Keith Kelly

Keith Kelly was taken from his parent’s home in North Sydney in 1952 at the age of eight when his mother became ill with cancer.

He was placed in a Catholic orphanage supposedly for just four months because his father was Protestant. Four months became four years.

Deemed a "ward of NSW", Keith had just turned 16 when he was declared an "out of control child". In 1961, he was sent to The Institution for Boys, Tamworth for six months, where he was tortured, starved and bashed.

While Keith’s life did not spiral down to the same level of violence, crimes and murders as many other "graduates from Tamworth", he has no doubt that Tamworth played a major role in destroying his life as a young man.

In 2013, Keith gave evidence during the Brisbane public hearings at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse.

Keith met his wife Patricia at age 44 and he has “been out of trouble" ever since. He turned 80 in June 2024 and lives on the Gold Coast, Australia.

Bio portrait of Keith Kelly by Melbourne-based artist Sorcha Mackenzie.