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World :: Ned Kelly's Remains To Be Returned To Family

The skeleton of the notorious Australian outlaw Ned Kelly is to be given to his descendants for a family burial rather than going on display in a museum.

The state government in Victoria made the ruling, which comes 132 years after the infamous criminal was executed.

The remains will be buried in a grave with other members of Kelly’s family, but without a skull which remains missing.

"The Kelly family will now make arrangements for Ned's final burial," said Ellen Hollow, the great grand-daughter of Kelly's sister Kate.

Kelly's remains were among the many exhumed from the site of Melbourne's old Pentridge Prison in 2009.

Ned Kelly Remains Kelly's headless remains are to be buried by his family

Last year a team of scientists established the skeleton belonged to Kelly through CT scans, X-rays, pathology, dental records and DNA tests.

Ned Kelly was hanged on November 11, 1880 after famously uttering the words "such is life".

His father, an Irishman, was sent to Australia as a convict, and as a young man Ned Kelly frequently clashed with the authorities fighting what he believed was oppressive British rule.

He became a bushranger, the Australian equivalent of a highwayman, robbing banks and roaming with his gang.

After killing three policemen he was tracked down and arrested following a violent shootout, in which his gang wore homemade metal armour.

To some Australians he was simply a criminal but to others he went down in history as a folk hero.

A property developer behind the Pentridge Prison site, where he was buried, will now be forced to hand over the skeleton.

The developer of the site wanted to use Kelly's remains for an exhibition or memorial.

It is the final chapter in Ned Kelly’s remarkable story which has been the subject of numerous films and television series’.

Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger played the lead role in the 1970 movie Ned Kelly, while Heath Ledger starred as the bandit in a 2003 remake.

Kelly has also been the inspiration for many books, most notably Peter Carey's novel True History of the Kelly Gang, which won the 2001 Booker Prize.