Keli Lane has had her day release privileges revoked after allegations of inappropriate behaviour.
The 50-year-old had been enjoying the privileges of a day job, and weekend visits with family and friends, but on Friday she received an order for breaching the conditions of the arrangement, as reported by the Daily Mail.
According to the publication, Keli breached the conditions by misusing a prison-issued mobile phone for work and has had her day release privileges revoked as a result.
The former Olympic water polo player, who was found guilty of killing her newborn baby in 1996, is apparently “devastated” over the decision.
“It’s cruelty, there is no other explanation. Time and time again she is being punished for things,” a close friend of Keli Lane told the Daily Mail this week.
“So what if she used the phone a couple of times? She has access to calls in jail anyway and is allowed out on weekends with family — what difference does it make?”
Earlier this year, Keli was spotted enjoying a swim at Sydney’s Fairlight Beach with her long-term boyfriend Patrick Cogan, who has stood by her throughout her years behind bars. The pair have known each other since they were teenagers and they reconnected just before Keli was arrested in 2009.
She has three-and-a-half years left in her sentence, but is currently living in a halfway house in western Sydney, and was enjoying regular weekend visits with family and friends.
It’s been reported she’s worked at various locations on work release, including at a steel manufacturing company and at a dairy product factory since mid-2023.
Last year, the one-time Olympic hopeful was denied parole under NSW’s ‘no body, no parole’ law as she has always maintained her innocence and claimed that she handed Tegan over to her biological father, who she claimed was a man named Andrew Morris or Andrew Norris.
Tegan disappeared just two days after she entered the world at Auburn Hospital on September 12, 1996. Keli kept the pregnancy and birth secret from everyone in her life, and even attended a wedding the day after she gave birth.
The newborn’s body has never been found.
According to medical records, Keli has been pregnant at least five times. The first two times, she terminated the pregnancies, and she later adopted out the babies between before and after Tegan.
Keli was convicted of Tegan’s murder in 2010 and sentenced to a maximum of 18 years behind bars with a non-parole period of 13 years and five months.
She was due to be released in 2024 but her application for release was rejected under NSW’s new ‘no body, no parole’ laws, which came in after the Chris Dawson trial.
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