A case of infanticide – an event sadly not uncommon, for which in a civilised community mothers are called to account but usually treated with at least a degree of compassion. Surely a crime such as this did not justify going to the other end of the world for expert advice! Would the police and administrators have gone to this much trouble had this occurred in New South Wales or Victoria? Here, it was suspected, the Territory was out to show it could conduct its own affairs and handle even the most difficult criminal investigations. It had the resources of State at its disposal to investigate the case and prosecute. It had police, lawyers and forensic scientists. What did the Chamberlains have? Limited finances and a couple of solicitors. They were two people against an army, and the weight of that army’s offensive was likely to brush aside their defences and convict them.
For Tipple, who would for a time be working with Peter Dean, it was to be a massive leap. He would embark on a journey that would take him far and away beyond the comfort zone of provincial solicitor. Lawyers, of course, are required to gain rapid expertise in many subjects – whatever comes through their door. The characteristics of wild animals do not come often.
The dingo, an animal estimated to have come to Australia anything from 3,000 to 12,000 years ago, supposedly related to the Indian Pale-Footed Wolf, was the apex predator in Australia. From colonial times, dingoes attacked livestock and were hunted and killed. Attacks on humans were rare but not unknown. The Sydney Morning Herald carried a report in 1902 that an Aboriginal child had been attacked and killed by a dingo. In more recent times, information came to hand that a dingo had killed an Aboriginal baby at Alroy Downs station in the Northern Territory and run off with it but it had not been reported to the authorities because of the legal implications of not reporting a death. Wary by nature of humans, they could be domesticated to some extent, and certainly could become more relaxed in human company over a period of time. But in the context of what was about to happen, when the dingo – a theoretical one in the eyes of the sceptics – was to take centre stage, there was another factor that was far more important. Could they become so relaxed that they could kill a human child?
There was abundant evidence that dingoes had become bolder at Ayers Rock. A Sydneysider, piano teacher Anne Hall, of Beecroft, would say that when she and her husband had visited Ayers Rock in 1979, there were “dingoes everywhere”. Julian Carter, of Scottsdale, Tasmania, was to say that on two nights in June 1980 he had been camped there and had seen “a pair of dingoes moving through our tent area, but not both together”. He said: “I recall coming out of the shower block and seeing one dingo backing from a tent dragging a carry bag. When I got to the tent area (only a few metres from the showers), it scared before I yelled anything, and it ran in an arc and disappeared into the undergrowth in the opposite side of the shower lock. The second dingo ran from another tent, following the first in the same direction into light undergrowth. I yelled after them to hurry both along. All our 23 pyramid tents had door-flaps fixed back and open to permit airing. Apart from half a dozen of my group in the showers, the camp was deserted at that time. The dingoes don’t like the presence of people. We did notice these dingoes at a distance earlier and also at a distance on a couple of other occasions while we were at the rock camping ground. Some of the kids were tempted to throw stones at them, but were stopped from doing this. We didn’t have any more experience of the animals being in or near the tents. From, later that afternoon we kept all tents closed wherever the bulk of our party was away sightseeing and left one person on the tent site all the time, for reasons mentioned above.”
On 22nd June 1980, a Victorian family at Ayers Rock had the traumatic experience of seeing a dingo drag their six-year-old daughter, Amanda, from the family car. Amanda had cried out and the family, intervening, had chased the dingo away. The father, Max Cranwell, reported the matter to Ayers Rock ranger Ian Cawood, who said the dog was “Ding”, a semi-domesticated dingo that would have to be destroyed. Cranwell said later that Cawood had said words to the effect that he had shot Ding. Evidence of this particular animal came before coroner Denis Barritt, though not the attack on Amanda Cranwell, which was not on record at the time. Cawood told Barritt that there had been a troublesome dingo, called “Ding” born at Ayers Rock, that had been a nuisance all its life. It had had a habit of going into motel rooms and tearing the furniture, as well as taking possessions. He had shot Ding on 23rd June 1980 and this was confirmed by his wife and a contemporary diary note. A number of people who gave evidence said they had not seen Ding after 23rd June. But in that period, June, July and August, there were seven recorded incidents in which dingoes had harassed children. It was enough for rangers to put up notices in the toilet blocks at the campsite warning tourists not to feed dingoes and seeking permission and ammunition to cull them.
The injunction not to feed dingoes was an attempt to discourage them from coming near people, but there was a dangerous side-effect. Les Harris, president of the Australian Dingo Foundation, an organisation dedicated to upgrading the image of the dingo from that of pest and scavenger and seeking public understanding, was to say that this sudden reduction in a good source created hunger in the dingoes, even more critical at a time they were feeding their puppies. Harold Schultz, of Blenheim via Laidley in Queensland, was to tell Tipple years later that a few weeks before Azaria disappeared, he and his wife had visited Ayers Rock. “We were amazed to see how close the dingoes came to people trying to get food, they appeared to be very hungry,” Shultz said. “I warned a tourist who was trying to put her hand on one which made a rush on her trying to bite. I have been in the country all my life, born 67 years ago, and have had a lot to do with our wild life and their habits. The dingoes here would not come near people. You have a job to see them in the bush. That is why most people think a dingo would not take a baby. People who have not been there don’t know the situation at that time at Ayers Rock. The way those dingoes hang around the camping area, that dingo knew the baby was in the tent and took its chances when the tent flap was open to go in.”
On 16th August, the night before Azaria disappeared, Lorraine Beatrice Hunter, a tourist from New South Wales, at Ayers Rock with her family, saw a dingo attack her son, Jason. According to her later sworn evidence, she heard him screaming and saw a dingo standing over him. She charged at the dingo and the dingo had been slow getting away. That same night, Judith West, a tourist from Esperance in Western Australia, saw a dingo pull at the arm of her 12-year old daughter, Catherine, who had cried. Judith had intervened and the dingo had run away. She had also hunted a dingo away when it pulled at clothes on her clothes line. Greg Lowe, a Tasmanian tourist was at the campsite with his wife, Sally, just before Lindy raised the alarm, said he had seen a dingo at the outside of the barbecue area and had told his daughter, Chantelle, not to pat it because it might be dangerous.
Not all these accounts were known at the time Denis Barritt took evidence, but there was enough for him to form a view that the dingo was a prime suspect. He also had evidence from Judith West and her husband Bill that they had heard a dingo growl a few minutes before Lindy raised the alarm. He had evidence before him of dingo prints found outside the tent, and marks on a sand hill indicating that a dingo had been dragging something, which it had put down briefly, apparently to change its grip, and left an imprint on the sand consistent with the fabric of a baby’s jumpsuit. There was plenty of evidence to support a dingo attack, together with the total lack of evidence that anything else could have happened.
Some people were not satisfied and inquired further. There were serious questions as to whether there had been a dingo at all, and if something else had in fact happened. Now, in September 1981, that safeguard, being the finding of a competent coroner, was failing. The entire case that there had been a dingo attack which had cost baby Azaria her life was unravelling.
Stuart Tipple had a difficult path to negotiate. There were many obstacles in his way, the first being the Northern Territory. The Territory was very much the wild frontier of Australia, where everything was from time to time extreme and the resources for coping were limited. The Territory had an interior so dry that a stranded traveler might die of thirst. It had a “Top End” so wet that a stranded traveler might be drowned, or die of hunger. Even those in more temperate regions were affected by the changes of season. There were only two seasons in the Top End: Wet and Dry. In the change of seasons, when the air was pregnant with heat and moisture, there was a greater incidence of domestic violence. The Top End had had the devastating cyclone in 1974. The Territory was Australia’s front line in world