EYEWITNESS SPEAKS OUT: ‘I couldn't give up on Lindy!'

In a world exclusive, nurse Bobbie Elston reveals what really happened to Azaria Chamberlain...

- Ruth McCarthy

When 10-week-old Azaria Chamberlain was snatched by a dingo while she slept in the tent on a family holiday at Ayers Rock on August 17, 1980, it became the story of a generation.

It’s hard to believe that 40 years have passed since that horrific evening and the nightmare aftermath that led to young mum Lindy Chamberlain being wrongly convicted and sentenced to life in jail for murdering her baby.

What is arguably one of the greatest miscarriages of injustice in Australian history is now the subject of an eye-opening documentary, where Lindy and key witnesses reveal what really happened.

Bobbie Elston was 22 at the time and working as a nurse at a clinic in Uluru. She was there on that fateful night, and kept vigil with Lindy, her husband Michael and sons Aidan, then six and Reagan, four.

“It was freezing,” she recalls. “People were looking for Azaria everywhere. Torches were flashing. Michael was pacing up and down wanting to help,” Bobbie, now 62, tells Woman’s Day exclusively, from her Sydney home.

“When I got to the campground, Lindy was wrapped in blankets being comforted by fellow campers. No one knew what to say or do. Lindy looked drained and in shock. It was like she was in this nightmare. But she couldn’t wake up.”

PREVIOUS ATTACK

Everything pointed towards a dingo attack. Tracks led from the tent into the night. Blood was spilled inside the tent where Azaria slept. And there had been recent dingo attacks in the area.