In the Jerilderie Letter Ned Kelly presented his version of the violent debacle at his mothers home at Greta on April 15th1878, the so-called ‘Fitzpatrick Incident’. In brief, Constable Fitzpatrick went to the Kelly home to arrest Dan Kelly but returned without him late at night to the Benalla Police station, saying that Ned Kelly had shot him in the wrist. Kelly followers claim this event triggered the entire outbreak and it was wholly the fault of Constable Fitzpatrick whose description of what happened was a pack of lies. Recently the Kelly conspiracy theorist Alan Crichton has let Fitzpatrick off the hook somewhat, claiming that he was merely a pawn, sent to Greta by shady master manipulators who used him as their unwitting agent of persecution. In fact, many details of the incident are disputed, but one thing that Ned Kelly was clear about was that he had nothing to do with it.
Long before he wrote the Jerilderie Letter he was on the record declaring his innocence, telling some of his hostages at Euroa in December that same year that Fitzpatrick was a liar, and he could prove that he was 15 miles away at the time Fitzpatrick was shot in the wrist. (Argus December 12th 1878.) At Ned Kellys trial in October 1880 another hostage, James Gloster, a draper from Seymour under oath recalled Kelly saying he was not 15 but 200 miles away when Fitzpatrick was shot(Argus 29 October 1880), and Robert Scott, the Bank Manager at Euroa, also under oath, said the same thing.(Argus 30thOctober 1880) However, by February 1879 when the Jerilderie letter was created, Kelly wrote that actually, he wasn’t 15 or 200 but 400 miles away : “I heard nothing of this transaction until very close on the trial, I then being 400 miles from Greta….. so I came back to Victoria” (NK Jerilderie Letter) Four hundred miles would put him somewhere near Sydney or Adelaide!
Kellys behaviour, on return, wasn’t what one might expect from someone who was not only claiming to be innocent but who also said he could prove it. Neither was it what one might expect from someone who claimed so loudly to be incensed at what had happened to his mother and how much she meant to him and how he was going to fight for justice for her. On return, instead of making an attempt to clear his name, to prove his claim to be innocent and to help his mother, who was still waiting trial, he went into hiding with his brother. He claimed he wanted to raise money to pay for her defence and said his gold digging was successful, and that he made money by selling liquor produced on a secret still in the bush. Later he had even more money after two bank robberies provided several thousand pounds, but here’s the odd thing: Ned Kelly never spent even a penny on a legal defence for his mother. Not one single penny. His claim to be on the high moral ground was all talk and no action: hot air and lies aimed at fooling people into thinking he cared about his mother : all his actions say otherwise.
At that time, when the Gang was flush with money Joe Byrnes mother bought herself a nice new dress and paid to have her photo taken wearing it, the Kelly girls bought new saddles and paid off all their bills – and all the while Mrs Kelly and her baby were stuck in gaol. Ned Kelly never lifted one finger to help her – unless you believe that Glenrowan wasn’t about a Republic but about taking hostages so he could free his mother from prison. This was in fact one of the several different and confused explanations that Kelly later offered as his motivation for Glenrowan, but if that was his plan you would have to call it really dumb – crazy even – because Mrs Kellys sentence was almost completed by the time of the Glenrowan siege and she was released three months later, in February 1881.
So where exactly was Ned Kelly when Fitzpatrick was shot? Which, if any of his three reported claims is the truth? Did he lie to the hostages about being 15 or 200 miles away or is his claim in the Jerilderie letter a lie? Well, here’s what Kate Kelly told ‘a party of gentlemen travelling overland from Sydney’ as published in The Herald on 7thFebruary 1879 – before the Jerilderie Bank hold up:
“According to her statement she was in her house alone when Fitzpatrick came, and he commenced in a violent manner to behave improperly. Just then her brother Ned came to the door, and caught Fitzpatrick in the act of attempting an outrage, whereupon, he, with the natural instinct of a brother under such circumstances, rushed for his revolver. Fitzpatrick it is said seeing the position of affairs immediately bethought himself of the warrant, which he pulled out and hold up to Ned, saying at the same time, ” I’ve got this for you.” At this moment, Ned Kelly, having seized his revolver, fired, and this was how it came that Fitzpatrick was shot in the wrist.”
