Man appears in court charged over alleged abduction of Cleo Smith

Cleo Smith pictured in hospital after she was found by police. Photo / WA Police

A man has faced court charges over the alleged abduction of 4-year-old Cleo Smith in Western Australia.

Cleo was allegedly taken from the family tent while camping at Quobba Blowholes on October 16 and was rescued from a house in nearby Carnarvon just before 1am on Wednesday when detectives barged into the property.

Terence Darrell Kelly, 36, was taken into custody and questioned before police released a statement late on Thursday, saying he had been charged with "various offences" including one count of forcibly taking a child aged under 16.

"Given this matter is now before the court, police are unable to make any further comment on the charges at this stage," police said.

Kelly briefly faced Carnarvon Magistrates Court and was remanded in custody for four weeks.

Earlier on Thursday, lead investigator Detective Superintendent Rod Wilde told reporters the accused man had allegedly harmed himself twice, which had resulted in two trips to the hospital.

It is expected Kelly will be flown to Perth after going before the magistrate in Carnarvon.

"We will allege ... that he acted solely alone," Wilde said.

Asked if the accused man was the driver of a car seen about 3am on the night Cleo vanished, Wilde said: "That hasn't been confirmed as yet, but certainly we would say that that car was significant and it was in the right time frame."

Cleo Smith pictured in hospital after she was found by police. Photo / WA Police

Wilde described the probe as a "very quick-moving investigation", with the man only becoming a suspect late on Tuesday afternoon.

"He was arrested not long after that," he said.

During an earlier radio interview on Thursday, Wilde rubbished rumours that the suspect was bashed by a cellmate.

"No, that's not true. My understanding is that the man in custody self-harmed," he told 6PR radio.

"Obviously, in modern police stations there's CCTV in all the cells."

Wilde said Cleo was "physically fine" after her alleged abduction, but police still needed to establish what happened during the 18 days she was missing, describing it as a "traumatic event".

"Obviously there's a process to go through with our child specialist interviewers that are here now," he said.

"Depending on how she is ... we intend to start that [part of the investigation] today."

Wilde said it was unhelpful for people to "speculate" and share "wild theories" about the case online.

"There's been a lot of it through this investigation. It's unhelpful, we see that it's untrue, it only damages people.

"We've got a legal process that we'll need to go through — that's where the facts will come forward.

"Everyone please keep those theories to yourself and don't go sticking them on social media — it's very unhelpful."

The detective also confirmed that when Police Commissioner Chris Dawson and other officers walked into the local pub in Carnarvon on Wednesday night, they got a standing ovation.

WA Deputy Police Commissioner Col Blanch said the suspect was "assisting" police with their inquiries.

"He's gone off to hospital again this morning," Blanch told Sunrise on the Seven Network.

"The important thing for police, if we're going to interview someone about offences as serious as this ... we will need them in a condition where they have had a rest, they're in a good mental state, they've been fed.

"So, we've got to make sure we give them the best opportunity to answer questions and that's to ensure that the court process is validated if we get to that point."

NCA NewsWire understands the man was pulled over in a car by police near Carnarvon about midnight and was arrested.

Detectives then went to the house and saved Cleo.

While the $1 million reward offered by the WA government was unlikely to be claimed given Cleo was found following solid police work rather than a specific tip-off, Blanch did not want to rule out the possibility.

"The police collected so much information from day one for those 18 days that they were able to trawl through and put that jigsaw puzzle together," he said.

"Part of that jigsaw puzzle was information from the community.

"We're not going to discount that it's not going to be paid out but ... really, it was good, hard detective and intelligence analyst work.

"It was literally a needle in a data haystack."

In video footage released by police of Cleo's rescue, her hair appeared neat and clean.

"Her physical well being seemed okay," Blanch said.

"But there's a lot of work to be done with a child of such a young age to understand what they've been through."

Blanch said Cleo would have suffered some trauma being away from her family for 18 days.

Meanwhile, Cleo's mother, Ellie Smith, who posted on social media throughout the search in a bid to encourage people to come forward with information, has now made her Instagram and Facebook pages private.

She and Cleo's stepfather, Jake Gliddon, were subjected to online abuse from people accusing them of being involved in their daughter's disappearance, despite police consistently saying they were not suspects.

Blanch said he did not want people to be afraid of camping in WA, which was a popular activity in the state.

"We have to give that public reassurance ... that fear can probably now go away," he said.