This episode contains adult themes and references to violence.

This podcast series is brought to you by Me Headley Thomas and the Australian Investigative Journalism, particularly in cases of unsolved murder, is very risky and of course it is almost always costly.

From time to time, those risks and the.

Costs escalate sharply because people who believe their reputations have been seriously harmed by my reporting engage lawyers and then sue us for defamation.

When these defamation cases go to court, things can really spiral.

You will recall that Shandy's former boyfriend, John Perros began a defamation action against me, my employer, and Shunner.

Shandy Blackburn's sister.

John's defamation action, as set out by his lawyers in documents filed in court, revolves around episode thirteen of Shandy's story, right back in late twenty twenty one.

Here's a reminder of some things which Shunner said in that episode triggering the defamation action.

We are a long way into this series and up to now you haven't heard Shandy's sister Shanner or her mother Vicki disclose their views about the murderer's identity.

This has been a deliberate omission.

I wanted listeners to make their own judgments about this untainted by the family position.

But it's now time to hear it and to understand some of the reasons which have informed their views.

Am I allowed to say that there's absolutely no doubt in our minds that John Perris is the one that killed Shandy Bluckburn.

On matter of fact, it was him.

How could you be so sure?

Because I've seen more evidence than what was presented at the trial.

We know the evidence that was ruled out before the trial, we know the evidence that hasn't been seen, and it's undeniable.

When you have seen all that evidence together that there is any other person responsible for this.

Then what you are saying is that he's got away with murder.

I think it's a letdown in our justice system.

Now, for this chapter of episode eighteen of Shandy's Legacy, in late twenty twenty five, I'm talking to John Paul Cashen, a senior lawyer who specializes in defamation.

JP, as we call our friend and longtime advisor, is a partner with the law firm Thompson Gear.

I telephone JP so that he could help me explain a defamation case which we have been strenuously defending.

I haven't scripted questions.

We'll just talk conversationally.

I'll start off JP.

In December of twenty twenty one, episode thirteen of Shandy Story was released to subscribers of The Australian and then of course to everybody else.

And in episode thirteen there was my interview with Shanna Blackburn and she reflected the view that the coroner had come to, which was that Shandy died as a result of an attack by John Perros.

John Perros has sued over that episode that was published four years ago.

Can you tell us where we're up to with the defamation battle that we are defending.

First, John issued proceedings in Perth.

Those proceedings were then transferred to the Queensland Courts.

Then in August of twenty twenty four, we had John's case thrown out at an early stage.

The key question in that case was whether John had suffered serious harm by publication of episode thirteen.

When a court's looking at whether someone suffered serious harm, they have to look at the person's reputation as it existed before the publication, and then as it existed after the publication.

So in this case we had to put on some evidence about what John Perros's reputation was before episode thirteen and what his reputation was after episode thirteen.

This is new law in Australia in twenty twenty one, right around the time that Episode thirteen was published, So there aren't really many cases that have looked at this issue on what evidence can you rely on to look at what someone's reputation is.

No one knows exactly what your reputation is.

We can't go and speak to every person in Australia to find out what they think of Headley Thomas.

A court has to make an assessment on what a person's reputation is, and so it's really quite a difficult exercise for a court to sit down and say, okay, what was the reputation of John Perros?

What did the average Australian know and think of him prior to episode thirteen being published.

So there was certainly a fair bit.

Of work for us to do in terms of legal argument with the judge about what things he could take into account when trying to figure out what John's reputation was.

And one of the key things was the actual finding of the Central Coroner for Queensland, David O'Connell, who conducted the inquest in twenty nineteen.

Here's a reminder from episode eighteen of Shandy's story, A full year pass before Coroner David O'Connell brought the inquest together again to deliver his findings in a seventy seven page document.

It points the finger squarely at John Perros.

These are O'Connell's words from his findings.

It's not his voice.

I find the sequence of events as captured by CCTV at eighteen Juliet Street points directly to the driver of that vehicle, mister Parros, as being the person who concealed himself in the foliage outside the guide's hut while Miss Blackburn passed, then ran towards her as she was entering or about to enter Boddington Street, and is the person who attacked Miss Blackburn and caused the injuries which resulted in her death.

It's always important to stress that the Central Coroner's finding in twenty twenty came three years after a seventh print murder trial in which John Perros was acquitted over Shandy's murder.

The jury in the murder trial took just two hours to reach it's not guilty verdict.

Now, let's return to the conversation with our defamation lawyer, John Paul Cashen, who spoke to me shortly before the release of this episode, also eighteen of the sequel series, Shandy's Legacy.

If that's a finding that's been made against you by a coroner who is a magistrate, and that's been widely reported, as it was before I did the podcast series, then that's going to be a bit of a blow to your reputation, is it not.

Yeah, you would certainly think so, wouldn't you.

So the coroner made a finding that John Peros killed Shandy, but he didn't go so far as saying he murdered Shandy.

And of course that's not his job.

The coroner's job is to find out what happened and to make recommendations to prevent similar deaths happening in future.

It's not his job to make a finding of guilt or innocence of murder.

The coroner made as strong a findings as it's possible for a coroner to make.

So, really, what John's argument is as well, I might have been found by the coroner but I was acquitted in a criminal trial, and therefore I'm still a free man.

I'm still entitled to a presumption of innocence, and so the coroner's finding doesn't quite damage my reputation to the point that others might think it does.

Justice Peter Applegarth actually listened to episodes one two, in fact, every episode including episode thirteen before coming to his finding, didn't he he did.

There's really two things that Justice Applegarth was looking at in this case.

One was, did the coroner's finding mean that John effectively had a reputation as Shandy's murderer throughout Australia by the time episode thirteen was published?

And the second thing was had previous media articles about the case?

Did publication of those articles mean that John had a reputation as Shandy's murderer prior to episode thirteen.

John's argument was, no, I was known as someone who was suspected as having murdered Shandy, and I was known as someone who was tried and acquitted of having murdered Shandy.

But I was not known as the person who had actually murdered her.

And he says that's what episode thirteen changed.

Now, John says prior to episode thirteen that that distinction was very important.

He says, well, the coroner just says I killed her, and I was acquitted of her murder at the hearing before Justice Applegarth.

We said that in practice there's no difference between the two things.

In this case, that the way Shandy was killed means that his reputation had already been damaged to the extent that episode thirteen couldn't do any further damage to it.

