Maddie, dingo case 'eerily similar'

2007-09-17 11:38

Sydney - The details are eerily similar: a child left alone disappears, the anguished parents become an object of sympathy, but, in the absence of any better explanation, the mother becomes the prime suspect.

For Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton, the disappearance of British toddler Madeleine McCann in Portugal in May is a mirror image of her experience of losing her baby daughter Azaria in the harsh Australian outback in 1980.

"It's certainly looking like it is having far more echoes of mine than I would wish on anybody," she told Australian television last week.

Police were trying to pressure the McCanns into the same stark choice she once faced, Chamberlain-Creighton added.

"Lie and tell us you did it and you can go free - tell us the truth and you can't," she said.

"Answers are going to come from somewhere or another - whether it is the right answer is a very worrying problem."

Convicted of murder

Although Azaria's body was never found, the then 30-something mum was convicted in 1982 of murdering the nine-week-old baby during a camping trip to near Uluru, or Ayers Rock.

She was sentenced to life in prison on the basis of what would later be deemed unsafe forensic evidence.

After almost six years behind bars, during which she gave birth to her fourth child, she was released and exonerated.

Chamberlain-Creighton, who has always maintained that Azaria was taken from the family tent by a dingo, knows what it is like to be at the centre of an unexplained tragedy.

"The public want answers, and if they haven't got them, they are going to invent them," she said.

"And the police are under pressure and have been trained to find answers."

She said she feels "particularly sorry" for Kate McCann who, along with her husband Gerry, has been named as a suspect by Portuguese police.

"I certainly wouldn't want to go through it again and be in their shoes," she said.

"There's nothing you can do, but I think as the public, we want to be careful not to run ahead."

Heated public debate

Both have generated heated public debate - the McCann case about parents leaving their children unattended, and the Chamberlain tragedy about whether a dingo could have dragged away and killed a baby.

There have been other similarities - both couples sought refuge in religion, the McCanns meeting Pope Benedict XVI, while Lindy and then husband Michael Chamberlain were comforted by the Seventh Day Adventist Church.

Forensic evidence in both cases is limited because no bodies have been found, and, for both, the possible motive is a mystery. Why would these young, attractive couples kill their offspring?

In Australia, inaccurate stories about Azaria meaning 'sacrifice in the desert' ran in the tabloids while Portuguese police reportedly suspect Kate McCann of accidentally killing Madeleine then hiding her body.

In Chamberlain-Creighton's case, many Australians could never shake their suspicions because Lindy seemed too composed during interviews and in court.

'She wasn't crying when she ought to be crying'

"The public reaction was that she was behaving strangely, she wasn't crying when she ought to be crying," said Chester Porter, counsel assisting in the Royal Commission which reviewed the evidence and found the Chamberlains innocent.

Porter said public feeling was so intense he was abused in the street for not using a tougher line of questioning against the young mum.

"Why do people turn on the mother like that? When they can't really explain why it happens, they just turn on the mothers," he told AFP.

Sydney Morning Herald journalist Malcolm Brown, who covered the Chamberlain case, said there were obvious parallels.

"In both the Chamberlain and McCann cases, there was an exotic location involved and an engaging mystery," he wrote last week.

"In both cases the parents were youthful and attractive and the children pretty, the sort of successful people others are ready to condemn if they fall off the edge and have some explaining to do."

Living in glare of media spotlight

Three-year-old Madeleine disappeared from the McCanns' holiday apartment in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz as her parents ate with friends at a nearby restaurant.

Since being questioned by Portuguese police, the McCanns have returned to their home in central England with their two-year-old twins Sean and Amelie.

Chamberlain-Creighton said they will now need to learn to live in the glare of the media spotlight.

"There is no textbook to say, 'This is how you handle it'," she said.

"All you can hope for is that you learn to swim and you don't get too many gulps of water while you're doing it."

- AFP