DNA inquiry: Scientist says more could have been done to educate police on ‘DIFP’ results

The managing scientist responsible for recommending the DNA testing workflow at the centre of an inquiry has tearfully denied lying in her evidence.

The managing scientist responsible for recommending the DNA testing workflow that reduced the potential for serious violent crimes to be solved has sensationally claimed it was merely the result of human error that she didn’t comprehend until she spoke with a lawyer months later.

Queensland’s DNA inquiry has heard it would have cost just $40,000 a year to properly test the samples in a way that would have maximised the likelihood of matching the samples provided as part of police investigations.

Managing scientist Cathie Allen denied lying and giving false evidence on Thursday before commissioner Walter Sofronoff KC, who is overseeing an inquiry into the disastrous failure of Queensland’s DNA lab to test thousands of samples which could have helped solve major crimes.

“No, that’s not true, I made a human error and I have berated myself since then for that, but I made a human error,” a tearful Ms Allen told the inquiry as she was accused of being untruthful.

The commission heard in June this year, Ms Allen had been asked to prepare options for her boss Lara Keller to put to her superiors, including the director-general, regarding the processes available for testing certain DNA samples.

It came after prolonged scrutiny about the lab’s decision in 2018 to stop testing DNA samples below a certain threshold and instead incorrectly report them to the police and courts as being DNA insufficient, or DIFP.

In her email, Ms Allen put forward a “preferred option” she wrongly described as being the method used immediately before the 2018 DIFP change.

The option she put forward also did not give scientists the best chance of returning usable DNA samples.

Ms Allen, who has worked for Forensic and Scientific Services for 23 years and became the managing scientist in 2008, claimed that she only realised her “error” in that options email months later in August, when she was spoken to by a Queensland Health lawyer in anticipation of the current inquiry.

“I had used the words pre-2018 and in my attempt to be succinct, in describing that it lost its meaning because that was not what I had intended for that sentence to say,” Ms Allen told the inquiry.

“Ms Allen I think it might be simpler if I put this to you – that the evidence that you are giving is a lie isn’t it?” counsel assisting Michael Hodge KC asked.

“No that’s not right, I’m not lying. I genuinely made a mistake on that day,” she said.

Scientist Cathie Allen gives evidence via video link.

Mr Sofronoff intervened to question Ms Allen, saying the method used prior to 2018 in which the standard operating procedure for “low quant” samples was the micro concentrate them before amplifying them because it was regarded as “the best way of achieving the highest proportion of successful profiles”.

He asked why then did Ms Allen not suggest that method as the preferred option.

“Because as I say I didn’t accurately describe what that was and then that meant that then became the preferred option but if I had accurately described it, it would not have been referred to as the preferred option because of my error,” she said.

Mr Sofronoff confirmed: “So you’ve made two mistakes, one was to describe a process as the pre-2018 process which it wasn’t and the second is that you described as the preferable process the one that was least preferable is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes I am,” she agreed.

Ms Allen said after sending the email to Ms Keller, she went to her office where they spent about an hour discussing the right wording to forward that on to superiors including the director general.

Mr Hodge asked if in the course of that discussion, did Ms Allen ever realise she was describing the non-preferred option as the preferred option.

“Unfortunately I did not,” she said.

“That is very unfortunate,” Mr Hodge agreed, asking for an explanation of “how that could be.

“It seemed clear in my mind what I was describing but in hindsight it was not clear,” she said.

He told her: “I think that’s a difficult answer to accept Ms Allen because both emails are quite clear there are two options one is described as preferred and one is described as not preferred. So it doesn’t seem there was some lack of clarity in how you were describing it.”

“From my perspective in describing option one I didn’t describe that accurately and so therefore that’s what I then attached that as being preferred when that wasn’t correct and that’s my error, I made an error,” Ms Allen said.

Ms Allen’s email pointed to benefits of her “preferred option” including that it was cheaper and that it would create less of a backlog, even though the other option was more likely to return a usable DNA profile.

“Did you really think the Queensland Government was interested in saving $20,000 every six months in testing these samples if they knew that spending an extra $20,000 every six months would have resulted in the greater likelihood of serious violent crimes being solved?,” Mr Sofronoff asked.

“Did you really think that was relevant criteria to be putting forward as something that the minister or director general should consider?”

Ms Allen claimed that she had been asked to put forward those costings by Ms Keller prior to her email. But Mr Hodge said that “can’t be true” because she had already included them in her email when at the time she claims she was asked to do it.

“Okay maybe I’ve got that timing wrong I’m sorry, the clarity of that is not good for me,” she said.

Mr Hodge told her: “See it looks quite obviously Ms Allen like you deliberately provided false information.”

“That was not what I was doing,” she said.

“And you did that for a purpose which was that you wanted the change in workflow to be to one that was less likely to be successful in producing profiles,” he asked.

“No that’s not true,” Ms Allen said.

Mr Hodge put to her: “And the reason that you wanted that was because it would then make it look like the decision in 2018 had not been as significant as it was.”

“No that’s not true,” she said.

The counsel assisting continued, putting to her: “And that’s why you described falsely option one as the pre-2018 workflow so people would think that what was being switched back to was the workflow immediately before the 2018 decision.”

“No that’s not what I was trying to do,” she said.

“And that would be to your personal advantage because it would perhaps help you to avoid criticism for the decisions that you had made and brought about in 2018,” Mr Hodge asked her.

“Not that’s not true,” she said.

Ms Allen said when staff were advised on June 6 that the lab would be proceeding with her ‘preferred option’ suggested to management she still did not realise that the option was the one she regarded as being not the preferred option.

“Setting aside whatever was in the emails there were two options and one of them you regarded as the preferred option which was going to concentration, surely you must have realised on the 6th of June that strangely, inexplicably, the government has chosen what you think is the not the preferred option,” Mr Hodge asked.

