Health boss told ‘no problem’ with DNA testing procedures

Claims of improper DNA testing processes at a state-run lab were written off as a disaffected employee creating controversy, an inquiry has been told.

THE acting director-general of Queensland Health says he was told a week before taking up the position was no major problem with the state-run forensics laboratory exposed in a true crime podcast.

Shaun Drummond on Tuesday told the Commission of Inquiry into Forensic DNA Testing in Queensland that he attended a meeting in March 2022 where claims of improper processes were written off as a disaffected employee creating controversy.

However he agreed he had left the meeting feeling the issue was far more significant than was being presented, and he believed the relevant minister should be briefed.

The inquiry is examining a decision made in 2018 to not further test samples with low levels of DNA, resulting in thousands of pieces of evidence from crimes like rape and murder being ignored.

Mr Drummond said the issue was at the forefront of his mind when he began his new role, when he was told an internal review of the laboratory’s testing threshold was not necessary.

“So the advice that had been provided up to that point both to … the minister’s office and to the director-general was that this was the result of a disaffected employee and that their scientific processes had been continuously validated through this period of time,” he told the inquiry.

Counsel assisting the inquiry Susan Hedge asked Mr Drummond if that was referring to media interest arising out of The Australian’s podcast Shandee’s Story.

“Yes,” Mr Drummond said.

He said that on March 14 – his first day in the role – he had a meeting about an internal review of the issue where he was reassured by one of the deputy directors-general that the review was not necessary.

He told the inquiry he was assured that concentrating low-level samples in order to obtain a DNA profile – something that occurred automatically prior to 2018 – would only be successful in about one per cent of cases.

Queensland Health acting director-general Shaun Drummond outside the DNA inquiry on Tuesday. Picture: Matthew Poon

“Subsequently from (a June) meeting, we then started to get documentation which put forward that the one per cent might actually be five per cent,” Mr Drummond said.

“But certainly at that time, what we were being told and the advice that we were giving the minister was… it affected a very small amount of samples that would benefit from any additional process.”

Mr Drummond said the five per cent figure arose from a small-sample data analysis that was conducted in 2022.

“There was certainly still a view that a review was not operationally necessary,” he said.

But a review of the threshold was undertaken following agitation from the Queensland Police Service.

“The review was in response to, that there was now starting to be noise from Queensland Police,” Mr Drummond said.

He said this was prior to police writing a submission to the Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce in which they expressed concerns over the testing of samples in sexual assault cases.

“When we were advised about the review paper, we were told that Queensland Police had asked for a wide range of information around the testing threshold,” Mr Drummond said.

“Once those questions were starting to be raised (by police), it was appropriate to start looking at the same information.”

Mr Drummond said the 1 per cent and 5 per cent figures were constantly put forward.

“Do you have a different view now?” Ms Hedge asked.

“Absolutely,” Mr Drummond said.

“So, it was never highlighted to myself, or the advice that we gave the minister, that the one per cent only related to where it was effectively cold-linked cases (where there is no comparison sample from a suspect).

“And the conversation I had at the time was to say even one per cent in a cold-linked case did not sit comfortably with me. I did not agree with that as a policy.

“But when you consider that there was a ten per cent (chance of obtaining a DNA profile) where there’s a potential person of interest – and that had been put forward to us in March – we would have had a very different response.

“That is a fundamentally huge difference in the proportion of matters that would have benefited from this.

“It is disingenuous to constantly put to us that it’s one per cent, but it’s only what is referred to as a cold-link to the national database because that is a significantly different position that we would have had in front of us.”

Mr Drummond said the information came from the laboratory’s managing scientist, Catherine Allen, via two other senior Queensland Health staff.