Two senior staff members at Queensland's state-run forensic crime laboratory have been stood down amid a damning interim report that found the lab had issued "untrue" or "misleading" statements to courts.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the acting director-general of health Shaun Drummond stood down the senior staff members this morning pending the outcome of the commission of inquiry into DNA testing.
Asked why the department decided to take this action, Ms Palaszczuk replied: "You'd have to ask the director-general, but he has taken very swift action."
Former Court of Appeal president Walter Sofronoff KC's interim findings, released by the government yesterday, found between early 2018 and June 2022 Forensic and Scientific Services scientists gave "untrue" or "misleading" witness statements about the detection of DNA in samples with very small amounts.
That was because additional testing of DNA samples could have led to partial or full DNA being detected in some cases.
DNA samples from major crimes in Queensland dating back to 2018 will now be re-examined and expert witness statements issued by the forensic lab since 2018 will be corrected.
Ms Palaszczuk said the interim report was very "disturbing" and "concerning".
"This is perhaps one of the most concerning reports that our state has seen, and we need to get to the bottom of it," she said.
Public hearings for the inquiry are set to begin next Monday and the final report is due on December 13.
System held together with 'baling wire and bandaids'
Criminal lawyer and former Queensland Law Society president Bill Potts said issues within Queensland's forensic testing system had been ignored by "governments of both sides for decades".
"At the moment, it's a system that's held together with baling wire and bandaids," Mr Potts said.
"Waving the magic wand of money is not the solution on its own because you have to find trained scientists and have the appropriate and proper equipment."
Mr Potts said the widespread reviewing of cases would have implications for people on both sides of the justice system.
"It is a problem because we are told DNA is the gold standard of evidence and juries rely upon this," he said.
"Juries have not been provided with the best evidence and in some cases no evidence. This has led, in my view, to potential injustices.
"For people who are victims of crime, it could well mean they lose any form of closure … on the other side of the coin there are people in custody who have been wrong convicted."
Women's Legal Service Queensland law reform and education practice director Julie Sarkozi said Mr Sofronoff's interim report highlighted the need for the establishment of a victims' commission.
"If we had an independent statutory office, it means that the victims who so far have been left behind would have someone that they could go to and say: 'could you please review this decision?'" she said.
Ms Sarkozi said a victims' commission would ensure "there would not be such a backlog of cases needing to be reviewed".
"If we had that sort of a body, we might have independent oversight happening all the time," she said.
