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back to article Home Office to keep innocent DNA samples

The Home Office has rejected European Court of Human Rights demands that innocent people should not have their DNA stored on the national database. Instead samples from people arrested for, but not convicted of serious violent or sexual crimes, will be removed after 12 years. The DNA profiles of those arrested but not …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Manufacturing criminals

    "Keep in mind that when the Police arrest you, the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) will decide whether to press charges based on the potential success rate and cost of the investigation/prosecution"

    Not true, the cost of the prosecution is irrelevent, and the cost of the investigation is already paid for as it has already been done! They consider if the case will get a conviction and eliminate ones that have no chance of success. Typically it's because the officer has really deluded himself as to the strength of the case.

    People whom the CPS won't prosecute are innocent. As are people whom the police arrest, beat up a little, then release without charge, as are people who just protest global warming in a field.

    "Oh and the 12 year olds on the database are there for a reason - muggings, theft, assault, violent crime, criminal damage - you name it. Most of them end up as career criminals - I don't see the interest in destroying their records? If they never commit another crime they shouldn't have anything to worry about..."

    If I pulled you off the street accused you of a crime and beat you up, would you be more likely to take a dim view of the law or less likely? If I kept doing it, you would likely end up a criminal with no respect for the law.

    It brings the law into disrepute.

    The UK system presumes GUILT and MANUFACTURES criminals. For example a student nurse who accepts a caution for being drunk finds she cannot get a job as a nurse.... her viable happy law abiding future as a nurse is taken away from her. If the law abiding future for people is taken away from them, they are more likely to become criminals.

    People like Jacqui Smith & Phil Woolas has created a system that MANUFACTURES criminals. You treat every INNOCENT people like criminals and they BECOME criminals because they have nothing to lose.

    This is why the UK is in a crime way, why stabbings are frequent, why officers can get away with murder and why people are arrested for protests or for WORDS or THOUGHTS.

    It is the product of 12 years of the Nanny State.

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Fingerprints too

    It's not just about DNA, dear Reg, the S & Marper vs UK case covered fingerprints as well (see para 125 of http://www.bailii.org/eu/cases/ECHR/2008/1581.html).

    At a time when the government is using any excuse to get all our fingerprints on file, how come the DNA profiles are the main story?

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  3. Richard Wharram
    Paris Hilton

    DNA Sample

    Jacqui's husband is quite the expert on providing DNA samples apparently. Perhaps if we can all claim for a nice little film or two we won't mind handing over a couple of teaspoons of DNA for six years.

    Paris - Duh.

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    The criminal firms' reactions...

    Burn crime scenes, burn crime victims*, frame people by covertly harvesting, amplifying and spreading around their DNA. I'm no biologist, so I'm sure there's many more ways to be found.

    This will only end badly, not least because the gov will simply never countenance the possibility that the DNA database will be utterly bollocksed. Even less likely is the gov ADMITTING that to the proles when, not if, firms get the hang of various biological evidence-tampering tricks, perhaps even selling such services to lesser crims.

    After all, political opponents/protesters/intellectuals could use such a defence when, not if, the gov uses such trickery itself, relying upon the public perception that DNA stuff is near-infallible.

    Chopper: Perhaps they're already doing so...

    (* Including uppity coppers that need re-educating. In the old days it was a holiday to intensive care, but at the gov got more brutal, the criminal fraternity reacted in kind.)

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  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not strictly "innocent"

    " if there's a guy who has a history of being arrested for bashing your car up with a baseball bat because he was drunk, he's arrested, his DNA is sampled, and then he's released and not charged - do you think they should keep his DNA?"

    Is this a troll?

    I'd much rather they did something practical to remove this idiot from circulation before he layed into someone with the aforementioned baseball bat because they objected to him trashing their car. Knowing that his DNA had been kept (although they could not be bothered to prosecute, convict and jail this repeat offender) would be of no comfort.

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  6. Luther Blissett

    The causation of behaviour

    If the argument can be made that congenital latent criminality justifies disproportionate retention of DNA profiles, then the same argument justifies it for congenital "socialism", as the "socialists" are clearly antisocial. What we do once we have discovered who are the prenatal latent antisocialists, is another matter, but the arguments for abortion can be run here too. Of course, this policy will have to be implemented gradually, and I would recommend starting with latent obese antisocialists. This is of course for the good of society as a whole. Why should a tribal gang of recidivist politicians be allowed to continue to delude themselves that they are bringing about some kind of utopia by working in the opposite direction to level everything down except themselves?