Some of these claims by Kate Kelly we know are false, and she wasn’t prepared to make them in court to assist her own mother when she was on trial – we know for example that Fitzpatrick did not have a warrant with him, and we know Fitzpatrick did not behave improperly toward Kate – but why would she falsely implicate her innocent brother in the incident?
At the Royal Commission, Ned Kellys uncle Patrick Quinn gave voluntary testimony that also implicated the ‘innocent’ Ned:
Q 17697. Is there anything further you want to say?
Quinn: This Fitzpatrick affair. I believe myself, Fitzpatrick, from what I have heard and can make out, was shot by Ned Kelly.”
Also under oath, during Ned Kellys trial in Melbourne, Senior Constable Kelly described a conversation he had with Ned Kelly immediately after he had been captured at Glenrowan :
“Between 3 and 6 the same morning had another conversation with prisoner in the presence of Constable Ryan. Gave him some milk-and-water. Asked him if Fitzpatrick’s statement was correct. Prisoner said, “Yes, I shot him.”
McIntyre and Steele both said that Ned Kelly had also told them the same thing. And even more compelling proof was provided by Neds cousin Joe Ryan : Ned Kelly sold him a horse at Greta on that very day and he had the dated receipt for £17 signed by Ned Kelly to prove it.
Kelly followers love to say that because none of us was there, we can never know for sure what really happened, and in that way they feel justified in clinging to a belief that Ned Kelly told the truth about what happened that night at his mother’s home, that he wasn’t there and that everything that went wrong after that was all Fitzpatrick’s fault. But if the Jerilderie letter claim is true, then Ned Kelly lied to the hostages at Euroa, he lied to several different police when he said he DID shoot Fitzpatrick, his sister Kate lied when she said he had shot Fitzpatrick, his uncle lied under oath and Ian Jones got it wrong when even he was reluctantly drawn to conclude this : “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”
In fact, Ned Kelly lied about almost everything. We know for certain he lied about being a police-made criminal, we know for certain he lied about his murder of Lonigan, we know for certain he lied about what he planned to do at Glenrowan and yes we know for certain he lied about the Fitzpatrick affair : he WAS there and he DID shoot at Fitzpatrick. This reality, pathological lying, is a central feature of Ned Kellys life story; it was the quality that enabled his horse and cattle stealing syndicate to thrive through the forgery of documents, alteration of branding, and adoption of the false identity of Jack Thompson. His pathological lying was made manifest in all his lecturing of hostages, his statements in Court and in his writing.
Pathological lying is also a central feature of the psychopathic personality, Australia’s most famous example being the man whose huge statue dominates the Glenrowan streetscape. Stand aside the Big Pineapple, Stand aside the Big Prawn, the Big Marino and the Big Banana : Glenrowan has the Big Psychopath. Why they think he is worth remembering is beyond me, but I think its because they also have fallen victim to the psychopaths stock-in-trade : lies.
And they think he was a hero.
No way!
Yes,
Well done, David.
Ned was the psychopathic “Big Fraud” in all of this. Those modern shonks who continue to champion him seem like illiterate redneck fools who just don’t get it. For them Ned is a rusted on hero although they can never produce evidence of any kind he was. Loathsome!
Roy
Time Ned Kelly was removed from school history books. Most of what is said about him is total rubbish, like he was. A failed horse thief mostly picking on the locals. A semi literate loser who let his mother and sisters down badly and blamed everyone else for his troubles. That’s what the newspaper reports back then show.
David,
I don’t have much skin in the game and came across this quite by accident, but it was an interesting read. However, I think you gloss over and ignore some pragmatic realities.
Fitzpatrick clearly is not a credible witness, we only have to look at the evidence from the Royal Commission to see that. Q12898-Q12909 deal with the multiple and continued misconduct and neglect of duties issues Fitzpatrick faced during his three-year tenure as a police constable. All of which he pleaded guilty to.