More than twelve months ago, Justice Peter Applegarth found in our favor and we thought perhaps then the deaf case would end.

And did he form a view that by the time episode thirteen was published, John Perros's reputation was in tatters because of what had been published in the previous episodes, that is, the episodes before thirteen.

That's right, and that's partly based on the fact that those previous episodes referred to the coroner's finding, and so anyone listening to episode thirteen was likely to have already heard about what the coroner found about John, and therefore there wasn't really any more damage to be done by the time they heard episode thirteen.

These are the now retired Justice Applegarth's words from his judgment of August twenty twenty four, it's not his voice.

By the time Episode thirteen was first published, the plaintiff had a damaged reputation in the relevant sector among listeners to the podcast.

He would have been viewed by listeners to be the person who killed Miss Blackburn.

They would not simply have known him to be the person who a coroner found to be Miss Blackburn's killer.

They would have formed the view based on the evidence and arguments placed before them in the series, that the coroner's finding was correct.

However, John and his lawyers have appealed that decision, and we've needed to defend ourselves and defend Shanna, who's also being sued.

That's right.

John appealed.

Was just a one day hearing before the Queensland Court of Appeal.

They're looking at that question of whether Episode thirteen really did do serious harm to his reputation.

There's a lot of case lord the old English cases.

It's quite a technical legal argument about what sort of evidence can be relied on to make that decision, What is the effect of the coroner's finding in making that decision.

Can the court look at old newspaper articles to look at what John's reputation was prior to episode thirteen.

And we're still waiting on a decision from the Court of Appeal.

So until we get that decision, the case is really just in limbo.

It feels like this is a lot of skirmishing before the main event, before an actual trial, a defamation trial where witnesses are cross examined and there are pretty testy exchanges, no doubt between the lawyers and those in the witness box.

These are just sort of warm up events, aren't they.

That's right, We've been really bogged down in all these preliminary arguments.

If John winds the appeal and the proceeding is re enlivened, the Australian will have to put on its defense and then we'll head towards a trial.

And in a.

Trial, hypothetically, if one proceeds, what have we indicated that we would argue.

We've already indicated to the court that we will plead the truce defense, and that is we will say that John did in fact kill Shandy.

Now to succeed on that defense, the Australian has to put on all the relevant witnesses and evidence before the court and has to prove as a matter of fact that that's what happened, as well as that we've indicated that we would plead some what I generally call public interest type defenses, which are defense is usually where someone is saying, this is in the public interest, this is a story that needed to be told, and therefore it's protected from defamation or With.

That kind of defense, it sounds like it would be almost a quasi murder trial, but without the really serious consequences of a murder trial, such as what unfolded in Chris Dawson's case.

It's like a civil matter but attempting to prove that John did in fact kill Shandy.

I think that's realistic.

The murder trial was heard on the test of beyond reasonable doubt standard of proof, as we call it.

A civil trial proceeds on a different standard of proof, with slightly different rules of evidence, slightly different conduct of the trial, but ultimately asking this question, did John murder Shandy or not?

In a case such as this, where we're the ones being sued by John Perros, would he have to go into the witness box, which is something that was avoided during his actual murder trial.

Yeah, almost certainly he would.

Defamation plaintiffs usually getting the witness box to talk about the harm and damage that the publication did to them.

They talk about their hurt feelings, they're upset things that other people have said to them since the publication, So it's very common for them to get in the witness box.

It's not an inevitability, but I think it would be very likely in this case that he would need to get in the witness box.

This is quite a novel area of law.

There's every chance that he could end up in the High Court, and then no matter what happens in the High Court, we could end up at a trial.

We could easily be looking at another one or two years before this is resolved.

You've been representing my league interests for years, JP.

I hope that whatever happens, you are still in my corner.

Yes, it's always a pleasure looking forward to it.

One of the tallest and newest buildings in the city of Brisbane is known as the Tower of Power, and that's because it's where Queensland's leading politicians and public servants go to work.

For these update episodes of Shandy's legacy, my colleague Karina Berger and I rode the lift to the ministerial office of the state's Attorney General and Minister for Justice and Minister for Integrity Deb Frecklington.

She was sworn into those roles after the Liberal National Party swept to power in Queensland in November twenty twenty four.

Her portfolio responsibilities are many and varied, but essentially they revolve around justice and one of her key deliverables is to ensure that Queensland's DNA forensic laboratory is of a high standard and can be relied upon to bring justice for Queenslanders.

Delivering on recommendations from two Commissions of inquiry.

We should be good.

That's on.

We should not have any shortage of recording devices now one, two, three right.

Deb Frecklington is a refreshingly open and transparent politician and she insists that she is taking her responsibility to the lab very seriously.

This failure, the DNA failure, in my mind, is one of the biggest failures of the justice system nationally, but if not the world.

It's quite incredible.

Deb Frecklington was raised on a beef cattle property and she grew up watching her father serve rural communities in his role as a prominent local government figure.

She went to the one teacher Glugabar State School on the Downs.

It's only five hours by car, crossing some rugged country, but it's a world away from the tower of power.

The married mother.

Of three daughters has experienced what she calls the highs and lows of family farming with her husband Jason, the heartbreak of droughts and storms, and the diversity and strength that Deb Pricklington says is required to make the land your home.

My office has a keen view over what is happening at our lab.

I will not be.

An Attorney General who says I can't put press release out.

I've done a stand up, answered some questions and then forget about it.

Wash my hands.

The Attorney General tells us that her commitment to victims and to fixing.

The lab goes back a long way.

She is a self described early listener to the Shandy Story podcast, and she recalls hearing doctor Kirsty in the podcast in late twenty twenty one exposing the failures that the forensic biologist was then uncovering in the forensic testing of Shandy's samples.

I'd like to just briefly revisit twenty twenty one.

You were in opposition and we were talking back then about what was coming out of those early podcast episodes for Shandy story.

Kirsty Right was doing a lot of heavy.

Lifting and you and other opposition members were becoming alarmed the government wasn't responding back then.

What do you recall of your concerns from that time and what needed to be done back then.

I'll remember the episode and exactly where I was when I first heard doctor Kirsty Wright speaking.

If I was heading out to Brenda, I had to buy a sink, and for some reason, that's where the sink was, and I can remember her saying that she was this forensic scientist who had issues and concerns around the DNA and it was alarming and it was shocking.