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  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Detection stats

    The R4 news summary quoted some sort of home office stats saying that they expected 4,000 fewer crimes to be detected as a result of this change.

    El Reg has previously debunked similar claims. Perhaps you would be kind enough to do the maths on this one?

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  8. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Guilt or Innocence

    The problem with this is that it introduces the concept of degrees of guilt into law. OK the Police have always, informally, known who to look out for, who were the bad lads, but this encodes it into the legal system.

    A worrying precedent, IMHO. If you can be found innocent by a court (or even not prosecuted at all) but still, formally, remain a prime suspect for committing an offence in the future then we are on a path where Guilt or Innocence, in the eyes of the law, are no longer the absolutes they have been.

    What next? The Jury finds you innocent of murder on a 11 to 1 majority. You are only 11/12ths innocent and will therefore still go to jail but only serve 2 of the normal 20 odd year sentence?

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  9. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    You're all falling for it again...

    Wacky Jacqui is only the mouthpiece. The sacrificial figurehead. Don't be fooled! When she goes (which is inevitable), you can count on the fact that the Whitehall machinery will continue to force the next clueless f**kwit that steps up to the role of Home Secretary to continue with this insidious and evil scheme. The unelected, unnamed shadows that are the civil service are behind this, not the idiots that were voted in.

    Also, watch out for the argument about the original DNA samples being destroyed when it has been converted to a digital fingerprint. So f**king what? How does that make it any more acceptable? It doesn't, but it's a really good way to misdirect and consume the time that the media has available to ask questions.

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  10. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Why it is a problem...

    The problem is not the fact that the DNA is stored, as such.

    The problem comes from the following factors:

    * The database is not going to be accurate. Profiles will be linked to the wrong person, present several times, have typos in names... The DNA info itself will be unreliable (contaminated samples or equipment, software error, genuine mutations...)

    * As the database grows the probablility of hash collisions of DNA profiles increases. DNA matching is very good if you have a suspect and want to check he/she was on the crime scene, but is not reliable at all if you match crime scene evidence against a few million records.

    * The belief of the law enforcement and the public will be (is) that "if the computer (the DB) says you're guilty, you must be" because "real" people don't understand concepts like data quality, hashes. The public has also been hammered with the successes of DNA matching but has never really seen info about erroneous matches and their consequences

    * Data in a database can easily be changed/manipulated to forge evidence with no trace whatsoever.

    So if you're ready to submit your DNA for inclusion, please remember :

    *it is only a checkbox away to flag you "convicted", and you'll never know you were until you're in the clink for a petty offence because it so happened you visited a pub last week where a murder happened today, and your DNA was found on the scene...

    *it is only a typo away to have your DNA linked to the worst rapist in the whole universe

    *it only take the policeman whose wife you're meeting every other day to get you in the very unpleasant experience of being detained for 48 days (or whatever the number is today), go to court, probably loose your job before (assuming the justice system works) being cleared because you appeared as "wanted" in the DB

    If, on the other hand, you're not in the db, all that is much less likely.

    Furthermore, I would believe that this DNA DB would in practice, because of its inevitable data quality issues, *reduce* the quality or trustworthiness of DNA evidence.

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  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Surely...

    Surely - Jacqui Smith should be on the database then for "misappropriation of public funds"?

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  12. Captain Hogwash

    Vernon Coaker MP

    On BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning this guy all but said, of those arrested but not convicted of a crime, that they were guilty but it just couldn't be proved. Regardless of the merits or otherwise of the DNA database, can people like this really be trusted not to abuse it?

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  13. Steve Glover
    Thumb Down

    Wrong end of the telescope

    AC says "Make your own decision, but if there's a guy who has a history of being arrested for bashing your car up with a baseball bat because he was drunk, he's arrested, his DNA is sampled, and then he's released and not charged - do you think they should keep his DNA?"

    Say rather that someone has bashed up your car: no-one saw anything, but the police pick up an innocent person 'cos they don't like his looks or attitude. Now do you think they should keep his DNA?

    (Pollice Verso 'cos Wacqui Jacqui seems to fancy herself as some kind of empress these days)

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  14. Old Tom

    Nothing to do with EU

    To your correspondents mentioning the EU - the ECHR is nothing at all to do with the EU - it's bigger than that.

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  15. Tim Spence
    Thumb Down

    Misleading sub-headline El Reg!