Then there is the matter of his eventual and arguably inevitable dismissal from the service on Aug 27th 1880 and I will quote Senior Constable Joesph Mayes “the lowest persons, could not be trusted out of sight, and never did his duty” … “worthless character and the men who recommended him for the police committed a grave offence against the public”
Here we have a Police Constable of dubious character whose lies and misrepresentations seriously escalated affairs, whom the Police Service found themselves honour-bound to defend and closed ranks.
Let’s look at Whelan’s evidence before the Royal Commission, even he admitted “I had to deal with Fitzpatrick on a number of occasions before. He was not a good policeman”
Q5945 – “… I despatched Constable Fitzpatrick at two p.m. He received the direction to remain and take charge of the station. Mrs. Strahan was there with her family, and was to remain till Strahan returned and then return back to Benalla station.”
Whelan’s instruction to Fitzpatrick was to babysit the Greta Police station and ensure Mrs Strahan’s welfare, an instruction Fitzpatrick blatantly disobeyed by going directly to the Lindsay Public House instead.
Q5949 – Had you a warrant for his arrest then?— No; there was a warrant Chiltern, but not here. He saw the Gazette notice that this warrant was issued.
Here is the most important piece: there was NO warrant for Dan Kelly, and there’s no evidence brought forward that Dan Kelly had committed an offence while Fitzpatrick was in charge of the Greta sub-district; therefore, no lawful reason exists for Fitzpatrick to attend the Kelly property and certainly not to remain there uninvited for hours. He was not acting in the pursuit of his legal and lawful duties.
Let me quote the Supreme Court: “If a police officer is exceeding his or her duty, resistance to him or her is not an assault.”
Even if the Kellys defended themselves and their property from Fitzpatrick’s presence, they did so lawfully, as Fitzpatrick clearly was not executing his lawful duties and had no right to be there.
This brings me to the incident itself, I won’t even get into the question of whether Ned was there or not just yet. The better question is, was Fitzpatrick actually shot? Because I don’t believe he was, and it doesn’t take much to get to that conclusion.
Ned Kelly is known to have carried a .31 calibre pocket Colt revolver. The bullet would be .320″ as a common size or 8.1mm in diameter. Fitzpatrick would have us believe that Ned fired at him from a distance of less than four feet and missed not once but three times?
This is from the same man many consider to be an expert marksman and shot and killed three police officers at Stringy Bark Creek who were in dense coverage and on the move, but Ned can’t hit a stationary Fitzpatrick from four feet with three shots?
If that bullet had struck Fitzpatrick in the wrist as stated from that distance, it wouldn’t have just stopped with just a slight flesh wound, the impact would have resulted in major damage to the wrist. We know what happens to bone and tissue from such ballistic impacts; this is well documented, and I would challenge you and anyone else to find an example where you can be shot at such a range from a lead ball of that size and not have serious tissue and bone damage.
Dr Nicholson, who treated the wound stated publicly, “… frankly that the wound in his wrist could not have been caused by a bullet”
At the Royal Commission, Dr Nicholson also stated he did not probe the wound, there could not have been much loss of blood, and that it was merely a skin wound. At no point did Dr Nicholson conclude the injuries were the result of a bullet.
Then there is the statement made by Fitzpatrick against Mrs Kelly that she struck him with a fire shovel, yet sustained no injury as a result. For such a dramatic assault against his person, Fitzpatrick required, in essence, zero medical treatment and was more concerned with drinking brandy.
Let’s also talk about Williamson and Skillion, as a result of the Royal Commission and its general belief in Fitzpatrick’s corruption and misconduct, both were granted Pardons. If that is not a damning statement about the validity of Fitzpatricks evidence I don’t know what is.
Skillion wasn’t even there, Williamson himself stated in 1928, it was Joe Byrne who was on the property at the time, not Skillion, and there is the evidence provided by farmers Joseph Ryan and Frank Harty that put Skillion with them at the time of the incident.
You don’t pardon guilty men, especially at that time charged with aiding the attempted murder of a police officer. Society wouldn’t accept that any better than it would now, reality is they were righting a wrong.
Based on the behaviour of the police after the event and the outcome with this mother etc why would Ned have any confidence he would ever be able to clear his name or get a reasonable outcome? I can understand why he wouldn’t just front up and hand himself in as he knew the “justice” that was awaiting him, and it would be anything but reasonable.
