Chamberlain never gave up fight for justice
Michael Chamberlain, pastor, academic, author: b Christchurch, February 27, 1944; m (1) Lindy Murchison (diss) (2) Ingrid Bergner, 2s, 2d; d January 9, 2017, aged 72.
On the night of October 29, 1982, Michael Chamberlain, in a frenzy of thought, tossed and turned all night in a bed in Darwin, after his wife Lindy was taken to Berrimah Jail to begin her life sentence for the murder of daughter Azaria. Over and over, in that jumble of confused thoughts, came the questions: What sentence would he get? What would happen to sons Aidan and Reagan? What would happen to his unborn child?
It was a night in hell. Sentence on Chamberlain was to be pronounced the following Monday. But the Northern Territory judge, James Muirhead, who had given Lindy her mandatory sentence, agreed with the Chamberlains’ counsel that it would be more humane to pronounce sentence the following morning.
When the moment came, Chamberlain stood in the dock like a man waiting to be shot. Muirhead sentenced him to 18 months’ jail for being an accessory after the fact to murder, then suspended it. When it dawned on him he was not going to jail, Michael Chamberlain broke down and cried uncontrollably.
The trauma was still just beginning. A family’s life torn apart by a chance event, a dingo sneaking into the family tent at Uluru on the night of August 17, 1980, and seizing 10-week-old Azaria, then the parents charged over it. Justice Muirhead, seeing through the cacophony of claim and counter-claim over the previous six weeks, privately believed in the couple’s innocence and had no qualms about freeing Michael.
For Michael Chamberlain, it would be a grim and bitter fight. The appeals to the Federal and High Court would fail. He would suffer ignominy, abuse, even assaults. He would shuttle to and from Darwin some 30 times to visit Lindy, incarcerated for more than three years, and his marriage would break up.
There would be victory, total exoneration – against the sometimes fierce resistance of the NT Government. In many ways, the final triumph, even in the light of generous compensation, was pyrrhic.
Michael Leigh Chamberlain was born in 1944, in Christchurch, eldest son of a World War II airman, Ivan Chamberlain, and Greta. His great-grandfather, William Chamberlain, had built one of the local Methodist churches. Michael was raised on a farm south of Christchurch and acquired an early love of the outdoors. He went to Lincoln High School, Christchurch, and while he was there his mother, formerly a Baptist, joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
After schooling at Christchurch Boys’ High, Chamberlain began studies at Canterbury University. A Methodist by upbringing, he started investigating his mother’s church, and became so impressed that not only did he convert but he travelled to Australia in 1965 to study theology at the SDA’s Avondale College.
In 1968, Chamberlain met New Zealand-born Alice Lynne ‘‘Lindy’’ Chamberlain, daughter of an SDA pastor, Cliff Murchison, and Avis. Chamberlain graduated in theology in 1969 and wed Lindy in November that year. The couple were posted to Tasmania, where son Aidan was born in 1973. In 1974, Chamberlain began his media career, producing a number of radio scripts.
In 1976 the family moved to North Queensland, where son Reagan was born. Chamberlain continued his work in radio and on the Cairns Post. The family moved again, to Mt Isa in western Queensland, where Azaria was born on June 11, 1980.
During a holiday in August in the Northern Territory, the family spent three days at Uluru before moving to Darwin, where Azaria disappeared the following night.
The first coroner, Denis Barritt, found on February 20, 1981, that a dingo had taken the child. The case was reopened. After a second inquest, on February 2, 1982 coroner Gerry Galvin committed Lindy to trial for murder and Michael for being an accessory after the fact. On October 29, in the NT Supreme Court, the couple were found guilty as charged. Daughter Kahlia was born in Darwin on November 17, 1982.
On February 22, 1984, the day the High Court dismissed the Chamberlains’ appeal, by a threeto-two majority, Michael Chamberlain resigned as an SDA pastor. Avondale College offered Michael a job as an archivist. He looked after his sons. Kahlia went to foster parents.
Chamberlain started an MAs course by correspondence with the SDA’s Andrews University, Michigan, while continuing to campaign for an inquiry into his case. On February 7, 1986, after the discovery of Azaria’s matinee jacket at the base of Uluru – proving Lindy had at least been telling the truth about that – the NT Government freed Lindy and ordered the inquiry. In 1987, Royal Commissioner Trevor Morling exonerated the Chamberlains.
But the strains told on the couple and their marriage started to crumble. ‘‘I could not see it but there was a lot of unhappiness,’’ Chamberlain said later.
When Lindy Chamberlain’s book, Through My Eyes, was published in 1990, she did not speak well of Michael. Michael said: ‘‘She was focused on a few things that were not appropriate.’’ The couple were divorced in 1991.
Michael threw himself into local activities and at one point stood as Liberal candidate for the NSW Parliament. In 1994 he married a divorced mother-ofthree, Ingrid Bergner. The following year, John Lowndes, conducting the third inquest, found neither Michael nor Lindy Chamberlain responsible for the baby’s disappearance but stopped short of finding the dingo did it.
In 1998, Michael began PhD studies at Newcastle University. He published a book, Beyond Azaria, White Light, Dark Light ,in 1999. In 2002, Newcastle University conferred a PhD degree on him for an historical thesis. Awarded a Bachelor of Teaching , he took up a government teaching appointment at an indigenous high school. He taught at Gosford High School from 2006 to 2008 and then retired to devote himself to writing.
Misfortune continued to dog him. In 2011, Ingrid suffered a devastating stroke and Michael immediately switched to becoming her fulltime carer. He not only took it up, but became an advocate for others in his situation. On June 12 that year, coroner Elizabeth Morris, finding a dingo had in fact taken Azaria, apologised to the Chamberlains for what they had been through.
– Sydney Morning Herald