I can remember thinking how brave she is, because if it wasn't right, she's about to throw away her a whole career.

When you remember where you are when you hear something significant, it shows the importance of what you've just heard.

At that time.

Late twenty twenty one, Deb Frecklington was not in the government.

She was an opposition member and her portfolio responsibilities were water and the construction of dams.

But she's a former lawyer and she and others in opposition got it.

They were very alarmed by Kirsty Wright's disclosures and they began asking questions in State Parliament and putting pressure on the then Labor government to act.

Here is David Christofoley back then.

He is now the Premier of Queensland.

I call the Leader of the Opposition speaker a question to the Premier.

I refer to the overwhelming evidence from leading forensic experts about to die consequences of the mismanagement of evidence or the state forensic lab.

If the government is serious about protecting women and holding predators to account, when will it launch an independent investigation into these systematic failures which are allowing rapists and murderers to walk free.

I call them.

Infinite that thank you, mister Speaker.

A question to the Health Minister.

Experienced forensic biologist, Doctor Kirsty Wright has found in over half of all cases the government forensic lab has failed to get complete DNA profile even when swabs are directly taken from the male sexual offender or murderer.

Will the Minister intervene and ensure offenders are held to account and victims get the justice they deserve.

During her interview with me in late twenty twenty five, they're reflected on that time what.

We would do doing was simply asking questions of the then government, is there an issue and what are you doing about it?

And have you looked into the allegations from doctor Kirsty Right.

It was a terrible time.

We had a failure of a government agency and your podcast.

We had doctor Kirsty Right blowing the whistle and no one was listening.

In a position of power, it should not.

Have taken the political pressure, the external pressure to drag the government kicking and scraming for that first commission of inquiry.

That should not have happened.

For too long.

Through late twenty twenty one and into twenty twenty two, the then Premier, Anastasia Palache and her Minister for Health a vet Dath, tried to avoid an independent public inquiry.

To be fair, the politicians were also being misled by senior bureaucrats who tried to hose down the revelations from our podcast.

They clearly didn't want scrutiny of the laboratory.

When I Gate crash the official opening of a cruise ship terminal with my friend and colleague reporter Lydia Lynch in late July twenty twenty two, we challenged the Premier to act in front of her invited VIP guests and other media.

Up to that stage, the government was still holding the line, preferring to have a secret internal review and rejecting the very sensible calls by Kirsty and Vicki Blackburn and others for a serious inquiry with strong powers to get to the bottom of what had been going wrong in the DNA lab.

Premier.

The police have admitted they can no longer trust the crucial results from rape cases that are coming out of the state run forensics lab.

We hold a public inquiry to review these findings.

Premier, Why are Queensland are still suffering a third rate criminal justice system when you've got a DNA lab with problems mounting week after week and all you're doing is announcing a review, a desktop review that won't look at specific examples.

You haven't even announced the reviewer seven months after these problems were first raised.

Ah, well, that's exactly not correct.

The Health Minister's taking these issues very seriously.

She has, of course raised.

Them with her cabinet colleagues.

But in the meantime you have these cases, rape cases, cases involving murder victims.

The DNA or samples are going to the lab and the lab can't find it can't detect DNA.

And now the police have affirmed that in their own review.

So you still support the lab.

You say the lab should just continue testing.

I want to get the results of that review first, and like I said, if that review recommends a further inquiry, of course we.

Will do that premiere.

Hundreds of women are going through the trauma of having a forensic medical examination.

Some of them are sitting in emergency departments waiting twelve hours in the clothes they were raped in.

They're putting their trust in the lad that they're going to be testing these results and they're not.

Why aren't we having a public inquiry now?

I have said to you, we are taking these matters extremely seriously.

A very short time later that afternoon, Anastasia Palichet wanted Walter Sofronoff, the newly retired Court of Appeal judge, to step up and run a commission of inquiry, with highly trained lawyers helping him question scientists and other witnesses with public hearings to air all of it.

And as many of you know, the findings of that inquiry in late twenty twenty two were truly damning.

My social media guy is doing a day in the life today.

When we met in her office in the Tower of Power, deb Frecklington had just returned from opening a new courthouse in the near Brisbane town of bo Desert.

Soon she would be racing off to Parliament, but we were still able.

To cover a lot of ground.

You've heard some parts of the interview already in earlier episodes.

Now we are going to focus on things that we discussed with Debt that haven't been thoroughly explored before.

We knew from opposition with very limited information about what was happening or what wasn't happening.

Now we knew there were massive delays.

We knew there were victims without justice.

We knew the court system was being delayed because of the failures out there.

We've had the two reviews handed down now and there's some stark findings, particularly around the culture and quite frankly systemic failures and catastrophic failures, and that's borne.

Through those reviews.

Thankfully, we have a very good working relationship with the reviewers.

We were listening.

I took the action.

We spoke to the reviewers about the idea of outsourcing and outsourcing properly.

We have secured a fifty million dollar outsourcing program.

Now, the former government misled the Queenside people.

They said that they were going to outsource and clear the backlogs.

They ended up spending money on a demountable for office buildings, rather than thinking about victims of crime waiting for an outcome in the courts.

Most people would be wondering how we end up here two years after these issues are being investigated by a Commission of Inquiry, with a reform package and budget to make it work.

Why are we still talking about catastrophic failure, extraordinary waiting times, contamination.

The list goes on.

What I think it was had Lee's You had a former government who refused to listen.

They refuse to think, why is the court system being delayed?

Why have we got rape victims waiting over four hundred days their tests to come back.

They failed to ask the questions.

They failed to listen to experts who were coming to them with information on a clutter, and it is not going to be easy to fix this broken system.

We know that, and we are not making promises that we can't keep.

But what we have to do is we've got to listen to those victims, listen to the survivors who have been through this debacle, and we owe them a system that works.

We have put a lot of changes in place already.

We've changed the legislation to enable former New southal As Police Commissioner AO Mick Fuller to get in there and look at the cultural of an organization, someone that has been at the pointy end of a justice system and understands that if you can bring these smart, amazing people that work at Forensic Science Coinciance along with.

Them, they won't be set up for failure.

I've changed legislation to ensure the DNA samples don't get distraught.

It is a big stick approach.

We've had a change of director and it is important that we get that governance structure right.

How do you come to a decision though, for a non scientist to lead this lab of scientists, that's pretty out there.

Isn't it?

