LINDY Chamberlain will be 64 tomorrow (Sunday 3 March 2012). 
She has spent half her life fighting the accusation that she murdered her baby daughter Azaria at Ayers Rock in 1980. She is continuing the fight now.
She is wants the Darwin coroner to find that Azaria was killed by a dingo and for her death certificate to reflect this.
I covered the Chamberlains’ appeals in the Federal and High Courts in 1983 and 1984. That and subsequent events have been an instructive experience.
At the end of the Federal Court appeal I was convinced of Lindy Chamberlain’s guilt. Ian Barker QC, for the Crown, put an incisive case, as he did at the trial.
In the Federal Court Barker was there to argue that the jury’s guilty verdict was safe and satisfactory.
He used the rope analogy. Each strand of evidence, he said, was not in itself convincing, just suggestive of guilt. But taken together they formed a strong rope.
He cited the foetal blood in the Chamberlain’s car; the infrared image of a hand on the jump suit (which had been found a week later); blood splatter evidence; vegetation; sand grains only on the surface of the blood drops; evidence of dingo jaw width; scissor-like slicing of the fabric of the jump suit and so on.
It was like an early version of CI. Very convincing when taken together.
It convinced the Darwin jury, especially when another ingredient was added.
Barker told the jury that Territorians knew that crocodiles were dangerous and could take a baby or an adult, but that dingoes just did not do that. Territorians knew that.
It was the frontier mentality. Lindy’s lawyer was from Melbourne – down south where they don’t understand these things. And the jury bought it.
They bought it despite the judge, Justice James Muirhead, summing up in a way that a sophisticated jury would suggest an acquittal was warranted.
I have it on unreliable hearsay evidence (but I can get no better) that Muirhead was aghast at the guilty verdict and rang a judicial colleague to say so.
The Chamberlain case is yet another example of the defects of the jury system. Juries do not have to give reasons for their decisions. They are required to act in haste – they are virtually locked in a room until they come to a verdict. They act anonymously. They are selected at random with no testing of their capacity to make decisions.
Worse, once they decide, the appellate system gives far too much weight and respect to their verdict. Appeal judges are not allowed in law to substitute their own conclusions for the jury’s. They can only overturn a jury verdict if it is shown to be unsafe, unsatisfactory or dangerous.
It is a damn silly process because juries give no reasons. We can never know whether in this case or any other a jury gave weight to irrelevant matters: “We know as Territorians that dingoes do not take babies or attack humans.” “She belongs to that weird religion.”
That said, it is hard to blame the jury in the Chamberlain case for getting it wrong because of the way the case was put to them. They were invited to conclude that when you exclude the impossible (that the seven or eight pieces of scientific evidence were wrong) you have to conclude the improbable (that a mother without any motive killed her child and somehow disposed of the body).
In the words of Chief Justice Harry Gibbs and Justice Anthony Mason in the High Court, “The jury should decide whether they accept the evidence of a particular fact, not by considering the evidence directly relating to that fact in isolation, but in the light of the whole evidence, and that they can draw an inference of guilt from a combination of facts, none of which viewed alone would support that inference.”
That reasoning invites the acceptance of individually shaky bits of evidence because overall they point to a conclusion of guilt. Worse, a jury bombarded with scientific evidence could fall for the trap of circular logic by allowing a hunch or gut feeling of guilt to emerge and then reassuring themselves that the scientific evidence supports it.
It is the Barker rope trick. It is still good law.
It might be fine when the evidence is a combination of ordinary circumstantial evidence, but not if it is scientific evidence. Science is science, not conjecture. The science should be convincing or should be excluded from the jury.
People chosen at random are not likely to be equipped to cope with contentious scientific evidence.
In the Chamberlain case, the reverence that six of the eight appeal judges (three in the Federal Court and three of the five in the High Court) had for the jury verdict – respect for the good sense of common person’s view of the world – led them astray.
