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the Coroner held that no person was responsible for the death of Azaria and that a dingo had taken the baby.
The investigation continued after the inquest and on 20 November 1981, the Supreme Court quashed the findings
of the inquest and ordered a new coronial inquiry. The Chamberlains were committed for trial at the second
inquest and Mrs Lindy Chamberlain, mother of baby Azaria, was eventually sentenced to life imprisonment after
being found guilty of murder by a Supreme Court Jury in October 1982. Michael Chamberlain, her husband, was
found guilty of being an accessory to the murder. Two appeals were rejected. However after a matinee jacket,
identified as Azaria’s, was found on 2 February 1986, Lindy Chamberlain was released from jail and an inquiry
announced. Mr Justice Morling conducted the inquiry and concluded that new evidence made the convictions
unsafe. The Chamberlains were pardoned.
During the long period of the Chamberlain trial and inquiry the Police Force was subjected to much criticism.
Commissioner McAulay defended the integrity of his Police Force throughout. He did, however, move to upgrade
the Forensic Science Section after some inadequacies were revealed in its practices during the long saga.
McAulay resigned from the Northern Territory Police on 1 January 1988 to take up an appointment as
Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police, a position he formally assumed on 15 February 1988. In that
position he was also Australia’s representative to Interpol and served on the Commonwealth Law Enforcement
Board. He retired as Commissioner of the Australia Federal Police in 1994.
During his service, Peter McAulay was awarded the Queen’s Police Medal (QPM) for distinguished service
and the United Nations Cyprus medal. He was also admitted as an Officer in the general division of the Order of
Australia (AO) for public service. He was a Fellow of the Australia Institute of Management and a Member of the
Australian Institute of Company Directors.
In November 1994, he was appointed, together with a former West Australian Under Treasurer, Ross Bowe,
to review the Northern Territory Police organisational structure, adequacy, and appropriateness of current police
human resource policies. Following a short but intensive review the consultants report was delivered to Government
in February 1995.
Remembered within the Northern Territory Police as the Commissioner who transformed the Police from a
small rural force into a twentieth century police force, he was renowned for his innovation, initiative, personal
integrity and competence. He had often told close friends that he had never been ambitious and was prepared to
work his way up the ladder with everyone else. Devoting his life to policing, Peter McAulay ensured that policing
gained, not only in the Northern Territory but also nationally and internationally.
Married twice, he had two sons, Peter and Evan (Angus), by his first wife, Eileen, to whom he was married
from 1953 to 1973. He met his second wife, Avril Shirley Holdstock, in Cyprus, where she was principal of the
British Services School. They were married in Adelaide on 16 March 1978. Peter McAulay died at Woden Valley
Hospital, Canberra on 14 November 1995 after a long battle with a respiratory disease. The Northern Territory
Police headquarters at Berrimah was named the ‘McAulay Centre’ in his honour.
BC Bates, press release, November 1995; South Australia Police Historical Society, information paper; N H Young, Innocence Regained, 1989;
Who’s Who in Australia 1996, 1995.
BILL WILSON, Vol 3.
McCOY, INA VERA: see GRIMSTER, INA VERA
McENTYRE, MARY: see WARD, MARY
McGINNESS, VALENTINE BYNOE (VAL) (1910–1988), Aboriginal pioneer, was one of a family of rebels.
His mother, Alyandabu, known by non-Aboriginal people as Lucy, was a remarkable Aboriginal woman who,
after the death of her husband, fought to keep her family together and to forge their identities as both Kungarakany
and European Australian. His father was Irishman Stephen McGinness who jumped ship in Sydney, possibly
changed his name, moved to the north, and flouted convention, and no doubt suffered social ostracism, by entering
into a Catholic marriage with Alyandabu. They raised four sons and a daughter. Two of Val’s brothers—Joe and
Jack McGinness—became known for their activism in defence of Aboriginal rights. So did Val.
Val called himself a ‘half-caste’, ‘part-Aboriginal’, ‘part-coloured’, ‘coloured’—terms that are commonly
regarded as pejorative, and are unacceptable to many people of Aboriginal descent. But he knew who he was,
and he was proud of both his Kungarakany heritage and his Irish roots. He took strength from his mixed ancestry.
But he resented deeply the treatment of people of mixed Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal descent.
Born on St Valentine’s Day (14 February) in 1910, at the Lucy tin mine at Bynoe Harbour, Valentine Bynoe
McGinness grew up at the mine initially, in the warmth of his family. The mine had been named ‘Lucy’ after Alyandabu
found the tin ore that led to its establishment. Members of the family were to work the claim intermittently for
more than half a century. In 1918, however, when his father died, Val quickly learned the realities of being known
officially as ‘half-caste’. According to both Val and Joe their mother was pressured by the Aboriginal Department
into abandoning the mine, and the three of them travelled by horse and dray into Darwin where the boys were held
at the Half-caste Home in the infamous Kahlin Aboriginal Compound. Alyandabu, an accomplished cook, worked
at the Compound for some time, and then in Darwin town, and so was able to maintain contact with the boys, and
ease the harsh conditions at the Home. Val often recalled the grim physical privation he experienced at the Home,
but resented most the poor standard of education he received.
Fortunately, Val’s sister Margaret was married to a white Australian, Harry Edwards, who established a
blacksmith and wheelwright business in Woods Street, Darwin. In 1923, Val and Joe absconded from the Home