It is out there, but I don't think it's unprecedented.

I'm interested to talk a bit about the science and the failures in science that have occurred.

And I'm really conscious that the new director is not a scientist himself, so I'm wondering how he will have sufficient scientific advice and expertise to assist him perform his critical role.

We're very fortunate to have the expertise of both reviewers, doctor Bruce Badally and doctor Kirsty Wright.

Both those scientists who have since handing down their review been working with Mick Fuller in an advisory capacity and that will continue.

But also you have to remember we will have the science leads as well and the expertise of the scientists.

We must get the science right.

At the end of the day.

We can have the best, most world class.

Scientists ever in that lab, but if things are going wrong, it's for nothing.

We're trying and doing everything we can to break down the barriers between the scientists and the police, the scientists at our lab, and the justice system and making sure that they all can work together.

But ultimately we have a lab that has a culture problem and we need fresh eyes.

I have all the confidence that Nick Fuller is the right person for the job.

He is open to listening to all of the expertise when it comes to the science.

But the good thing is also about Mick.

He's been at the cold face.

He knows the importance of the DNA evidence.

He's followed the debacle up here in Queensland.

I've got all the confidence that he will do very well in that director's role.

Do you think that it's enough that there's a new director in the labor Further inquiries needed in relation to other staff within the lab who've been there over the past few years while these catastrophic failures have been unfolding.

I don't believe the people of Coinsland want to hear about another review.

I think that they just want it fixed.

So we've got the soft Roennough Inquiry recommendations.

We've got the two reviews that have the recommendations as well.

I have been reassured by Mick Fuller that if any retesting needs to happen out of failures from the former Commissions of Inquiry, they will be retested.

We are doing this calmly, methodically to ensure that we get it right.

How do you.

Balance the need to have timely justice with the need to have quality results.

It's a fine balance, but the principle that I stand by is victims must come first.

We're not going to cut corners and create a problem where victims are left languishing once again.

And ultimately, we don't want a victim to wait a day or a minute longer than they have to.

But I also don't want that poor victim to be hauled through the system again because we've got it roll because we rushed.

We just can't do that.

That's the type of question that does keep me up at night.

We spoke to Deb Frecklington about how long it has taken for expert retesting of samples from Shandy's case, What does the program look like, and do you know specifically what's happening in relation.

To Shandy's case.

Now others whose historical cases are caught up in this, and.

It's horrific that they're still waiting.

Everything is being done as quickly as humanly possible, in a safe and scientific manner to ensure we get through that backlog.

Is there any risk that they will be shelved because they're historically.

No, not at all.

In actual fact, my last conversation with Mick Fuller was exactly about that issue, where he reassured me that any matters or any cases that have been caught up in Project thirteen would be retested if they are required to be retested, So absolutely not.

We've got to continue to work with those victims.

Although she did not know it at the time, Kirsty's journey started in mid twenty twenty one with a mackay man called Grevin Bredsal, the founder of a boxing and physical fitness club in the Sugartown.

When he was telling me his view of evidence in the murder trial of Shandy Blackburn's former boyfriend John Perros four years earlier.

Solicitor said, I went and found out that the DNA all over Sandy Blackburn's body was aboriginal DNA.

And so if Shandy Blackburn's body had an aboriginal lads DNA, did you take from that that possibly they had the wrong bloke.

Yeah, I think anybody would have because DNA riggie did join a found all the ancestry, and that mistood your hundred sand you can't get wrong, and you wouldn't get a Greek DNA mixed up with the original DNA like here and two entirely different things.

As far as I know that was.

A powerful piece of evidence for you when you read it.

Yeah, I thought so.

John Perros did not have aboriginal relations.

His ancestors hailed from Greece.

John's criminal defense lawyer, Craig Eberhart, wanted the jury in Mackay to believe that a local black criminal called William Daniel was the killer.

According to John's lawyer, there was a forensic link tying the aboriginal William Daniel to the so called forensic evidence on Shandy's clothing.

In this way, William Daniel was accused of Shandy's murder, although he was not on trial and police had previously ruled him out after exhaustive investigations.

Transcripts from the murder trial set out the defense lawyer's excoriating questioning of William Daniel.

Here's a reminder of some of it, with voice actors playing the parts.

Are you on ice at the moment?

No, You wanted to know whether any DNA that was matching yours was found at the scene, didn't you?

Nah?

Mat you see, according to you, you're totally innocent of this crime, aren't you?

Fucking I?

Why then would you be asking the police who was speaking to you about the murder.

Whether they've got any.

Well, I'm pretty sure everyone was fucking curious.

You said to Levi Blackman that you had murdered Shandy Blackburn, didn't you know?

It's bullshit?

Mate?

As we would later discover from doctor Kirsty Wright's investigations and evidence at Walter Soffronoff's public inquiry, William Daniel was right.

There was no such forensic link to William Daniel.

The lab got it wrong.

But in twenty seventeen, when those claims of a link were first made at the Supreme Court murder trial, Grevin Bradzel and perhaps some of the jurors in that trial questioned why John Perros had even been charged with murder because of the defense lawyer's claims about purported forensic links and evidence.

Grehn reckoned that William Daniel must have killed Chandy, and the jury took just a couple of hours to find John Perry not guilty in twenty seventeen.

But it was Grevin bred Cell's comment to me which made me realize that I needed to find an expert in DNA in Brisbane where I live, to help me try to make sense of those claims about aboriginal DNA and the claims of a forensic link between William Daniel and Shandy Blackburn.

You and I met because of one case being the very brutal murder of Shandy, and I know you've stayed on that case.

Kirsty's journey in Shandy Story started in the most random way.

It's been with the Kairner for several years.

Of course, he reopened the inquest as a result of what we were revealing in Shandy Story.

Did any part of your review talking about Shandy's case?

I looked at samples affected by Project thirteen, and I looked into two aspects of that.

As doctor Kirsty Wright mentioned in our interview, the testing of Shandy's crime scene samples was profoundly affected by the deeply flawed Project thirteen method That was the automated DNA extraction the robots that were failing yet knowingly used by the lab between two thousand and seven and twenty sixteen to process more than one hundred thousand crime scene samples, despite those robots having terribly low success rates in recovering viable DNA.

The method was examined in the Project thirteen Commission of Inquiry by the former Federal Court judge Annabelle Bennett.

