Van Breda defence expert under fire
THE DEFENCE’S DNA expert in the trial of alleged axe murderer Henri van Breda, 22, faced heavy criticism in the Western Cape High Court as the State wrapped up four days of gruelling cross-examination.
Senior State prosecutor Susan Galloway told the court that in two cases in which the defence solicited the opinion of Dr Antonel Olckers, the judgments had criticised her findings.
In one of the cases, the judgment referred to the “paucity of Olckers’ practical experience” as well as the lack of her statistical knowledge. Galloway pointed out that Olckers still had “very little practical experience in a forensic laboratory”.
But Olckers said she disagreed in the “strongest possible terms,” saying: “I have worked my entire life in a molecular biology lab.”
Judge Siraj Desai, who this week consistently urged her to keep her answers short, said: “The simple point is you never worked in a forensic laboratory.”
Galloway told the court that in a 2004 case, Olckers had had similar criticisms of processes followed in the laboratory as she has had in this case, yet the State’s evidence was accepted.
Despite some “non-conformances”, the court had found that the data couldn’t be invalidated.
Galloway has also attempted to show the court that Olckers’ experience consisted of mostly “administrative and academic positions”.
Olckers was hired by Van Breda’s defence team to test the validity of DNA evidence presented by a State witness and chief forensic analyst at the police’s forensic laboratory, Lieutenant-Colonel Sharlene Otto.
Van Breda faces three charges of murder, one of attempted murder and one of defeating the ends of justice for the 2015 attacks on his family at their luxury home in a security estate in Stellenbosch.
He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
Instead, he claims that after a fight with an axe-wielding intruder who was also armed with a knife, the man had escaped. Otto, however, who analysed 216 samples from the crime scene, testified that “no unknown DNA” had been found.
Last week, Olckers told the court that she received analysis of 151 DNA samples out of the 216 taken from the crime scene. She contended that standard operating procedures had not been followed.
She told the court samples from the same case shouldn’t follow each other on a laboratory work list, yet this had happened with 116 samples, raising the chance of cross-contamination.
But when Galloway yesterday asked her if she had found any “actual contamination”, she responded: “I cannot say.”