Queensland DNA scientist’s ‘20 lies’ in three hours

The managing scientist at Queensland’s DNA lab is under fire at a royal commission-style inquiry, accused of being ‘trapped’ by her own lies.

The managing scientist at Queensland’s troubled DNA lab has been accused of lying more than 20 times in just three hours at a royal commission-style inquiry.

Cathie Allen deceived police into agreeing to a disastrous new testing threshold, then repeatedly lied after officers raised concerns, counsel assisting Michael Hodge KC suggested in an extraordinary morning of evidence.

Ms Allen was continuing to lie under oath to the inquiry, he said.

The intense interrogation continued after lunch, with Mr Hodge saying Ms Allen promised police in December last year she would review the practice of not processing crime scene samples estimated to have low DNA levels, but then failed to deliver.

“You didn’t do anything because you were trapped – you were trapped by the lies that you’ve been telling for several years,” Mr Hodge said.

Ms Allen, who is said to have presided over a toxic and dysfunctional workplace, rejected the accusations and twice gave versions of the same response: “No. It’s not a lie, I’m not a liar, I’m not lying.”

Ms Allen and team leader Justin Howes went behind the backs of concerned scientists in the lab’s management team and took the idea of a testing threshold directly to police, the inquiry has been told.

Senior police now say they were grossly misled by Ms Allen and Mr Howes about the consequences of the threshold. Thousands of samples with potentially vital evidence in crimes including murders and rapes went untested after the lab introduced the threshold in February 2018.

It was only scrapped in June this year after the inquiry was launched as a result of details revealed in The Australian’s investigative podcast Shandee’s Story.

Ms Allen and Mr Howes have both been stood down following a damning interim report by inquiry commissioner Walter Sofro­noff KC.

Ms Allen was giving evidence from her lawyer’s office in Brisbane’s CBD for a second day.

Mr Hodge: “Now again, Ms Allen, I have to suggest to you that a number of parts of your evidence are a lie. It’s a lie, isn’t it, when you suggest that you were in any sense neutral about whether the QPS (Queensland Police Service) agreed to option one or ­option two.”

Ms Allen: “No, it’s not a lie.”

Mr Hodge: “And it’s a lie when you suggest that the options paper wasn’t deliberately drafted so as to direct the QPS towards choosing option two (the threshold).”

Ms Allen: “No.”

Ms Allen was also accused of lying when she claimed that a senior police officer, Superintendent Dale Frieberg, verbally agreed to also stop testing low-level DNA samples submitted as “Priority 1” – reserved for only the most serious and urgent cases.

“It’s not a lie, but I do see in hindsight that I should have clarified that with her so that I had it in writing,” Ms Allen said. Priority 1 samples were never intended to be included in the threshold when it was put to police, with the options paper referring only to Priority 2 samples, the inquiry has been told.

Inspector David Neville first raised concerns about the threshold in November 2018 after four samples from a murder were initially reported to have “DNA insufficient for further processing”.

Three samples yielded DNA profiles when police asked for them to be tested, prompting Inspector Neville to ask if evidence was being missed in other cases.

Ms Allen warned Inspector Neville at the time that if he wanted to revert back to the previous process, “all available DNA extract will be consumed, so no further testing can be conducted on these samples after this step”.

The inquiry has been told this assertion was blatantly false.

Ms Allen also assured Inspector Neville that scientists had been reviewing low-level samples “if in the context of the case it could have been of potential benefit”, when this may have been rare.

In his evidence at the inquiry, Inspector Neville said he “left it at that point, based on that advice”.

Three years later, after The Australian published calls for the lab to be shut down, he again raised serious concerns.

Ms Allen she tried to “fob him off”, Mr Hodge said, adding that with the media attention “the walls were closing in” on Ms Allen.

Messages Ms Allen exchanged with senior scientist Luke Ryan show the pair celebrating after police agreed to the threshold.

“This is going to be excellent!!!” Mr Ryan wrote.

“This is going to be great. QPS made the decision, without our recommendations being required,” Ms Allen replied.

Mr Hodge: “You were gleeful, weren’t you?”

Ms Allen: “No I was not.”

Her evidence will continue.