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“How do you pay someone for 20 years?”: Folbigg’s big compensation question

<p>Since her <a href="https://www.oversixty.com.au/news/news/kathleen-folbigg-pardoned-after-20-years-behind-bars" target="_blank" rel="noopener">release from prison</a>, Kathleen Folbigg has been the centre of a media frenzy, with networks battling it out to secure an exclusive tell-all interview.</p> <p>Following a fierce bidding war, Seven Network has won the rights over Nine for the interview believed to have cost more than $400,000.</p> <p>A source from Seven said the exclusive interview will be aired on the Sunday evening current affairs show, <em>7News Spotlight</em>.</p> <p>Others have proposed the deal has cost the network close to $1 million.</p> <p>The deal could see her on the list of select few Australians awarded seven-figure sums in light of their wrongful convictions, including Linda Chamberlain.</p> <p>Chamberlain’s lawyer Stuart Tipple said Folbigg needs to be declared innocent and be given compensation for her years in prison, noting she had a solid case.</p> <p>“The sad thing is all she can get is money, how do you pay someone for 20 years?” he said.</p> <p>“And also, I think we need to reflect on an injustice just doesn’t affect Kathleen.</p> <p>“I feel tonight very much for her husband and the father of those children and the injustice that just affects so many people, so many lives.</p> <p>“I feel very, very badly for him tonight and I just think of the whole process of just how harmful it is to them and to our society and our confidence in the whole judicial system.”</p> <p>Robyn Blewer, director of the Griffith University Innocence Project, noted two recent cases to illustrate how Folbigg could be compensated for her 7,300 days in jail.</p> <p>West Australian man Scott Austic received $1.3 million in May 2023 on top of an earlier payment of $250,000 after serving nearly 13 years for murdering his pregnant secret lover.</p> <p>He had sought $8.5 million after being acquitted on appeal in 2020.</p> <p>Both payments were ex gratis, unlike David Eastman’s award of $7 million in damages by the ACT Supreme Court in 2019.</p> <p>Eastman served almost 19 years over the 1989 shooting murder of federal police assistance commissioner Colin Winchester, where he was acquitted at a second trial.</p> <p>"The difference is it was in ACT which has a human rights act and under that, there is an entitlement for compensation under human rights," Dr Blewer told AAP.</p> <p>"Mr Eastman was then able to sue because there was a right to compensation.</p> <p>"The court assessed his damages in the same way they would a tort ... the court went through every time he was injured.”</p> <p>Like Austic, Chamberlain was awarded an ex grata or grace payment. She was awarded $1.3 million in 1992 which now equates to about $3 million.</p> <p>Folbigg will need specific legal advice about whether a civil claim is possible due to NSW lacking a human rights act like that of the ACT.</p> <p>Dr Blewer said she could become reliant on what the government was willing to pay.</p> <p>"Twenty years is a substantial amount of time lost," she said.</p> <p>"It might depend on the good grace of the NSW government."</p> <p>No further steps can be taken until Folbigg’s lawyers obtain the final report of former Chief Justice Tom Bathurst.</p> <p>An application to the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal to quash her convictions will likely follow.</p> <p><em>Image credit: Facebook / Instagram</em></p>

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Rare photos from dingo expert unearthed that show Lindy Chamberlain’s innocence

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Lindy Chamberlain’s world was turned upside down in August 1980, when she was jailed for the disappearance of her nine-month-old daughter Azaria.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Lindy insisted a dingo took her daughter from their camping spot at Uluru, but many refused to believe the lack of evidence that pointed to a wild dog attack. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Lindy served three years in jail over Azaria’s death, before being pardoned and set free when new evidence arose. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Despite many doubting Lindy’s story, one man named Les Harris, an </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">aeronautical engineer and part-time dingo expert, repeatedly tried to give the courts valuable evidence that would clear Lindy’s name. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Now, 30 years on, a trove of material he collected throughout the case proceedings, including </span><a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10079223/Dingo-expert-shown-Lindy-Chamberlain-did-not-kill-baby-Azaria-Uluru.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">photographs and a dingo skull</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, will go under the hammer at an auction house. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Among the valuable documents are statements he made explaining how dingoes can easily hold the weight of a baby without dragging it, could have removed clothes using their teeth, and eat their prey whole - with not even bones remaining.  </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Les Harris was the president of The Dingo Foundation in the early 1980s and based his evidence on his extensive knowledge of Australia’s wild dog. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He was interviewed for a documentary produced by Network Ten and screened in 1984 called <em>Azaria: A Question of Evidence. </em></span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Based on the factual evidence available at the very time that this happened, we believe that the probability that a dingo, took, killed and carried off Azaria Chamberlain, is of such a high order as to be nearly a certainty,” Harris said.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">During Lindy’s court proceedings, Les was constantly rebuffed as he tried to share this valuable information. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He wrote to magistrates and judges explaining why a dingo was almost certainly responsible for Azaria's death but his efforts were largely ignored.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Harris’s collection of valuable material on Azaria’s death will be sold by </span><a href="https://sydneyrarebookauctions.com.au/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Sydney Rare Book Auctions</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, some years after his death in the New England region of New South Wales.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Harris was firmly among those who believed the Chamberlains had nothing to do with the tragic death of their daughter, which became one of the most high-profile cases in Australia. </span></p> <p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Image credits: Getty Images</span></em></p>

