Dozens of community members have rallied at the NSW Coroner\u2019s Court in Lidcombe today calling for the reopening of the coronial investigation into the death of Lewis \u201cBuddy\u201d Kelly in 1983. Buddy Kelly was just 16-years-old when he was found dead on railway tracks outside of Kempsey and the initial investigation into the circumstances of Buddy\u2019s death was completely inadequate with no autopsy, no blood alcohol readings and with the police failing to take individual statements from key witnesses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2020, Buddy\u2019s body was exhumed with the permission of his family by the NSW Coroner to be forensically examined. Four years later, Buddy\u2019s family are calling for answers and for an investigation into new evidence that has been reported to the NSW Police and Coroner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Buddy\u2019s sister Monica Kelly spoke in front of the Coroner\u2019s Court today, \u201cIt\u2019s been four years since our family made the impossible decision to have our Buddy exhumed, and more than 41 years since he was taken from us and denied his life. We need answers and we need them urgently,\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat our family has gone through has been four decades and four generations of trauma. We have not received updates from the Coroner about the investigation, and for four years we have had to live with the freshly opened wound of Buddy\u2019s death. If there is any information that can be provided to us, then it should be. Our lives are passing by while waiting for the results of this investigation that started more than four years ago,\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe will keep going down this path for as long as it takes, no family could rest if they had gone through the same trauma as us. It is impossible to see why there has not been more progress on finding the truth behind Buddy\u2019s death even though we are now years down the track from the Coroner exhuming him,\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe also know that there has been fresh evidence given to the NSW Police and the Coroner that should have been the trigger for a fresh investigation to start. Everyday that there is no progress, and that we aren\u2019t told what is going on, is another day of injustice for Buddy and for us,\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis journey we are on trying to access justice for Buddy and our families should not be this long and hard. It has been 4 years since we saw the exhuming of the body. Things are not moving fast enough and we have been left out. There should be better processes and support in place for our family. We are doing this because we want the system to change so that we can access justice and so that other families that may follow ours don\u2019t have to do it so hard. We just want a fair and proper process while we find the truth about our Buddy. It\u2019s what everyone deserves.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Coroner has a responsibility to see justice served, and in our case the injustice is extensive, painful and ongoing. We are here today to show the world that we are not going away, and that we will not give up on justice for Buddy,\u201d Ms Kelly said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dozens of community members have rallied at the NSW Coroner\u2019s Court in Lidcombe today calling for the reopening of the coronial investigation into the death of Lewis \u201cBuddy\u201d Kelly in 1983. Buddy Kelly was just 16-years-old when he was found dead on railway tracks outside of Kempsey and the initial investigation into the circumstances of … Continue reading “Justice for Buddy Kelly, Community rallies at Coroner’s Court”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30579"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30580,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30579\/revisions\/30580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}