    "Home Office to keep innocent DNA samples" and then "Hey, it's only for 12 years"

    As you've reported in the article, "innocent" DNA samples are kept for just 6 years, not the full 12 which your sub-headline suggests.

    Never let a fact get in the way of a good attention grabbing headline, eh?

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  16. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    @simon miles

    If your so confident in our police service go and volunteer your sample now.

    For those of us who have experienced there lying perjurous attempts to gain a prosecution we would probably disagree with your assertion.

    Then lets add the fact that we still use the discredited low copy number tests and bob's your uncle Simon it could be you explaining how your DNA (except it isnt the science is so bad) got to the scene.

    Until you have experienced our criminal justice system you cant really make statements about everyone being on the database. I was on the receiving end of Kent Police's attempts to frame me for something I didnt do and between them and the CPS they wasted 2 years and a quarter of a million quid, occassionally they pop up again and try and get me for something else because they didnt get me last time and there still pissed about it. Its got to the stage where the police force where i now live are actively protecting me from Kent Police and there behaviour because they got bored trying to action arrest warrants for non existent crimes.

    Psris, even she wouldnt let wacky screw her the way she has screwed us.

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  17. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Of course...

    You could just sign this bad boy:

    http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Sack-Ms-Smith/

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  18. ElFatbob

    Root Cause - re: Not Strictly Innocent

    AC, interesting and valid points.

    You're right to note out that it is not all black and white and i think that the approach adopted in Scotland goes some way in trying to find and strike a balance.

    However, if we try to drive to root cause, we are inevitably faced with the moral breakdown of society. Lawlessness is prevalent as an societal attitude - (starting with ill disciplined and disrespectful children and working through to the very institutions meant to preserve lawful society - i.e. parliament).

    We have a perfect example of this lawlessness with our parliament's response to this ruling - 'this law doesn't suit us (me), so we're (i'm) not going to obey it'.

    Unsurprisingly, our justice system has stopped serving justice. We see individuals getting only 10 years for murdering toddlers (the weakest in our society and deserving of most protection), and others getting only seemingly slightly lighter sentences for embezzelling large quantities of cash.

    Our solution therefore is to designate everyone as a criminal, that will be caught at some point, and the perfect vehicle to enforce this assertion is the DNA database.

    It's the wrong solution to the problem - we are not all criminals.

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  19. Richard
    Thumb Down

    EU law

    fsck me... the one time in which the UK refuses to recognise EU law (as it should) is the one time the EU has a good point.

    Is our dictatorship government just a cunch of bunts or what?

    -- Richard

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  20. michael

    @Simon Miles

    I would be happy to be on a data base of "innocent" pepol but that is not what this data base is it is a "criminal data base"

    if the government want a data base of everybody to help solve crimes (for example by telling them everybody who was in a certain taxi) then let them ask for that in there manifesto take that to the houses of parliament and get it enacted.

    what they asked for was a database of criminalises to help prevent reofending and they have expanded it to "everybody we even think might have committed a crime" even if the police are open and honest and only use it as they say then this is not a good thing

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  21. Steve Glover
    Boffin

    @Tim Spence

    Well, if you go back and re-read the article, you'll see it's people arrested but innocent of major crimes get to have their DNA in the database for 12 years, while people arrested for minor crimes will have their DNA stored for 6 years if they're innocent....

    (Chap with glasses for Mr Spence)

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  22. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    @AC: Guilt or Innocence

    I think the problem is more that there are now degrees of innocence rather than degrees of guilt ;-)

    I really wish the tabloids would put as much effort into explaining to people about innocent unLESS proven guilty, DNA profiling (as opposed to genome analysis) and some basic statistical facts as they do into following Kerry Katona and telling us what Jordan's currently up to.

    Then we might not have to put up with the "I would gladly register my DNA and all of my family's as well if it will put one crim away" crowd.

    I thought Jeremy Clarkson had definitively, and in the full glare of publicity, demonstrated that we all have something to hide - even to the hard of thinking!

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  23. Dennis
    Thumb Down

    Making life easier for the Police

    My understanding of the Police was they are supposed to prevent crime. Now if they rely on DNA to catch crim's where is the prevention.

    So if you don't have my DNA you have no chance of catching me so I can offend with impunity.

    In 10 years time immigrants will sneak to this country swipe all round them and sneak away again. And where will the police be. Checking their DNA Database looking for a probable match or counting the proceeds of their Speed Camera collections.

