How one man’s stolen identity was used by the man accused of running an international cult from Nannup
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In mid-2009, British citizen Simon Kadwill-Kelly was waiting patiently in a long queue of cars on a ferry returning from France.
He was excited at the thought of returning to his home in the United Kingdom.
But when he reached the head of the queue, border control officers asked him to get out of his car.
“I thought, ‘They’re just doing a routine car check,'” he said.
Instead, officers took him to a small room and questioned him for hours.
“The first question they said to me was, ‘When was I last in Australia?'” Mr Kadwill-Kelly said.
This was the moment Mr Kadwill-Kelly realised his identity was being used to execute an international fraud, with very serious implications.
Mr Kadwill-Kelly has revealed to the ABC Expanse podcast how a software company salesman came to be living with a false identity and tied up in one of Australia’s most baffling missing persons cases.
Unknowingly, Mr Kadwill-Kelly, he had become a wanted man by Interpol after Australian police began investigating the bizarre disappearance of a mother, her child and two men from south-west Western Australia.
‘No, that’s not me’
After hours of questioning, the officers handed him a picture of the man they were after.
It was his name, but not his face.
“I said, ‘No, that’s not me,'” he said.
“But I knew who it was.”
The man in the photo was an old work colleague he had not seen for more than a decade.
A man called Gary Felton.
Mr Kadwill-Kelly met Gary Felton when he took a job at a software company in London in the 1980s.
“He was a kind of fun guy. Quite happy-go-lucky, good sense of humour,” Mr Kadwill-Kelly said.
At this time, Mr Kadwill-Kelly was legally called Simon Kadwill.
The two hit it off, becoming close friends who would party together each weekend.
True extent of Felton’s deception revealed
About a year into their friendship, Mr Kadwill-Kelly showed Mr Felton his birth certificate and passport.
Mr Kadwill-Kelly said he did not remember how the conversation came up.
“We were quite trusting of each other.”
The next time he needed it, Mr Kadwill-Kelly realised his birth certificate was missing.
When Mr Kadwill-Kelly asked Mr Felton where it was, his friend admitted to taking it.
“I was horrified and it put me in an awkward situation,” Mr Kadwill-Kelly said.
Mr Kadwill-Kelly did not report the theft to police, believing it would be a one-off occurrence.
That seemingly innocuous decision would go on to have a vast ripple effect.
The pair eventually lost touch and Mr Kadwill-Kelly gave no more thought to the stolen birth certificate, until he visited his GP seeking medical treatment for chronic back pain.
“She confronted me and said I’ve already had an operation.
“I said, ‘Look, this is not the case, you’ve made a mistake.’ She didn’t believe me.”
After investigating, Mr Kadwill-Kelly realised his old friend has used his identity to gain medical treatment and purchase property.
A new identity in Australia
Mr Felton’s movements around this time are not fully known, but by the 1990s he had created a false passport and moved to Australia as Simon Kadwill.
He began spruiking his bizarre spiritual beliefs through self-authored books and an online forum.
By 2007, he was living a reclusive lifestyle in an isolated town in south-west Western Australia, where he spent his days sleeping and his nights running an online forum called The Gateway, which had followers across the world.
Read more https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-31/simon-kadwills-identity-was-stolen-by-gary-felton-to-run-a-cult/106350742
Content retrieved from: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-31/simon-kadwills-identity-was-stolen-by-gary-felton-to-run-a-cult/106350742.
