"Having been involved in a fracas which resulted in the corrupt Constable Fitzpatrick being shot in the hand, Ned and Dan Kelly and two friends fled. In their absence their mother was charged with abetting attempted murder. She and her new baby were imprisoned.

"The boys were poorly armed and the police who hunted them had deadly modern weapons. The police publicly boated that they would scatter the Kellys' brains across the bush, and when four policemen set off from Mansfield for the Wombat ranges they carried with them not only a Spencer rifle and Webley pistols but specially made straps specifically designed to strap the Kellys' corpses to their horses.

"Deep in the wild Wombat Ranges, the police unknowingly camped close to their quarry. The boys observed them at night by the campfire and it seems certain that, had they wished to do so, they might have picked them off even with the arms they had.

"Instead they decided to 'bail up' the police, and to equip themselves with the police guns. Fatefully the police chose to fight and when the battle was over three policeman lay dead.

"The historical Kelly writes : "I put my cloak over [Sgt. Kennedy] and left him as well as I could and were they my own brothers I could not have been more sorry for them. This cannot be called willful murder for I was compelled to shoot them or lie down and let them shoot me. It would not be willful murder if they packed our remains in, shattered into an animated mass of gore to Mansfield. They would have got great praise and credit as well as promotion .... Certainly their wives and children are to be pitied, but they must remember those men came into the bush with the intention of scattering pieces of me and my brother all over the bush ..."

"From this point there was no escape within the law. They must live outside it."