For my money, the only Witness to the actual incident with any credibility is William Williamson, and he has stated categorically Ned Kelly was not present, that no gun was ever produced, and it was Dan Kelly who tried to kick a drunken Fitzpatrick out of the house after he made unwanted passed at Kate Kelly.
The very fact that Fitzpatick was able to ride away leads me to believe this, as if Ned Kelly was there and fired a shot I don’t think he would have missed, it would have been fatal, and I don’t think they would have found Fitzpatick’s body.
The police officers who claimed Ned “confessed” to them can’t really be trusted, they have a vested interest in protecting the reputation of the service and upholding the justification of the treatment of Williamson, Skillion and Ellen Kelly who were all convicted on the single testimony of Fitzpatrick who was dismissed from the service as unfit to be a police officer and known for his misconduct in multiple jurisdictions by multiple police inspectors.
Ned Kelly also wouldn’t have been making statements to police of any kind, it just wasn’t in his or any outlaw’s nature to “talk to the jacks”.
The Kellys were no saints, they were a product of their time, poverty and environment. However, Fitzpatrick was also no saint, certainly far from innocent and played his part; without his lies, Stringy Bark Creek would never have happened, and he has as much blood on his hands as Ned Kelly in that regard.
I always have a laugh to myself when someone writes things like this: “I don’t have much skin in the game and came across this quite by accident” and then proceeds to prove the opposite by posting at length a whole lot of pro-Kelly propaganda and misinformation . If you had posted using your real name I am certain it would be one we all would recognise…
I’ll just refute one of your many badly uninformed claims, the one you say is “the most important piece” – your claim there was NO WARRANT for Dan Kelly : See the attached image of the Warrant for horse stealing dated April 8th 1878.
If nobody else can be bothered responding to any of the many other distortions and misrepresentations of yours I wont be surprised. Youre not fair dinkum.
Attachment
Hi anonymous, and thanks for that piping hot pile of warmed-over Bubble-and-Squeak !
It has more holes in it than a Swiss cheese – I know because it’s all the stuff I used to sprout when I was a Kelly-tragic for most of my life.
Take for example your quoting of the Royal Commission testimony – “all of which he pleaded guilty to” , yes… BUTT – all of which occurred AFTER the incident of resisting arrest with lethal force by the Kellys and fellow low-lifers in April 1878.
Even a primary school kid could tell you that stuff which he did AFTER the event doesn’t count…!
His record at the time he got entrusted with the most sensitive posting imaginable, Greta…? UNBLEMISHED !!! Not even stepping on a sidewalk crack or sneaking a read of the final page of a novel…! There’s not a hint of this in the missive you put together there, which does its credibility no good at all….
You even fail to mention the fact that William WIlliamson totally spilled his guts when in jail, and backed up Fitzpatrick’s account almost to the echo !
So, why didn’t you mention that, in something which is headed “I think you gloss over and ignore some pragmatic realities….”
The rest of it is in the same vein, and I haven’t got that much time (unlike some of the people I see with their Such Is Life tatts, clearly inked while they had rather a lot of time – like about 4 years in Cell Block D). It basically debunks itself, and on this blog, you ain’t talking to the sheeple crowding the cinema to see Heath and Orlando this time, but to people who’ve seen all this before.
Cheers.
Alright I can’t resist, I’ll bother with another one, randomly chosen :
“Let me quote the Supreme Court: “If a police officer is exceeding his or her duty, resistance to him or her is not an assault.”
The fact that your unsourced quote contains the clause “or her” proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that it had never been said in Ned Kelly’s time ! They wouldn’t even have been routinely using that People’s Front of Judea annoyance a full HUNDRED years after 1878 !
That’s enough.
Hi Anonymous, when you say you don’t have much skin in the game, this is obvious because you haven’t read my “Redeeming Fitzpatrick” article from 2015 which debunked all of this character assasination of Fitzpatrick and provided a detailed reconstruction of the Fittzpatrick Incident from source evidence and testimony of the day, that corroborates and vindicated Fitzpatrick’s evidence. Google it and enjoy. Also, I will not correspond with any Anonymice. Pop your name in if you want to have a discussion.