Murder motive ‘never put to Mrs Chamberlain’

Press, 26 October 1982, Page 8

Murder motive ‘never put to Mrs Chamberlain’

NZPA Darwin The most important allegation in the Chamberlain murder trial, the question of a motive for the alleged murder of nine-week-old Azaria Chamberlain, had never been put to the accused, Lindy Chamberlain, a defence lawyer, Mr John Phillips, Q.C', told the Darwin Supreme Court jury yesterday. “In this area of the case, the supply of a reason why this mother would kill her baby, the prosecution are bereft,” Mr Phillips submitted to the jury in his final address.

"They are stone motherless broke. They are bankrupt,” he added. “The defence isn't bankrupt in this area of the case because we have been able to obtain from witness after witness after witness. 90 per cent of them independent of the Chamberlains, proof after ( proof after proof of this mother’s love and affection for her baby. “That's what we have been able to obtain and we’re not bankrupt in this area, ladies and gentlemen. If anything, we are suffering from an abundance of riches." Mr Phillips told the nine ■nale and three female jurors :hat the Crown prosecutor, Wr lan Barker. Q.C., had put nany allegations to Mrs Chamberlain when she was n the witness box.

"But there was one allegation, the most important allegation in this trial, that was never put, and it's the allegation which would have started with the words: ‘Mrs Chamberlain. I put it to you that the reason you cut your child's throat was ...'" Mr Phillips said. “It was never put, because Mr Barker, one of the best men in the business, just cannot think of any reason why she would do it. The prosecution had had two years and three months to think of a reason, any reason, good, bad or indifferent, and they can’t." Mr Phillips said that the defence had called evidence from Mrs Chamberlain’s doc-

tor which proved beyond any doubt that Mrs Chamberlain did not come within the category of mothers suffering from a severe form of pest-natal depression who might commit a motiveless killing. "The question of a motiveless killing caused by illness in this case is gone forever, in our submission.” He said that there was only one alternative, and that was a killing with a motive. “Mr Barker might say to you, that as a matter of law, the prosecution doesn’t have to prove the motive in a criminal case, and that’s perfectly true. But that’s got nothing to do with the cir-

cumstances of this case." Alice Lynne (Lindy) Chamberlain, aged 34. has pleaded not guilty to a charge of murdering Azaria Chantel Loren .Chamberlain at Ayers Rock on August 17, 1980. Her husband. Michael, aged 38, a Seventh Day Adventist pastor, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of being an accessory after the fact. The Crown has alleged that Mrs Chamberlain, who is eight months pregnant with her fourth child, cut the baby’s throat while sitting in the front passenger seat of the family car which was parked next to their tent at Ayers Rock. The evidence of the first Crown witness was “an abso-

lute barrier, on its own" to a conviction for murder, said Mr Phillips. It was impossible that Mrs Sally Coral Lowe, from Hobart, could have heard the cry of a baby from the direction of the Chamberlain family tent because it was the Crown case that the baby was then dead. But Mrs Lowe had disagreed with this in evi-dence-in-chief and crossexamination and had told the court she heard "quite a serious cry" from a baby while standing at a barbecue area near the tent with a number of people — including both the accused.