Dingo mother says her innocence may never be accepted

THE mother of a baby snatched by a dingo at an Outback campsite 32 years ago is praising former critics who now admit they were wrong to have accused her of murder.

• Darwin-based Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton believes others will never accept her innocence

• Coroner concluded that a dingo, or wild dog, was responsible for Azaria Chamberlain’s death

The nine-week-old girl disappeared in 1980 from her parents’ tent near Ayers Rock.

The tragedy split Australians between those who believed Mrs Chamberlain-Creighton had killed the child and those who believed her claims that a dingo was the culprit.

She was convicted in 1982 of slitting the baby’s throat with a pair of nail scissors and spent three years of a life sentence in a Darwin prison for murder before she was exonerated. The case was depicted in the 1988 movie A Cry in the Dark.

Mrs Chamberlain-Creighton said she is now writing a book about forgiveness and welcomed approaches from her former doubters who want to apologise. Those who have come forward include a juror who convicted her of murder.

“I think they have a huge amount of courage to admit that they were wrong,” Mrs Chamberlain-Creighton told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

“There are still people saying: ‘I don’t care what the evidence was. I’ve made up my mind and I don’t want to listen to sense’,” she added.

A piece of evidence that continues to feed scepticism is the baby’s jumpsuit, which was found in relatively good condition.

In the final inquest, the coroner said it would have been “very difficult” for a dingo to have removed the clothes, but it was possible.

Frank Morris, a now-retired policeman who was at Uluru the night Azaria disappeared, said he still believes there was some human intervention.

Of the parents’ victory, he said: “If you go to court enough times, you are bound to get a win sooner or later.”

The cool demeanour of Mrs Chamberlain-Creighton and her then-husband, Michael Chamberlain, after the loss of their child had alienated many Australians who watched their many television appearances in the aftermath of the tragedy.

But Mrs Chamberlain-Creighton said there was nothing the couple could have done to avoid the public condemnation of many.

“It wouldn’t have mattered what we did. If we didn’t react exactly the same as the individual watching us reacted, that individual thought we were being weird,” she said.

“So if you smile, that’s dreadful; you should be crying. And if you don’t smile you’re hard-hearted. And if you cry all the time, you’re a drama queen,” she added.

She said Meryl Streep was surprised that her sense of humour did not match her public persona when the pair met before the actress played Mrs Chamberlain-Creighton in A Cry in the Dark.

“Streep said: ‘I thought I had it all down pat, your role, but you’ve just blown me out of the water in 10 minutes’,” Mrs Chamberlain-Creighton told Nine Network.