Shandee’s Story

There was no fanfare when Commissioner Annabelle Bennett SC handed down her findings from the Project 13 inquiry.

Only disappointment that the inquiry failed to hold anyone responsible for the biggest disaster in the lab’s history. 

In this episode of Shandee’s Legacy, Dr Kirsty Wright joins Hedley Thomas, Claire Harvey, and David Murray to dissect and comment on the findings from this rare second inquiry, the future of a lab at the heart of the criminal justice system, and the case which started all of this: the slaying of Shandee Blackburn in 2013.

To read The Australian's reporting and analysis of the inquiry, search Shandee's Story or visit shandee.com.au.

For daily updates, subscribe to The Front in your podcast app.

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Public hearings in a second inquiry into the lab and the disastrous Project 13 have concluded. Closing submissions have been delivered. And still questions are left unanswered.

Why was the automated process unleashed on precious crime-scene samples? Who wrote the mysterious and damning Project 13 report? And why didn’t the lab’s new boss flag it in the first inquiry?

In this episode, Hedley Thomas, David Murray, and Matthew Condon dissect a baffling week in Brisbane’s Magistrates Court – and what it all means for the investigation into the murder of Shandee Blackburn.

To read The Australian's reporting and analysis of the inquiry, search Shandee's Story or visit shandee.com.au.

For daily updates, subscribe to The Front in your podcast app.

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Public hearings for a rare second inquiry into catastrophic failings at Queensland’s besieged forensics lab are about to get underway in Brisbane. 

In this episode of Shandee’s Legacy, Hedley Thomas, David Murray, Claire Harvey, and Matthew Condon drill down into the questions yet to be answered about Project 13: who knew what and when, and why didn’t the lab’s new boss raise it at the first inquiry? 

We also get to know the new legal team brought in to lead the new inquiry.

To read The Australian's reporting and analysis of the inquiry, search Shandee's Story or visit shandee.com.au.

For daily updates, subscribe to The Front in your podcast app.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Queensland government will reopen an inquiry into its troubled DNA lab after new evidence of flawed automated testing processes emerged.

Find out more about The Front podcast here and subscribe in your podcast app. You can read about this story and more on The Australian's website or on The Australian’s app.

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A cloud has been cast over the new chief of the lab following revelations that a DNA extraction method may have failed across thousands of samples in criminal cases for nine years.

Professor Linzi Wilson-Wilde reviewed the automated method for retired judge Walter Sofronoff’s inquiry into the lab in 2022, but in her subsequent report did not mention information that she came across showing it was having serious problems recovering DNA.

In this episode, Professor Wilson-Wilde launches a staunch defence of her report for the inquiry, saying she was engaged to examine a separate issue of the method contaminating crime scene samples soon after its introduction in 2007.

To read The Australian's reporting and analysis of the inquiry, search Shandee's Story or visit shandee.com.au.

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Dr Kirsty Wright is the remarkable scientist who exposed the worst forensics disaster in Australia’s history, and now she’s identified the ‘smoking gun’ in the Queensland DNA lab disaster. It’s a catastrophe called ‘Project 13’ which has been hiding in plain view -- but Dr Wright is certain that it was deceptive and fraudulent, and it explains why Shandee’s case in 2013 and thousands of others since 2007 have failed.

For dedicated followers of this series, the Project 13 report can be found on the inquiry’s website under module four. It’s document number 129.95, and you can compare for yourself the opening paragraph against the figures 9 to 12.

To read The Australian's reporting and analysis of the inquiry, search Shandee's Story or visit shandee.com.au.

For daily updates, subscribe to The Front in your podcast app.

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The Australian's global smash-hit podcast Teacher's Pet returns for Australian audiences on July 1.

You can find it wherever you got this podcast. Just search for "The Teacher's Pet".

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Will anyone face criminal charges for the disaster at the laboratory?

We examine more of Walter Sofronoff’s findings about how this catastrophe unfolded, delve deeper into Cathie Allen’s conduct, and meet a lady who -- when the laboratory couldn’t make sense of DNA results -- was told her own son must have been switched at birth.

The Queensland Government moves swiftly to respond to the report, and we cast forward to the laboratory’s future.

To read The Australian's reporting and analysis of the inquiry, search Shandee's Story or visit shandee.com.au.

For daily updates, subscribe to The Front in your podcast app.

If you need support, Lifeline can be reached on 13 11 14.

