Shandee Blackburn’s mum rejects board review

The Queensland government tried to persuade Shandee Blackburn’s mum that an advisory board could handle allegations against the new chief of the state’s DNA lab.

Forensic scientist Kirsty Wright, centre, with Shandee Blackburn’s mother Vicki and sister Shannah. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

The Queensland government tried to persuade murder victim Shandee Blackburn’s mother and an independent forensic scientist that an advisory board could handle allegations against the new chief of the state’s DNA lab, despite serious conflict of interest concerns.

Vicki Blackburn and forensic biologist Kirsty Wright have both rebuffed the plan – raised with them in separate, private meetings with Health Minister Shannon Fentiman last week – for the advisory board to conduct a review.

The meetings followed pressure from Dr Wright, Ms Blackburn and Opposition Leader David Crisafulli for a commission of inquiry into the lab’s 2007 decision to knowingly introduce a catastrophically flawed DNA extraction method, as well as the recent actions of Forensic Science Queensland chief executive Linzi Wilson-Wilde.

Queensland Health Minister Shannon Fentiman held separate meetings with forensic scientist Dr Kirsty Wright and Vicki Blackburn. Picture: NCA NewsWIRE / John Gass

With the Minister and advisory board resisting an independent commission of inquiry, the resulting stalemate leaves a cloud over the lab’s new management and over DNA test results in thousands more crimes than previously thought.

Dr Wright said the board should be ruled out of any investigation due to ties between its three scientific experts and Professor Wilson-Wilde giving rise to perceived conflicts of interest.

“Given the close relationship with the scientists on the DNA advisory board with Linzi, scientists will not come forward for the internal review,” Dr Wright said.

The Australian last month revealed the scandal plaguing Professor Wilson-Wilde had spread to the high-powered advisory board, with claims her associations with scientific experts overseeing her work left whistleblowers nowhere to turn.

Dr Wright said it was “very well known among the national forensic community” that Professor Wilson-Wilde was a very close colleague and friend of one board member, Victoria Police forensic services director Rebecca Kogios.

Shandee Blackburn.

Professor Wilson-Wilde was also connected to the advisory board’s two other scientific experts, Niamh Nic Daeid and Sheila Willis, through the Leverhulme Research Centre for Forensic Science at the University of Dundee.

Dr Wright and Ms Blackburn have lost confidence in Professor Wilson-Wilde over an expert report she prepared for retired judge Walter Sofronoff KC’s inquiry into the lab last year that failed to detail a major flaw in a DNA extraction method.

Problems with the extraction method have been blamed by Dr Wright for the failure to identify Blackburn’s killer, and may have denied victims crucial evidence in up to 100,000 cases from 2007 to 2016 when it was in use.

A “Project 13” scientific report reviewed by Professor Wilson-Wilde during her work for Sofronoff inquiry showed the extraction method was recovering up to 92 per cent less DNA than a manual method but was implemented anyway.

Professor Wilson-Wilde did not mention this in her own report to the inquiry, but says she was engaged to look at a separate issue of the method contaminating crime scene samples.

Mr Sofronoff, whose inquiry came as a result of Dr Wright’s investigations with The Australian’s podcast Shandee’s Story, is now co-chair of the Forensic Science Queensland advisory board with retired Queensland District Court judge Julie Dick SC. He joined last week’s meetings by phone.

Only an independent inquiry had the appropriate powers and protections for scientists, Dr Wright said.

“Project 13 is the biggest single catastrophe in Queensland‘s forensic science history,” Dr Wright said.

“A review conducted by a Queensland Health-appointed board simply will not satisfy the public. The DNA advisory board is not equipped to examine such complex issues.”

Ms Fentiman said on Monday she took Dr Wright’s allegations “very seriously” and had shared them with Mr Sofronoff “as part of a review into Project 13”, as well as with the health department’s ethical standards unit.

“Mr Sofronoff has advised me that he is in the process of procuring the advice of an independent expert to assist with the board’s review into Project 13,” Ms Fentiman said.

“The Board will provide a written report on their review and I have committed to releasing their report publicly.”

Asked if she had referred allegations to the Crime and Corruption Commission, Ms Fentiman stated: “I take my obligations under the Crime and Corruption Act seriously. If at any point during the Board’s review or, as part of their findings, I form the reasonable suspicion of corrupt conduct having occurred, I will of course immediately refer the matter to the CCC.”