I Need To Keep Them ALIVE IN MY MEMORY'

A ‘COWARD PUNCH’ on the streets of Sydney killed one of their sons and contributed to the suicide of the other. Now Kathy and Ralph Kelly are creating a lasting legacy of kindness in the wake of the deaths of their children.

FOR Sydney’s Kings Cross, it was still early. At precisely 22h05 on July 7, 2012, Thomas Kelly, a newly appointed trainee accountant, opened the door of a taxi and stepped into a bustling Saturday night on Victoria Street in one of the most notorious and unpredictable entertainment areas in Australia.

As Thomas stepped onto the street that night, he was talking into his cellphone, speaking with a friend who was directing him to the nearby venue where they planned to meet and celebrate a colleague’s birthday. As he spoke, Thomas reached for the hand of a young woman, Shaneez, a fellow cadet with whom he’d struck up a close friendship in recent months while working at a prestigious accounting firm, Hall Chadwick. They were young, obviously attracted to each other and this was their first official outing as a couple. Closed-circuit TV footage later showed Thomas laughing and smiling as he held Shaneez’s hand. Romance was clearly in the air.

Unfortunately, that is the darkness. He punched Thomas in the face – a full-force blow that the young man never saw coming – a senseless coward’s punch that threw Thomas backwards, smashing the back of his skull onto the pavement. He never regained consciousness.

“What happened to my family that night wouldn’t have happened if the person who killed Thomas had made different decisions,” says Kathy Kelly, the 56-year-old mother of Thomas, Stuart and Madeleine Kelly. “But he made a decision that night that he was going out to hurt people. Just a few hours before, he and his friends arrived in the city already heavily intoxicated. They were seen running across the Pyrmont Bridge, rushing up to people, roaring in their faces, trying to intimidate them as they walked by. That was the beginning of a long night of bad choices and bad behaviour that still has a profound effect, even today, seven years later.