Sexed-up DNA test results cast doubt on paternity contests

By Kipchumba Some

The credibility of paternity tests conducted by the Government Chemist has been called into question following allegations some officers are taking bribes to alter DNA results.

Over the past one year, seven people — among them a man — have challenged paternity test results produced by the Government Chemist, with the latest complaint coming in last Wednesday.

Consequently, the Kenya Medical Laboratory Technicians & Technologists Board has written to the Supreme Court asking for intervention in cases where defendants have refused to repeat the tests in private hospitals.

“We are receiving more complaints by the day and we thought we should let the necessary authorities be aware,” said the KMLTTB’s chief executive officer Michael Wanga.

Ironically, the defendants or complainants in nearly all cases are doctors, a factor raising questions on whether or not their influence has had a bearing on the results.

The outcome of the cases could have far-reaching implications especially to the legal system where many have been convicted on the strength of DNA evidence adduced by the Government Chemist.

This writer got a feel of how common the complaints are growing while on a visit to Mr Wanga’s office where Nthenya J, a mother of two, was ushered in complaining of the outcome of a paternity test.

Underfunded

She feared a doctor at Moi Forces Memorial Hospital might forever escape his parental duties for their three-year-old son after DNA results indicated he was not the boy’s father.

“He avoided the test for long saying he did not have money. Later, he called me to the Government Chemist for the test. To my surprise, I met him chatting and laughing with the staff,” she said.

The results indicated he was not the father of their last-born son.

“I told the doctor who gave me the results I did not agree with them, but he told me there was nothing I could do,” she said.

The cases cast a rare spotlight on a little known, underfunded, department of the Ministry of Health, whose work determines the fate of paternity suits, burial tussles, criminal cases and more.

Chief Government Analyst Paul Waweru Kang’ethe defended the unit against allegations of corruption and said he was aware of only one complaint.

“You should not believe what everyone says. People are always bitter when results do not go the way they hoped. But that does not mean we are corrupt,” he said.

Ashley L, a businesswoman from Nakuru, said another doctor working in the same town had asked her for a Sh150,000 bribe to influence results of a DNA paternity test.

 “I refused to pay because it is very clear in my mind who the father of my baby is,” she said.

“I was rather shocked when the results indicated he was not. But reflecting back, I understood it was because I had not paid the bribe,” she said.

Apparently, the doctor who asked for the bribe has been sued by another doctor in Nakuru and only male complainant against the Government Chemist for colluding with a woman to fix DNA results against him.

For Chebet G, it was the ominous words the man she claims to be the father of her five-year-old daughter told her when they met for the DNA test at the Chemist that raised her eyebrows.

“As we went for the test, he told me I will never see him again after the exercise. He seemed so sure and final about it which I found strange,” she said. The test results showed he was not her daughter’s father.

Chebet, a student at Kabianga University, said prior to the test, the man — a senior manager with a parastatal — had offered an out-of-court settlement of Sh50,000 monthly upkeep, which she rejected as being too little.

“I would not ask for a repeat test if I was not sure this man was the father of my daughter. I am not mad. A woman knows who the father of her baby is and I say it is him,” she said.

Wanga said DNA results can be compromised when the competency of the person conducting the test is called into question and when the reliability of tools and equipment used are in doubt.

Furthermore, forensic results can also be challenged when the independence and institutional structure of the lab is called into question and when the cleanliness, biosafety and procedures used are suspect.

Among the letters of complaint KMLTTB has received and seen by The Standard On Sunday is an impassioned plea by Millicent O, a student at Kenya Medical Training College, Nairobi.

In it, she said her husband — a doctor at a Government hospital Siaya County — has refused to provide for their three and a-half-year-old-daughter claiming she is not his after deserting their marital home.

“He told me to come for the test here in Nairobi, but I found he had come earlier before me. The doctors seemed to know me before I even introduced myself to them, which left me with a lot of questions” she said.

What might embolden many of the complainants is a case this year in which a defendant, who was compelled by the court to undergo a second test at a private laboratory, was found to be a father of a child that DNA results from the Government Chemist indicated he was not.

However, this is an exception. Nearly all complainants said the men they are accusing have refused to take repeat tests in private clinics, reinforcing the suspicion the first results could have been doctored.

Second test

“The judge granted me a request for a repeat test in a private lab, but my baby’s father has used every trick in the book to avoid it,” said Nthenya. “He now wants me to refund the money he used for the first test.”

Ashley said her efforts to have the man take a second test at a private laboratory have proven futile. “He says he doesn’t have money. I have even offered to pay for the test, but now he doesn’t have the time.”

Chebet said the alleged father of her daughter has since changed his phone number and has moved to a neighbouring country. “I simply don’t know how to get to him,” she said.

For Millicent, the frustrations of pursuing the paternity tests are wearing her down emotionally and financially, and she might just as well let the man off the hook.

“I come from a poor family and we are struggling to pay my college fees. I will fight on, but if it proves too much I will leave it to his conscience to do the right thing,” she said.

DNA testing is not a cheap. The subsidised cost at the Government Chemist comes to around Sh15,000. It costs more than Sh50,000 in private laboratories, a figure out of reach for many complainants.

Given the life-long implications of the test results, Wanga urged the Government to bear the cost of carrying out the repeat tests, “if not for the women, then for the credibility of the Chemist.”

The women complained that they have been forced to raise their children alone, without the assistance of the well-to-do men they strongly believe to be their fathers.

An organisation fighting for the rights of children, Cradle, said it has received requests for help from five complainants and has offered to pursue the cases for repeat tests in court.

“It might look like somebody else’s problem, but it can be anyone’s problem,” said Ms Joan Ireri, of Cradle. “We shall help them as far as it is within our abilities,” she said.

In a move likely to open the floodgates of appeals especially from convicts in jail for repeat DNA testing, Wanga wants the government to conduct fresh, independent tests where the results from the Government Chemist have been challenged.