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At last, Commissioner Walter Sofronoff hands down his 500-plus-page report -- and it is a sweeping denunciation of the laboratory’s failings, and of the conduct of one person in particular: Cathie Allen. He finds the managing scientist lied: to police, to her staff, to ministers and to the Commissioner himself, under oath during the inquiry.

Sofronoff exposes a litany of deceit and trickery, compounded by ineptitude and weakness -- but he heralds the bravery of those who stood up, hailing the courage of Dr Kirsty Wright.

We hear reactions from Dr Wright and Vicki Blackburn -- and we learn some news about John Peros. 

To read The Australian's reporting and analysis of the inquiry, search Shandee's Story or visit shandee.com.au.

For daily updates, subscribe to The Front in your podcast app.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s the final week of public hearings in the explosive inquiry into a broken DNA lab and we’re all here because of one person -- Shandee Blackburn. The vicious and unprovoked murder of the defenceless 23-year-old walking home from work is front-and-centre as three independent experts give their verdict on the lab’s failure to find any forensic trace of her killer.

It’s been a long and, at times, lonely road for Australia’s Dr Kirsty Wright, but now she gets her day in court alongside the world’s most renowned forensic biologist, Dr Bruce Budowle, and New Zealand’s Johanna Veth, revealing shocking new findings.

To read The Australian's reporting and analysis of the inquiry, search Shandee's Story or visit shandee.com.au.

For daily updates, subscribe to The Front in your podcast app.

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In the harsh spotlight of the inquiry, lab boss Cathie Allen admits to absolutely nothing, tearfully insisting she always acted with the best intentions and has been terribly misunderstood.

In her account, white-anting staff were to blame for the toxic culture at the lab, management offered no support, funding was shrinking and the pressure was relentless. We explore her life outside the lab, with some surprising revelations, and examine her claim to have been unfairly portrayed as a ‘Disney villain’.

To read The Australian's reporting and analysis of the inquiry, search Shandee's Story or visit shandee.com.au.

For daily updates, subscribe to The Front in your podcast app.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The big guns from the DNA lab - Lara Keller, Justin Howes and Cathie Allen - are rolled into the formal inquiry and subjected to withering questioning by a lawyer on top of his game over alleged cover-up, lies to police, and scientific fraud. The three insist they've been honest at all times, just guilty of misunderstanding the details or being overwhelmed by work and led into human error. The inquiry's lead lawyer Michael Hodge was relentless as he applied a blowtorch to a very broken lab affecting thousands of victims of crime.

To read The Australian's reporting and analysis of the inquiry, search Shandee's Story or visit shandee.com.au.

For daily updates, subscribe to The Front in your podcast app.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Four weeks in, one question lingers in the Walter Sofronoff-led Commission of Inquiry into Queensland's state-run forensics lab: who knew what and when?

In this week's episode, Hedley Thomas, Claire Harvey, Matthew Condon, and David Murray further unpack the toxic treatment of scientists who attempted to raise the alarm about inadequate DNA profiling processes and questionable management practices. We look closely at the behaviour of figures who've loomed large but have yet to enter the witness box: Lara Keller, Cathie Allen, and Justin Howes.

Matt Condon also delves into the fascinating history of the facility and the unique way death is dealt with in Queensland.

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Humiliated. Belittled. Embarrassed. Toxic behaviour by the lab's managers leads to an epic spray from a reporting scientist in this week's episode. Ingrid Moeller used her time in the witness box to unleash on less-than-stellar management of the state-run lab at the centre of the Commission of Inquiry.

Plus, we hear from her colleagues, who tried time and again to raise the alarm about toxic culture and controversial lab practices.

We also grapple with the magnitude of the lab's extraordinary backflips on statements provided to Queensland Police, with potentially thousands of cases thrown into doubt as a result.

Join The Australian’s National Chief Correspondent, Hedley Thomas, and his colleagues Claire Harvey, David Murray, and Matthew Condon, as they discuss the third week of the Sofronoff inquiry.

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We reveal deep concerns that the lab managers put a new, untried and ill-conceived testing system in place immediately after the public inquiry was called. Was it a deliberate strategy of sabotage to try to cover up the mistakes of the past? Or merely accidental - the product of poor judgment?

The inquiry is focusing long and hard on this as Dr Kirsty Wright helps identify the errors and potential destruction of evidence. The toxic culture inside the lab are on display along with three of the fascinating legal characters in the inquiry.

Join The Australian’s chief national correspondent, Hedley Thomas, and his colleagues Claire Harvey, David Murray and Matthew Condon, as they discuss the second week of the Sofronoff inquiry.

