Criminal lawyers are now sifting through hundreds of cases in Queensland where convictions were secured on the basis of flawed blood testing processes.

Hundreds of prisoners convicted of criminal offences where the prosecution has relied upon DNA evidence will likely seek re-trials in the wake of “damning’’ problems at Queensland’s health forensic unit.

Criminal lawyers are sifting through hundreds of cases where convictions were obtained by police on the strength of what is now known to be flawed blood samples.

One of Queensland’s leading DNA lawyers, Ron Behlau, who helped negotiate DNA guidelines for the state, told Sky News Australia:

“The focus has been on what matters may not have been properly prosecuted because of suspect practices at the QHFSS,” he said.

“It logically follows that if suspect practices have resulted in prosecutions not being properly advanced, then those same suspect practices are likely to have been in existence in cases where a person has been convicted on DNA findings that were not properly disclosed and as such that person may have a right to request a reconsideration of their conviction if the prosecution placed before the jury suspect DNA evidence at their trials.”

His comments follow interim findings by DNA Commissioner, Walter Sofronoff, KC, who says there are alarming problems at the forensic unit.

Mr Behlau likened the potential consequences of the revelations of the Commission to be as far reaching as the “Lawyer X” scandal in Victoria.

He said it related to “convicted persons in circumstances where suspect evidence was placed before juries to secure convictions’’.

“Matters are worsened where the DNA that was not tested which could ultimately lead to an exoneration of a person after the DNA has not been kept or has been destroyed,’’ he said.

Mr Sofronoff’s bombshell interim report says thousands of criminals may have got away with murder, rape, sexual assault and other crimes.

He said since 2018, the lab incorrectly ignored all DNA samples under a certain threshold, meaning existing evidence in a slew of crimes was labelled “insufficient for further processing’’ and then dismissed.

It was possible, he said, to extract either a partial or full profile below the threshold that was being used.

In effect, his interim findings suggest the courts have been lied to, or woefully misled.

The Sofronoff inquiry came after extraordinary claims made in the Shandee Blackburn podcast and Sky News documentary, authored by Hedley Thomas.