Sex crime DNA not fully tested by lab

Almost 600 DNA samples from sex crimes were not fully tested by Queensland’s state-run laboratory last year, exposing the scale of the potential forensic disaster facing police and prosecutors.

Walter Sofronoff KC. Picture: Jack Tran

Almost 600 DNA samples from sex crimes were not fully tested by Queensland’s state-run laboratory last year, exposing the scale of the potential forensic disaster facing police and prosecutors.

Annastacia Palaszczuk’s cabinet will be handed “damning” ­interim findings on Tuesday morning from a public ­inquiry ­investigating alleged negligence at Queensland’s DNA lab.

Cabinet, usually held on Mondays, was rescheduled to Tuesday morning because of the Queen’s funeral.

Details of the report have been kept firmly under wraps, but well-placed sources told The Australian the lab would have to take “immediate action”, based on the preliminary findings of commissioner Walter Sofronoff KC.

Mr Sofronoff, the recently ­retired Court of Appeal president, has used his powers to compel 36 witness statements and obtain 60,000 documents that have ­influenced the interim findings.

Tuesday’s report is expected to focus on the lab’s unusually high threshold for testing, which ­demanded samples contain ­double the number of cells ­required in NSW before they could progress to DNA profiling.

If samples fell below the threshold, they were reported by the lab as having “insufficient DNA” or “no DNA detected” to police and in the formal witness statements prepared for scientists to give evidence in court.

But the inquiry was told last month that it is possible to extract “either a full or partial profile” below Queensland’s threshold.

It means an unknown number of samples, which could contain DNA evidence vital in solving rapes and murders, were not tested.

Last year alone, 583 samples from sexual assault crime scenes were not tested by the lab and were reported to police as having “insufficient DNA” because they did not meet the threshold.

Queensland police have ­reopened hundreds of rape cases dating back to 2018 after discovering DNA profiles could be generated in up to 66 per cent of samples that the lab initially claimed had “insufficient DNA for further ­processing”.

Health Minister Yvette D’Ath in June ordered the threshold for testing DNA be abandoned while the six-month ­public commission of inquiry is underway.

A Queensland rape victim, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said she was “sick to her stomach” after discovering samples were routinely going untested.

“Spreading my legs for a stranger to swab me just hours after I was raped was completely traumatising, but I did it because I wanted police to have evidence if I decided to go ahead with my complaint,” she previously told The Australian. “To think hundreds of other women went through this and the lab never even tested the samples is horrifying.”

Public hearings begin next Monday, with a final report due to the government in December.