Years of missed alarms won’t cost DNA lab chief Linzi Wilson-Wilde her job

The scientist leading Queensland’s embattled DNA lab out of ruin has been found to have failed to sound the alarm about its biggest catastrophe, but will stay on.

Linzi Wilson-Wilde will stay on as the chief executive of the lab because the second DNA Commission of Inquiry did not find evidence to support a conclusion that the scientist deliberately misled the first inquiry. Picture: Liam Kidston

The scientist leading Queensland’s embattled DNA lab out of ruin has been found to have failed to sound the alarm about its biggest catastrophe in DNA testing, affecting thousands of cases and victims of crime going back to 2007.

But Linzi Wilson-Wilde will stay on as the chief executive of the lab because the second DNA Commission of Inquiry, headed by retired Federal Court judge Annabelle Bennett, did not find evidence to support a conclusion that the scientist deliberately misled the first inquiry, sources close to the state government told The Australian.

Other scientists, including some still employed at the lab who knew about the grave DNA yield problems from 2007, are also off the hook and face no disciplinary action or adverse findings.

This is despite them having remained silent about the DNA yield disaster at the time the first inquiry, headed by retired Queensland Supreme Court judge Walter Sofronoff in 2022, was trying to discover the truth.

No individual will be found accountable in Dr Bennett’s second inquiry, which instead highlights systemic failure, moribund governance and a vacuum in appropriate cultural and operational processes in the lab.

More than 100,000 crime scene samples since 2007 will need to be thoroughly reviewed by a specialised legal and forensic committee – and many will require retesting for DNA – in what is believed to be the largest such program in forensic history. Numerous serious crimes are likely to be solved in the retesting.

The findings, to be delivered to state cabinet and Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk on Monday, vindicate Kirsty Wright, who spotted the collapse in DNA yield this year in lab documents she examined after the first DNA inquiry, sources said.

Key documents, dating back to the lab’s ill-fated 2007 Project 13, which saw robots replace scientists in the testing of crime scene samples, were given to Dr Wilson-Wilde in October 2022 in her role as an expert witness for Mr Sofronoff’s inquiry.

Dr Wilson-Wilde has maintained her insistence that she did not “miss” or overlook facts in the Project 13 document showing the yield collapse, despite her failure to draw it to the first inquiry’s attention.

Until the yield disaster was revealed by Dr Wright and The Australian’s Shandee’s Story podcast in late August, Dr Wilson-Wilde had taken no direct action to manage a DNA testing disaster that affected thousands of cases for nine years until 2016.

Backers of Dr Wilson-Wilde, including current lab scientists, Queensland Health, Mr Sofronoff and Julie Dick, the co-chairs of a new DNA advisory structure overseeing the lab’s work, have lobbied for her to stay in the top job.

Several lab staff signed supportive statements that were provided to the second inquiry. Dr Wilson-Wilde gave evidence of her reform agenda, backed by a $200m funding boost, and sources said Commissioner Bennett was impressed with the CEO’s progress in reforming lab culture and work practices.

Queensland cabinet ministers will learn on Monday, however, that the second inquiry has confirmed Dr Wilson-Wilde did not alert Mr Sofronoff’s inquiry to the telltale damning facts in the Project 13 documents that showed the yield collapse, starting with the robots in 2007.

As a result, the most significant failure in the lab’s history was overlooked and went unreported by Mr Sofronoff’s inquiry. Dr Wilson-Wilde was appointed chief executive of the lab and Forensic and Scientific Services weeks later, in December 2022.

Health Minister Shannon Fentiman ordered the second inquiry in October to investigate the worrying disclosures in The Australian and to restore public confidence in the lab, a cornerstone of the state’s criminal justice system. Dr Wright was seconded to the second inquiry as an expert witness.

Commissioner Bennett’s inquiry, which held four days of public hearings with witnesses, became notable for its relatively gentle questioning by the inquiry’s senior counsel assisting, Andrew Fox, and the brief attention given in cross examination to Dr Wright’s scathing findings about Dr Wilson-Wilde’s 2022 reporting failure.