Queensland DNA lab crisis: New documents expose ongoing testing failures
Queensland's forensic lab continued providing unreliable DNA results to courts months after a major inquiry tried to fix the crisis, briefing reveals.
A secret briefing warned the Queensland government that police and courts were still being provided unreliable DNA results, just months after a major commission of inquiry tried to fix the nation’s worst forensics disaster.
The state’s testing laboratory was so riddled with problems that the results it continued churning out for criminal cases could later need to be reviewed and retested, the government was told.
The crisis in the lab was worse than had been revealed in the findings of DNA inquiry chief Walter Sofronoff in December 2022, the briefing stated.
Substandard facilities were exposing crime scene samples to the risk of contamination, staff were inadequately trained and overwhelmed, and testing methods needed to be revalidated.
The briefing note and an accompanying “critical risks” document, provided to Queensland Health’s director-general in March 2023, have been obtained by The Australian’s investigative podcast Shandee’s Legacy.
The briefing said new chief executive Linzi Wilson-Wilde was “unable to assert complete confidence in the methods utilised … until all methods and critical equipment are fully reviewed and revalidated to meet best-practice requirements”.
Nor was she able “to assert complete confidence in the work being undertaken by forensic biologists until … further training is conducted”.
Despite doubts being raised in the documents about the reliability of testing, and with the lives of victims and the accused on the line, the DNA lab kept processing samples and providing the results to police and the courts.
Shortfalls in capacity and capability meant the lab’s processes were unable to be revalidated, the briefing documents state.
“There are significant gaps in contemporary scientific knowledge and training which have now been determined to be more widespread than the COI (commission of inquiry) first anticipated. There is a clear need to conduct a comprehensive, end-to-end revalidation of all methods and critical equipment used within the forensic biology laboratory.
“This revalidation work cannot commence until there is sufficient knowledgeable staff in place to conduct the work. There is a significant risk that samples being analysed under current processes may not be delivering optimal outcomes or may require reanalysis in the future.
“This risk will continue until all the processes are revalidated.”
The briefing added that “the significant potential for contamination introduces risks to the integrity of exhibits, and therefore risks undermining the criminal justice process”.
Names have been redacted from the briefing, but it was prepared two months after Dr Wilson-Wilde was appointed to lead the lab.
Sources said a senior person wrote the briefing for Dr Wilson-Wilde, who approved it and sent it to the director-general.
A backlog of 13,000 unreported samples was growing at an “unsustainable” rate of an extra 1000 samples a month, the briefing warned.
“The inability of the forensic biology laboratory to conduct DNA analysis and provide results to the QPS in a timely manner poses a significant risk to the continued detection and prevention of crime in Queensland,” the documents state.
According to the briefing, there was a plan to outline the critical risks to a new advisory board overseeing the lab at its first meeting just days after the documents were submitted to the director-general.
However a senior official, understood to be the director-general, commented at the top of the briefing note that it wasn’t to immediately go to the board.
“A meeting will be scheduled … to discuss the mitigation strategies further and until this occurs, this paper is not approved to go to the 28 March advisory board meeting,” the official stated.
Mr Sofronoff and retired judge Julie Dick were co-chairs of the interim board, created following the first DNA inquiry to provide independent oversight and ensure scientific integrity.
Former Court of Appeal president Mr Sofronoff’s final report included 123 recommendations to overhaul DNA services.
Less than a year later, in late 2023, retired Federal Court judge Annabelle Bennett conducted a second inquiry into a DNA extraction method that may have denied thousands of Queensland crime victims justice.
Commissioner Bennett does not appear to have been told about the risks and possibility of unreliable results highlighted in the briefing seven months earlier.
She made glowing comments in her findings about the lab and Dr Wilson-Wilde.
Concerns about the lab persisted despite the second inquiry’s findings, and last year the newly elected Liberal National Party government delivered on an election commitment to review Forensic Science Queensland’s operations.
Forensic biologist Kirsty Wright and former FBI expert Bruce Budowle led separate reviews.
In June this year, Attorney-General Deb Frecklington announced Dr Wilson-Wilde had been suspended after the discovery of contamination issues during the painstaking reviews by Dr Wright and Dr Budowle.
Routine testing was immediately suspended for seven days.
In a letter dated July 7, 2025, Forensic Science Queensland acting director Natasha Mitchell said an investigation identified both environmental and sample-to-sample contamination and a review was under way into cases from July 2023 onwards.
Ms Mitchell attributed contamination in the lab to the “manual handling of samples during processing” and a “fault related to a specific type of robotic instrument used in the laboratory”. She confirmed DNA testing would resume in a limited capacity.
Dr Wright uncovered the March 2023 briefing and quoted parts of the documents in a 415-page report she co-wrote with forensic science experts Lauren Wilson and Alison Sears in July this year. The review team found DNA contamination was being detected weekly at FSQ, describing this as “highly unacceptable”.
Dr Wright told the podcast: “There had been gross contamination – and I mean unbelievable levels of contamination – for the last two years that the lab knew about. I don’t understand how a lab can continue to operate in such a reckless manner. Real harm has been caused over the last 2½ years.
“What myself and the review team found is the issues that were found in the first and second inquiries continued. Shortcuts, compromises in quality, unreliable results, the deception of the police and the courts.
“Backlogs really just got to a point where they were out of control. It appears as though no lessons were learnt. Even during the second inquiry, where it appeared the lab was being fixed, it wasn’t. It was all a facade.
“The lab was aware that they were providing unreliable results.”
Dr Wilson-Wilde defended her record in a lengthy letter she instructed her lawyer, Glenn Ferguson, to write to the Queensland government in response to a show cause notice.
The letter said she led improvements and at all times acted according to best practice and accepted industry standards to control and minimise contamination. She was unaware of sample-to-sample contamination until the day before she was stood down, the letter said. “She denies that she has failed, neglected, or acted incompetently, in leading FSQ. She has communicated openly and acted with transparency, integrity and honesty in her dealings with all stakeholders.
“DNA contamination on laboratory surfaces cannot be eliminated. In an ideal world, environmental contamination would be zero but this is not reality and never the case. The current facility is old and potentially hinders contamination reduction. It is not consistent with good practice which is no fault of our client.”
In July, Dr Wilson-Wilde resigned. She has been approached by The Australian for comment.
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