Item #101918 Chamberlain Innocence Committee. New Forensic Evidence in support of an Inquiry into the Convictions of M. and L. Chamberlain [cover title]. Chamberlain Case.

[Chamberlain Case]

Chamberlain Innocence Committee. New Forensic Evidence in support of an Inquiry into the Convictions of M. and L. Chamberlain [cover title]

[Sydney], Chamberlain Innocence Committee, [1985].

Octavo, [ii] (contents leaf, verso blank), 40 pages with a line illustration and 36 colour illustrations (from photographs) plus an errata slip mounted on page 26.

Plastic comb-bound card covers lightly sunned and marked; an excellent copy.

Loosely inserted is a two-page autograph letter signed (folded once, with a few tiny light marks) from Dr Norman H. Young, 'Senior Lecturer in New Testament, School of Religion, Avondale College, Cooranbong' (where Michael Chamberlain studied in the late 1960s). The first paragraph of the letter, addressed to an Adelaide doctor, puts the items in context: 'As a signatory to the statement supporting Professor Barry Boettcher's work on the forensic biologist's results in the tragic Chamberlain case, I thought you may appreciate notification of some of the recent forensic developments in the case'.

Dr Young is a little less prosaic in the second-last paragraph: 'I do not know Mrs Chamberlain personally, though after reading the transcripts of the first inquest and the trial - over 4000 pages - I feel rather familiar with the Chamberlains. Of course I am a well-qualified expert in their religion and can say that most of the things said in the popular media in this connection are either totally false or misleading. We have our sectarian frailties, but child sacrifice is certainly not one of them'.