Tears at the DNA inquiry as ‘Disney villain’ Cathie Allen fights back

Cathie Allen, the managing scientist who has presided over a forensic catastrophe at Queensland’s DNA laboratory, didn’t hold back when she got her turn to speak | LISTEN

DNA lab managing scientist Cathie Allen in tears.

If you’re going to be hauled into the spotlight and depicted as a Disney villain, which one would you prefer?

Ursula, the megalomaniacal sea-witch from the Little Mermaid?

Scar, the seething uncle in the Lion King?

Or the Wicked Queen from Snow White – the statuesque bombshell who disguises herself as an old pedlar woman to tempt the guileless maiden with a poisoned apple?

Disney villains always get the best lines – and Cathie Allen, the managing scientist who has presided over a forensic catastrophe at Queensland’s DNA laboratory, didn’t hold back when she got her turn to speak.

After four gruelling days of testimony, in which interrogating barristers had accused her of lying scores of times, Ms Allen this week finally got the chance to be questioned by her own (naturally) sympathetic counsel, Matthew Hickey.

Defence counsel Matthew Hickey.

Mr Hickey put it like this, as Ms Allen’s distressed face beamed from audiovisual link monitors around the courtroom: “You’ve been depicted, can I suggest to you through the questions you’ve been asked and the evidence of some of the others called in this commission, as some kind of Disney villain? Is that your impression?

Ms Allen: “Yes, that’s how I feel, yes.”

Mr Hickey: What impact has that had on you?

Ms Allen’s voice lifted an octave as she tearfully responded: “I find it quite, quite distressing. It upsets me, as you can see. I’m just trying to do the best job I can.”

She described herself as someone who’d entered forensic science for altruistic reasons.

“I liked the opportunity to be able to help the community without necessarily being close to, you know, offenders or victims of crime,” Ms Allen said, “but being able to provide some type of service back to the community. Most people within forensics are very passionate about what they do and I share that same passion.”

Most of Ms Allen’s time in the virtual witness box was spent under examination by counsel assisting the inquiry, Michael Hodge KC – the silk who earned the sobriquet ‘baby-faced assassin’ through his politely homicidal interrogations at the banking royal commission.

Mr Hodge had three central allegations to put to Ms Allen: that she had overseen a catastrophic failure of science; that she’d attempted to cover up those mistakes by silencing whistleblowers and smothering attempted fixes – and finally, that she sought to conceal the whole putrid mess by lying under oath at the Commission of Inquiry.

It was, at times, excruciating to watch.

Over and again, Mr Hodge gave Ms Allen the opportunity to admit she’d done things for petty and vengeful – or even expedient and cavalier – reasons.

The unspoken implication is that petty, vengeful, expedient or cavalier are all better than ‘corrupt’.

But Ms Allen insisted her actions were justified – then and now.

Like her locking of a stationery cupboard to control access to Post-It notes. Her suggestion troublesome scientists might be in breach of ethical standards. Her alleged whitewash of a major problem with rape samples. Her decision to photograph papers left on a desk by a departing scientist, and email them to Human Resources as evidence of potential misconduct.

Michael Hodge: “When you reflect on it, what do you think it says about your management of the lab that you took the time to photograph and email that pamphlet and that page … but you never bothered to take the time to review whether sexual assault investigation kits had not been adequately processed for six years?”

Counsel assisting Matthew Hodge KC.

Ms Allen: “I think that I’m a human being that had gone through some traumatic times within that past 18 months and other times.”

Ms Allen simply denied her motives had been anything but pure – and that she was lumbered with hostile staff who didn’t buy into her vision for a modern, efficient laboratory.

“We tried to engage three different mechanisms to help with the culture, particularly within the management team, and that didn’t necessarily work either,” she said under examination by Mr Hickey.

“But we didn’t ever seem to have any success with maintaining the trust and the working relationship that we had with each other while we were going through that.”

“And we’ve gotten to a place where we weren’t able to have robust scientific discussions because they would become they they’ve turned into people taking it quite personally instead of trying to be able to discuss the science. And so as a as a group, we are not cohesive and not moving in the same direction, even though we may have the same passion for the work that we’re doing.”

