FED:Campers still affected by Azaria

AAP General News (Australia)
08-20-2010
FED:Campers still affected by Azaria

By Steve Lillebuen

MELBOURNE, Aug 20 AAP - They were effectively accused of conspiracy to murder, labelled
misguided fools and scurrilous liars.

Rubbish has been thrown at their home while both faced years of abusive phone calls
from intrusive strangers.

All this fury was unleashed because Max and Amy Whittaker, now both 81, dared to believe
that a dingo could take a baby in the most publicised case in Australian legal history.

Thirty years on, the Whittakers still have a profound distrust of authority after their
first-hand brush with the Azaria Chamberlain saga prompted years of suspicion and vilification.

"It's been a very long journey," Mr Whittaker says through tears at his southeast Melbourne home.

"It's affected me deeply. Many nights I couldn't sleep."

Despite a divided public, the Whittakers have never stopped believing Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton's
story of a dingo attack in the family tent for a very simple reason: "She never would
have had the opportunity to do it," Mr Whittaker explains flatly.

"And if you believe a person is entirely innocent, then you fight to make sure she
should not be jailed."

The couple had been camping three tents from the Chamberlains the night their nine-week-old
daughter disappeared at an Uluru campsite on August 17, 1980.

The case prompted three inquests, a royal commission and saw the baby's mother wrongfully
jailed for three years.

But as the experience of the Whittakers' may reveal - as they mark the 30th anniversary
this week - they too were affected when speculation ran rampant and the nation became
enthralled with a classic whodunnit.

That night, at 8pm, they had been sitting in their tent listening to an Adelaide radio
station playing Christian hymns in what Mrs Whittaker says is now a moment frozen in time.

"Suddenly, the tent flap opened and in walked this fella," she recalls.

"He said, 'You've got Christian music playing. What does that mean?'"

Mr Whittaker thought Michael Chamberlain was ready to have a go at them for playing
the music too loud before Mrs Whittaker offered an explanation.

"I just said, `We're Christian people' and he said, 'If you're Christian people would
you pray for us? A dingo has just taken our baby. She was nine-weeks old and she's probably
dead by now'," Mrs Whittaker recalled.

She sat there stunned while her husband asked in which direction the dingo had run,
and he and their daughter grabbed coats and torches.

The search for Azaria had begun.

As Mr Whittaker ran off into the darkness, Mr Chamberlain turned and shouted: "I am
a minister of the gospel!"

By the time they reached Alice Springs three days later, gossip had already fuelled
the theory that the child's throat had been slashed by its mother.

"We said, 'What murder? What are you talking about?' We were right there when it happened
and it was a dingo," Mrs Whittaker says.

Even back in Melbourne a fellow churchgoer told them: "Isn't it terrible that they're
blaming the dingo?"

Police had already discounted the dingo theory and begun suspecting the Chamberlains
within 16 hours of the disappearance. It took officers six weeks before they got around
to interviewing all the campers.

The public was thrown off by the seemingly cold and uncaring behaviour of the Chamberlains,
but the Whittakers remember comforting them, seeing them cry and then put on a brave face
when the television cameras arrived.

Azaria's body has never been found.

In 1981, Operation Ochre saw police re-interview every camper simultaneously. The Whittakers
were told it was a murder inquiry and they didn't want to hear anything about dingoes.

The Whittakers say they were often accused of collusion and of a conspiracy to protect
the Chamberlains.

The idea was laughable at best and the Whittakers maintained faith that Lindy Chamberlain
would be found innocent at her trial.

But because they were called as prosecution witnesses, the Whittakers never got to
tell the jury their full story of what happened that night and instead were used to build
a case against the Chamberlains.

They were furious. While the Whittakers can discuss for hours the finer details on
the case, their main point is that the Chamberlains were surrounded by campers at every
moment and never would have had a chance to sneak away, kill a child, dispose of its blood
and hide a body for 30 years. For the Whittakers, the murder theory is ridiculous.

In the early 80s, with a jury finding Lindy guilty and the judge putting her in jail,
the Whittakers began writing letters to newspapers and government officials demanding
a judicial inquiry.

A Northern Territory government spokesman once called them - and other campers - scurrilous
liars.

The most generous comment was that they were misguided fools for their ongoing campaign
with other witnesses.

A newspaper then printed their address. That day rocks and rubbish were thrown at their
house and the angry phone calls began and went on for several months.

Their efforts helped pave the way for a royal commission. In 1986, following the discovery
of Azaria's matinee jacket and Justice Trevor Morling finding the conviction was unsafe,
the charges against Mrs Chamberlain were dropped.

The NT government eventually paid her $1.3 million in compensation for wrongful conviction.

Looking back, the Whittakers hold no grudges over their poor treatment and actually
point to positives to come out of the ordeal.

Mrs Chamberlain-Creighton showed great determination and courage, they say. The Whittakers
have bonded and formed lifelong friendships with fellow campers swept up by the case.

Now their attention turns to changing Azaria's death certificate, which currently lists
the cause of death as unknown.

The NT government this week agreed to investigate wehther the cause of death is still
accurate, considering the information available.

It follows Mrs Chamberlain-Creighton's call to change the cause of death to confirm
a dingo or feral dog was responsible, to officially put the matter to rest.

Mr Whittaker says he's learned it's too late to convince anyone of guilt or innocence
but he believes changing the death certificate will be an act of justice for the long-criticised
Chamberlains.

"I don't expect most people will ever change their minds," he says.

"I couldn't care less about that. But I think for the Chamberlains it's a very important thing."

AAP sbl/pmu/was

KEYWORD: CHAMBERLAIN WHITTAKER (AAP NEWSFEATURE)

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