"In an open letter to mark the 30th anniversary of the death of baby Azaria at Uluru, Ms Chamberlain-Creighton said the police started rumours to taint herself and her husband, Michael. "Bury the fact that until the police told us we had to stay near the tent we had both searched," she writes. "By belittling and burying it on the one hand and on the other using it as an excuse to say we sneaked away to bury Azaria's body in the end was so successful that even the jury came to believe we didn't search, despite the testimony to the contrary.""
REPORTER DAVID NASON; THE AUSTRALIAN;
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BACKGROUND: WIKIPEDIA): Michael and Lindy Chamberlain's first daughter, Azaria, was born on June 11, 1980. When Azaria was two months old, Michael and Lindy Chamberlain took their three children on a camping trip to Ayers Rock, arriving on August 16, 1980. On the night of August 17, Chamberlain reported that the child had been taken from her tent by a dingo. A massive search was organised, but all that was found were remains of some of the bloody clothes, which confirmed the death of baby Azaria. Her body has never been discovered. Although the initial coronal inquiry supported the Chamberlains' account of Azaria's disappearance, Lindy Chamberlain was later prosecuted for the murder of her child on the basis of the finding of the baby's jumpsuit and of tests that appeared to indicate the presence of blood found in the Chamberlains' car. This forensic gathering convicted her of murder on October 29, 1982, and sentenced her to life imprisonment; the theory was that she slit the child's throat and hid the body. Michael Chamberlain was convicted as an accessory to murder. Shortly after her conviction, Lindy Chamberlain gave birth to her fourth child, Kahlia, on November 17, 1982, in prison. An appeal against her conviction was rejected by the High Court in February, 1984. New evidence emerged on February 2, 1986 when a remaining item of Azaria's clothing was found partially buried near Uluru in an isolated location, adjacent to a dingo lair. This was the matinee jacket which the police had maintained for years did not exist. Five days later, Chamberlain was released. The Northern Territory Government publicly said it was because "she had suffered enough." In view of inconsistencies in the earlier blood testing which gave rise to potential reasonable doubts about the propriety of her conviction and as DNA testing was not as advanced in the early 1980s it emerged that the 'baby blood' found in her car could have been any substance, Lindy Chamberlain's life sentence was remitted by the Northern Territory Government and a Royal Commission began to investigate the matter in 1987. Chamberlain's conviction was overturned in September, 1988 and another inquest in 1995 returned an open verdict. In recent years there have been fatal dingo attacks on children, one famous instance being at the holiday resort at Fraser Island.
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Canada has its own Dingo case - the the prosecution of Louise Reynolds for the second-degree murder of her seven-year-old daughter Sharon - Sharon Reynolds case - and it involves none other than Dr. Charles Smith. Smith stubbornly held on to his opinion that Sharon had died after receiving eighty-one knife and scissors wounds - in spite of the clear signs - that should have been evident to a real forensic pathologist that Sharon had been savaged by a Pit Bull in the basement of the family home. As Justice Justice Stephen Goudge noted in the report of his public inquiry, Smith tended "to mislead the court" by overstating his knowledge in a particular area, rather than acknowledging the limits to his expertise. "When Dr. Smith performed the post-mortem examination in Sharon's cases, he had little experience with either stab wounds or dog bites. He had only seen one or two cases of each kind. At the preliminary hearing, however, Dr. Smith left the impression that he had significant experience with both. Dr. Smith told the court: "I've seen dog wounds, I've seen coyote wounds, I've seen wolf wounds. I recently went to the archipelago of islands owned by another country up near the North Pole and had occasion to study osteology and look at patterns of wounding from polar bears. His attempt to so exaggerate his abilities disguised his lack of relevant expertise." Smith's unscientific, utterly ignorant opinion, placed Louise Reynolds in a hell in which she was wrongly arrested as a murderer in her small city, imprisoned, and experiencing the horror of having her other children seized from her by the authorities. Similarly, Lindy Chamberlain, a bereaved mother, was branded as a killer and placed in her own hell, as a result of the Crown's forensic authorities who were so certain about their opinions. Lindy Chamberlain's request to have her daughter's death certificate to reflect the real cause of death to give her and her family closure. The authorities are always talking about the need for the justice system to provide closure for victims of crimes. Why would they hesitate to provide closure to victims of wrongful prosecutions such as Lindy Chamberlain and her husband?
HAROLD LEVY: PUBLISHER; THE CHARLES SMITH BLOG;
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"LINDY Chamberlain-Creighton has hit out at police who investigated the death of her daughter three decades ago," the Daily Telegraph story by reporter Davvid Nason, published on August 18, 2010 under the heading, "Lindy savages police investigation of Azaria," begins.
"She said they told her to stay near her tent and not look for her missing baby -- and then spread a rumour she didn't join the search in order to influence the jury," the story continues.
"In an open letter to mark the 30th anniversary of the death of baby Azaria at Uluru, Ms Chamberlain-Creighton said the police started rumours to taint herself and her husband, Michael. "Bury the fact that until the police told us we had to stay near the tent we had both searched," she writes. "By belittling and burying it on the one hand and on the other using it as an excuse to say we sneaked away to bury Azaria's body in the end was so successful that even the jury came to believe we didn't search, despite the testimony to the contrary."
Last night reports said the Northern Territory government was seeking legal advice to change the death certificate to say a dingo was responsible and had asked the Register of Births, Deaths and Marriages to asses whether the cause of death was accurate.
In her letter, Ms Chamberlain-Creighton reveals herself as an angry, troubled woman, unable to forgive and wanting more from the justice system she says has failed her daughter Azaria.
She calls on Australians to "grow a backbone before the world turns on you".
"Give up the desire for gossip and sensationalism," she writes."Use your brains for something useful."
Ms Chamberlain-Creighton claims she has moved on from the dark days when she was wrongfully convicted of Azaria's murder, but her words seem too bitter to be convincing.
"Have I forgiven everyone involved in creating the fiasco of the last 30 years and the public so willing to believe the worst and spread nasty rumours?" Ms Chamberlain-Creighton asks. "Of course I have. I have handed the hurt back to those who caused it. It is up to them as individuals to ask God to forgive them for what they did, because I forgave long ago and moved on.
"Oh, and despite what some headlines have said in the last 12 months, that does include the police, politicians and lawyers of the NT. It would be nice to get a voluntary apology, but I am no longer holding my breath."
She writes that justice for Azaria demanded her death certificate cite a dingo as the cause of death, not the open finding delivered at the third and last coronial inquest in 1995.
On that occasion, coroner John Lowndes found that "the cause and manner of Azaria's death cannot be determined and must remain unknown".
The finding was condemned at the time by the first coroner, Denis Barritt, who said it would "delight those people in the community who live for suspicion and gossip".
Ms Chamberlain-Creighton said it had always been the Northern Territory's claim that it was either "Lindy or the dingo".
"Their own (royal) commission proved it was not me, as I had told them all along, so why don't they accept their own claim now?" she writes. "It makes one wonder: are they really after the truth, or just too stubborn or proud to admit that a mistake has been made?"
Like trial judge James Muirhead, who said the Chamberlain case had made him question the value of the jury system, Ms Chamberlain-Creighton said law reform was needed to stop the courts becoming "just a lethal game . . . we need an updated system for the modern age.""
The story - with sidebars - can be found at:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/lindy-savages-police-investigation-of-azaria/story-fn59niix-1225906554632
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be accessed at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith
For a breakdown of some of the cases, issues and controversies this Blog is currently following, please turn to:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2010/08/new-feature-cases-issues-and_15.html
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;
