Doubleview child snatcher Ashley Bropho admits to sex abuse, could join relative Terence Kelly in jail

Ashley Bropho — the man accused of luring a nine-year-old girl away from a Doubleview park before sexually assaulting her — has pleaded guilty to the shocking attack. Bropho, 39, this morning admitted to two counts of indecent assault and one count of encouraging a child to perform a sexual act in July this year. As a result, WA Police dropped another charge of detaining another person with intent to gain a benefit. Following the attack in July this year, it was revealed that Bropho grew up under the same roof as Terence Kelly — the man who abducted Cleo Smith. And now, with the guilty plea and the impending sentencings of both men, they could end up living under the same roof again at one of Perth’s top security prisons. During previous court hearings, it was revealed that Bropho coerced the young girl from a park near Newborough Primary School about 10.30am. Police say Mr Bropho took the girl back to his State-owned home, which is about 300m away, and sexually abused her before she managed to flee and alert her family. Police swarmed the area and pounced on Mr Bropho a short time later. It also emerged that Bropho was in a community inclusion program through not-for-profit organisation Outcare at the time — and that a support worker was “around the area” at the time of his alleged offending. An internal investigation subsequently cleared the support worker of any wrongdoing, his employers revealed. Bropho will remain in prison until a hearing to fix his sentencing date in November. Before then a pre-sentence report and a psychological report will be compiled, which is likely to delve into his family history. Bropho is the biological grandson of the late Aboriginal elder Penny Walker, who took in Kelly when he was two years old because his mother “did not want him”. In a 2019 oral history interview, Ms Walker revealed she took Mr Kelly in because his “mum didn’t want him and she threw him away”. “I looked down at him and this little boy - God was giving me something back into my life... my children,” she said. Ms Walker said she raised Mr Kelly alongside her two grandsons after the death of her daughter from multiple sclerosis. Kelly is due to be sentenced for the kidnap of Cleo Smith over two days in December.