Hedley Thomas
Annastacia Palaszczuk should be outraged about Shandee Blackburn lab errors … so why is she silent?
Shandee Blackburn was savagely murdered eight-and-a-half years ago. She was 23 years old. Shandee bled from more than 20 knife wounds.
Part of her scalp was sheared away, such was the force of the psychopath wielding the knife. She died in the gutter about 70 metres from her mother Vicki’s house in Mackay.
A coward had stalked Shandee as she walked home at night after her shift in a coffee club, cut her down on a street corner, targeted her face and head and neck with the knife, then ran away.
And got away with murder.
Just over a week ago in The Australian, and in my podcasts for Shandee’s Story and in news stories from the ABC, 9 News, 7 News and A Current Affair, one of Australia’s leading DNA experts delivered a series of stunning findings after reviewing hundreds of documents in this case.
Dr Kirsty Wright revealed that the Queensland Government’s forensics lab, which tested the evidence from the crime scene as well as presumed blood samples from a prime suspect’s motor vehicle and other important swabs, has completely bungled things.
Dr Wright said they probably had (and may still have) the killer’s DNA in these samples – but they’ve missed it because of the fundamental errors being made in the testing. She says the lab “is broken”.
Shandee’s former boyfriend’s 2017 murder trial, which culminated in his acquittal by a jury, was repeatedly told there was “no forensic link” whatsoever between John Peros and the crime. Because that’s what the government’s forensics lab had reported to police.
But the lab’s reporting – and this case – constitute a “forensics trainwreck”, perhaps the worst in Australia’s history, Dr Wright says.
And knowing her as I have since soon after I started investigating Shandee’s murder earlier this year, knowing how meticulous and measured and brilliant the forensic biologist is, I’d back Dr Wright’s view, 100 per cent, over the laboratory’s sorry record over years.
This unmitigated stuff-up by the Queensland Government’s forensics lab denied Shandee’s right to justice – and no doubt many other cases need to be reviewed to see to what extent they are affected.
It possibly is the reason Shandee’s killer is free. To kill again should he choose.
It also means that rapes and sexual assaults and murders which haven’t been solved – and where there’s probative DNA – are quite possibly also affected. To the detriment of, mostly, women.
And what have we heard since last week from those in charge in Queensland?
From the senior politicians who say they care about domestic violence, who routinely issue self-congratulatory media releases and get up at White Ribbon events to describe their purported determination to better protect women?
We’ve heard zilch from them about this case.
Where are Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, and Health Minister Yvette D’Ath, and Shannon Fentiman, the Attorney-General and Minister for the Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence?
They’re silent. They should be outraged at an incredibly serious situation.
They should have been on the front foot, promising bold action – independent investigations, independent retesting of the evidence, and giving assurances to Shandee’s mother Vicki and sister Shannah, as well as the community and all victims of crime, that they will leave no stone unturned.
They should have been assuring the family that Shandee didn’t die in vain. And assuring those who rely on the criminal justice system that forensic evidence is a cornerstone of prosecutions and there must be public confidence in the laboratory which tests and reports on this evidence for victims and accused alike.
The silence of the politicians who like to issue platitudes and hollow promises to do more to protect women – but go missing in action when they’re really needed – has, in my view, been an utterly shameful exercise in political cowardice.
Today, further serious concerns about this laboratory are raised in The Australian and in the Shandee’s Story podcast by Dr Angela van Daal, an internationally renowned DNA scientist who has had direct experience of inexplicable results from this lab. The lab’s problem are systemic.
Dr van Daal’s credentials and reputation in forensic science are impeccable.
She has joined Dr Wright in calling for an independent public inquiry into the lab – and, she adds, it should be conducted by experts overseas. And Dr van Daal also calls for the lab’s work to be suspended until all the problems and systemic issues are identified and remedied by an independent inquiry.
The premier, the health minister whose portfolio includes the lab, and the attorney-general perhaps think they can tough this one out.
That the news cycle will change gears and move on, allowing them to avoid showing the sort of leadership we should have seen already. This would be a politically dangerous crisis-management strategy.
Action should have happened last week but it is surely time for Ms Palaszczuk to get on top of this now. To get out from behind the cover of the small army of PR spinners with glib lines and obfuscations.
The evidence of serious errors by the government-run lab is writ large. It’s in black and white in documents before the courts. Two renowned experts in DNA are saying publicly: “This is extremely serious.”
Queensland’s premier and her ministers will be judged for their inaction long after the last episode of Shandee’s Story. Time now to step up.
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