The jury did not apply good sense – why would a mother on holiday kill her baby and having done so concocted a story about a dingo taking her baby? The judges should have applied good sense, but couldn’t because of the state of the law and because they had no idea how the jury came to its verdict.
We now know the science was dud and we know a lot more about dingoes – there have been a lot more attacks since then, at least one of them fatal.
Indeed, research by the University of Western Sydney suggests that dingoes in Australia are behaving like any wild animals disturbed by encroachment of human populations.
Dingoes prefer a diet of small native animals within a fairly well-defined and learnt territory. Dingoes teach their young the limits of their territory and the tricks of catching and killing native prey and the dangers of moving out of their territory. If you disrupt that pattern by killing or trapping adult dingoes or by leaving human waste food around you invite dingoes to go for stock or small humans as easy prey.
Lindy Chamberlain has consistently said a dingo took her baby. She always said Azaria was wearing a matinee jacket. The jacket was ultimately found near a dingoes’ den during the search for the body of a tourist who fell from Ayer Rock. That led to an inquiry and the quashing of the convictions. But still the death certificate remains a falsehood.
No fair person could possibly conclude anything else now but that a dingo killed Azaria Chamberlain and that Lindy Creighton Chamberlain and Michael Chamberlain are entitled to have the death certificate reflect that.
CRISPIN HULL
This article first appeared in The Canberra Times on 3 March 2012.
I can assure you a dingo did NOT take Azaria.
My uncle was an expert tracker and camped (in the open) in full view of the Chamberlain’s tent.
With him was his Kelpie who would have detected a Dingo within a mile of the campsite.
He and other trackers there found no sign of a dingo having been present.
They gave a statement to Frank Morris.
Retired officer Frank Morris, who was at the Chamberlains’ campsite within 10 minutes of the alarm being raised 32 years ago, said there was no way a dingo was to blame.
“There was human intervention, there definitely was,” he told Channel 9 tonight.
Mr Morris did not say Azaria’s parents Lindy and Michael were involved but he believes someone dumped the nine-week-old baby’s singlet, jumpsuit and booties.
“At the end of the day, the dingo didn’t put them there,” he said.
“They were put there by a human.”
Bill and Judith West, say they heard a dingo growl near the tent. Dingos only growl as a defense mechanism,
They were not near the tent at the time. The Dawson’s were closer.
My uncle and the other expert trackers there found no sign of a dingo having been present.
I hope the Northern Territory coroner, Elizabeth Morris, finds that the finds that the status is still “unknown”.
DingoSimon, all I have read from you is a bunch of innuendo, hot air, anti-government propaganda and wild speculation. Read the facts for Pete’s sake and stop mythologizing and romanticizing dingoes!!! They are not some saintly beings, elevated on a pedistel, that can do no wrong.
Dingoes are not capable of taking and eating a baby because they do not have fur???? Pull the other one, it plays Jingle Bells.
Pure dingoes have been observed carrying off all sorts of things with weights as great as that of a full grown wallaby. They have been documented carrying full grown wallabies, at full trot, with head held up, only the tail of the wallaby dragging and they do not drop the carcass for at least 500 metres.
They’ve been observed since Colonial times scavenging around campsites, stealing food from tents, even chewing at saddle bags and swags around campfires.
A dingo would carry off an unattended baby no trouble whatsoever. The fact that it is a human is irrelevant to a hungry dingo, especially one near a tourist area that stupid people have been feeding. Dingoes and wild dogs that have been induced into a state of human dependency are a danger to children and other adults.
The simple lesson that should come out of the Chamberlain case is 1) DO NOT FEED dingoes, and 2) Treat all wildlife with the respect it deserves.
If people only observed those two things there would be no problem dingoes around tourist areas. Full stop!
The Dingo was resiliently described as “Evil” and “Demonic”. These are words invented by humans to describe actions of a being capable of rational thought & one that is able to understand abstract constructs. It also implies that the being must have true free will that allows them to choose to act against accepted moral behavior. This is why we people who are genuinely insane can not be held accountable for their actions.
