Lab chief denies lying but her remote testimony left a bad taste

Managing scientist Cathie Allen giving evidence to the Queensland DNA Inquiry remotely.

As if the complicated science ­relentlessly proffered for weeks at the Queensland DNA inquiry wasn’t mind-bending enough, it added a linguistic bouillabaisse of accusations, misinterpretations and semantics to its canon on Friday.

The soupy verbiage arrived courtesy of witness Cathie Allen, the suspended managing scientist at the troubled, no, chronically ill Queensland Health Forensic and Scientific Services Unit’s DNA wing.

Since the start of the Commission of Inquiry into Forensic DNA Testing in Queensland in September, headed by Commissioner Walter Sofronoff KC, in a nondescript courtroom in the Brisbane Magistrates Court complex in George St, Allen’s name has rinsed through the testimony of virtually every witness.

Her highly anticipated appearance before the commission late Thursday finally gave everyone the opportunity to see her in human form, disentangled from descriptions of quant tests and micro-concentration, from a blizzard of emails and memos and official reports.

Catherine Janet Allen was called as a witness at about 3.26pm and emerged not on the witness stand but via videolink.

Allen – arguably the star witness at the inquiry, arguably the only person who might be able to shed light on the lab’s years of dysfunction, its often incomprehensible testing regime decisions, its inescapable scientific failures that may have impacted on thousands of police investigations and subsequent court cases, and may, just may, amount to the greatest undermining of the prosecution of justice in Australian history – appeared on screen seated behind a desk in the glass-walled office of her solicitor somewhere in Brisbane.

It was not explained why she had been unable to appear incarnate.

The witness stand chair in court was still warm after days of testimony from her lab sidekick and team manager, Justin Howes.

Still, here she was up on the screen. And she didn’t look happy. For the 70 minutes she gave evidence on Thursday, and continuing into Friday, her mouth did not budge from its downward crescent moon shape.

She clasped and squeezed her hands on the table before her.

Counsel assisting, Michael Hodge KC, appeared enervated at the appearance of Allen.

“I want to begin at the end,” he said ominously, and took the court to a string of emails in relating to yet another decision to change the lab’s preferred DNA testing methods on the back of months of universal criticism that was sparked by The Australian’s hit podcast, Shandee’s Story.

Michael Hodge KC seen during cross examination of Cathie Allen.

On a few occasions, on hearing evidence from Allen, whose voice never shifted from monotone, you could see an almost imperceptible lift at the left corner of Hodge’s mouth. That lip lift was daunting to anyone who saw it, let alone the witness. But it was there, and it promised a near-future of torrid questioning.

In the dying minutes of Allen’s testimony on Thursday, and throughout Friday, she denied Hodge’s repeated proposition that, through the years, she had lied - lied to police, lied to the management team in the lab. Lied and lied and lied.

I made a human error, she claimed over and over to the more than 400 viewers watching her performance on the commission’s livestream.

And with that the smallest of emotional sobs escaped her, bringing Thursday’s hearings to a full stop.

But by Friday, still via videolink, still in the same fishbowl of an anonymous office, she appeared more bullish, her arms crossed and resting on the table in front of her.

A battle of wills, and words, then unfurled between Allen and Hodge.

The longer her answers, however, the more she became entangled. Her dialogue looped in on itself, possessed patchy logic, broke down into more of a jobbing recitation. At one point she decided to bypass Hodge altogether and go straight to the top.

“Excuse me, Commissioner,” she addressed Mr Sofronoff KC, “can I provide a bit of context?”

After a long-winded, potted history of the DNA lab’s testing protocol – from crime scene to result – her monologue petered out.

“This was the context,” she said. “Yes,” the Commissioner acknowledged.

Then after a long, long pause, Hodge (known in some quarters of the media as the “baby-faced assassin”) simply said: “Have you finished, Ms Allen?”

And so it went on, the commission dissecting Allen’s emails, reports and chatline comments in the context of failures in the lab’s testing regimes and its relationship with one of its most important clients – the Queensland Police Service – going back years, and she trying to interpret her own words.

It was a fish soup alright. And if anything – despite the occasional punctuation of tears from Allen in her evidence – not only was the English language the loser.

When Allen was asked – what was the benefit of adopting a testing system that achieved a better turnaround time at the possible expense of quality results? – she answered: “…we were helping Queenslanders.”

That, too, remains highly debatable.