13

The prelude

MANY AUSTRALIANS WHO HAVE NO FAITH IN GOD and little in human nature display, paradoxically, an unshakeable trust in British justice. They might regard income-tax legislation as a gun pointed at their heads by the chief highwayman in Canberra, and might shake their heads at statutory innovations which they believe show that ‘the place has been taken over by trendies,’ but ‘real’ law is different. We have the best system of justice in the world — everyone knows that. Most people may be unable to explain the system’s virtues with the rhetoric of a politician or the understanding of a student of jurisprudence; but there is a deep conviction that when someone gets to court, he or she ‘gets a fair go’.

There is almost a religious quality about this trust, though it is shared by many who would deny any belief in the supernatural. For those who believe in God, it may be a logical extension of their faith: God is a god of justice. For skeptics, it may resonate with a deep psychological need to believe in something, and what better than justice? The religious connotations are nowhere more evident than in the criminal courts which sit in judgement upon people and punish the guilty according to the measure of their wickedness. Perhaps criminals often make a full confession, even when the case against them would otherwise have been flimsy, because of a subconscious conviction that confession and forgiveness are inextricably intertwined.

Yet faith in justice is tempered by a cynicism towards lawyers. There is a feeling that the guilty frequently escape justice because some ‘smart lawyer’ is able to find a ‘loophole,’ some barren technicality dreamed up by the unscrupulous to protect the guilty. Others imagine juries being ‘hoodwinked’ by the distortion of evidence, the use of subtle but misleading sophistries, and beguiling oratory. This perception is neither new nor uniquely Australian. In 1875, London theatregoers flocked to the presentation of Gilbert and Sullivan’s new musical Trial by Jury to hear the fledgling barrister sing, ‘I’ll never throw dust in a juryman’s eyes or hoodwink a judge who is not over wise.’ Yet many remain convinced that one thing is sure: the guilty may get away with it, but the innocent will not be condemned — justice would never permit it. So it was that, as the Chamberlain trial approached, faith and cynicism jostled for supremacy: faith claiming those who believed in their innocence, and cynicism afflicting those convinced of their guilt.

The Chamberlains were hurt, battered, and bewildered. The loss of a child is itself a crushing blow. No one who has not suffered such a loss can really understand the devastating flood of emotions it unleashes. There is a feeling of both tragedy and unfairness, that the potential for a full and productive life has been cruelly snatched away, and the parents are condemned to mourn what might have been. Yet there is, at the very least, a finality about the loss. The pain may seem more than one can bear, but there will be no new wounds. The Chamberlains had been denied even this limited consolation. The wounds had constantly been re-opened by the jeers of a hostile community and the procedural demands of justice.

After their dramatic exoneration at the end of the first inquest, there had been some respite, as if some authoritarian figure had sharply rebuked an angry mob and told them to be quiet. An undercurrent of suspicion remained, but the roar of the crowd had been reduced to the odd spiteful mutter. Now, with their committal for trial, the Chamberlains were to feel that the mob had again been turned loose. Their supporters remained loyal, but they were publicly execrated by a press that seemed to assume that the more vicious the content, the more newsworthy the article. To go out was to run an unrelenting gauntlet. They found themselves more and more embattled and frightened, not only for themselves but also for their children. Yet there was a certain strength about them. A writer in the Homeric tradition might have described them as ‘bloody but unbowed,’ and they clung to their faith. The promise of God was clear: ‘Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. He will bring forth your vindication as the light, and your right as the noonday.’ But the emotional toll was unmistakable.

The more voluble of their adversaries might have sounded like mere ‘rednecks,’ but many ordinary Australians also became increasingly convinced of their guilt. Many believed that people were not generally charged with serious offences unless they were guilty. Furthermore, the magistrate had obviously found the evidence against them damning. Why else would he have committed them for trial? The Chamberlains appeared so strange. Lindy had appeared on television, and had described the child’s clothing, with an apparent lack of emotion. How could a normal, warm-hearted mother do that? Their story didn’t ring true. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Sure, there were rumours about Aboriginal babies being left out for the dingoes, but who had ever heard of one marching into a camping area and taking a white child out of a tent? And what about this weird religion? Who knew what they were into? Somebody suggested they were linked with the mass suicides at Jonestown a few years earlier. Maybe there was something to that rumour about Azaria’s name, after all. There were further reports that a file held by the Queensland Department of Maternal and Child Welfare had recorded earlier incidents of ‘baby battering’.

The rumours flew thick and fast — some plausible, many simply preposterous. Many people were fair-minded enough to treat them as mere unsubstantiated gossip, but the assault was too sustained and, deep down, many concluded that there was so much smoke that there had to be fire.