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The heartbreaking letter that freed Lindy Chamberlain

<p>Lindy Chamberlain has revealed the heartbreaking letter she had smuggled out of jail, after being thrown behind bars for four years following the death of her baby daughter, Azaria.</p> <p>During a family camping trip in Uluru on August 17, 1980, Chamberlain’s world fell apart after a dingo took her baby Azaria from the family tent.</p> <p>The nine-week old was never seen again.</p> <p>The disappearance led to a number of court cases and inquests and saw a now 72-year-old Chamberlain jailed for life in 1982 - before she was eventually cleared in 1986.</p> <p>Now, Sam Neil takes a critical look into the investigation in a two-part series, titled Lindy Chamberlain: The True Story.</p> <p>While the documentary is a retelling of the entire case, it also goes in depth about Chamberlain’s personal life.</p> <p>In May 1984, four years after Azaria’s death - the governor-General was given a petition signed by 131,000 people, demanding a judicial inquiry into the Chamberlain case.</p> <p>The National Freedom Council was adamant the campaign would not end until Lindy was free.</p> <p>Looking at spending her third Christmas in jail with no release date set, Chamberlain had a heartbreaking letter smuggled out of her cell detailing how unjust her treatment had been.</p> <p>“I’ve tried to co-operate, but still this farce continues,” she wrote.</p> <p>“For nearly three years, I have worked as an inmate of this prison for 30 cents a day, trying to do whatever I was asked pleasantly.</p> <p>“I have sought an inquiry whereby the NT Government had a chance to redeem their own name. In return, they have ignored decency and justice and still scoff at it.</p> <p>“As from 1 pm Darwin time today, I’m refusing to work in any way whatsoever for this prison.</p> <p>“I did not kill my lovely daughter and refuse to be treated as a criminal any longer.”</p> <p>Chamberlain was exonerated in 1986, after a piece of Azaria’s clothing was found near a dingo den.</p> <p>Before her release, Michael Chamberlain and their three children Aiden, Reagan and Kahlia – who was born while Lindy was behind bars – could only visit Lindy three times a year, with media “desperate” to catch a glimpse of Australia’s most infamous family entering the prison.</p> <p>Ita Buttrose, who went to the Mulawa Women’s Prison to interview Chamberlain, said her time behind bars was “very, very isolating” and these visits – including her interview visit- were deemed a “treat”.</p> <p>“Everyone in Australia judged this woman before she ever got a trial,” Buttrose said</p> <p>“Even when she was in jail, she was still being judged.”</p>

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Lindy Chamberlain opens up about divorce and finding love again

<p>Her story gripped the entire nation, with Lindy Chamberlain falsely accused of murdering her own daughter leading to a wrong conviction.</p> <p>But despite the tragic situation, she still had love. </p> <p>In fact, two loves, the first being her husband and pastor Michael Chamberlain.</p> <p>When Lindy was sent to prison, she was the mother of Aidan and Reagan, and a baby girl on the way, Kahlia, which were under the care of Michael.</p> <p>But despite being wrongly accused by so many, Lindy admitted in a 2016 interview with<span> </span><a rel="noopener" href="http://news.com.au/" target="_blank"><em>news.com.au</em></a><span> </span>that “it’s my ex-husband” that’s hardest to forgive.</p> <p>While many believe the hardship the couple were faced with resulted in a divorce in 1991, Lindy revealed in her autobiography<span> </span><em>Through My Eyes</em><span> </span>that wasn’t the case.</p> <p>"Many thought my marriage break-up was due to the case and the additional pressures of prison and the press, but it was not."</p> <p>However, former journalist and Chamberlain’s longtime friend Malcolm Brown spoke to<span> </span><em>Who</em>, revealing the baby’s death drove a wedge between them.</p> <p>"Lindy was in jail for more than three years. Mike was stuck with the two boys and Kahlia with foster parents, so there were difficulties that arose between them then."</p> <p>He added, "When Lindy got out of jail she published a book in 1990 and you could see then she was critical of Michael, accusing him amongst other things of saying that she was too fat. In fact she was pregnant with Kahlia during the trial and he was accusing her of being overweight."</p> <p>Michael passed away in 2017 at the age of 72 after battling acute leukaemia.</p> <p>But Lindy was fortunate to find love once more, after she encountered her now husband Rick Creighton during a speaking tour of the US in 1992.</p> <p>They tied the knot 10 months later after he won the approval of Aidan, Reagan and Khalia.</p> <p>"I call him God's bonus at the end of all this," she told <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.nowtolove.com.au/news/real-life/lindy-chamberlain-now-58013" target="_blank"><em>Woman's Day</em></a> last year.</p> <p>Lindy says Rick helped her leave the pain behind, and that she became a better person as she learnt to forgive the detectives and forensic scientists who led the witch hunt to wrongly convict her.</p> <p>"Would I have chosen to learn the things I've learnt through other ways? You bet I would have. Did I want my daughter to die so I could learn to forgive? No, I did not. But am I sorry I learnt to forgive? No, I am not. You can let your mind be occupied by regrets or by vengeance or by anger or you can move on.</p> <p>"It's part of your history but it doesn't have to be part of your future or your present. It's part of the foundation of who you are, but it doesn't have to be all you are. You don't forget, but your coping methods and your ability to deal with things gets better, and time helps that."</p>