At the end of her inquiry in late twenty twenty three, she recommended that all Project thirteen samples be re extracted and retested wherever possible, using a proper validated retesting process.

Now, let's bast forward.

Those Project thirteen affected samples are part of what the lab calls the historical case review, Kirsty, Historical cases are a really significant part of the backlog of cases that were identified as having been effectively mismanaged for many, many years.

And these are cases that go back to late two thousand and seven, fell between the cracks, but could still yield DNA which could incriminate an offender and get very dangerous individuals off the streets.

And behind bars.

The great hope of the community, of ourselves, of victims of crime and survivors was that these cases would be for the first time properly fully tested and then arrests made.

What do we know as a result of your review and your research into the lab's performance about the testing of those cases or the lack of testing of those cases.

So there's thirty two thousand cases approximately, and the police and the Department of Public prosecutions have been really busy looking at these cases to see which ones could be progressed if further DNA testing could be conducted.

This is because retesting will only happen with samples from cases in which different DNA results could affect the outcome of a police investigation or court case.

We believe that Chandy's case falls into this category, and.

They've identified two thousand, three hundred and eighty cases which they've referred to the lab.

That have been selected from the more than thirty thousand cases over the sixteen years between two thousand and seven and two thousand and twenty three.

That's correct, and surprisingly Headley over the last two and a half years, the lab hasn't tested any of those cases whatsoever.

And because they're considered older cases, they're not going through the courts, they're essentially not being tested.

Is this the basket of evidence that you would make a b line for to.

Try to resolve unsolved crimes?

Oh?

With that question, the police would love to have these cases tested and resolved without any question whatsoever.

Because they do involve some of the most serious crimes, the most serious from murder down.

If a DNA profile was obtained potentially charges could be laid, suspects identified, and people could be able to progress through the criminal justice system.

Why when they involve murders, aren't they Priority one or major crime cases that thereby demand urgent priority testing.

That's exactly right, But the LAB is trying to keep up with what we call business as usual, so cases that are just coming through the front door, cases and crimes that have only just been committed.

Kirsty explained that the number of historical cases being referred to the LAB will increase as the review by police and prosecutors continues.

Kirsty's investigations revealed that by mid twenty twenty five, the LAB had only retested historical cases that were before the courts.

That was partly because of lab capacity issues.

The limited retesting has had some very successful outcomes, though, with DNA profiles being obtained from samples for the first time.

Kirsty gave some examples in her report.

In one case, a DNA profile consistent with the alleged victim was obtained from the genitals of a defendant the original testing had failed to obtain the alleged victim's profile, and in the same case, a DNA profile was not originally obtained from a metal blade allegedly used in the offense.

When it was retested, DNA profiles consistent with the defendant and the complainant were obtained.

Other examples related to DNA profiles being extracted from the underpants of alleged victims when no DNA profiles had been extracted in original testing.

Mick Fuller also spoke about the retesting of historical cases when I spoke to him.

The historical case review team has already had a couple of hits on historic matters where the threshold testing meant that a person wasn't identified for the offense, and now, of course Queensland Police will get that information and reopen the investigations.

And these could have been people that have been reoffending for ten fifteen years.

Headlee glabs around the.

World have cold case review because technology is better every year.

The amplification of DNA gets better, scientists better training.

But it turned out from universities, so that historical case review in a sense will continue because tomorrow we will be slightly better in terms of the science and the ability to extract that.

But there are already cases that we are seeing that should have been old ten to fifteen years ago, serious crimes which I can only apologize for and say that that was part of the old and is certainly not going to be part of the new.

But what about the retesting of Project thirteen affected samples, including those from Shandy's case.

So far, none of those samples, those affected by Project thirteen have been retested within the laboratory.

All of the cases and samples affected by the contaminated and underperforming robots in Project thirteen are yet to be tested.

Yeah, that's direct.

So this is part of this historical backlog.

What I've found.

Also is more issues relating to Project thirteen.

Some of the labs scientists told doctor Wright and her team that the lab had not done any research to understand and the best way to identify and retest those samples affected by Project thirteen.

When I interviewed the lab, they had no intention whatsoever of conducting any research to see how best those Project thirteen samples could be retested.

They were just going to retest them with normal methods, which in my opinion, would lead them most likely to fail.

Kirsty gave this dire warning in her most recent report.

The DNA Review considers that the lab's current plans to review and retest samples affected by Project thirteen are not scientifically reliable, and there is a very high risk it will fail to detect or destroy evidence.

There is an urgent need for collaborative research to develop a scientifically sound method.

Otherwise, there's little point point that research that Kirsty has recommended must consider how the Project thirteen method affected the remaining cells and DNA and what is the best way to retrieve them from the swabs and the tapelifts that are stored at the lab.

The investigations by Kirsty and her team also discovered that taped lifts taken from crime scene evidence and processed using the Project thirteen method experienced another problem.

The tubes that contain the tapelifts were not filled with enough of the chemicals needed.

This meant that sixty to seventy percent of the cells on the tapelifts stayed on the tape lift in the DNA extraction process, the trace tapelifts would have been unlikely to provide any DNA profiles.

It's an all two familiar debarcle and it reminded me of what we talked about in an earlier episode of Shandy's story way back in December twenty twenty one, where we were perplexed by this very issue.

In Shandy's testing.

Of thirty two samples from the vehicle, only two came back in lab results with the DNA profile of the owner and driver, John Perros.

One of those samples was from a water bottle in the car.

The other was from a cigarette butt in the car.

Those two items, which were once in John's mouth and absorbing his saliva, are very different to the surfaces of his vehicle, which should have had traced DNA.

Why wasn't John DNA found in all or most of the samples taken from his really dirty car.

It's a vitally important question in Shandy's case and possibly in many other cases which have relied on forensic evidence.

We believe that the recent discovery by Kirsty and her review team about the chemical levels in the tape lift tubes, along with her earlier findings about the flawed DNA extraction method, may well hold the answers to that question.

The tapelifts are still available for retesting.

Kirsty's report described the discovery about the chemicals as something that will greatly benefit any retesting of these samples.

In some good news, Kirsty's report confirmed that the lab is willing to take advice from other scientists about retesting DNA samples that are affected by Project thirteen.

But the labs delay in researching and processing the retesting of Project thirteen samples some two years since the recommendation that came out of Annabelle Bennett's inquiry, is scandalous.

This is not just justice delayed, it's justice swept under the rug.

