Reynolds-averaged statistical flow properties in the turbulent near-wake of a tapered flat plate placed normal to the free-stream were analysed by means of direct numerical simulation (DNS). A taper ratio of 20 was considered in the present study while the Reynolds numbers based on the uniform inflow velocity and the width of the plate at the wide and narrow ends were 1000 and 250, respectively. The tapering gave rise to cellular vortex shedding with randomly occurring vortex dislocations which prohibited a distinction between coherent and incoherent fluctuations. In the current DNS, it was observed that the magnitude of the Reynolds stresses and the production and dissipation rates of fluctuating kinetic energy are much lower than in the wake of a uniform normal flat plate. This reduced magnitude is perhaps due to the fact that the present tapered plate produces a highly incoherent wake, which may result in the reduction of the coherent velocity fluctuations and their overall contribution to the Reynolds-averaged data. In addition to the primary shear-stress term, a secondary shear-stress component was found to co-exist in the present case. The appearance of this secondary shear-stress term, together with the inherent spanwise inhomogeneity and the existence of a distinct secondary flow, was found to drive the fluctuations towards isotropy. In addition, the present DNS surprisingly revealed the appearance of Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities towards the higher local Reynolds numbers, i.e. beyond 920. © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013.