beheaded in Public, we should oppose it in China even though we want their Trade, we should oppose it in Iran even though we now have some sort of security arrangement with them to identify Australians heading to Iraq and ISIS, we should just oppose it everywhere and under all circumstances because by doing so we are upholding the sanctity of human life and advancing the cause of peace. 

Imagine how different the Kelly Story would have been if Capital Punishment had been abolished in Ned Kellys time. Unless he was a delusional paranoid schizophrenic Ned Kelly would not have believed the Police hunting him in the Wombats ranges might have been planning to kill him. He would not have felt compelled to kill them in self defence. He  could not have been “Outlawed” and turned into a fugitive that anyone could shoot on sight. He would not have been hanged. And that would have been a good thing.

The crowds that gathered to support Ned in Melbourne were there to protest at Capital Punishment. They didnt support him personally, or his lifestyle choices, much as all the people in the candlelight Vigils in support of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were not there to support drug crime but to support their humanity and their families. The Gaunsons were prominent activists in the fight against Capital Punishment and I would have joined them in the streets to plead for Ned Kellys life, I would have signed their Petition to spare him, I would have been saddened and disappointed when those efforts failed, I would have felt for poor Ellen and Neds sisters and family in their  grief, as I do today for Andrew and Myurans.

It took almost 90 more years to have the death Penalty abolished in Australia. I hope it doesn’t take that long in Indonesia.

Ned Kelly is the real Villain.

This beautiful Stained Glass Window is in the Holy Cross Catholic Church at Moyhu. It was donated in 1874 in commemoration of his wife  Catherine by James Whitty, a man the Iron Outlaw Website ignorantly describes as a "Real Villain"

The next item on Ned Kellys charge sheet, Horse Stealing, related to the so-called Whitty Larceny, the  theft of eleven horses from James Whitty.  Once again, this is distinctly NOT an example of Police persecution of innocent selectors – indeed, NONE of the cases on Neds Charge sheet so far examined could be characterised in that way, and yet the average Kelly Fanatic, informed by ignorant websites like Iron Outlaw would no doubt swear black and blue that Ned was hounded and persecuted by the Police. So far, that has definitely not happened – in fact in this incident Ned Kelly himself admitted his guilt in the Jeriderie Letter 

“Farrell the policeman stole a horse from George King and had him in Whitty and Farrells paddocks until he left the force. All this was the cause of me and my stepfather George King taking their horses…”

This theft from Whitty was a most peculiar thing.  Ian Jones says it “seems to have taken on an almost obsessive significance for Ned” because Ned had earlier gone to great lengths to deny stealing stock from Whitty – firstly of  Whittys missing bull,  and later a mob of calves. Despite these denials Ned later cited these accusations as his justification for his return to “wholesale and retail horse and cattle dealing”, another of his childish attempts to blame someone else for his criminal adult behaviour. But  in a quite bizarre turn-around, having denied all the Whitty thefts he had been accused of, Ned went ahead anyway and stole a mob of horses from Whitty then freely admitted it! What on earth was Ned Kelly up to?

Doug Morrissey also noticed Neds obsessional preoccupation with Whitty and provides some interesting insight into this episode in his recent book, with one entire Chapter entitled “Whitty and Byrne”.  What he reveals is that Whitty was not the hated ruthless squatter and oppressor of the poor selector that Ned Kelly portrays in the Jerilderie Letter, and modern ill-informed Kelly fanatics - such as the IO writers - still believe to be the case.  Morrissey shows time and again how Ned Kellys claims about Whitty  in the Jerilderie Letter are factually wrong. Even Ian Jones has difficulty accepting Neds allegation that a horse had been stolen by “Farell the policeman”, because there are no known facts that support the claim, and no logic to Neds suggestion that this stolen horse was simply kept in Whittys paddock where it could easily have been seen and reported. “Farrell the policeman” was not even a Policeman but a former Policeman, who had left the force two years earlier with a clean record. ( How many people reading the Jerilderie Letter would accept, on Neds say-so that here was evidence of Police corruption – a Policeman stealing a horse – and yet this claim is simply a lie told by Ned Kelly )

In fact Whitty, also an Irish Catholic, was not a squatter but an immigrant who was illiterate and penniless when he arrived in Victoria, but by hard work and through legitimate means became a wealthy farmer and landowner. Whitty acquired status and power in the local community, and it would seem the respect even of selectors. (The Iron Outlaw site lists James Whitty as one of its "Real Villains” and among a litany of ignorant blunders and mistakes wrongly lists him as a squatter - such is the quality of the Kelly sympathiser propaganda!)  Morrissey believes Ned Kelly resented the Whitty familys success and was jealous and hated him as a result, and it was this emotion that propelled him into the “Whitty larceny”.  Ned really just wanted to have a go at Whitty. His stated justifications for robbing him were probably lies, but according to Ian Jones, by doing this “Ned was  inviting retribution” 

In fact Neds provocation of Whitty resulted in the issuing of warrants for his arrest, and for his brother Dan as well, and from there the whole thing slowly gathered momentum and spiralled out of his control. The chain of events that came to be called the Kelly Outbreak was set in motion, and it ultimately lead to the gallows in Melbourne. Retribution indeed! 

The Kelly myth makers have long claimed that the trigger to the Kelly Outbreak was the so called “Fitzpatrick Incident” which was yet to come. The Kelly myth makers deny that Ned Kellys criminality and the Whitty Larceny had anything to do with the outbreak, because, like Ned Kelly they want to pretend that Ned Kelly was an innocent victim in all this. However it is an irrefutable fact that  the reason Fitzpatrick went to the Kelly property was because of Dans involvement in the Whitty Larceny. And the Whitty Larceny came about because of Ned Kellys obsessional hatred of a successful Irish farmer – that is where the genesis of the Kelly Outbreak lies – the Fitzpatrick incident was the third or fourth domino to fall, not the first. The origin of the Kelly Outbreak lies within the envious heart of Ned Kelly the self confessed stock thief, and the first act of the Kelly Outbreak was his theft of Whittys horses. From then on it was all downhill.