The Morling Report
systematically dealt with an enormous body of evidence, which was
grouped under the following headings:
The Commissioner identified
two strands in the Crown case. The first strand related to evidence
from which the jury were invited to conclude that Mrs. Chamberlain
murdered her daughter. The second strand in the Crown case comprised
the evidence from which the jury were invited to reject the dingo
theory. The Commissioner accepted that much of the evidence was
relevant to both strands in the Crown case r and acknowledged that the
jury had to consider the whole of the evidence in reaching their
verdict. In answer to the question,
"Are there any doubts as to the Chamberlain's guilt?” the Commissioner
stated as follows: "In my opinion this question
must be answered in the affirmative. I do not think any jury could
properly convict them on the evidence as it now appears. I have referred in earlier
chapters to the evidence at the trial and to the significant new
evidence that is before the Commission. It is apparent from what I
have already written in this chapter that the effect of the new
evidence is to greatly weaken the case presented against the
Chamberlains at the trial. The jury must have
disbelieved Mrs. Chamberlain's story about the dingo. No doubt, in
concluding that her story was a fabrication they had regard to all the
evidence in the case, as they were entitled to do. Some of the most
damaging of that evidence has been shown to be either wrong or highly
suspect. Other important parts of it have been shown to be open to
serious questions. The effect on her credit of her inability to explain
the presence of blood in the car and how the alleged spray of blood
came to be on the plate under the dash cannot be known with certainty,
but was probably disastrous. If the jury accepted imprint of a hand in
blood on the jumpsuit it must have regarded her story as unbelievable
and not worthy of consideration. I have referred elsewhere to
the unsatisfactory features in Mrs. Chamberlain's account of having
seen a dingo at the tent and I do not underestimate their importance.
It can fairly be said that there are inconsistencies and
improbabilities in her story and in the various versions she has given
of it. However, as I point out in Chapter 15, there are possible
explanations for many of the apparently unsatisfactory features of her
evidence. On the other hand the
obstacles to the acceptance of the Crown's case are both numerous and
formidable. Almost every facet of its case is beset by serious
difficulties. Some of these must now be mentioned. The Crown is unable to
suggest a motive or explanation for the alleged murder. The undisputed
evidence is that Mrs. Chamberlain was an exemplary mother and was
delighted at Azaria's birth. She did not suffer from any form of mental
illness nor had she ever been violent to any of her children. She had
spent the day with her family on 17 August and had not: exhibited any
sign of abnormal behavior or of irritation with Azaria. She was not
stressed when she took Azaria to the tent for her expressed purpose of
putting her to bed. If Mrs. Chamberlain left the
barbecue with the intention of killing Azaria it is astonishing that
she took Aidan with her. It would have been easy for her to have left
him at the barbecue with his father. Having taken Aidan with her, it is
even more astonishing that she would have murdered Azaria, on the Crown
case, a few feet from where he was awaiting her return to the tent. It
was a great coincidence that Mrs. Lowe not only thought she heard
Azaria cry, but also thought she heard Mr. Chamberlain or Aidan say
that he had heard the same cry. It is surprising that Mrs. Chamberlain
did not attempt to bolster her story by saying that she also heard the
cry. If Mrs. Chamberlain did not
intend to murder Azaria when she left the barbecue, it is difficult to
understand why, for no apparent reason; she should have formed that
intention almost immediately after she left it. There is nothing in the
evidence, which could account for the formation of such a sudden
intention. It seems improbable that
Mrs. Chamberlain, having murdered Azaria in the car or elsewhere, would
have returned to the tent with so much blood on her person or clothing
that some of it dripped on to the articles upon which it was found in
the tent. Unless she did, there is no explanation, except the dingo
story, for the blood found in the tent. Such conduct on her part seems
inconsistent with her donning the tracksuit pants (as the Crown
alleges) so as to avoid telltale signs of blood. It is extraordinary that the
persons present at the barbecue area at the time of and immediately
after Azaria's disappearance accepted Mrs. Chamberlain's story and
noticed nothing about her appearance or conduct suggesting that she had
suddenly killed her daughter, and nothing about Mr. Chamberlain's
conduct suggesting that he knew that she had done so. She must have
been a consummate actress if, having killed her daughter, she was able
to appear; calm and unconcerned when she returned to the barbecue a few
minutes after the murder. The short period during
which Mrs. Chamberlain was absent from the barbecue made it only barely
possible that she could have committed the crime alleged against her.
