Michael Chamberlain dies aged 72

Michael Chamberlain, whose life was embroiled in the tragic events that followed the disappearance of his baby daughter Azaria, has died at the age of 72.

Michael Chamberlain, the former husband of Lindy Chamberlain Source: AAP

On that August night in 1980, Michael Chamberlain’s then wife, Lindy, emerged from the family’s tent in distress. The couple’s nine week-old daughter, Azaria, was missing.

The Chamberlain's account that a dingo had snatched the baby captivated the nation and divided public opinion.

The fact the Chamberlain’s were Seventh-Day Adventists fuelled much of the speculation, including bizarre rumours about ritual child sacrifice.

Police and prosecutors were skeptical of the couple, and what followed was a decades-long battle for justice.

In this Feb. 2, 1982, file photo, Michael, left, and Lindy Chamberlain leave a courthouse in Alice Springs, Australia (AAP) Source: AAP

An inquest in 1981 agreed that a dog, or dingo, took Azaria, but investigations continued, leading to a second inquest later that year.

Various forensic experts presented evidence suggesting Azaria’s throat had been cut with a bladed instrument, and the dingo story had been fabricated.

In 1982 Lindy Chamberlain was convicted of murder. Michael Chamberlain was convicted of being an accessory after the fact and received a suspended sentence.

But after a climber fell to his death from Uluru in 1986, police sent to recover his body discovered a crucial piece of evidence for the Chamberlain case - Azaria's matinee jacket.

The discovery of the jacket backed up Lindy Chamberlain's explanation of why no dingo saliva had been found on Azaria's clothes, and she was released after nearly three years in prison.

The Chamberlain’s were pardoned in 1987, and their convictions later quashed. But the ordeal had taken its toll.

The couple divorced in 1991. Both later remarried.

Despite the charges against the Chamberlains being cleared, a third inquest in 1995 returned an open finding as to the cause of Azaria’s death.

At a fourth inquest, in 2012, the pair finally gained official recognition that a dingo killed their child. But Michael Chamberlain remained bitterly angry.

"It was one of the worst perversions of justice and forensic science in Australian history," he said in 2014.

"We had gone as babes in the woods. A Catholic lawyer described us as 'lambs to the slaughter'.

"We had lived by the credo (creed) that if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear. It was dead wrong."

He went on to publish three books, including Heart of Stone: Justice for Azaria, and even had a tilt at state politics in 2003, running as a Liberal Party candidate in the New South Wales seat of Lake Macquarie.

He also taught at an Aboriginal high school in Brewarrina for three years before returning to the state's Central Coast, where he taught at Gosford High School until his retirement.

He spent his later years caring for his second wife, Ingrid, after she suffered a stroke.

In an interview in 2016 he said he wouldn’t wish his life on anyone.