It seems that police in Australia will have to reopen around 7,000 cases which used DNA evidence in their prosecution due to an error which was discovered, leading to the release of a man who had wrongly been accused of murder.

The case was that of the 1984 murder of Margaret Tapp and her daughter, murders for which Russell John Gesah was facing a lengthy jail sentence. However, it has now come out that the evidence which was used in the DNA testing and compared to that at the Tapp crime scene was taken elsewhere. This means that every test taken over the last 20 years will have to be looked at again to ensure that this mistake did not happen more than once.

Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Simon Overland was quoted as saying “We need to refine our processes and our practices, and that is now happening as a result of this case”.

It seems to me that faith in the legal system must be low after all this and my heart goes out to those who have had loved ones taken from them and now must reopen all those old wounds because of this debacle.