In the best tradition of Royal Commission theatre, Mr Hodge would put something to Ms Allen, she would respond with a bland answer, and then he would utter the most menacing phrase in advocacy: “Let me show you a document.”

Like this.

Mr Hodge: “Could you tell us what your attitude was to scientists in the lab getting pregnant?”

Ms Allen: “I was happy for them to extend their families.”

Mr Hodge, to the court officer displaying exhibits on big-screens: ““Can we bring up (document) 4316. This seems to be recording you requiring senior managers to provide you with the names of staff that may be trying to get pregnant?”

Ms Allen: (Pause) “This was in the lead up to budgetary things. I was trying to help forecast that if anyone was aware that a staff member was pregnant, that we would need to try to

forecast for that in the following year. I wasn’t trying to discourage any of that, I was just trying to, from a budgetary perspective, have that included.”

Mr Hodge: “Do you see it goes on to say: There aren’t any ramifications if the pregnancy doesn’t eventuate, however large ramifications if not accounted for.”

Ms Allen: “From a budgetary perspective is what I was meaning regarding that.”

Being a horrible boss isn’t a crime. But the Commission of Inquiry’s focus on the lab’s toxic workplace culture is designed, it would seem, to illuminate the climate in which scientists who tried to flag serious problems were ignored or actively silenced.

The allegations against Ms Allen revolve around two scientific disasters.

The first was in 2015, when scientists first began to notice that sperm from sexual assault samples was not being detected under the microscope – even when it was definitely present, suggesting something seriously wrong with their processes.

It was put to Ms Allen that instead of responding with alarm that rapists might be going free – she instead sought to hide the problem by misleading external experts, and then forcing the main whistleblower – Amanda Reeves – out of her job.

The second disaster, in 2018, was allegedly tricking Queensland Police into agreeing to Ms Allen’s plan to cease testing a large group of samples from violent crimes, including rapes and murders. The motive, Mr Hodge suggested, was to reduce the lab’s workload and thereby ensure it was as fast as possible with ‘turnaround time’ for reporting sample results back to police.

The result was that hundreds – potentially thousands – of crime scene samples, from bloodstains to swabs from murdered women’s bodies, went untested.

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Disney villains always get a charismatic sidekick

In Frozen, doublecrossing love rat Prince Hans had his long-suffering horse, Sitron.

Jafar, the plotting palace functionary in Aladdin, had an adorably grumpy parrot named Iago.

And Cathie Allen had a lieutenant in Justin Howes, a laboratory team leader and Allen’s confidant.

Numerous documents over the years, including email exchanges between the pair and another senior ally, Paula Brisotto, show Mr Howes enthusiastically endorsing Ms Allen’s activities.

“Great email,” he wrote in one note to Ms Allen, after she forwarded a snippy exchange she’d had with a senior police officer trying to understand the lab’s decisions.

Mr Howes and Ms Allen have the same legal counsel in Mr Hickey, but Mr Howes’ demeanour in the witness box was markedly different.

Where Ms Allen denied any wrongdoing, and said she was white-anted by hostile staff, Mr Howes was ready to concede he’d made serious errors of judgment under stress.

When asked about the allegation he went along enthusiastically with Ms Allen’s desire to mislead police – and bypass the objections of scientists, Mr Howes said: “Look, this was a very difficult time. We were under a lot of stress within the laboratory at the time and I think that as a human that had to play on one’s mind … it was extremely exhausting.

“Looking back I should have had those discussions a little bit more with the people involved (the scientists) but it didn’t happen.”

Ms Allen made no such admissions.

Mr Hodge: “As scientists within your lab raised concerns … you dismissed those concerns because it served your purposes?”

Ms Allen: “That’s not true.”

Mr Hodge: And then when you’ve come to give evidence to the Commission … you have lied consistently and repeatedly about your conduct because you are unwilling to admit what it is that you have done?”

Ms Allen: “That is not true and I refute that.”

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Hear all about the inquiry in our investigative podcast Shandee’s Story, with journalists Hedley Thomas, Matt Condon, David Murray and Claire Harvey. Episode 6: Disney Villain is out now, wherever you get your podcasts.