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Speaker 1: This is gem Nation with Jonesy.

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Speaker 2: In February twenty thirteen, twenty three year old Shandy Blackburn

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Speaker 2: was murdered on her way home from work by a

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Speaker 2: mystery figure. The prime suspect her former boyfriend, John Perros,

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Speaker 2: who was charged in twenty fourteen. Well from the creator

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Speaker 2: of the Extraordinary Teacher's Pet podcast, Headley Thomas, is hosting

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Speaker 2: a documentary Sandy's Story, The Search for Justice, on Sky

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Speaker 2: News tonight and he joins us Now, Hello, Headley.

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Speaker 1: Hi, Amanda, how are you.

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Speaker 2: I'm very well, nice to talk to you. It sounds

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Speaker 2: like it sounds like an open and shutcase. So he

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Speaker 2: was charged, end of story.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it was very much a case of competing prosecution

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Speaker 1: and defense arguments where the defense ran some very powerful

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Speaker 1: evidence that tried to create dout for the juris, and

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Speaker 1: that's their job, and they showed that there were alternative

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Speaker 1: propositions to the ones raised by the police, and potentially

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Speaker 1: another suspect altogether. And the jury, has to be said,

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Speaker 1: took less than two hours to find John Perros, Shandy's

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Speaker 1: former boyfriend, not guilty. But then three years later the

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Speaker 1: coroner and Mackay, who had run an inquest with more

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Speaker 1: evidence found that Peros bid in fact kill Shandy. However,

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Speaker 1: he'd already been acquitted, so we have double deputy rules

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Speaker 1: and you can't be tried again for the same crime

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Speaker 1: once you've been acquitted unless there's compelling your evidence. Wow.

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Speaker 2: So this was based on a podcast series that you did,

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Speaker 2: and one of the things was looking at some of

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Speaker 2: the forensics in the laboratory. It's interesting that Anastasia Palaschet

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Speaker 2: has announced a commission into the inquiry and the troubled

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Speaker 2: forensic labs in Queensland. Is this all part of that story?

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Speaker 1: It is, and this is why I am just so invested.

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Speaker 1: It's the most worrying case and story I've been involved

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Speaker 1: in more than thirty five years as a journalist because

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Speaker 1: what I have been able to achieve not through my efforts,

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Speaker 1: but through the efforts of a woman called doctor Kirsty Wright,

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Speaker 1: a brilliant DNA scientist who I first started talking to

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Speaker 1: about this time last year, is the identification of some

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Speaker 1: very serious problems in the DNA processing in Shandy's case

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Speaker 1: by the laboratory that handles crime samples in Queensland for

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Speaker 1: the police. But not just Sandy's case, in many other cases.

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Speaker 1: So we're talking about systemic issues, and essentially it boils

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Speaker 1: down to the lab reporting to the police that they're

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Speaker 1: scientists are unable to detect DNA in crucial crime scene evidence.

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Speaker 1: And that might be evidence from his evidence, from the

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Speaker 1: sexual assault victims, from murder scenes, from serious assaults, from

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Speaker 1: property crime. Of course, you know, the lab does detect

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Speaker 1: a lot of them, a lot of samples, but in

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Speaker 1: many samples where there is and was DNA, the lab

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Speaker 1: was reporting that no DNA was detected, and that's what

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Speaker 1: was going on in Shandy's case. But it had gone

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Speaker 1: unnoticed by a lot of the people involved in the

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Speaker 1: prosecution and the defense of that case. And it took

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Speaker 1: Percy Rice going through all of the forensic finals that

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Speaker 1: I shared with her for the podcast Shandy Story that

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Speaker 1: we started late last year, to raise the alarm. And

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Speaker 1: the more Cursey looked, the more alarmed she became to

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Speaker 1: the point where she said, this lab needs to be

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Speaker 1: shut down.

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Speaker 3: And it's a bit of a chicken and an egg thing.

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Speaker 3: When you have these podcasts, like with the Teacher's Pet podcast,

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Speaker 3: we wouldn't have known about Lynnette Dawson's story with Chris Dawson.

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Speaker 3: But having said that, that's in the courts now, so

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Speaker 3: you can't comment further on that.

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Speaker 1: Is that right? Look, it's in the courts. It's the

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Speaker 1: subject of a murder trail right now, and you know

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Speaker 1: we can talk about the that's on and I think that,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's a credit to the Office of the

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Speaker 1: DPP and the police that they're going forward with that.

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Speaker 1: Chris is obviously pleaded not guilty and a judge will

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Speaker 1: determine his faith at the end of the trial. It's

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Speaker 1: judge alone, so there's no jury in this case, and

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Speaker 1: we expect the judge will reserve his decision and write

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Speaker 1: his reasons and deliver it some weeks not possibly even

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Speaker 1: months after the end of the trial, which might last

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Speaker 1: another couple of weeks.

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Speaker 3: Much fascinating, absolutely fascinating. We always love talking to you.

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Speaker 3: A Shandy story The Search for Justice tonight eight pm

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Speaker 3: on Sky News Australia. Headley Thomas, thank you for joining us.

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Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Thank