‘ Keep I Need Them To ALIVE IN MY MEMORY’
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.
“HE made a decision that night that he was going out to hurt people.”
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 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
