Azaria, the little baby who was tragically forgotten in this incident, suffered the horrifying fate of being snatched by a wild animal from her bed and carried away into the darkness, destined to be devoured. Sadly, this distressing event was overlooked as scientists, police, and lawyers argued over the significance of her bloodstained clothes. Even Azaria’s mother rightfully expressed during the trial that “we are not discussing some inanimate object here.
Despite showing no signs of remorse, the accusers did not respond to the statement “It’s my little girl.” Azaria, who was never given a proper funeral or a gravesite for people to pay their respects, will always be remembered by her loving family who named her Azaria, meaning “blessed of God.” The “Free Lindy Campaign,” renowned as the most well-organized public rallying effort in Australia, fought for freedom.
It was mainly due to the spontaneous efforts of individuals who had joined the cause, bringing along thousands of new supporters. At its core were dedicated individuals who worked tirelessly for justice and the Chamberlains. For instance, Veronica Flanigan would go from door to door in her village located 120 kilometers southwest of Sydney, collecting signatures for a petition. Additionally, Mrs. J Edwards dedicated hours at the Perth central mall distributing leaflets to encourage people to write to parliamentarians regarding the case.
In Melbourne, a group of supporters spent twelve hours a day standing on street corners to collect signatures. In Brisbane, a group of women organized the mailing of numerous letters to politicians and newspapers. A schoolteacher from Victoria traveled all the way to Darwin to set up a vigil outside Parliament, displaying placards to protest against ‘bush justice’. Thanks to the collective efforts of all these individuals, over 130,000 signatures were gathered on a petition, making it the largest number ever recorded in Australia’s history for a private person.
The Azaria Chamberlain case was kept in the forefront of the Australian public’s minds through various means. This included organizing meetings nationwide, writing numerous letters to newspapers and politicians, creating and distributing leaflets, flyers, and bumper stickers, as well as printing t-shirts. Additionally, a pre-recorded information service was set up to provide supporters with the latest updates. Extensive distribution of books, booklets, and pamphlets covering different aspects of the case occurred throughout the country.
In order to coordinate various individual activities, a newsletter was established. By January 1988, fourteen issues had been released, featuring comprehensive reports on all aspects of the case and the outcomes of legal proceedings. After the High Court affirmed the jury’s verdict, the Lowes, Wests, and Whittakers were finally able to express their views on the case and the verdict. They participated in rallies across Australia, wrote letters, and made television appearances, aiming to inform people about Lindy’s innocence.
On 11 November 1985, a statement was written and signed by individuals who were present at Ayers Rock camping ground on the night Azaria Chamberlain disappeared. This statement appeared in the Northern Territory News. The individuals stated that they know Mrs. Chamberlain had no opportunity to commit the alleged homicide for which she is currently serving a life sentence in Berrimah Jail, Darwin. Despite being Crown witnesses at the trial, they expressed their belief that the evidence they provided was not given enough importance and not all of their evidence was brought forward.
We call for an unrestricted Judicial Review of this unjust miscarriage of justice. Numerous witnesses, including fourteen of the twenty-eight non-forensic Crown witnesses, traveled across the country without any compensation, enduring personal hardships. Kevin Childs, a reporter for the Melbourne Age, stated that these witnesses believed justice was not served and that a judicial inquiry was necessary. It was because of the relentless dedication and efforts of these individuals that an inquiry into the Chamberlain case was ultimately initiated.
The public outrage had reached a point where politicians could no longer overlook the situation, leading to action being taken. Stuart Tipple was of the belief that the defense had failed to effectively challenge the Crown’s forensic evidence, resulting in their loss of the case. He understood that it was crucial to examine this forensic evidence in order to successfully obtain an inquiry. Even before the appeals of Chamberlain were brought to the Federal and High Courts, Tipple had already started devising their strategy to challenge the scientific aspect of the case.
The defence team had limited resources and hiring an expert would be expensive. However, Les Smith, a scientist employed by the Sanitarium Health Food Company and a friend of Lindy and Michael, offered to analyze the ‘Arterial spray.’ This marked the beginning of a new offensive. Smith did not have extensive training in forensic science or academia, but he had a diploma in Applied Science from Avondale College in Cooranbong, where the Sanitarium factory was situated.
With unwavering commitment, he diligently applied scientific methodology to each hypothesis, conducting thorough testing and meticulously documenting every outcome while also capturing photographic evidence. Equipped with trial transcripts and photographs depicting the plate’s spray pattern, which the prosecution claimed to be Azaria’s blood from an arterial spray, Smith embarked on his investigation. Notably, the presence of a spray pattern on two panels from two cars of the same make led Smith to suspect a potential connection to the manufacturing process. In total, he scrutinized forty cars, of which five exhibited the spray pattern in identical locations.