“No at that time I didn’t realise the error I’d made,” Ms Allen said.

After just over an hour of testimony and before the hearing ended for the day, Mr Hodge put to Ms Allen: “The evidence that you have given this afternoon about having made an error on the third of June and the information that you communicated is false,” he said.

“No that’s not true I made a human error and I have berated myself since then for that but I made a human error,” a tearful Ms Allen told him.

Justin Howes, team leader at Queensland Health Forensic and Scientific Services, leaves the Magistrates Court after giving evidence to the inquiry into DNA Forensic Testing in Queensland. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dan Peled

‘MORE COULD HAVE BEEN DONE’ TO EDUCATE COPS

A scientist at the state-run DNA lab has refuted that scientists treated police concerns about a controversial testing system as “some sort of joke”.

Queensland Health Forensic and Scientific Services scientist Justin Howes has continued giving evidence before the Commission of Inquiry into Forensic DNA Testing in Queensland, which is probing the lab’s failure to test thousands of samples below a certain threshold.

Mr Howes on Thursday told the commission that he believed police knew that in cases where scientists reported “DIFP”, or DNA Insufficient for Processing, that they could ask to have that sample further tested for profile.

The inquiry heard a survey of prosecutors showed 191 did not understand they had the option to ask for further testing, and only four did.

Mr Howes said he was not aware of any attempts by the lab to educate parties, including police or lawyers, about the possibility of obtaining a DNA profile if they requested a low threshold sample be tested.

“Reflecting on it do you feel like that was something that it was incumbent on the lab to do, that it needed to educate people if it was going to maintain this system, as to what the system meant,” counsel assisting Michael Hodge KC asked.

“I think upon reflection we could have done more to educate not just the legal parties but certainly Queensland Police,” Mr Howes said, adding he had made a presentation to police at one point in 2018.

“But I think we could have done more to educate.”

There are fears thousands of criminal investigations may have been impacted by the testing failure, with scientists wrongly reporting “insufficient DNA” or “no DNA detected”.

Mr Hodge put to the scientist that it would not have served the lab’s interests to educate those within the criminal justice system to the reality which was that “just because something was labelled as DNA insufficient for further processing, it did not actually mean that there was insufficient DNA for further processing”.

“It seems like the only real benefit of introducing the DIFP process was to reduce the workload for the lab with the consequent benefit that it would improve its turnaround times?,” Mr Hodge asked.

“It had that, there is certainly that point,” Mr Howes said.

“So given that the only benefit of it was reducing turnaround times, do you agree with me that anything you did that would educate people about the fact there might be sufficient DNA would be likely to lead to requests for further processing of samples,” Mr Hodge asked.

“I’m not sure,” Mr Howes said.

Mr Hodge continued to probe Mr Howes on the benefit of not educating the legal fraternity, putting to him that the more people who knew there was a possibility of getting a DNA profile from further testing, the more people would request it.

“Well I don’t know. Don’t know how that would have been taken. I don’t recall turning my mind to it,” Mr Howes said.

Mr Hodge responded: “It seems obvious if you tell people practising within a system where they use DNA as evidence for that system that you’ve been telling them that samples have insufficient DNA for further processing that actually just because it’s labelled like that doesn’t mean it’s true then it would be likely to lead to requests for testing.”

“It might have led to that and I think that’s where the education could have, we were open to that testing,” Mr Howes said.

Mr Howes also refuted that communications from police making inquiries about the testing procedure were sources of “annoyance or irritation” or “some sort of joke at the laboratory”.

“Not to me, no,” he said.

The commission was shown emails from lab boss Cathie Allen that Mr Howes had been copied into in which she referred to communications in which police raised concerns about the process as “microcon tennis” and commenting “another day, another email”.

Asked why he didn’t call out lab Ms Allen for “misleading” police about the scientific process, Mr Howes refuted that he was intimidated by her.

“You didn’t have any concerns about how she might react if you questioned something a decision she might have had some input into,” barrister for the police Jeffrey Hunter asked.

“No,” Mr Howes responded.

Mr Hunter asked if Mr Howes understood the importance of the samples sent to the lab by police investigators.

“Absolutely,” he said.

Mr Hunter questioned if Mr Howes knew that “if a sample was asserted to be blood that was because someone had been bleeding” and that some swabs submitted were “taken as part of an intrusive medical procedure on a victim who might have been traumatised”.

Mr Howes agreed he knew.

“And the fact police submitted them to you meant they wanted them tested to the best of the lab’s ability,” Mr Hunter asked.

“Yes,” Mr Howes said.

“But you knew that the process that was being adopted after 6 June was not testing to the best of ability,” Mr Hunter asked.

“Certainly for the lower range, yes,” Mr Howes said.

Under examination from his own barrister Matthew Hickey, Mr Howes was asked questions about the culture of the lab in the 17 years he had worked there.

Mr Howes said when he first began, it was “festive” and “sociable”.

He said that changed in about 2008 or 2009 and the culture began to deteriorate when a new working model was introduced.

The commission heard at that time the chief scientist also left and she was replaced with the current lab boss Cathie Allen.

Under questioning, Mr Howes said in his experience as a team leader within the facility, he did not have consistent human resources support on campus

Mr Howes said he was experiencing stress at work and that while ideally a good balance of his job would be half a focus on the science and half on managerial tasks, the managerial role had consumed the bulk of his time.

Asked why he did not address the imbalance, Mr Howes said “I think that’s in my nature just to get on with the job”.

He gave evidence he had never received feedback from a superior that they were dissatisfied with his performance.

Mr Howes said he accepted that workplace stressors may have clouded his decision making.

Ms Allen will be called as the next witness in the case on Thursday afternoon.