Kurve
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- Dec 27, 2016
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'Speaking ahead of a cabinet meeting to discuss the interim report, the premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, confirmed the government could not afford to wait for the final report, due in December, before acting.Queensland premier ‘shocked’ by review into state’s DNA lab as police retest thousands of samples
Annastacia Palaszczuk says immediate action needs to be taken after report reveals potential testing failures at the state’s forensic crime labwww.theguardian.com
'Speaking ahead of a cabinet meeting to discuss the interim report, the premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, confirmed the government could not afford to wait for the final report, due in December, before acting.
“I am shocked at the findings… I am incredibly concerned,” Palaszczuk told reporters on Tuesday.
“There will be action that will have to be taken straight away.”
The government has ordered Queensland police urgently retest all samples with “insufficient” or “no DNA detected” taken between February 2018 and June 2022.'
Straight away action should have been taken ages ago, when the current issue was first brought to light.
Around Episode 7 time of the Shandee's Story podcast in late Dec 2021, 10 months ago.
I can’t believe this. Thanks to Hedley Thomas and David Murray (and others) for bringing this debacle to light.
The Queensland government stands as incompetent and negligent. An absolute disgrace!
More info from the article which has been updated since the earlier version today, with a further update in the Australian's live Political news section.
Further updates to this article tonight.
It is a bit concerning that there were obviously failures with DNA testing possible because of the misuse of equipment in the Shandee Blackburn case but other cases at this time are not being looked at because the DNA thresholds had not been lowered.Started today, scheduled to run for six days.
Speaking outside the inquiry, forensic scientist Kirsty Wright said day one had already demonstrated a desire "to get to the truth".
"I think this inquiry is the most important event the criminal justice system in Queensland has ever seen and I look forward to further findings," Dr Wright said.
"I think there's a lot more to come and I'm quite scared about the extent of the trouble that's been in the lab.
"I'm quite concerned if this is day one and if this is already what we're hearing, I'm really concerned about what's to come."
Forensic scientist 'quite scared' about extent of DNA testing lab failures as public hearings begin
Dr Kirsty Wright describes Queensland's commission of inquiry into forensic DNA testing as the "most important event" the state's criminal justice system has ever seen.www.abc.net.au
It keeps getting worse with every days reports. While I have heard about contamination from the people in the DNA lab, this sounds like a victim is being identified by their bones and subsequent bones too.Sounds more like a DNA destruction graveyard, than a testing lab.
I'd have hoped that with
1. QLD being the backyard of a certain ex-copper who once worked in the sex offenders squad with the National Crime Authority, whose Ministerial responsibilities last year included National Security and the AFP, and who is now leader of the Federal Opposition
2. Our ex-PM being the son of a NSW Copper
that there would have been some attempt, led by the Feds and championed by Dutton, to set some National standards and processes for forensic DNA management/testing.
What's the point of having all these Politicians coming from some form of Legal or Law Enforcement background, if they are not prepared to use there contacts, knowledge and skills to proactively exercise them from a Governance point of view.
'Rusty chisels ‘caused DNA fail rate’
by LYDIA LYNCH
'5:45PM OCTOBER 11, 2022'
'Rusty chisels and new testing equipment at Queensland’s forensics laboratory may have triggered a disastrous 50 per cent failure rate in detecting DNA in bones.'
Angelina Keller, a forensic bone specialist, believes scientists‘ ability to identify victims from skeletal remains has been compromised by three major changes to processes at the government-run lab since 2019.
Her concerns about testing quality were so grave, she told a royal commission-style inquiry, that older bones with low levels of DNA should be sent to interstate labs for testing until problems in Queensland’s lab could be fixed.
Ms Keller, who has identified victims from crocodile attacks, plane crashes and cold case murders during her 16 years at the lab, said bone testing almost always returned a single-source DNA profile.
In November 2020, she began noticing samples containing more than one person’s DNA, which was a “concerning” red flag.'
She believed rusty chisels could be contaminating samples.
“I thought it was very unusual,” she told the inquiry on Tuesday. “Currently I would say it is occurring a lot; previously, it would occur rarely. We have a problem and we have to find out what is going wrong.”
Ms Keller began tracking a high failure rate in detecting usable DNA profiles in an excel spreadsheet, shown to the commission.
“I haven’t actually done the statistics but it was already concerning me greatly as each case has come along,” she said.
Commissioner Walter Sofronoff KC noted: “Well a 50 per cent failure rate is not very good, is it?”
A new cleaning procedure and two new pieces of equipment were introduced between July 2019 and February 2021 which Ms Keller told the inquiry was “a fairly short period of time”.
“When you change more than one thing around the same time, it gets very difficult to pinpoint what the actual issue is,” she said.
A new way to clean the lab’s bone crushers, chisels and saws was introduced by senior scientist Allan McNevin in July 2019.
Ms Keller said Mr McNevin had “no experience in bones” and did not consult with other bone experts at the lab before deciding equipment would be run through a dishwasher with bleach and ethanol.
In May this year, Ms Keller noticed chisels used to chip away bones for DNA testing were “rusty due to the new cleaning regime”.
“Rusty chisels could be retaining DNA and contributing to the contamination of bone and teeth samples,” she said. “In my opinion, this equipment may not be effectively cleaned in this way.”
Queensland Health lawyer Glen Rice KC suggested Mr McNevin did not implement new cleaning technique “on some whim”, given bleach and ethanol were used to clean equipment in other parts of the lab.
...'