The examination of the five panels showed that the spray pattern in the wheel arch was caused by the spraying of sound deadener. The panel had a small hole that allowed the sound deadener to be sprayed onto it under pressure. All five panels, including the one from the Chamberlains’ car, had the same angle of spray and a drainage hole through which the sound deadener passed. A chemical analysis of the material sprayed on the wheel arch and under-dash panel confirmed that they were made of the same material.
The composition of the spray on the Chamberlains’ car, which had been described as having the appearance of sand in Kuhl’s notes, matched a product called Dufix HN 1081. This sand-filled sound-deadener is commonly used by General Motors. Smith concluded that the spray was also sound-deadener and not blood as previously thought. This conclusion was further supported when Smith and Tipple went to the High Court building to view the car plate. Due to the imminent High Court Appeal, they had to examine the plate there using a small microscope that provided a 25 times magnification.
Smith observed that the spray pattern and paint spots on the car matched the other five. Now the challenge was to figure out how Kuhl managed to get a positive reaction to foetal blood from a scrape of the spray in the Chamberlains’ car. It would take approximately two years for a chemical analysis of the under-dash spray in the Chamberlains’ car to be conducted. The next task on Tipple’s agenda was to present the Crown’s evidence regarding Azaria’s clothing. According to witnesses such as Chaikin, Cocks, Sims, and Cameron, canids tear cloth instead of cutting it.
In December 1983, Smith started conducting experiments to investigate if canids could cause cutting-like damage, aligning with the description provided by the Crown’s expert witnesses. Smith’s own pet Susie, a crossbreed of Kelpie and Border Collie, served as the most convenient canid for these experiments. Smith fed Susie meat enclosed in a cloth material. Susie would bite through the cloth, creating a hole and then consume the contents.
This process continued for several months. Smith discovered that dogs, in addition to tearing fabric, also cut it. The damaged material showed the same characteristics identified by the Crown scientists, including tufts, shearing without distorting the fabric base, and fibers of a yarn being left evenly. As the criteria used by the Crown scientists to distinguish between scissor cuts and canid damage were found to be applicable to both, Smith needed to find distinguishing characteristics unique to one type of damage.
By closely studying the dog’s actions, the observer was able to identify which biting action caused specific types of damage. The observer noticed that on multiple occasions, the dog would swallow the center portion of a material while creating a hole, which correlated with the hole found in Azaria’s jumpsuit arm. Upon examining the fabric under a microscope, it was discovered that dog bites often left a tuft attached to the edge where the material was severed, with one or two fibers left uncut. The observer found it challenging to replicate this phenomenon using scissors.
In September 1984, upon examining Azaria’s jumpsuit, Smith observed that the damage on the jumpsuit was consistent with canid damage, while scissor damage corresponded to only some of the damage. The resemblance between the damage on Azaria’s jumpsuit and the fabric used in Smith’s dog experiments was so striking that Smith found it hard to believe that the Crown experts had assumed scissors as the cause of the clothing damage.
Smith collaborated with Dr Roland Bernett and Mr Ken Chapman during his experiments. Both colleagues observed the experiments, supervised the photography, and prepared written reports. Dr Bernett specialized in microbiology while Mr Chapman specialized in chemistry, enhancing the credibility of Smith’s work. The animal hairs found on Azaria’s clothing were the last piece of forensic evidence that Smith was tasked with re-evaluating.
The task of finding a specialist in animal hair identification was unexpectedly simple. By searching at the Newcastle University Library, he discovered a book called The Identification of Mammalian Hair. Ken Chapman promptly located one of the authors, Hans Brunner, in the Melbourne phone directory. Hans Brunner, who works as a senior technical officer with the Department of Conservation in Victoria, has created a widely utilized system for identifying mammalian hair. His techniques are renowned for their accuracy and are employed both in Australia and abroad.
When the hairs on Azaria’s jumpsuit were viewed at the High Court in September 1984, Smith examined the jumpsuit itself. Brunner quickly and accurately identified the different hairs on the two plates using a microscope. On the first plate, he found three canid guard hairs, one human hair, and one unidentified fiber. On the second plate, he found three canid guard hairs and one human hair. Due to his extensive experience, Brunner concluded that the canid hairs were unquestionably from a dingo.
When Brunner reported to Tipple, he told the solicitor that he had offered his help to the Northern Territory Police when he first learned about the Chamberlain case. However, the police informed him that they didn’t need his assistance. The remaining disputed aspect of the Crown’s case was the scientific evidence presented by Kuhl, who claimed to have found foetal haemoglobin in the Chamberlain’s car. According to Barker, this particular area was considered the most crucial element of the Crown’s case and would need to be thoroughly examined if Tipple wanted to succeed in obtaining an inquiry.