On the Crown case, in the 5-10 minutes she was proved to have been
absent from the barbecue she must have-
The length of time, which,
on the Crown case, must have elapsed between Azaria’s throat being cut
and her death, is of some importance. It seems probable that if Mrs.
Chamberlain murdered the child she would not have returned to the tent
before she was satisfied the child was dead. If both Azaria's carotid
arteries were severed it probably would have taken about 2-3 minutes
for her to have died. The minimum time would have been half a minute.
It would have taken much longer, up to 20 minutes, for her to have died
if her jugular vein and not her carotid arteries, were severed. The
blood staining on the jumpsuit indicates, according to all the experts,
an absence of arterial bleeding. Young though he was, it is
very difficult to accept that Aidan did not notice that his mother took
Azaria away from the tent and returned without her and did not comment
on that fact when his sister was found to be missing. It was indeed fortuitous
that a dog or dingo should have been heard to growl and a dingo should
have been seen not far from the tent very shortly before Azaria
disappeared, and that on the night of 17 August canine tracks should
have been found hard up against the tent. It is surprising that, if
Mrs. Chamberlain had blood on her clothing, nobody noticed it in the
hours after Azaria's disappearance. If Azaria's body was left in the
car after the alleged murder, it was foolhardy for Mrs. Chamberlain, in
the presence of the Demaines and their dog, to open the car door and
give the dog the scent of Azaria's clothing. The risks involved in the
Chamberlains burying and disinterring Azaria when there were so many
people who might have observed them were enormous. It is difficult to
explain how the variety of plant material found on Azaria's clothing
could have got there if she had been murdered. It seems improbable
that, the murder having been so cleverly accomplished and concealed,
the clothing would have been so left as to invite suspicion. If Mrs. Chamberlain told her
husband that she had killed Azaria, it was extraordinary conduct on his
part to leave his two sons, the younger of whom was aged only 3 years,
in her sole custody on 18 August. Mr. and Mrs. Chamberlain's
conduct at Ayers Rock on 18 August was strange whether or not Azaria
had been murdered. Their conduct upon their return to Mount Isa is
inexplicable if she had murdered Azaria. For instance, it is almost
incredible that she should have told people there was blood on her
shoes if she had murdered her daughter. Further, it was bravado of a
high order for Mr. Chamberlain to tell the police at Cooranbong that
they had taken possession of the wrong camera bag if Azaria's body had
been secreted in the one which he then produced. The Crown has no direct
evidence of the Chamberlains' guilt to overcome the cumulative effect
of all these formidable obstacles. Even so, their guilt would be
established if, in spite of so many considerations pointing to their
innocence, the conclusion was reached that it had been proved beyond
reasonable doubt that a dingo did not take the baby. In the light of
all the evidence before the Commission, I am of the opinion that such a
conclusion cannot be reached. I shall state in summary
form the effect of the evidence that leads me to hold this opinion. In
doing so, it will be necessary to recapitulate some of the matters to
which I have already referred in order to give a complete picture of
the material (save for the Chamberlains' own testimony) which is
directly relevant to this part of the Crown's case. It is also
necessary to keep in mind that, under ordinary circumstance, it would
be highly unlikely that a dingo would enter a tent, take a baby from
it, carry it several kilometers to a den and there consume the body
leaving the clothing in a position similar to that in which Azaria's
clothing was found. But the question of Mrs. Chamberlain's guilt or
innocence is to be determined on the evidence and against the
background of the circumstances, as they existed at Ayers Rock in
August 1980. It is not to be determined on the basis of preconceptions
as to the likelihood of unusual animal behavior. Before August 1980 dingoes
in the Ayers Rock area frequented the camping area. At that time there
were many dingoes in the area, some 18-25 of which were known to visit
the camping area. A number of attacks were made by dingoes on children
in the months preceding Azaria's disappearance. In none of these did
any child suffer serious injury. About twenty minutes before
Azaria disappeared Mr. Haby saw and photographed a dingo, which walked
towards the Chamberlains' tent. A few minutes before the alarm was
raised the Wests heard a dog growl. On the night of 17 August
dog tracks were observed on the southern side of and very close to the
Chamberlains' tent. The same night Mr. Roft and Mr. Minyintiri, both
experienced trackers and familiar with dingo behavior, saw tracks of a
dog carrying a load, which they believed to be Azaria. It was within
the bounds of reasonable possibility that a dingo might have attacked a
baby and carried it away for consumption as food. A dingo would have
been capable of carrying Azaria's body to the place where the clothing
was found. If a dingo had taken Azaria it is likely that, on occasions,
it would have put the load down and dragged it. Hairs, which were either dog
or dingo hairs, were found in the tent and on Azaria's jumpsuit. The
Chamberlains had not owned a dog for some years prior to August 1980. The quantity and
distribution of the sand found on Azaria's clothing might have been the
result of it being dragged through sand. The sand could have come from
many places in the Ayers Rock region. The sand and plant fragments on
the clothing are consistent with Azaria's body being carried and
dragged by a dingo from the tent to the place where it was found. It is
unlikely that, if the clothing had been taken from the Chamberlains'
car, buried, disinterred, and later placed where it was found it would
have collected the quantity and variety of plant material found upon
it. It would have been very
difficult for a dingo to have removed Azaria from her clothing without
causing more damage than was observed on it. However, it would have
been possible for it to have done so. Mr. Roff, the chief ranger at
Ayers Rock and a man of great experience, thought that the arrangement
of the clothing when discovered was consistent with dingo activity.
