A Commission of Inquiry into Queensland’s forensics lab is set to bring about “severe repercussions”, a leading criminologist says. 

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk today announced a six-month probe into the state’s laboratory amid revelations of testing failures.

Hundreds of sexual assault cases may have gone unsolved after police were told over several years crime scenes didn’t have enough DNA evidence to be tested.

A notable case linked to the failures is the murder of Shandee Blackburn, with a former forensic biologist describing the handling as a “forensic train wreck”.

Bond University criminologist Terry Goldsworthy told Scott Emerson findings borne by the inquiry could produce evidence to prompt double jeopardy in some cases.

“I do think these are the kinds of cases that were designed to be captured by that double jeopardy law,” he said.

“It may well be used to capture those cases where the basic analysis wasn’t done properly.”

Mr Goldsworthy said revelations could, therefore, have serious knock-on effects for the wider criminal justice system.

“There’s going to be, I think, … perhaps extra workload that comes onto police to go and do these cold case reviews that may come out of the Commission of Inquiry,” he said.

“And then you may have a whole plethora of trials taking place again through the Supreme Court for murders that came back as innocent or no one charged that we’ll now have to try and clean up.

“It’s going to be problematic and it needs to be done.”

Press PLAY below to hear the full interview 

Image: Getty