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How Lindy Chamberlain is finally moving on from her tragic past

<p>Having suffered one of the worst injustices in Australian history when she was wrongly convicted and jailed for murdering her baby daughter, it would be understandable if Lindy Chamberlain was full of resentment.</p> <p>Instead, the inspirational mum could teach many about the art of forgiveness.</p> <p>Now, four decades after the horrifying incident when a dingo savagely snatched her daughter from a tent at Uluru – and the terrible aftermath to her tragedy - she’s haunted by the loss of Azaria.</p> <p>Speaking to <em>Woman’s Day</em> she said, “you can’t turn it off”.</p> <p>"You dwell on different memories over time, and there are aspects of it that soften – little insignificant parts of it. But others, I can just close my eyes and re-roll the film. I can see her in my arms. I can still clearly see expressions on her face when I was feeding her and talking to her, and the way she'd respond.”</p> <p>Recently she spoke about forgiveness and how she’s focusing on the positives and letting the past go.</p> <p>"It's not what happens that counts, it's how you choose to deal with what happens," she said at a National Christian Family Conference in Sydney.</p> <p>"You can choose if you're going to live with anger, regret and revenge and miserably think yourself a victim. Or you can choose to be a hero in your own life and forgive the past and move on. It doesn't happen immediately. Sometimes I go back and have to remind myself to start all over again. It isn't easy."</p> <p>But then Lindy has never had it easy since the tragic night on August 17, 1980 when she screamed into the night, “The dingo’s got my baby.”</p> <p> </p>

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Lindy Chamberlain opens up about Azaria's death in harrowing new interview

<p><span>It’s been 40 years since Lindy Chamberlain lost her daughter Azaria, while out camping in Uluru.</span><br /><br /><span>The unimaginable pain Lindy still feels over she and her husband losing their nine-week-old baby girl on the fateful night of August 17, 1980 still leaves her shaken to this day.</span><br /><br /><span>Her pain was deepened when in 1982, Lindy was charged with the murder of her baby and sentenced to a life in prison.</span><br /><br /><span>While she has always maintained from the outset that a dingo had taken Azaria from their tent, it wasn’t until 2012 when a coroner ruled that she had been telling the truth all along that she was given the dignity she deserved.</span><br /><br /><span>Despite Lindy’s name being cleared, she is still mocked by strangers in the street to this day.</span><br /><br /><span>Ahead of a new documentary mini series into the horrific story, she told <em>The Sunday Project</em> of the cruel taunts she still cops.</span><br /><br /><span>She was asked whether she thinks some Australians doubt her innocence.</span></p> <p><span>“Obviously they do, they tell me so at times,” she said.</span></p> <p><img style="width: 500px; height: 281.25px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7837412/new-project.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/4c27a3390518464a8851ad31700fe2fd" /></p> <p><span>“It’s only about three weeks ago since I got my last dingo howls.”</span><br /><br /><span>Lindy says she “pretty much ignores it”.</span><br /><br /><span>“What’s the point? They’ve got the problem, not me,” she said.</span><br /><br /><span>She was then asked whether it was painful to discuss the events of the night in 1980, four decades on.</span><br /><br /><span>“It’s not my favourite topic,” she said.</span><br /><br /><span>“It’s a bit like going over the same things over and over again and I often think if I was asked a different line of questions you’d get totally different answers. And you’d go, ‘Wow, I never knew that.’”</span></p> <p><img style="width: 500px; height: 281.53846153846155px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/24591/lindy-charmberlaid.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/dd932c0235ab416a8f10991972b48a26" /><br /><br /><span>She said she is never asked about her time in prison.</span><br /><br /><span>“Up until this mini series, I’ve only ever done one interview on prison,” she said.</span><br /><br /><span>“And I often think, ‘Wow, there’s three years of my life and people want to know everything but are they scared of that topic or what?’</span><br /><br /><span>“That amazes me. And they often tend not to ask you have you learnt anything? Have your opinions changed?”</span><br /><br /><span>“It was just like life was freeze framed. And then I got out and normal life continued.”</span><br /><br /><span>An inquest into Azaria’s disappearance in 1981 cleared her and her husband Michael of wrongdoing and found that a dingo had taken the baby.</span><br /><br /><span>However, a second inquest in 1982 ruled that Lindy was guilty of murder.</span><br /><br /><span>Chamberlain was eight months pregnant when she was sentenced to life in prison for supposedly killing Azaria by slicing her throat.</span><br /><br /><span>In June 2012, a coroner made a final ruling, saying that a dingo really did take Azaria Chamberlain and killed her.</span><br /><br /><span>A new documentary into the case called <em>A Dingo’s Got My Baby</em> will be broadcast on Channel 10 in the near future.</span></p>