To read The Australian's reporting and analysis of the inquiry, search Shandee's Story or visit shandee.com.au.

For daily updates, subscribe to The Front in your podcast app.

If you need support, Lifeline can be reached on 13 11 14.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Following the shocking revelations of bungling, secrecy and misconduct within Queensland’s DNA lab exposed in journalist Hedley Thomas’ podcast Shandee’s Story, a major royal commission-style inquiry into the fiasco gets underway in a Brisbane court, headed by retired judge Walter Sofronoff KC. The hearings are immediately rocked by allegations of disharmony and distrust amongst laboratory staff, sound scientific advice being ignored by senior bureaucrats, and warnings that the lab’s prohibitively high DNA testing thresholds were unsafe also being dismissed.

Senior police take the stand at the inquiry, saying they went along with the DNA lab’s new testing model because they trusted Queensland Health experts, only to become suspicious, then alarmed – courtesy of DNA expert Kirsty Wright’s damning assessment of the lab’s failings in Shandee’s Story – that offenders may have literally gotten away with murder for years. But DNA lab staff say the police signed off on the controversial testing decision and fully understood its implications. By the end of the inquiry’s first week it’s already clear that Queensland is in the midst of the greatest health and criminal justice crisis in its history.

Join The Australian’s chief national correspondent, Hedley Thomas, and his colleagues Claire Harvey, David Murray and Matthew Condon, in a comprehensive analysis of the opening week of the Sofronoff inquiry.

To read The Australian's reporting and analysis of the inquiry, search "Shandee's Story" or visit shandee.com.au.

For daily updates, subscribe to The Front in your podcast app.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hedley Thomas, Claire Harvey, David Murray, and Matthew Condon return to cover hearings in a major public inquiry into Queensland's state-run DNA lab. 

A new episode will be published at the end of every week, for the duration of the inquiry.

Search for "Shandee's Story" wherever you listen, and read The Australian's coverage of the inquiry at theaustralian.com.au. 

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DNA scientist Dr Kirsty Wright is shown how public servants and DNA laboratory managers behind closed doors have been minimising the serious concerns raised in the podcast series.

A raft of internal documents responding to Kirsty's revelations become available and these show the immediate refusal of the managers of the laboratory to start a proper audit or acknowledge anything has gone awry. Many documents are heavily redacted but are likely to be flushed out as the new Commission of Inquiry gathers momentum.

Kirsty's other efforts to ensure scrutiny of the lab are revealed along with interviews of key witnesses who hadn't spoken to the podcast before.

The episode is expected to be the last in Season 1 of Shandee's Story. A new season, Shandee's Legacy, is likely to start during the public inquiry run by retired Supreme Court Justice Walter Sofronoff QC.

Subscribers to The Australian have exclusive first access to episodes of Shandee's Story via The Australian app. Subscribe to The Australian here.

You can download on The Australian's app in Apple's store here.

Also get it on Google Play here.

To contact Hedley Thomas anonymously with any information on Shandee's Story, email [email protected]

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Finally, seven months after the first disclosures by Dr Kirsty Wright in Episode 7 of the podcast about grave concerns over the testing of DNA in Shandee's case and in hundreds of others, a remarkable breakthrough. The Premier of Queensland announces a far-reaching public inquiry to be led by one of Queensland's most respected legal figures and he'll be armed with vast powers and a team of lawyers and investigators to get to the truth in the DNA laboratory.

Vicki and Shannah Blackburn were briefed by the premier and the health minister who said they wanted to ensure public confidence in the criminal justice system.

A public inquiry became unavoidable after police went public with alarming details about what they were discovering in the lab's handling of evidence and DNA in hundreds of sexual assault cases, triggering a review of rapes going back four years.

Major changes are tipped to come from the inquiry which is forecast to run for six months. Vicki says Shandee would be exclaiming 'yes!'

Subscribers to The Australian have exclusive first access to episodes of Shandee's Story via The Australian app. Subscribe to The Australian here.

You can download on The Australian's app in Apple's store here.

Also get it on Google Play here.

To contact Hedley Thomas anonymously with any information on Shandee's Story, email [email protected]

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Hedley Thomas and the journalists at The Australian comes The Teacher's Trial. This is the first episode.

New episodes of The Teacher's Trial are published every Friday for the duration of the trial of Chris Dawson, who is accused of the murder of his wife Lynette Dawson. 

Search for "The Teacher's Trial" wherever you listen, or read The Australian's coverage of the trial on The Australian's website.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.