A young man accused of aiding several people to commit a stabbing murder has been granted bail due to DNA testing delays in Queensland.
Bailey Douglas Sinclair re-applied for bail before Brisbane Supreme Court on Wednesday after spending nearly 18 months on remand awaiting a committal hearing on a murder charge.
Sinclair, who was aged 18 when first taken into custody, is one of seven people charged over the death of Jamie Barlow, 48, on June 20, 2022 at Laidley, a rural area west of Brisbane.
Queensland faces a three-year backlog around DNA evidence as more than 100,000 samples might need to be re-tested after an inquiry found "fundamentally flawed" techniques had been used by a forensic laboratory from 2007 to 2016.
The Supreme Court has denied Sinclair bail on two prior occasions but his barrister Tracy Thorp told the court on Wednesday that DNA results for evidence in the case had been delayed from September this year to April 2024.
"The committal hearing cannot go ahead before the DNA results ... it can not go to trial before 2025," Ms Thorp said.
Ms Thorp said the new delay constituted a material change in Sinclair's circumstances that allowed him to show cause that his further detention was unjustified.
The crown prosecutor said Sinclair was a flight risk as he had told an undercover police operative he planned to flee to Melbourne and he was at risk of reoffending as the alleged murder was committed while he was on bail for another matter.
"(Sinclair) is not accused of committing the murder himself but he was aware of the plan. It's not a weak case," the prosecutor said.
Chief Justice Helen Bowskill agreed that Sinclair could end up spending three years on remand as a young man who had never been in custody before.
"I'm satisfied the lengthy delay as a result of DNA testing is a material change," Justice Bowskill said.
Sinclair was ordered to be released on "stringent" bail conditions including a GPS tracking bracelet, nightly curfew, random police inspections, drug testing and a $10,000 surety.