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The one person Lindy Chamberlain cannot forgive

<p>Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton has been wronged by many people, but there’s one person in particular that she says she can never forgive.</p> <p>The 68-year-old revealed at the National Christian Family Conference in Sydney on Monday that she struggles to forgive her ex-husband Michael Chamberlain.</p> <p>Three decades ago Lindy was wrongfully jailed for life over the murder of her newborn baby, Azaria, after a dingo had snatched her from a tent.</p> <p><img width="258" height="344" src="http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/1c96d640850da512f570f8c696cf5a1d" alt="Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton has learned to forgive." style="float: left;"/>Lindy told the audience she tried not to “get stuck on bitterness and resentment”, <strong><a href="http://www.news.com.au/national/courts-law/you-cant-get-away-from-it-the-person-lindy-chamberlaincreighton-struggles-to-forgive/news-story/cb9f61e19af2487d566f3bbb74171640">news.com.au</a></strong> reports.</p> <p>“You can’t get away from it. It sleeps with you at night. It goes to the bathroom with you. It showers with you. It has parties with friends with you. It’s always there. You need to choose your battles wisely. You don’t have to attend every argument you’re invited to. A fight without a foe - where’s the battle?</p> <p>“If you’re holding the anger… you’re not hurting them at all. They’re succeeding well beyond their wildest dreams. It’s you that’s dying.”</p> <p>The publication asked Lindy who she struggled most to forgives: the Northern Territory Police, the media, the judicial system or the public – all of whom screamed murder when Azaria went missing from a camp site at Uluru in 1980.</p> <p>“No, it’s my ex-husband,” Lindy replied. “That’s private.”</p> <p>Lindy, who divorced Michael in 1991, also revealed the scars from her past are slowly healing after 32 years. She said it was the Australian public's “responsibility” to “carry the pain” after many wrongly accused her of murdering her baby daughter.</p> <p>“People often get involved in things and take sides with no knowledge,” she said.</p> <p>“I’ve never felt I had to carry that pain. That’s their responsibility. God and I knew the truth and that was enough for me. Because all the way through I felt absolutely positive that at some stage He would make sure that it all came out right.”</p> <p>Lindy, who had always maintained that a dingo snatched her baby, was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison in 1982. In 1986, a crucial piece of evidence was found – Azaria’s jacket – after an English tourist David Brett fell to his death from Uluru. His body was recovered from an area of dingoes, where police discovered the baby jacket. Lindy was released from prison in 1998, the Supreme Court of Darwin quashed all convictions and declared the Chamberlains innocent.</p> <p>But it wasn’t until 2012 that Azaria’s death was officially ruled as a result of her being taken by a dingo.</p> <p>Lindy told the audience in order to be happy she had to forgive, focus on positives and let the past go.</p> <p>“It’s not what happens that counts. It’s how you choose to deal with what happens,” she said.</p> <p>“You can choose if you’re going to live with anger, regret and revenge and miserably think yourself a victim. Or you can choose to be a hero in your own life and forgive the past and move on.</p> <p>“It doesn’t happen immediately. Sometimes I go back and have to remind myself to start all over again. It isn’t easy.”</p> <p><strong>Related links: </strong></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="/news/news/2016/05/parliament-house-architect-romaldo-giurgola-dies/"><em>Parliament House architect Romaldo Giurgola dies aged 95</em></a></strong></span></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="/travel/domestic-travel/2016/04/10-images-canberra-unique-hotel/"><em>10 images from Canberra’s most unique hotel</em></a></strong></span></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="/travel/travel-tips/2016/05/tripadvisor-reveals-favourite-landmarks-australia/"><em>Sydney Opera House not Australia’s favourite landmark</em></a></strong></span></p>

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