REMEMBER WHEN

GOLD COAST BULLETIN Saturday Sept 17, 2005

ON the hit TV show CSI it took an hour.

But in Queensland it took crime lab, the John Tonge Centre, more than two years to complete drug testing for court cases.

A Southport magistrate said delays by the centre were ’beyond belief’ and called for Premier Peter Beattie to take notice of the situation.

Magistrate John Costanzo made the comments after he was told the court could be waiting until 2008 for tests to be completed on substances found at a suspected drug laboratory raided by police in February 2005.

Police had asked for an adjournment of a committal hearing for a Surfers Paradise couple, who faced multiple drug charges after several substances were allegedly found in a highrise apartment.

Police prosecutor Sergeant Warren Murdock said the substances had not been tested and would not be until 2008.

“If that’s the case I’ll be straight on the phone to the Chief Magistrate,” said Mr Costanzo.

“That’s just absolutely beyond belief.”

The criticism of the forensic testing centre was one of many that have been levelled in Queensland courts that year.

On March 15 2005, three alleged drug offenders were allowed to go free after another Southport magistrate threw out their cases when told no one knew when forensic evidence would be ready.

The next day, the thenhealth minister Gordon Nuttall announced DNA testing would be outsourced interstate to help alleviate the backlog at the John Tonge Centre.