    I want a policeman walking along my street. I want to know his name and I want him to know mine. I want him to come and see me when my car gets broken into. Its not too much to ask is it.

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  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Simon Miles

    Just imagine, for one moment, that Every single person in Europe had their DNA samples stored on national databases back in 1939, along with personal details such as poitical alignment, religious beliefs, sexuality, hobbies and interests, shopping habits, etc.etc.

    Would have made the 'ethnic cleansing' of Europe a hell of a lot more efficient.

    Still, if you're willing to place your trust not only in this administration, but in every single administration, then more fool you.

    And even if you do trust them, surely even you must appreciate that this erodes one of the basic princinples upon which our legal system is based? Namely, presumption of innocence until guilt can be proved.

    Or perhaps you're just being clever and ensuring you can't be tried for thought-crimes in the future when the law is changed retrospectively?

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  25. Guy Herbert
    Pirate

    @ Eponymous Coward

    "So if I get arrested because someone makes a false rape allegation, my DNA stays on the database for 12 years. If I get arrested because someone make a false allegation of shoplifting it stays on for 6 years, and if I don't get arrested at all I stay off the database."

    Better than that, even. Much more likely than either of those: You are randomly assaulted by some low-life. He, on arrest, as is now standard behaviour, makes a counterallegation that you in fact assaulted him. Police arrest you. They take your DNA. It is a violent crime, so you are on the database for 12 years. Whether or not he is convicted.

    Still, better than for life as currently. (Not that the Home Office is likely to move rapidly from this consultation to do anything at all; though I strongly suspect there might be new powers used to collect DNA from old lags before they do any of the other things suggested.

    @ various:

    The EHCR isn't part of the machinery of the EU. The Home Office has been evading its judgments since 20 years before we even joined the EU.

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  26. Simon Miles
    Go

    @ AC 11:44

    Actually, i popped up to the station at lunchtime and did it.

    If a substandard system provides a false positive and i am arrested for something i know i didn't do i have the legal right to demand the higher copy test which would prove i was not there.

    If i was on the scene and am innocent i'd already have come forward to give a statement anyway.

    If i spend a night in a cell due to a cock-up i'll obviously be annoyed, but if my inconvenience means a more reliable system I'm happy to accept that.

    90% of the comments on here seem to be complaining about the "innocent until proven guilty" side of it, no-one is saying people arrested and released are guilty, however they are keeping a record of them. Even if they didn't have DNA their details would be on the system.

    I'm sick of people moaning about "the system". All systems are fundamentally flawed, the police are an organisation made up of people, and some people are simply arses. I sympathise with what has happened to you and agree that having not experienced that i cannot comprehend how it must feel, but i think most would agree that the majority of the work they do is worthwhile and your experience is not the norm. I'm not for a moment suggesting it doesn't happen, anyone with any sense knows it does. But the majority are the good guys.

    Anyway, i'm on the register now, and totally happy about it.

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  27. Trevor
    Happy

    muhahaha

    Innocent until proven guilty....I like that a lot.

    It is actually "Innocent unless proven guilty".

    The top one is for BOFH's and Wacki Jacqui only.

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  28. Sarah Bee (Written by Reg staff)

    Re: @ AC 11:44

    I have your email address here, Simon - I guess you won't mind if I display it to the internet?

    Sigh.

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  29. Eponymous Cowherd
    Joke

    @Simon Miles

    You are Jacqui Smith, and I claim my prize.

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  30. An nonymous Cowerd
    Paris Hilton

    "innocent" = original DNA sample destroyed?

    just the profile is retained! Now the profile is a (very) lossy approximation to the actual 3 billion DNA base pairs of a human. The reason for keeping the original DNA sample is because <BOLD> the stored DNA profile is not unique </BOLD> each humans' DNA is unique but the profile - being a manageable number , isn't. When there is a false positive DNA profile match from a Slovenian crime scene with the UK DNA profile database this means Mr or Mrs or Child Innocent will be European Arrest Warrant transported ????. IF the original DNA sample was kept then this could be re-profiled at a higher resolution to exclude/include, which is what will still be done for all the 'guilty' samples.

    PH knows more about DNA samples than I do

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  31. Dark Ian
    Unhappy

    What a sham

    "If you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to worry about having your DNA on the database."

    This is a terrible attitude, and one I've seen quite a lot of from commentards on the Beeb HYS facility. I think people like this would think differently if their DNA turned up coincidentally at a crime scene and they were put 'through the mill' in an aggressive, intrusive and embarassing fashion. In fact, these days just reporting a crime to the cops can get you a whole load more trouble than you bargained for.

