FED:Notes reveal why Chamberlain convicted

08-09-2010
FED:Notes reveal why Chamberlain convicted

SYDNEY, Aug 9 AAP - Secret jury notes hidden in the Northern Territory police files
have revealed why Lindy Chamberlain was convicted of murdering her baby daughter Azaria
30 years ago.

The handwritten notes show that like the rest of the nation, the female jurors were
tougher on Lindy than the men, News Ltd newspapers say.

The three women - a teacher and two housewives - all voted for a conviction while at
least four of the nine men had to be persuaded that she was guilty.

"Doesn't believe dingo," one of the housewives is recorded as declaring.

Another said that while she was going to convict Lindy, she still found it "hard to
accept Mrs C did it".

They are the missing element in a puzzle that three decades later still perplexes Australia.

News Ltd says it was given exclusive access to the Azaria Files, 145 boxes of police
documents and exhibits destined for the National Archives because of their historical
importance.

Within the files are pages of jury notes apparantly written by the public servant who
was the jury foreman, jotted down on blue notepaper as the jurors struggled with their
decision in the Darwin courthouse after the seven-week trial that captivated the nation
in 1982.

They detail exactly what the jury was thinking when it threw out Lindy's story that
a dingo had taken her baby and convicted her of killing Azaria at what was then Ayres
Rock on August 17, 1980.

Her husband Michael was convicted of being an accessory.

It was to be six years before Lindy was released and then the couple was exonerated
after Azaria's battered matinee jacket was found at the base of the Rock.

AAP ao

KEYWORD: CHAMBERLAIN

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