Retest Shandee forensic evidence

Hedley Thomas’s investigation into the 2013 murder of Shandee Blackburn in Mackay on the central Queensland coast has unearthed serious problems with the state’s forensics laboratory, with potential to cause miscarriages of justice. It beggars belief that Queensland Health Minister Yvette D’Ath has rejected growing calls for an inquiry into the laboratory following allegations about failures in the handling of the murder investigation. Leading forensic scientist Kirsty Wright has raised the alarm about the lab’s mistakes during the investigation.

Dr Wright, a former head of Australia’s national criminal identification DNA database, says forensics should have solved Shandee’s brutal stabbing murder years ago. Instead, the process was a “train wreck”. She poses several questions: If a lab can’t get DNA profiles from a fresh pool of blood, or from the victim’s forearm, or trace DNA of the main suspect from his own car, how can it be relied on to find trace DNA from the killer? It is also worth asking how many other cases could have been compromised by similar problems. Dr Wright is scathing of the lab’s suggestion to police, recorded in the logs, that the failure to generate DNA profiles could be down to bacteria.

Her concerns, detailed in the news pages and Inquirer, should prompt a retesting of evidence in the interests of justice. It also is deeply concerning, given her years of experience, that she fears “what we’re seeing with Shandee’s case may be the tip of a very large iceberg”. Until there is a thorough, independent inquiry, there will be a threat of innocent people being jailed or the guilty walking free, she says.

At best, the lab has been negligent in its handling of Shandee’s case, at worst it has been obstructive of police investigating a murder. Dr Wright detected 17 errors in which the lab had wrongly linked people to crime scene items.

DNA found under the victim’s fingernails could have been that of her killer. But the Queensland government-run laboratory was unable to identify the mystery person.

Shandee’s family is entitled to keep pushing for evidence to be retested and for an independent inquiry into the laboratory . Ms D’Ath’s explanation on Friday that “there hasn’t been any evidence brought forward about any failings in relation to the forensic unit, other than the allegations specifically in relation to this case” was not good enough.