Dingo story remains a lie, court told

Press, 28 October 1982, Page 8

Dingo story remains a lie, court told

NZPA Darwin The dingo which Mrs Chamberlain claimed had taken nine-week-old baby Azaria from a tent at Ayers Rock more than two years ago would have to have been not only a dextrous animal, but a very tidy one, the Crown prosecutor. lan Barker, QC. told the Darwin Supreme Court yesterday.

In his final address to the jury in the Chamberlain murder trial Mr Barker submitted that Mrs Chamberlain’s dingo story “was, and remains, we submit, a lie.”

Mr Barker suggested that the dingo story was an affront to the jury's intelligence.

“It managed, if her story is true, to kill the child in the bassinet, drag her from the bassinet, divest her of two blankets and a rug then shake her body vigorously at the entrance to the tent and carry her off into the night in such a way that it left virtually no clues in the tent in the way of blood or hairs or anything else," Mr Barker added.

“It left no blood or drag marks on the outside of the tent. It was able to pass by

the child's mother in full view without disclosing or revealing that it was carrying a baby." It managed to kill the child while all the buttons of the jump suit were done up and then, it buried the body, having undone one top button, he said. It then managed to carry the child a long way. On one- view of the evidence it walked about 50 km. "At the shortest, it walked some four or five kilometres if the story is true, to the base of Ayers Rock, and if during part of that distance it walked through the bush it managed to do so without tearing or pulling the fabric of the jumpsuit, collecting almost nothing in the nature of seeds or sticks or other vegetation during the way. “So all in all. ladies and gentlemen, it was not only a dextrous dingo, it was a very tidy dingo.” Mr Barker submitted that if Mrs Chamberlain's story was to be believed, the dingo managed to cut the collar and the sleeves with a pair of scissors. “An unlikely circumstance, you may think, even if we are dealing with the most intelligent and perceptive of

animals," he added. "The overwhelming evidence is that the jumpsuit was cut by scissors. It’s unassailable evidence I submit, and it remains unanswered." Mr Barker had earlier said that the Crown asserted that the child was murdered and the only person who could have murdered her was her mother.

He said that if Mrs Chamberlain was telling the truth about seeing the dingo, the animal must, have emerged from the tent in full "view of gaze, carrying in its mouth a baby dressed in white." Mr Barker also said that some of the statements made by Lindy Chamberlain were “totally irreconcilable," and it was rather far-fetched to suggest that Mrs Chamberlain was under stress whenever she was questioned after Azaria disappeared.

Mrs Chamberlain, of Corranbong in N.S.W., has pleaded not guilty to a charge of murdering Azaria at Ayers Rock on August 17, 1980. Her husband. Michael Chamberlain, a Seventh Day Adventist . Pastor. has pleaded not guilty to a charge of being an accessory after the fact.