Assisting in the re-examination of the evidence were Boettcher, Mrs Julie Fry, Dr Geoff Madigan, and Dr Bob Hosken. Mrs Julie Fry, a medical laboratory technician with the Western Australian Department of Agriculture, had taken an interest in the evidence presented by the Crown during the trial. She was dissatisfied with Kuhl’s conclusion that human blood had been proven to be present based solely on faint reactions from the orthotolidine tests.
According to her perspective, Kuhl’s tests, specifically when performed on invisible stains, merely displayed peroxidase-like activity, which can be obtained from various substances like milk, vegetables, and blood. Without additional testing, it was not feasible to confirm the presence of human blood. Tipple wished to further explore Kuhl’s assertions and assigned the task to Madigan and Hosken. While conducting his inquiry, Hosken unearthed a cautionary note in a regular textbook stating that traces of heavy metals, particularly copper, have the potential to trigger peroxidase activity resembling that of blood.
This discovery motivated him to conduct additional experiments. He utilized an orthotolidine solution to examine various substances. When testing milk, he observed that it produced a coloration that closely resembled blood. Surprisingly, his experiments with a sample of laboratory copper oxide yielded astonishing outcomes. The reaction was swift and produced a vibrant blue color, which is the recognized characteristic of a blood reaction. In his report, Hosken concluded that Kuhl’s findings that demonstrated prevalence of peroxidase activity were probably attributable to the Chamberlains having lived in Mt Isa, where there was extensive copper mining.
The car probably had copper dust particles on it, which could explain the results of Kuhl’s test. To verify these findings, Madigan had copper ore samples from the Mt Isa mines sent in for testing. Dr Andrew Scott, who had provided testimony for both inquests and the trial, was contacted to conduct the tests. He used the same techniques as Kuhl to perform orthotolidine tests on the copper ore.
Professor Barry Boettcher and his wife visited Mt Isa in May 1986 to conduct a random survey using orthotolidine tests. During their visit, they collected various samples and tested them using the orthotolidine solution. These samples included dust from a house key, the wall of their flat, their yard, the door handle of a car, a Daihatsu van, gravel in the Mt Isa mines car park, a new chamois cloth after cleaning a Mt Isa car, and dust from the roadside. Interestingly, each sample produced an immediate positive reaction that was identical to the classic reaction of blood.
Boettcher became dedicated to the Chamberlain case following the trial. His dissatisfaction with the unfair treatment of the Chamberlains and his determination to rectify it led him to travel throughout Australia and abroad, temporarily pausing his own career and risking his reputation. In July 1983, Boettcher visited Behringwerke, a German company that manufactured the anti-serum used by Kuhl. This visit confirmed that Kuhl and Boettcher had used the same batch, batch number 2456, thus substantiating Boettcher’s objections to Kuhl’s findings.
He received a signed statement from Behringwerke stating that the anti-foetal haemoglobin antiserum could not guarantee that it would only react with foetal haemoglobin. The statement mentioned that non-specific reactions could occur when testing denatured adult haemoglobin. Therefore, it was not suitable for identifying foetal/infant blood and adult blood on its own. During his time at the German factory’s laboratory, a test (numbered 767) was conducted using Boettcher’s blood. This test confirmed that the antiserum batch 2456 was bi-specific and had an immunological reaction with adult haemoglobin.
By April 1986, the Royal Commission was established after Stuart Tipple and his team of scientists and experts had gathered enough evidence to debunk the Crown’s case against the Chamberlains. This arduous journey relied on the immense dedication and self-sacrifice of numerous scientists from various academic levels, without whom an inquiry would not have been possible. Stuart Tipple, who tirelessly worked for years on behalf of the Chamberlains, took charge of the legal aspect in their battle for freedom.
The Chamberlains greatly benefited from his expertise in comprehending the forensic evidence, which without him, they may have been completely lost. After the trial, his immediate action was to file an appeal application to the Federal court. To obtain Lindy’s release on bail, Tipple presented a report by Dr. Frederick Smith, the Berrimah prison psychologist, to the Federal Court. The report affirmed that Dr. Smith believed Lindy posed no danger to her baby.
Justice Fox and Justice Northup accepted his assurance while Justice Lockhart did not. Bail was set at $300 pending an appeal to the Federal Court. On 29 April 1983, Justice Jenkinson, Justice Bowen, and Justice Forster unanimously upheld the verdict of the jury. The decision was based on the lack of evidence supporting the dingo story, whereas the Crown’s evidence was deemed acceptable. It was deemed reasonable for the jury to reach a guilty verdict based on the evidence presented at the trial.