The harmful effect that delays such as this in secrecy can have on victims of crime and their families is all too obvious.

Just talk to Vicky Blackburn and her eldest daughter, Shunner.

There is one silver lining with the Project thirteen samples.

Perhaps the lab's delay has been a blessing in disguise because it has prevented the samples from being further compromised and degraded through additional poor testing.

Her critical discovery of the insufficient chemical levels in the testing tubes will also make a powerful difference.

We wanted to know exactly where Shandy's retesting was up to and what is happening in the reopened coronial investigation into her death.

We asked the Coroner's Court of Queensland for an update shortly before we finalized this episode.

A spokesperson for the court told us.

The Coroner's Court of Queensland confirms the coronial investigation into the death of Miss Shandy Blackburn has been reopened for further investigation.

Certain investigatory steps are being undertaken.

The Court is unable to advise when these further steps will be completed.

As such, no further information will be provided at this time.

It has been some four years since Shandy's coronial investigation was reopened.

After all that time, all the water that's flowed under the bridge, all of the public disclosures, it is disappointing that we didn't receive a more detailed response from the Coroner's Court.

It is an ongoing investigation.

It's true that there might be good reasons for the court's vague response.

We just don't know.

A coronor has found the ex boyfriend of a woman brutally stabbed to death in Mackay was responsible for her death.

In a bombshell finding, coroner David o'connall found Shandy's ex boyfriend John Perros responsible, but in a shocking twist, the findings won't mean Perros will be arrested or charged.

He's already been acquitted of Shandy's murder by a jury in twenty seventeen.

Under double jeopardy law's new and compelling evidence would need to be presented to police for.

You just heard part of a seven New story from twenty one August twenty twenty, the day the Queensland Central Coroner's findings into Shandy Blackburn's murder were delivered.

Now the coroner's findings were delivered a year before the Shandy Story podcast started.

The podcast that led to two commissions of inquiry into the lab and more revelations of the extraordinary, multifaceted failings there.

You also heard the reporter refer to double jeopardy laws.

They are potentially vitally important in Shandy's case.

Brisbane lawyer Christy Bell, who represented Shandy's mother Vicki and Shandy's sister Shanna at the coronial inquest, spoke to me about double jeopardy during the original podcast back in twenty twenty two.

Double jeopardy is essentially the principle that a person cannot be tried twice for the same effent.

It's based on a fundamental principle of finality of criminal proceedings and the fact that any citizen who is accused of a criminal offense is only required to defend themselves against that charge once, and that once they have a verdict in relation to that charge, that verdict is final and the Crown or the prosecution can't keep coming back and trying again.

At the time of our interview in early twenty twenty two, Queensland did have some narrow exceptions too, double Jeopardy.

These exceptions came as a result of the murder of a toddler, Deirdre Kennedy, and then the campaigning by her mother Faye.

Seventeen month old Deirdrey was abducted from her cot, sexually assaulted, bitten and strangled in nineteen seventy three.

Her tiny body was left on top of a public toilet block in a park in Ipswich, about a fifty minute drive from Brisbane.

For years, Deirdre's murder went unsolved.

Her alleged killer, Raymond Carroll, eventually came to the attention of police after he was convicted over a separate break in in nineteen eighty two.

Raymond Carroll was convicted of Deirdre's murder by a jury in nineteen eighty five, and during his murder trial, he gave evidence under oath that he did not kill Deirdre.

Unusually, Carrol's conviction was overturned on appeal.

The judges on that court decided back then that there was insufficient evidence.

Later, more evidence linking Carol to the murder came to light, but he could not be charged with murder again because of double jeopardy.

The next significant stage in this case came in two thousand, when prosecutors tried to get around that her by charging Carol with perjury, a serious criminal offense that involves lying while giving evidence.

In Carol's case, the prosecutors argued that he lied at his nineteen eighty five murder trial when he gave evidence under oath that he did not kill Deirdre.

This unorthodox effort by prosecutors was successful, and Carol was found guilty of perjury by a jury, but that verdict was also overturned on appeal as it was what lawyers call an abuse of process and it contravened double jeopardy.

There would be no justice for Deirdrey or her mother Fay because of the double jeopardy laws.

These outcomes in Deirdre's case sparked public outcry.

The former Supreme Court judge Angelo Vast, who had presided over Raymond Carroll's original nineteen eighty five murder trial, spoke to the ABC's Australian Story in two thousand and three.

And in this case, it's one of the rare cases where I think the law has been over technical and in those circumstances, I think that justice has not been done.

People know that Carol is responsible for this death.

When twenty four people have said in a properly constituted court that he is guilty, the tentacles of justice just can't reach him.

The senior Queensland lawyer, Michael Byrne, who prosecuted Carroll's case at trial and on appeal all the way to the High Court, spoke to the ABC's The Law Report back in two thousand and five about the need to reform the law.

I think that the rule had its time, it had its place.

The difficulty with the rule in the real world now is that evidence and forensics has so much more than what they.

Were as a law and order issue.

I can't understand why the various governments don't see it as a primary issue of having a person rightfully convicted of the crime.

Many people, including lawyers and former judges, agitated and campaigned for changes to the existing double jeopardy laws.

Deirdrey's mother, Fay, came into sharper focus along with a former police officer who became a politician.

Peter Dutton was then the Federal member for Dixon in Queensland and he got on the front foot with Fay Kennedy in a campaign to amend the double jeopardy rule.

Peter Dutton had worked on Deirdrey's murder case as a detective in Queensland in the nineteen nineties.

Other Australian states and territories also considered making changes to their double jeopardy laws in light of Deirdrey's case.

Here are Fay Kennedy and Peter Dutton talking to the ABC to have the law changed.

And it be because of the battle that we've had over the years that will be some form of justice to me to be able to know the Deary's death wasn't totally in vain.

If this law is changed, and it should be, it may or May not help missus Kennedy, but I hope and pray that it would, and that justice would be delivered by seeing Carol spending his remaining living days in jail, preferably a long and miserable existence.

Faye understood the power of the media in situations like this, and she spoke to Richard Carlton for a sixty minutes program in two thousand and six.

If Carol is the killer, then petterophile or not, he's protected by the double jeopardy rule.

If I could change this law for one other family, I've done some good.

It just seems so wrong and this can go on no who else has suffered like I have because of a law.

I just feel driven to do this.

