Two Queensland DNA lab employees stood down after public inquiry findings

The senior manager at Queensland’s troubled DNA laboratory who tried to hose down damaging allegations from a whistleblower scientist has been stood down.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palas­zczuk has described the interim findings as “perhaps one of the most concerning reports that our state has seen’. Picture: John Gass

The senior manager at Queensland’s troubled DNA laboratory who tried to hose down damaging allegations from a whistleblower scientist has been stood down.

Justin Howes, team manager at the government-run forensics lab, has been suspended on full pay alongside managing scientist Catherine Allen.

The pair was stood down by Queensland Health Director-General Shaun Drummond on Wednesday morning, following damning interim findings of a public inquiry.

Thousands of DNA samples from murder and rape cases are being ­retested after Commissioner Walter Sofronoff found scientists had been making ­“untrue” statements to courts since early 2018.

Premier Annastacia Palas­zczuk has described his interim findings as “perhaps one of the most concerning reports that our state has seen, and we need to get to the bottom of it.”

Ms Allen and Mr Howes have retained lawyers independent of Queensland Health for the six-month inquiry, with public hearings to begin on Monday.

They were contacted for comment through solicitors Mc­Cullough Robertson.

The decision to suspend the two managers was not recommended by Mr Sofronoff.

Health Minister Yvette D’Ath. Picture: Dan Peled

Asked on Tuesday whether she had confidence in Mr Howes and Ms Allen, Health Minister Yvette D’Ath said: “There has been no findings in relation to any individual; I am satisfied there is sufficient oversight happening at (the lab)”. The next morning, the two were stood down.

Documents obtained by The Australian under Right to Information for the podcast ­series Shandee’s Story reveal how Mr Howes and ­others moved to assure stakeholders last year that revelations from DNA expert Kirsty Wright were not concerning.

As Dr Wright was sounding the alarm on what she believed could be the “biggest forensic disaster in Australia’s history”, Mr Howes wrote to the peak agency for police chiefs throughout Australia and New Zealand. Parts of his email were redacted.

“I am sure many of you would have read the attached article ­already,’’ he wrote. “We received some questions this week from the author of a podcast – Shandee’s Story – through The Australian that related to some work conducted in 2013-14 on the murder of Shandee Blackburn.

“We expected something more, and today this article ­arrived. We are not concerned with the material presented in the media. We are (not) concerned with the details in this matter, nor with any processes in the laboratory at the time.

“There is a podcast to sell after all, and this type of media may go some way to help that.”

Days later, Mr Howes wrote to the department’s human resources team about using a public service “code of conduct” against Dr Wright, who left the lab 15 years prior. “I am curious about the CoC back in 2007,” he wrote. “If a staff member left QH, are they still obliged to behave in line with the code of conduct? “I am not sure how this could be controlled, but we have a former staff member who left in 2007 who is speaking quite terribly about the lab to the media. And has called for staff – as written in The Australian on 27 November – to contact her confidentially if they have something to say.”

In November, Dr Wright called for the lab to be shut down and for a public inquiry to investigate its operations.

She was confident major changes to the lab’s equipment and software introduced just weeks before the murder of Mackay woman Shandee Blackburn fundamentally interfered with its ability to obtain DNA profiles.

The issues she identified include a failure to find any trace DNA of Blackburn’s former boyfriend John Peros, the main police suspect in the murder, on the surfaces of his Toyota HiLux ute.

Mr Peros travelled many thousands of kilometres a year in the car but the lab said no trace DNA was detected on police swabs and tape lifts from the steering wheel, handbrake, gear shift, driver’s seat and front-door ­handles and window wind – all surfaces that as the driver he regularly touched.

“This is serious. This is really serious. It’s diabolical,” Dr Wright said on November 25. “The lab should immediately stop producing evidence, stop producing DNA profiles. There needs to be a thorough and independent investi­gation of what’s gone on.”

It would take another seven months, and relentless advocacy from victims, their families, lawyers, the opposition and other experts before Ms Palaszczuk finally announced an inquiry in June.

On Wednesday, she would not comment on why her government resisted the inquiry for so long. “I’m not going to go over old history,” she said. “We want to get to the bottom of this, to know who was responsible, we want justice for victims - that is paramount here.”