There is little doubt that one or more police officers contributed to this spate of rumours. A detective told a Sydney journalist with the Sun that the car accident in 1981 was a cunning ploy to get rid of the last piece of damning evidence. Had the insurers accepted the claim, the car would have been written off and taken to a wrecker’s yard. Stories of the ‘white’ coffin and the biblical story ‘outlined in red’ could only have come from police. Other journalists were told that the police considered Lindy to be mentally unstable. Police were also quoted as having told one newspaper that they had the murder weapon.

It was in this context that the Australian penchant for cynicism became increasingly evident. One repeatedly heard comments like ‘I think the bitch is guilty, but she’ll probably get off.’ There was a feeling that a Northern Territory jury would be too unsophisticated to grasp the damning nature of the scientific evidence and to resist the wiles of ‘smart lawyers’. Besides, everyone knew that Australian juries were reluctant to convict women, especially young mothers. This feeling of pessimism was deepened when it was announced that Lindy was again pregnant. Some even went so far as to suggest that it was a ‘forensic pregnancy’ designed to create sympathy and put the jury into an emotional bind about the prospect of separating mother and newborn child. Wiser heads pointed out that it was likely to have the opposite effect. If the jurors thought she had murdered one baby, they might fear for the life of the next. Such muted quibbles were generally drowned in the flood of rumour and innuendo.

Darwin is part of the ‘Top End’ of Australia. It lies nearer the equator than either Hawaii or Fiji, and the temperatures are consistently hot all year round, with only changes in humidity effectively marking the difference between the ‘wet’ and ‘dry’ seasons. The nearest major city is Adelaide, some 3,212 kilometres away. Like Alice Springs, there is a frontier feel about the place, but it is a different kind of frontier. Alice Springs is an outback town, an oasis of civilisation in a sea of red desert. Darwin is a tropical city perched on the edge of the Arafura Sea, and hemmed in by luxuriant greenery. Many factors contribute to that frontier atmosphere. The heat, the vegetation, the Asian presence, the four-wheel drives and ‘road trains,’ and the perennially advertised safaris to view crocodiles, buffalo, and exotic birds all play their part.

‘The Mall’ is the heart of the city. It is a broad, paved area bounded by shops geared to milk the perennial tourists. Leather hats, buffalo horns, big hunting knives, and Aboriginal art are all displayed. There are coconut palms and purple bougainvillea. On Saturday morning, it becomes a market place with fruit stalls, souvenir stands, and locals selling flute stones. Aborigines play the didgeridoo, and beat out a rhythm with painted sticks. Sometimes the women dance. At night, the band at the Victoria Hotel beats out a different kind of rhythm. Listening is compulsory if you live within a kilometre or so.

lf you can stand the heat, it is an enchanting place to visit. One can walk from the Mall to the pearl shop around the comer and then stroll through the park under the canopy of leaves from huge trees with massive trunks and tortured root systems. At the edge of the park, there are the remnants of an old hall. One can stare down at stone walls two feet thick which, in parts, now rise no higher than a man’s waist. They stand as mute yet striking testimony to the ferocity of Cyclone Tracy, which virtually demolished Darwin in 1974.

There is an intense parochialism about the place. The locals are friendly and hospitable, and the tourist dollar is important to the local economy, yet anything perceived as ‘interference’ by Commonwealth ministers or other ‘outsiders’ is bitterly resented. Only the locals understand the Territory. They have no need of ‘bloody southerners’ coming in to tell them how to conduct their affairs.

As the trial date approached, a roaring trade in T-shirts developed. None were actually emblazoned with the words, ‘Lindy is guilty,’ but the message was conveyed in other ways. One batch of shirts was run off with bold lettering proclaiming, ‘The Dingo is Innocent’. They were to be worn by demonstrators on the footpath outside the Supreme Court building whilst the trial was in progress. Whether by accident or design, they were frequently in evidence when the jury filed in shortly before 10.00 a.m. or wended their weary way home at the close of the day’s proceedings. Other T-shirts had different designs, but each was derisive of Lindy’s claim that a dingo had taken her baby. One depicted Lindy inside a dingo suit. The caption read, ‘Darwin’s Answer’. Like the dingo jokes, all conveyed the subtle message that no one but a fool could accept that a dingo had taken the child.

Professor Boettcher flew into Darwin the day before the trial started. He was to stay with an old friend. Over dinner, his friend commented, ‘You know she’s going to be convicted, don’t you?’

‘Don’t you think that is a bit premature?’ Boettcher asked. ‘The trial hasn’t started yet.’

His friend shook his head. ‘Darwin made up its mind months ago.’