I just feel driven, and I believe I will get this result that I'm looking for.

Raymond Carroll, who had always strenuously asserted his innocence, did give his side of the story too.

I feel extremely sorry for missus Kennedy for her loss.

I honestly hope she does get closure for this crime, but I'm sorry she is not going to get it at my expense because I did not do it.

They Kennedy's campaigning led to changes to Queensland's double jeopardy laws in two thousand and seven, a year after the six sixty minute story.

The key change meant that an accused who had been found not guilty at his or her trial could go on trial again for the same offense, but only if fresh and compelling evidence had come to light and a retrial was considered to be in the interests of justice.

Importantly, it only.

Applied to the most serious offense, murder.

At Deirdre's alleged murderer, Raymond Carroll, was not put on trial again.

It seems that there has only been one attempt by the Director of Public Prosecutions in Queensland to run a second trial as a result of the double jeopardy law changes in two thousand and seven.

In Queensland's most recent DNA lab debarcles the comprehensive findings by a formal public inquiry headed by Walter Sofronoff that DNA testing by the lab had been fundamentally flawed for years and therefore some offenders must have been acquitted in trials in which abject failures by the lab meant sketchy or no DNA evidence being used against probable criminals.

Now with the reforms to the LAB and the recommended retesting of thousands of crime scene samples going back years, there will inevitably be many cases where damning DNA is detected in which the accused has previously been acquitted.

Prosecutors and victims of crime would say that this kind of retested evidence is in fact fresh and compelling and therefore meets the test, and that the alleged offender should face a new criminal trial.

But defense lawyers and their clients would say that evidence from the retesting of old or original DNA should be declared inadmissible, and they'd argue that it's not fresh, nor is it compelling, and that the prosecution shouldn't get a second bite at the cherry just because the lab stuffed things up the first time.

Walter Soffronoff, however, found that serious problems existed within the LAB for many years, some of them are mounting to grave maladministration involving dishonesty.

These failures created a real risk of miscarriage of justice.

As a direct result of the Lab debarcle and the Sofeironoff findings, the then Labor government committed to further reforms of double jeopardy laws in Queensland.

He is Shannon Fentaman, the Attorney General at the time.

In Queensland, the fresh and compelling exception to double jeopardy only applies to murder.

We want to look at broadening that fresh and compelling exception to double jeopardy so that it applies to more serious offenses, not just murder.

I want Queensland to join with most other jurisdictions and expand the exception to other serious offenses as well.

My friend and colleague, The Australian's Queensland political reporter Lydia Lynch, explained the policy push this way in December twenty twenty two.

So at the moment in Queensland, if you have been tried for say rape, and you've been acquitted, even if there's new DNA evidence, you actually can't be retried because of double jeopardy laws.

There's one exception to that law, which is only in murder offenses.

Most other jurisdictions in Australia do expand that exception to other serious offenses like rapes or child sexual abuse, but in Queensland it's only just for murder.

So the reason why this is so significant is that once they go back and retest all those samples, which they're now doing that the lab had shelved for years.

If those DNA samples come back and could prove that acquitted offenders actually did commit the offense, they can be retried.

Without law reform.

Shandy's mother, Vicki Blackburn, feared that even if different results or new evidence such as a DNA profile for Shandy's alleged killer, were found during any retesting of Shandy's samples, it might not be considered fresh by judges.

We felt, specifically with issues with the DNA failures, the double jeopardy laws as they stood were virtually useless and that we felt was a failure of the justice system, because you need DNA as it progresses and becomes more and more scientific.

What was available twenty years ago can be retested now and get a result which it couldn't twenty years ago.

But what was the point if the cases couldn't be retried.

Like Deirdre's mother Fay, Shandy's mum, Vicky Blackburn worked hard to help bring about changes to the laws.

Vicky joined with Christy Bell, the Brisbane lawyer who had an encyclopedic knowledge of Shandy's case, from the coronial inquiry and knew her way around law reform.

She's been very generously giving us legal advice and supporting us and everything we do.

When I mentioned the double jeopardy to her, I said, this is something I really want to do.

We had meetings and put a lot of time and effort into making sure that what needed to be in that double jeopardy change laws was there for the outcome of not us, but all of the victims with the DNA failures.

Ultimately, the campaigning by Vicki and others was successful.

Changes to the law came into effect.

The fresh and compelling evidence double jeopardy exception now applies to ten serious offenses in addition to murder.

Those offenses include manslaughter, attempted murder, rape, incest, certain other sexual assaults, and certain offenses against children and persons with an impairment of the mind.

The changes should ensure that in cases where scientists from the lab did a poor job years ago when testing crime scene samples, resulting in potentially damning DNA evidence not being recovered and not being used against and accused, and then the person being acquitted, the case isn't forever doomed.

This is because the original crime scene evidence could still be used, as it would be seen as fresh evidence in a reach of the same alleged offender.

The new laws became effective in early twenty twenty four.

They operate retrospectively so that they can potentially capture past acquittals from years earlier.

How will it actually work in practice, though, I asked by new colleague and fellow investigator, the former lawyer Karina Berger, who has been devouring the double jeopardy issues for this episode Korea, how is this actually going to work in practice?

The law deliberately sets the bar for holding a retrial very high, because retrying someone for an offense for which they've previously been acquitted is a really serious step that should only be taken in exceptional circumstances, and an application can only be made by the Director of Public Prosecutions, and this has to be made to the Queensland Court of Appeal.

The changes to the meaning of fresh evidence look like they are a direct response to what we've seen from Kirsty's work and the revelations about the failures of that DNA lab.

I agree Hedley, and I think these changes allow for the situation where an expert has done the wrong thing, but the police and prosecutors have done the right thing, and they allow the prosecution to have another crack at an alleged serious criminal.

The government at the time did a really good job and extended it to sexual assault and violent crimes as well, which is amazing.

That was important to me.

When a case does test that double jeopardy, I'd love to be there.

I want to whose ever case that is.

I'll just introduce you to doctor Kirsty Wright.

She has got a lot to tell you.

While doing research for this episode in late twenty twenty five, I went back and listened to that conversation from four years ago, the first time Kirsty met Shandy's mother, Vicki and sister Shanna to tell them about the lab's DNA failures and why, quite possibly Shandy's murder remained unsolved.

A reminder of the power of people and podcasts and listeners to expose wrongdoing.

