DNA Hopeful, DNA Ha-ha, and now: DNA Horror.

Tuesday: DNA is being used to identify the remains of Australian soldiers.

Wednesday: DNA tells a man in America that his heritage isn’t quite what he thought it was.

Sunday: The DNA tells a story, but the story gets lost in transmission.

An innocent man was wrongly convicted of a serious crime after staff at WA’s Government-owned forensic testing agency bungled a DNA test procedure, allowing the real offender to go unpunished for more than a decade.

Human error compounded further:

“I am deeply concerned that the DNA error was apparently discovered 12 months ago and reported by PathWest to WA Police but the Director of Public Prosecutions and the wrongly convicted man were not informed until last week,” [WA Attorney-General] Mr Quigley said.

PathWest, the agency in the hot seat, lost one of its top people recently after serious flaws were discovered in his work. The official position is that none of his mistakes put the wrong people in jail. Maybe the official spokesman should have added ‘that we know of, so far.’