Lawyer smooths way for the Chamberlains

Press, 24 December 1986, Page 3

Lawyer smooths way for the Chamberlains

A lawyer was on hand to smooth the way when Lindy and Michael Chamberlain and their children arrived at Christchurch Airport to begin a two-week holiday. The couple were at the centre of the inquiries over the disappearance of their nine-week-old baby, Azaria, at Ayers Rock in Australia’s Northern Territory in August, 1980.

The inquiries are still going on in Australia and their Christchurch lawyer, Mr David Fitzgibbon, advised them not to make any comment about the case while they were in New Zealand.

“It is the most politic way of handling it,” he

said last evening. “Although we are in another country, anything like that would go straight back to Sydney.”

Mrs Chamberlain was released from Berrimah Prison in Darwin in February after serving three years of a life sentence for murder. The release came after new evidence was found near the site of the baby’s disappearance. Mrs Chamberlain has given evidence the child was taken by a dingo. Mr Fitzgibbon said he had been present in case any difficulty had arisen at the airport because of the imprisonment. “Although Mrs Chamberlain has been let

out, until the inquiry brings down its findings there is a technical problem,” he said. In fact, the arrival went smoothly apart from one item of luggage going missing. Mr Chamberlain’s parents live at Ellesmere, and his brother, Peter, and family were at the airport to greet the Australian arrivals on Monday afternoon. Lindy and Michael Chamberlain, and their children Aiden, aged 13, Reagen, aged 10, and Kahlia, aged four, will spend Christmas with their family before spending two weeks tramping in the South Island high country.