23 February 2012
Last updated at 23:24 ET
Azaria’s parents were cleared over her disappearance in 1988
A court hearing has started in Australia into the 1980 disappearance of baby Azaria Chamberlain, whose parents say she was killed by a dingo.
Mother Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton was found guilty of her daughter’s murder in 1982, but her conviction was later quashed.
Another inquest recorded an open verdict in 1995.
But the woman and her ex-husband want the court to officially blame dingos for their daughter’s disappearance.
They were expected to put new information to the hearing in the northern city of Darwin, showing other cases where dingos attacked humans in recent years.
They have been arguing that the open verdict has left room for doubt.
‘Victims of gossip’
Counsel Rex Wild provided evidence of dozens of dingo attacks dating back to the 1980s, with children the victims of most attacks, the ABC network said.
He said that if the evidence had been available for the 1995 hearing the coroner would have ruled that a dingo was responsible for Azaria’s disappearance.
But coroner Elizabeth Morris said she would not present her findings on Thursday.
After the hearing was adjourned, Mrs Chamberlain-Creighton told reporters: “It gives me hope that this time Australians will finally be warned and realise that dingoes are a dangerous animal, and I also hope that this will give a final finding which closes the inquest into my daughter’s death,” she said.
Virtually ever since Azaria disappeared from a campsite near Uluru (Ayers Rock) in 1980, Australia has been engrossed by the question of whether she was taken by a dingo.
In 1982, Mrs Chamberlain-Creighton was found guilty of her baby’s murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, while Mr Chamberlain was found guilty of being an accessory.
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- How dangerous are dingoes?
Both were later exonerated on all charges, after the chance discovery of a fragment of Azaria’s clothing in an area dotted with dingo lairs.
But the parents remain the victims of innuendo and gossip, correspondents say, and as long as the cause of death officially remains unknown, the rumours will continue.
It was a case that divided Australians and was even turned into the film A Cry In The Dark, starring Meryl Streep, the BBC’s Duncan Kennedy in Sydney reports.
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