Other dingo experts disagreed. I think it is likely that a dingo would
have left the clothing more scattered, but it might not have done. The blood found in the tent
was at least as consistent with dingo involvement in Azaria's
disappearance as it was with her murder in the car. The pattern of
blood staining on the clothing does not establish that the child's
throat was cut with a blade. The absence of saliva on
Azaria's jumpsuit, which was not conclusively proved at the trial, is
made more explicable by the finding of the matinee jacket, which would
have partially covered it. The fact that no debris from the baby's body
was found on the jumpsuit is also made more explicable by the finding
of the jacket. There is a great conflict of
expert opinion as to whether the damage to the clothing could have been
caused by a dingo. It has not been shown beyond reasonable doubt that
it could not have been. There were marks on plastic fragments of the
nappy similar to marks made by a dingo on another nappy used for
testing purposes. However, there was no blood on the nappy. There was a dingo's den
about thirty meters from the place where the clothing was found. There
is no evidence that the existence of the den was known to the
Chamberlains or, for that matter. to anybody else and in fact it was
unknown to the chief ranger and his deputy. It is impossible in the
above summary to capture the whole effect of the voluminous evidence
given on the matters, which bear upon the dingo hypothesis, but, taken
in its entirety, it falls far short of proving that Azaria was not
taken by a dingo. Indeed, the evidence affords considerable support for
the view that a dingo may have taken her. To examine the evidence to
see whether it has been proved that a dingo took Azaria would be to
make the fundamental error of reversing the onus of proof and requiring
Mrs. Chamberlain to prove her innocence. I am far from being
persuaded that Mrs. Chamberlain's account of having seen a dingo near
the tent was false or that Mr. Chamberlain falsely denied that he knew
his wife had murdered his daughter. That is not to say that I accept
that all their evidence is accurate. Some of it plainly is not, since
parts of it are inconsistent with other parts. But if a dingo took her
child, the events of the night of 17 August must have been emotionally
devastating to Mrs. Chamberlain. Her ability to give a reliable account
of the tragedy may have been badly affected by her distress. The
inconsistencies in her evidence may have been caused by her confusion
of mind. Where her evidence conflicts with the Lowes' account of what
she said and did in the few seconds after she commenced to run back to
the tent, it may be the Lowes' recollection, not her, that is at fault.
The belief that people might unjustly accuse her of making up the dingo
story might have led her, even subconsciously, to embellish her account
of what happened, and this may explain some of its improbabilities. Her
failure to see Azaria in the dingo's mouth is explicable if, as is
quite possible, there were two dingoes, not one. These considerations
afford at least as convincing an explanation for the apparently
unsatisfactory parts of her evidence as does the Crown's claim that she
was lying to conceal her part in the alleged murder. Having seen Mr.
and Mrs. Chamberlain in the witness box, I am not convinced that either
of them was lying. In reaching the conclusion
that there is a reasonable doubt as to the Chamberlains' guilt I have
found it unnecessary to consider the possibility of human intervention
(other than by the Chamberlains) in the time between Azaria's
disappearance and the finding of her clothes. It is difficult, but not
impossible, to imagine circumstances in which such intervention could
have occurred. It is not inconceivable that an owner of a domestic dog
intervened to cover-up its involvement in the tragedy or that some
tourist, acting irrationally, interfered with the clothes before they
were later discovered by others. There is not the slightest evidence to
support either of these hypotheses but the possibility of human
intervention is another factor, which must be taken into account in
considering whether the evidence establishes the Chamberlains' guilt
beyond reasonable doubt. It was so recognized in some of the judgments
given on the appeal to the High Court.” |