Queensland DNA lab boss Cathie Allen in frame for inquiry findings

An inquiry into Queensland‘s bungled forensic testing is expected to recommend a major restructure of the health department’s laboratory.

Cathie Allen has been accused of lying under oath, trying to ‘crush’ a scientist who challenged her, deliberately sabotaging the state’s DNA testing regime as well as allowing her lab to fall behind other jurisdictions in analysis methods

An inquiry into Queensland‘s bungled forensic testing is expected to recommend a major restructure of the health department’s laboratory and make serious findings against stood-down manager Cathie Allen.

Appalling failings of the lab were exposed by The Australian’s podcast Shandee’s Story and investigated during six weeks of public hearings at a $6m royal commission-style inquiry.

Recently ­retired Court of Appeal president Walter Sofronoff KC will hand his final report to Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk on Tuesday which is expected to include damning findings against Ms Allen.

Ms Allen has been accused of lying under oath, trying to “crush” a scientist who challenged her, deliberately sabotaging the state’s DNA testing regime as well as allowing her lab to fall behind other jurisdictions in analysis methods.

She was stood down on full pay in September, with her deputy, Justin Howes, after Mr Sofronoff’s interim findings cast doubt more than 1200 criminal cases.

Ms Allen, the state’s top forensic scientist since 2008, faced intense interrogation last month by counsel assisting Michael Hodge, who suggested she was “trapped by lies” and had given false evidence to the inquiry.

She repeatedly rejected accusations she was lying.

Ms Allen and Mr Howes were behind a 2018 options paper that convinced police to agree to an unprecedented and disastrous DNA testing threshold.

The pair went against the advice of other senior scientists and rushed to convince police to put the threshold into place, allowing the lab to cut its workload and mothball samples with low levels of DNA. Thousands of samples with potentially vital evidence in crimes including murders and rapes went untested as a result of the threshold, which was scrapped in June.

In the early stages of testing more than 7000 crime scene samples that were ignored by the lab, police have already identified an accused killer and an alleged rapist.

Problems in the lab were first ­exposed by forensic scientist Kirsty Wright and The Australian’s Hedley Thomas last year as they tried to establish why the brutal 2013 stabbing murder of Shandee Blackburn remained unsolved.

Appalling failings of the lab were exposed by The Australian’s podcast Shandee’s Story and investigated during six weeks of public hearings at a $6m royal commission-style inquiry.

Dr Wright discovered, among a litany of other problems in the 23-year-old’s murder investigation, that no DNA was detected in a sample from a fresh pool of blood.

Shandee’s mother, Vicki Blackburn, said she was hopeful recommendations in Tuesday’s report would help the lab’s victims find justice.

“My interpretation is that the lab has left a huge scar on our justice system that needs to be fixed,” she said.

“All we are asking is for people to do their jobs and that has not happened, so hopefully there will be recommendations to ensure that happens in the future.

“I think whatever comes out of this will be, for us, Shandee’s legacy and that legacy is a better, more robust, more reliable justice system for everyone.”

During 26 days of public hearings, Mr Sofronoff flagged the prospect of stripping DNA testing from Queensland Health, warning that budgets were being put ahead of the ­science of solving serious crimes.

“I’ve seen the word client used a lot in this inquiry,” Mr Sofronoff said when acting forensic services executive director Lara Keller used the term in her evidence.

“It strikes me as completely inapposite because if you regard police as your client, then you can justifiably and reasonably approach them and say we’re going to cut this work and get their agreement.”

Forensic scientific work did not naturally fit within the health department, he said.

“We’re concerned with a victim, identifying an offender, dealing with somebody accused of a crime, the needs of lawyers, the needs of judges and of juries, and all of the things that impinge upon the criminal justice system, including fairness, sureness and certainty, the integrity of the outcome,” he said. “None of those things has anything to do with the department of health.”

Dr Wright’s discoveries of forensic problems last year were not investigated by Queensland Health, but did prompt the head of police DNA management, Inspector David Neville, to begin questioning ­the health department about results.

By December 2021, after a review by his DNA management section, Inspector Neville knew about a third of samples the lab declared “DNA insufficient” for testing were producing profiles when properly processed.

He immediately sounded the alarm with Ms Keller, the forensic services executive director, but she failed to brief Inspector Neville’s concerns to her director-general or Health Minister Yvette D’Ath.

Police Minister Mark Ryan has said he was also “kept in the dark” by his department, which was aware of problems with DNA testing thresholds, but failed to escalate concerns for six months.

Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll has said she was unaware senior officers harboured major concerns about the lab and had launched a secretive review of its results until The Australian published details of the internal police review in June.