“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 tragic deaths of their children, writes Michael Sheather.

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For Sydney’s Kings Cross, it was still early. At precisely 10.05pm 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 the country.

As Thomas stepped onto the street that night, he was talking into his mobile phone, 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 where both the romance and all the promise of Thomas Kelly’s young life ended, snuffed out in an appalling act of unprovoked violence. Just two minutes later Thomas was laid out on a King’s Cross pavement, his blood spreading darkly across concrete.

A drunken thug, 18-year-old Kieran Loveridge, lunged at the couple out of 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 footpath. He never regained consciousness.