STORY: "Sick Kids lab didn't meet forensic testing standards," by reporter Neil Etienne, published by the Law Times on January 11, 2016.
GIST: "(Justice Susan Lang): Given my conclusion that the hair-strand drug and alcohol testing used by MDTL between 2005 and 2015 was inadequate and unreliable for use in child protection and criminal proceedings, the use of that evidence has serious implications for the fairness of those proceedings and warrants a further review of individual cases or classes of cases,” Lang wrote. “Indeed, MDTL’s leadership failed to appreciate that the laboratory was doing forensic work. None of the laboratory’s leadership had any formal training in forensic toxicology.” She wrote that in addition to the lab’s extensive use in child-protection proceedings, its hair test results were also used as evidence in criminal proceedings, although, in contrast to the hair samples from the 16,000-plus individuals tested by MDTL at the request of child-protection agencies between 2005 and 2015, few hair samples were processed by the laboratory for criminal matters. Her report found that information provided to the Independent Review by the Crown Law Office – Criminal identified six criminal cases, including the matter of Tamara Broomfield, which led directly to the review. In that matter, she was convicted and served 49 months in jail for allegedly administering cocaine to her toddler, in part due to the flawed testing and medical evidence surrounding it. Those findings were eventually quashed by the appeal court in October 2014, when fresh forensic evidence brought to light the flaws in methodology at Motherisk. “Hopefully, they will be looking deeply into the science behind this and how this evidence was so trusted in court given the frailties that were eventually uncovered with it,” says lawyer Daniel Brown, who was involved in Broomfield’s defence. “This is a symptom of a larger problem, and the problem is forensic testing is being conducted in labs without proper procedures and protocols in place and it’s being conducted by labs that simply don’t have the qualifications to do the testing they’re presenting in courts,” Brown says. “We hope that the findings of the inquiry will have broader application; it shouldn’t just be an answer to this one isolated problem. What we hope is that these problems don’t happen in other cases.”.........Family law specialist Steven Benmor says it’s not a surprising development even if “we don’t often hear the words class action in family law.” Family law specialist Steven Benmor says it’s not a surprising development even if “we don’t often hear the words class action in family law.” “It was and is a fairly large event to the extent that there were people who have lost custody of their children to the state in part over incorrect findings by Motherisk,” says Benmor. “Number one [priority for the commissioner] will be establishing standards of practices that would be considered minimum standards of practice, and that’s exactly what the Koskie Minsky lawsuit is alleging.” Benmor says that will require an international review of the bare minimum standards for testing. “The testing must be rigorous and the commissioner hopefully will suggest recommendations whereby there will be some back-check installed where there will be regular monitoring of the agency, the laboratory that’s performing these services,” he adds, saying random testing should also be part of the oversight. “I hope the commissioner and the report provide very practical tools . . . not just [for] the laboratories that will operate but for the legal system to know how to properly examine forensic evidence, what questions we should be asking in order to form an opinion as to the validity of expert evidence.”
The entire story can be found at:
http://www.lawtimesnews.com/201601115144/headline-news/sickkids-lab-didn-t-meet-forensic-testing-standards
PUBLISHER'S NOTE:
Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.