It was recognized that the examination of canid activity on fabric was limited, and it was concluded that it would be improbable for more than one reaction to occur during blood testing, considering the expertise of Joy Kuhl. Right after the appeal was rejected, Lindy was incarcerated in New South Wales. Tipple promptly requested bail while awaiting the Chamberlains’ appeal to The High Court, but the Northern Territory government vehemently objected to the request.
The High Court received and denied the application for bail on 2 May 1983. Justice Brennan explained that the guilty verdict was unlikely to be overturned, so Lindy was sent back to Berrimah prison. She remained there for two years and nine months until the Northern Territory government released her. The harsh treatment continued when Reagan injured his eye and was hospitalized in July 1983. Tipple urgently requested a temporary release based on compassion.
The Northern Territory government created a delay by requesting additional explanations, and later rejected the request due to insufficient reasons. They maintained a strict stance when the Chamberlains sought legal assistance for their High Court appeal, denying them financial support through that route. The Seventh Day Adventist Church stepped forward and offered to cover the expenses of these legal matters.
On 22 February 1984, the High Court rejected the Chamberlains’ appeal. Two judges agreed with the legal principle that the accused are presumed innocent and considered the verdict unsafe. Another two judges upheld the jury’s verdict but expressed concerns about some of the Crown’s forensic evidence. Justice Brennan, who denied the bail application, was the only judge to fully support the jury’s verdict without disputing any of the Crown’s evidence. This 3-2 split decision publicly acknowledged the presence of legal uncertainty.
The High Court judges in Australia were limited by law to evaluating the accuracy of the legal procedure exclusively, without considering matters of fact, which means that no fresh evidence could be brought forward. On 26 March 1984, Tipple initiated the initial request to the Northern Territory government for Lindy’s liberation with conditions. As part of the application, Tipple appended Smith’s report on Lindy’s psychological assessment, illustrating her emotional stability and lack of danger towards her children or society. Tipple contended that infanticide, as commonly defined, merited and typically obtained leniency.
The Northern Territory government rejected the arguments and denied the application later that year. In the same month, the Northern Territory Solicitor-General Brian Martin met with Tipple to discuss the proposal for a release on licence. He informed Tipple that unless the Chamberlain support groups persisted in pressuring the Federal and Northern Territory governments, or if legal action was threatened, or if television appearances by or on behalf of the Chamberlains persisted, the Northern Territory government would not provide assistance to Lindy.
In November 1984, Kahlia’s foster family, with whom she had lived since Lindy’s return to Berrimah prison, were being relocated away from Cooranbong. Tipple applied again for Lindy’s release on licence, asserting that her imprisonment was impacting the family unit and making it challenging for Michael to maintain cohesion among the children. The Northern Territory Cabinet ruled that such hardships were to be expected for criminals and found no valid reason to exempt Lindy from this general treatment.
The application for an inquiry into the Chamberlains’ case was denied again. On November 12, 1985, despite new forensic evidence being presented that raised serious doubts about the evidence leading to their convictions, the Northern Territory rejected Tipple’s application. With the children facing another Christmas without their mother, their nanny proposed they write a letter to the Prime Minister. Reagan sent the letter to Mr Tuxworth, the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory, Mr Hawke, the Australian Prime Minister, and Prince Charles and Lady Diana.
He wrote: We need mummy at home, so does Kahlia need a mummy. Can you make them let my mum come home to me? ” Aidan sent his to Tuxworth and Hawke. It read: “I cannot understand why you are keeping our mummy in jail when I know she did not kill my baby sister Azaria. My mummy loved baby just as we all did and I was with mummy and talking to her the whole time. I miss my mum and Kahlia, Reagan and dad do too. Is there nothing you can do to help me? ” The letters were published in newspapers all over Australia. Although Marshall Perron said in an interview that there was a response in the mail, none of the recipients bothered to reply to the boys.
On 2 February 1986, a baby’s matinee jacket was discovered at the base of Ayers Rock, only meters away from where Azaria’s jumpsuit and other clothes were found. It had been found partially buried in sand, along with the partially eaten remains of a man who had been missing for two days. The police believed that he had fallen from the top of Ayers Rock. Three days later, Lindy was able to identify the jacket as the one that Azaria had been wearing on the night she died.
On 7 February 1986, the Northern Territory government made a sudden and unexpected reversal of their previous decision to release Lindy. They claimed that Lindy had “suffered enough” and decided to release her. In addition, they announced that an inquiry would be held, but regardless of the results, Lindy would not be sent back to prison.