I had taken an early morning flight to the central Queensland town of Mackay.

Where Vicky lives.

We met at her apartment, a short walk from the corner of Bodington Street where Shandy was murdered, where Vicky and random passes by plays flowers and pay their respects.

I went to Mackay that day to tell Vicky the direction that the podcast investigation was going in at that time four years ago, a direction that we didn't expect.

It came about as a direct result of the remarkable discoveries that were being made by Kirsty about the lab's bungled testing of DNA in Shandy's case and many other cases.

We strongly suspected at that very early stage back then that the ramifications would be massive.

When Kirsty's revelations were aired in podcast episodes which were days away from being released.

For something this big and after everything that they had been through, Vicky and Shanner deserved to know to have a heads up shortly before the news went to hundreds of thousands of listeners.

While Vicky sat with me and our laptops at her dining table, her daughter Shanner was in Brisbane, as was their staunchly supportive lawyer, Christy Bell, who first got involved for the inquest back in twenty nineteen.

Doctor Kirsty Wright fired up the computer at her home on the Gold Coast.

We held a zoom conference.

That's when Vicky and Shanner and Christy met Kirsty on a screen and heard about Kirsty's scientific discoveries over the previous few months since I had met Kirsty thanks to a Google search.

It was their first briefing on the forensic catastrophe that the scientist was uncovering.

As I suggested to Headley, this could just be the tip of the iceberg if samples were being processed from other cases.

How many other cases are there where an offender wasn't detected?

Headley and I've been talking about the need for a public inquiry.

I think what's happened is absolutely appalling.

I'm disgusted.

Kirsty's really modest, but I know how highly regarded she is in forensic biology.

We're back in Kirsty's analysis one hundred percent, and we're going to roll all of these revelations out over the next number of weeks and days, and we just don't know where it could end up, but it should end up in a proper public inquiry.

Oh.

The other thing I should add is does any of it indicate John did or did not kill Shandy?

And that's just unknown, isn't it.

Kirsty?

Yeah, that's right.

I don't think that we can speculate on that.

We simply don't know unless there's the opportunity to not only retest, but to properly investigate what the hell was going on in that lab.

After an hour on this auspicious morning in late November twenty twenty one, Kirsty added.

Can I just say when Headley first approached me and then gave me a mountain of documents, I had to make a decision whether I invite stress and risk into my life or if I go ahead and do the right thing.

And VICKI the thing that changed my mind was going on to your Facebook page Justice for Shandy, and within five seconds my mind was made up.

That's been a major source of inspiration for me, and I actually regularly check it just to keep my motivation up.

I've got so much respect and admiration for the both of you, and I'm here for the long haul.

I'm not going to disappear anywhere soon.

As long as it takes, or whatever it takes, I'm happy to support.

You can't bully where I've whelmed with gratitude and we just can't believe it.

After we had been talking for an hour to explain as much as possible.

Vicky and Shanner were clearly deeply affected.

I think we all appreciated the potential enormity of what was unfolding and what was being foreshadowed.

It has now been four years since Vicky and Shanner and their lawyer and friend Christy Bell heard about the lab's failures in a case which I started investigating in mid twenty twenty one.

It's all still going.

Twenty episodes of Shandy's Story and now eighteen episodes of Shandy's Legacy later.

There has been a reopened inquest, two commissions of inquiry into the forensic catastrophes, a couple of one hundred million dollars spent trying to fix the lab, and two most recent reviews, and yet another new lab leader to properly continue the much needed reforms and repair work needed there.

We do not know what the ultimate end of this case will look like.

This is, however, the last episode for a while.

Our pledge is to stay the course while Shandy's murderer, whoever he is, remains free, and as the Lab undergoes massive change to serve victims of crime and the criminal justice system.

Our pledge is to continue to monitor what's going on, to investigate new leads, and bring new episodes as and when we believe they are needed.

In the previous episode, you heard our suspicions about a damning internal document and its apparent cover up.

The document was approved by the then LABS CEO, doctor Lindsey Wilson Wilde, for high level review in the Queensland Government in twenty twenty three, just a few months after Walter Soffronoff's first public inquiry had ended.

The document was called the March twenty twenty three Briefing Note.

We got the document for these update episodes of Shandy's Legacy as part of our ongoing investigation into the operation of the lab.

As you heard, the document is full of alarming warnings about the ongoing critical risks in the lab, including the unreliability of the testing for DNA and subsequent results.

The warnings in.

That document are troubling for another reason.

They were not shared with the Queensland Police, all, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, or with the second Commission of Inquiry.

The one run by Annabelle Bennett.

In late twenty twenty three.

We wanted to know from Shannon Fentaman and Yvette Darth, both of whom held cabinet roles as Attorney General and Health Minister, what if anything they knew about that document.

Had they turned a blind eye to the document and even been part of its cover up?

Or were they completely oblivious to it?

Avet Darth has completely retired from politics and she didn't respond.

But Shannon Fentaman is still a member of Parliament.

Of course, she's now in opposition.

Shannon was on leave, however, she sent me this note after I had told her about the March twenty twenty three briefing note and the serious question surrounding the apparent concealment of it.

These are Shannon Fentman's words.

It's not her voice.

We have looked at the documents you are referring to.

As I was not the minister at the time, I was never made aware of their existence.

Though it would be highly unusual for I direct a general briefing note to be given to a minister, that would always come as a ministerial briefing note.

As for why they were not provided to the Second Commission of Inquiry, that would be a matter for the Commission and the Health Department when they respond to the request for documents.

Queensland has a Crime and Corruption Commission.

It has been disappointingly silent throughout the whole DNA debarkle.

In our view, it should look closely at this matter.

The Anti corruption body has the power to investgate whether senior public servants deliberately withheld the March twenty twenty three briefing note from Prosecutors Police and even from the Second Commission of Inquiry.

Shandy Story and Shandy's Legacy are going to take a pause now, but they're not over, not by a long stretch.

This episode of Shandy's Legacy was investigated and written by me Headley Thomas and Karina Berger.

Audio production for this podcast series is by Wasabi Audio and original theme music by Slade Gibson.

This podcast series is brought to you by me Headley Thomas and the Australian newspaper and digital site.

Visit Shandy dot com dot au that's s h a nde dot com dot Au for additional documentary material.

Anyone with information about the murder of Shandy Blackburn can contact me confidentially by email by going to Shandy dot com dot Au