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All UK 'must be on DNA database'
BBC
Wednesday September 5, 2007
The whole population and every UK visitor should be added to
the national DNA database, a senior judge has said.
Lord Justice Sedley told BBC News the current England and Wales
database, which holds DNA from crime suspects and scenes, was
"indefensible".
He added it would be fairer to include "everybody, guilty
or innocent" on it.
The Home Office said the database of four million profiles had
helped solve criminal cases, but to expand it would raise logistical
and ethical issues.
The DNA database - which is 12 years old - grows by 30,000 samples
a month taken from suspects or recovered from crime scenes.
(Article continues below)
There has already been criticism of the database - the largest
in the world - because people who are found innocent usually cannot
get their details removed.
In one case, Dyfed-Powys Police stored the DNA of pensioner Jeffrey
Orchard, from Pembrokeshire, after he was wrongly arrested for criminal
damage.
But Home Office Minister Tony McNulty said the database had helped
police solve as many as 20,000 crimes a year.
Since 2004, the data of everyone arrested for a recordable offence
in England and Wales - all but the most minor offences - has remained
on the system regardless of their age, the seriousness of their
alleged offence, and whether or not they were prosecuted.
It includes some 24,000 samples from young people between 10
and 17 years old, who were arrested but never convicted.
In Scotland, DNA samples taken when people are arrested must be
destroyed if the individual is not charged or convicted.
Sir Stephen Sedley, who is one of England's most experienced
appeal court judges, said: "Where we are at the moment is
indefensible.
"We have a situation where if you happen to have been in
the hands of the police then your DNA is on permanent record.
If you haven't, it isn't.
"It means where there is ethnic profiling going on disproportionate
numbers of ethnic minorities get onto the database.
"It also means that a great many people who are walking
the streets and whose DNA would show them guilty of crimes, go
free."
He said he knew of cases where a serious offender, who had escaped
conviction, had ultimately been brought to justice by DNA evidence
that may have been otherwise destroyed.
He said he accepted it was an authoritarian measure but the only
option was to expand the database to cover the whole population
and all those who visited the UK even for a weekend.
"Going forwards has very serious but manageable implications.
It means that everybody, guilty or innocent, should expect their
DNA to be on file for the absolutely rigorously restricted purpose
of crime detection and prevention."
Figures compiled from Home Office statistics and census data
show almost two in every five black men have their DNA profile
on the database. That compares with 13% of Asian men and 9% of
white men.
Keith Jarrett, president of the Black Police Association, said
the current system was "untenable" and backed the call
for a universal database.
"You can't have a system where so many black youths who
have done nothing wrong are perhaps going to the police station
for elimination from a crime and find that their DNA is on the
database," he said.
But Professor Stephen Bain, a member of the national DNA database
strategy board, warned expansion would be expensive and make mistakes
more likely.
"The DNA genie can't be put back in the bottle," he
said.
"If the information about you is exposed due to illegal
or perhaps even legalised use of the database, in a way that is
not currently anticipated, then it's a very difficult situation."
'Ripe for abuse'
Home Office Minister Tony McNulty said there were no plans to
introduce DNA profiling for everyone in the UK, but "no-one
ever says never".
"We're broadly sympathetic to the thrust of what he is saying.
[The idea] has logic to it, but I think he's underestimating the
practical issues, logistics, civil and ethical issues that surround
it," he said.
Mr McNulty denied the current database was unfair but accepted there
was room for debate on the workings of the present system, including
time limits on the storing of information.
He said any imbalance in the number of black and white youths
whose DNA was stored reflected disproportionality in the Criminal
Justice System rather than an inherent problem with the database.
But Mr McNulty added he was glad a debate had begun and a review
of how DNA samples were kept and used would be published next
February.
Tony Lake, chief constable of Lincolnshire Police and chairman
of the DNA board, said the DNA of people convicted or arrested
for violent or sex offences should remain on the database for
life, but that need not be the case for minor offences.
Shami Chakrabarti, director of human rights organisation Liberty,
said a database for every man, woman and child in the country
was "a chilling proposal, ripe for indignity, error and abuse".
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