Lab manager suspended in Queensland DNA inquiry fallout

A third senior manager embroiled in Queensland’s forensic catastrophe has been suspended over her involvement in a scientific paper used to persuade police to accept a disastrous DNA testing system.

DNA lab team leader Paula Brisotto has been suspended. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dan Peled

A third senior manager embroiled in Queensland’s forensic catastrophe has been suspended over her involvement in a scientific paper used to persuade police to accept a disastrous DNA testing system.

Paula Brisotto, team manager at the government-run forensics lab, was stood-down by Queensland Health director-general Shaun Drummond on Wednesday, sources told The Australian.

Ms Brisotto’s counterpart Justin Howes and the lab’s managing scientist Cathie Allen were suspended on full pay in September.

Former judge Walter Sofronoff delivered a scathing 520-page report on Tuesday which found disturbing practices at the lab had compromised thousands of criminal cases in the state.

A Queensland Health spokesman confirmed “a number of Forensic and Scientific Services staff have been suspended as a result of the findings of the Commission of Inquiry into Forensic DNA Testing in Queensland”.

Ms Allen, found to have lied under oath, bore most of the blame for the lab’s harmful policies and procedures, which have allowed offenders to go free.

Serious findings were also made against Mr Howes and Ms Brisotto – Ms Allen’s deputies – who failed to act on serious complaints from scientists in the lab that crucial evidence could be going undetected.

Mr Sofronoff found the trio were responsible for the “the conception and drafting” of a scientific paper to convince police to agree to an unusually high DNA testing threshold.

Introduced in 2018, the threshold was designed to improve turnaround times for police but resulted in key evidence being missed in murder and rape cases.

Plans to set a threshold were originally drafted as a project proposal, which required endorsement of the lab’s nine-member management team.

Senior scientists Kylie Rika and Amanda Reeves questioned data relied on in the proposal and warned against the new testing procedures. Realising they would not get necessary sign-off from the rest of the management team, Ms Brisotto, Mr Howes and Ms Allen cut them out of the process, the report found. The project proposal was converted to an “options paper”, allowing the trio to bypass other scientists and put the decision in the hands of police.

The inquiry heard the ­decision to pivot to an ­options paper was unusual and documents suggest it was Ms Brisotto’s idea, although she gave evidence that she did not recall making the suggestion.

In late 2018, police began questioning Ms Allen about why samples from a murder scene, initially declared as having insufficient DNA for testing, later produced results when properly processed.

Ms Allen then “deliberately crafted a series of lies and misleading dodges” to police via email, Mr Sofronoff found.

“Mr Howes and Ms Brisotto must both have understood its most conspicuous features, namely the lies in it, yet neither of them did anything,” the report read.

“There is significant evidence that Mr Howes’ response, when specifically alerted to scientific issues, was characterised by either inaction or inadequacy,” Mr Sofronoff found.

Ms Brisotto allowed: “ incorrect process to be implemented without intervening” or briefing Queensland Health executives.

The inquiry’s final report was critical of the nine-person management team, which includes senior scientists still working in the lab, who signed off on reports containing basic scientific errors.

But Mr Sofronoff found Ms Allen, Mr Howes and Ms Brisotto should “bear greater responsibility than others” for failing to pick up errors. He stopped short of recommending criminal charges, but his report has been referred to the state’s Crime and Corruption Commission for examination.

Mr Howes and Ms Allen declined to comment on the findings. Attempts were made to contact Ms Brisotto for comment.