To call a Dingo or any animal “Evil” or “Demonic” is as ridiculous as those who call brutal murders & rapists “Animals”.
By: Andre Schoen
For years, it has been widely rumoured in the Centre, widely circulated by quite sober persons, that the so-called ‘dingo’ belonged to an Uluru ranger, implying that the Chamberlains were stitched up right from the beginning. Never seen this story surfaced or checked out anywhere.
Well said sir,
Perhaps Lindy was the first Australian to truly be tried by the media. I don’t believe there was a juror in the country who would not have been exposed to the circus. Everyone had an opinion on a dingo’s capabilities. I might add that most had never even seen the animal. The myth that a dingo couldn’t take a baby is absurd. There are many historical reports of dingo attacks from all over Australia prior to Azalia. An example right here in the ACT in the late 19th century saw a young girl killed who strayed 100 yards from her home at Tharwa. Perhaps its a shame that the National Library’s Trove (newspapers) search engine wasn’t operational 32 years ago.
Regarding the Chamberlain versus dingo case, could it be that Lindy never killed the baby but some one else did?. I have heard innuendo’s that the eldest son had something to do with it ( maybe just an accident) but Lindy wanted to protect him.
I have also been told by Bruce Jacobs who once owned the Australian Dingo Farm in Chewton Victoria, that when he was flown up there to make an opinion he met two ex rangers , and that one of them had admitted it was his german shepherd cross dingo that was found with a dead baby in it’s mouth and they disposed of it.
The thing is that everyone seems to miss is that the human body in no way represents dingo food. Dingoes food is wild animal with fur or feathers on it, not human skin. This is paramount and everyone has ignored it.
If a dingo took the baby ( and I say a BIG if ), the dingo had to enter a tent , step over two children and grab the baby by the clothes ( which should have caused instant screaming by the baby ) and leave the tent.
Dingoes when they pick up their prey, they shake it first, put it back on the ground , take another bite and shake again and then begin eating it or moving away. So this is why I have great difficulty that a dingo took the baby.
Now since a baby does not smell like dingo food, could the baby have already been dead and gave off a death smell that could have attracted a dingo?
What also has to be remembered here is that dingoes lived with aborigines for 1000’s of years, they did not kill babies.
Personally I believe that Lindy and Michael know exactly how Azaria died, and no one will ever know what happened.
On a side note I have lived with dingoes for 17 years. I own Qld’s only private Dingo Sanctuary and I study their behaviour every day. I have very grave doubts a dingo took a live baby from the tent.
But what also must be remembered is that the NT Govt gave instruction that it was now illegal to feed dingoes a few weeks prior to the Chamberlains arriving.
Also with regards to Fraser Island dingoes, the QLD Govt Dept QPWS also made it illegal in 1991 to feed dingoes, and it is alleged that Clinton Gage was attacked by a starving dingo after he was seen throwing sticks and stones at a pair of mating dingoes, and when they separated Clinton began to run away, was then chased by a dingo and bitten on the inside leg piercing the femoral artery when he fell down.
So as I see it, due to the Govt’s interference by banning the feeding of dingoes , which had been fed for years with hand outs, a situation had occurred whereby the food sources had been removed and the dingoes began to starve hence creating a very serious and dangerous environment.
That is why I find it offensive that QLD DERM proudly state that there has been over 200 dingo attacks on humans on Fraser Island, when it was they who starved the dingoes and began a program of hazing, trapping, ear tagging and now collaring pups and adults. Thereby creating a massive disturbance of the natural environment of the dingo and allowing an incredible influx of tourists who trampled all over the dingoes territory.
It is no wonder we have issues when a Govt allows tourists to invade wilderness areas ( so as to make $$$$$) and in return puts the balance of the ecosystem so far out of balance that the stability of the wild animals is totally threatened.
It is a very sad thing to happen, and the poor dingo is then falsely labelled as a killer when in actual fact it is the humans that are the killers in the first instance.
Hooroo, Dingosimon