Queensland set to get Y-STR testing at DNA lab after 10-year delay

A DNA profiling technique that will “significantly improve” rape investigations in Queensland is poised to be rolled out this year, a decade after the state’s beleaguered forensics laboratory first tried to introduce it.

A scientist working at Brisbane’s forensic centre.

A DNA profiling technique that will “significantly improve” rape investigations in Queensland is poised to be rolled out this year, a decade after the state’s beleaguered forensics laboratory first tried to introduce it.

Y-STR testing, which can target trace amounts of male DNA, has been used in NSW since 2009 and been available in ­almost every lab in Australia for at least seven years.

Queensland’s government-run DNA lab first tried to implement the technique in 2015 but repeatedly failed because “there is simply nobody who has been made responsible for validating it on a full-time basis”, former judge Walter Sofronoff KC found during his 2022 inquiry into the state’s forensic testing disaster.

In his final report, Mr Sofronoff recommended the lab take all necessary steps to implement Y-STR testing “as a matter of urgency”, with the aim of having the method in place by June 2023.

“Y-STR testing is revolutionary for sexual assault investigations,” he wrote in his report.

“Despite all other Australian forensic service providers offering Y-STR testing, the Queensland laboratory has not been able to complete its implementation.

“This is a failure to operate in accordance with best practice and a lost opportunity to significantly improve the laboratory’s sexual assault investigation capabilities.”

While the lab missed the June 2023 deadline for Y-STR testing, a Forensic Science Queensland spokesman said: “IT infrastructure that will support the implementation of Y-STR is planned to be developed in early 2025.”

Since the Sofronoff inquiry, Queensland has routinely been sending samples to a lab in New Zealand for Y-STR testing.

In evidence to the 2022 probe, Victorian forensic expert Rebecca ­Kogios said the Queensland lab has tried to introduce the method but believed scientists were “hamstrung by the pressures that – you know, the constant grind of getting cases out the door and not having that dedicated research capability to support them in rapidly turning on a new capability”.

“I think that that is a significant part of what has contributed to it taking them quite so long,” she told the inquiry.

Meanwhile, Queensland’s backlog of untested rape kits has seen a 14 per cent drop in the past three months.

The number of forensic medical examination kits that have been waiting on results for longer than a year dropped from 420 in September to 363 in December.

The FSQ spokesman said all kits marked “urgent” by police were “prioritised and progressed through the laboratory within five business days”.

“All other FMEKs are progressed based on an agreed priority list with QPS.

“As at 13 December, 2024, there were 998 FMEKs waiting for results to be reported. Of these, 363 have been waiting for longer than 12 months.”

Kirsty Wright, the forensic biologist who first exposed disastrous problems at the lab in The Australian’s investigative podcast, Shandee’s Story, which triggered two separate inquiries, is now undertaking a new review into DNA testing operations in the state.

Appointed by the new LNP government in November, Dr Wright has been tasked with investigating the sluggish retesting of samples from thousands of major crime cases.

Her findings and recommendations will be reported to the government mid-year.