The man who snatched four-year-old Cleo Smith from her family's tent at a remote WA campsite and kept her captive for 18 days has lodged an appeal against his sentence.
Terrence Kelly was jailed last month for 13 years and six months for kidnapping the little girl in a case that made worldwide headlines.
On Tuesday it was revealed his lawyers have lodged an appeal against that sentence in the Court of Appeal.
Kelly admitted taking Cleo from a campsite at the Quobba Blowholes, about 70 kilometres north of Carnarvon in the early hours of October 16, 2021, sparking one of the biggest police searches in WA history.
The 37-year-old kept Cleo captive at his state-owned home in Carnarvon and later told police he had tried to tie her up with sticky tape, but "she was a bit of a fighter".
Family 'permanently impacted'
The child was not found until three weeks later, when police dramatically stormed his house, which was just minutes away from where Cleo's family usually lived.
In sentencing him, District Court Chief Judge Julie Wager described Kelly's actions as being "at the highest level of seriousness".
She said Cleo's life, and that of her family, had been "permanently impacted", something she said would never go away.
In the appeal documentation, Kelly's lawyer Kate Turtley-Chappel argues Judge Wager "failed to give appropriate weight to the applicant's childhood disadvantage and trauma".
The judge also "erred in finding the applicant's use of methamphetamines had a significant and causal role in the offending," the draft grounds of appeal state.
Kelly lived in 'fantasy world'
During the sentencing, Judge Wager acknowledged Kelly's turbulent upbringing and said she "fully accepts" his background of deprivation.
She also outlined that he had been exposed to severe and complex trauma as a child and had suffered a neurological impairment.
"No child in Western Australia should have suffered the neurodevelopmental difficulties the trauma, the grief and the neglect that you suffered as a child and as a young person," she said.
"Sadly, in Western Australia, many Aboriginal people have suffered the adverse impacts of colonisation. I fully accept that you're one of them and I accept that you've turned to drug misuse because of the pain and trauma that you've suffered throughout your life."
The court heard Kelly had created what the chief judge described as an "idealised fantasy world" which protected him from the "depressing" real world.
His fantasy world included his like of Bratz dolls, and that he had several imaginary 'children' for whom he had created social media pages.
Judge Wager said she also accepted that Kelly's drug use, in combination with his complex personality dysfunction and impairment, caused him to offend.
Kelly already given sentence reduction
Kelly pleaded guilty in January to abducting Cleo and will have to serve more than 11 years before he is eligible for release on parole.
The court heard Kelly told police he was not planning to keep Cleo forever and that he had been "feeling guilty" about what he had done every day.
Judge Wager gave Kelly the full 25 per cent — or five years — reduction on his sentence for his early guilty plea.
The sentence has been backdated to the time of his arrest early on November 3, when he was taken into custody and police found Cleo in his locked house in Carnarvon.
Kelly has been in custody at Casuarina maximum security prison in Perth after he was charged over an incident with an officer, in which he hit them on the hand with a police shield.
The court heard Kelly was isolated in prison because of the nature of his crime, something medical reports suggested had made him fearful and feeling hopeless about his future, because he had "gone from the euphoria of fulfilling his idealised fantasy … to a new harsh reality".
Judge Wager said Kelly's time in prison was likely to be harder for him than others, particularly given his personality dysfunction and neurodevelopmental difficulties.
