The murder case that set off ‘alarms’ for police inspector over DNA testing

A police inspector in charge of managing DNA results said he was shocked when he discovered the most serious of crimes weren’t being tested by the state-run laboratory.

A police inspector in charge of managing DNA results said he was disturbed when he discovered the most serious of crimes in Queensland weren’t being tested by the state-run laboratory.

Inspector David Neville described how an investigation into a murder case of the highest priority in late 2018 set off “two alarms” about the operational procedures at Queensland Health’s Forensic Scientific Services.

The senior cop from the DNA Management Section told a commission of inquiry on Tuesday that up until this crime, he believed the lab only applied its threshold for testing DNA to less serious crimes.

The FSS had implemented a new procedure to only test certain samples above a certain measurement, double the number of cells required compared to NSW, which has become the subject of a commission of inquiry led by ex-Court of Appeals president Walter Sofronoff.

Queensland Police Inspector David Neville leaves after giving evidence to the commission of inquiry into forensic DNA testing at the Magistrates Court in Brisbane on Tuesday. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dan Peled

Inspector Neville said he was shocked the unidentified murder had not been tested. After this, Queensland Police Service asked the lab to test the DNA and found three of the four samples were successful at providing profiles to investigators.

“In this matter, an unsolved murder, results came back as DNA insufficient for further processing,” the inspector told the inquiry.

“When we submitted for further testing of four of them, three of them came back with a profile.”

He was shocked by the high rate of success because a report, compiled by FSS which guided the decision to implement a lower threshold, said testing would only be successful in less than 2 per cent of samples.

Inspector Neville contacted managing scientist Catherine Allen to alert FSS to the result and query the process. Ms Allen, who was stood down by Queensland Health in the wake of interim findings into the lab last week, told the inspector a change to test urgent murders would result in higher costs for QPS and delays.

He told the inquiry he interpreted this as a “warning”, but he said “it’s not a wise decision” to dismiss DNA he believed could provide evidence.

“I think the success rate is in excess of 30 per cent,” said the inspector, who has a masters degree in science.

Before the “two alarms” surfaced relating to the procedure, Inspector Neville said he had seen the report from FSS that triggered the decision to implement the lower threshold but found it “difficult to read” and the low figure offered for testing misleading.

He said the report led him to believe there was a success rate of less than 2 per cent, despite evidence existing at the time there was a success rate of 10 per cent. He said the assumption offered by the report was “reinforced” by the FSS, particularly Ms Allen.

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