Victims of serious crimes like rape and murder are waiting an extraordinary 398 days for testing compared to five to 10 days in other states, according to a new report into Queensland’s scandal-plagued DNA testing lab.

The report (pdf), led by forensic biologist-turned-whistleblower Kirsty Wright, makes damning findings of routine contamination, unreliable results, and testing delays, critically impacting courts, police, and victims awaiting justice.

“The median time for the lab to process major crime cases, sexual assaults, rapes, murders is about 420 days,” Wright said on Aug. 4.

“Victims are waiting over a year for the rape kits to be tested. In other jurisdictions, that’s taking five to 10 days, so you can see the chasm in the service that we need to rebuild.”

Over 13,000 samples need to be retested—a process expected to take two years—while cases in the magistrates’ court that rely on DNA evidence are already facing delays of up to three years, the report stated.

Wright, who exposed alleged testing failures in the 2013 murder investigation of Mackay woman Shandee Blackburn, leading to two commissions of inquiry into the lab, was appointed by the Liberal-National state government to review the testing facility.

Wright’s findings, released in late 2022, led to calls for immediate reforms to improve forensic practices and restore public confidence in the justice system. Forensic Science Queensland (FSQ), the state’s main forensic lab, had faced scrutiny for unreliable results in high-profile cases.

Some of the latest report’s key findings include:

Queensland Forensic Lab Leaves Victims Waiting Years for DNA Testing: Report

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