    Leaving the specifics of this issue aside, the 'trend' is far more worrying. ID cards, DNA, fingerprints, biometric data, email and text message records, etc, etc - where does it end? How long before you show up connected by sheer coincidence to organised crime groups by mutual friends, and then get hauled in suspected of this that and the other?

    Fundamentally we're not solving anything. The gov is trying to push on us things we don't want, with thinly veiled 'benefits' on offer, usually at financial cost to us, and that's before you weigh in the civil liberties.

    Sadface, because I'm so fed up with the blinkered brigade who won't see the bigger picture, and who will end up coughing up enough misguided votes to push us past the point of no return.

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  32. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    I would still be on there

    If this system had been employed previously.

    Scenario: In Leeds city centre on a Saturday (about 7 years ago). I happened across a young woman being beaten by a man. People are walking past and looking the other way because, to be fair, he looked quite scary. I take offence at his behaviour and (because the initial verbal request was refused) made him stop trying to see whether the pavement or said woman's head is harder. When the police finally decided to turn up, I was hit with a truncheon, thrown physically into the car, and threatened by these thugs in uniform.

    I was arrested, charged, and taken to court for assault, ABH and GBH. It was only thanks to a number of passers-by who came forward in my defence that I was not convicted. The police provided "evidence" to the effect that I was an unstable vigilante who needed to be sent to prison as an example.

    (And no, I didn't flatten the guy anywhere near as much as was deserved for what he was doing.)

    Under that scenario, my DNA would be taken and retained for 12 years - I would still be on the DNA db as a "person of interest" (or whatever the phrase is) for "violent crimes", and have the police trolling my sample against every violent incident within a couple of miles of where I live, because that's easier than actually investigating.

    Forgive me for being cynical when I've been on the rough end of the police's idea of what "innocent" means, and their treatment of people they don't like the look of.

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  33. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Redress the balance

    If TPTB want these powers, then there has to be a cost.

    I propose, if you are locked up for a crime you did not commit, you get compensated 1000 pounds each day your liberty is taken away. yes its tax payer money, so the taxpayers will yell.

    If a user of the database abuses their access, ie sells data on, stitches someone up etc. minimum sentence 10 years , no parole.

    End result, safer convictions.

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  34. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Destroying evidence

    The DNA database should ONLY contain the records of those found guilty, anyone who goes to retrial and is found innocent should have their DNA removed. The destruction of swabs etc once DNA is encoded should not be permitted, it's destroying evidence and allows the database to be tampered with and mistakes to be made, the database should be a fast index into physical samples and there should always be the ultimate fallback of checking the actual physical evidence yet it appears they are happy to deny that!

    This is a scary country we now live in.

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  35. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Simon Miles

    Good for you, and when the Police start data mining the data looking for criminal Genes you'd best hope you don't have any genetic tendancies, or your children, or their children.

    Also hope they don't start farming their data out to "research" groups like phorm, or medical insurance.

    As worrying as the direct criminal arena may be the real issue is in the inevitable data grab that will be irrisistable to future bankrupt incarnations of our government desperate for revenue streams.

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  36. Maty

    So ...

    The cops tell the jury that the odds are 'millions to one' against your DNA matching that at the scene of the crime.

    The fact that as they ran their lossy DNA profile against a database of millions means that the odds are in favour of a match with some poor sucker somewhere, and this time it was you.

    Good luck explaining that to the jury.

    (Didn't the FBI try to nail a preacher who had never left Washington State, USA for the Madrid train bombings on the basis of his fingerprint profile?)

    What is really scary about all this is that the people who are setting up the DNA database really think that they are the good guys. It reminds me of a robot in the sci-fi story who asked the hero 'If we do not know everything about you, how can we best look after you? If we don't know everything about everyone else, how can we fully protect you?'

    It's amazing how regularly the satire of the past 40 years is becoming reality.

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  37. Graham Marsden
    Thumb Down

    Jacqui Smith said:

    > These new proposals will ensure that the right people are on it,

    ie everyone possible (well, apart from Wacky Jacqui and other Labour Party Members who have misappropriated public funds)

    > as well as considering where people should come off.

    ie nobody at all.

    > We will ensure that the most serious offenders are added to the database no matter when or where they were convicted.

    Or even *IF* they were convicted at all...

    Talk about taking the piss!!

    If you object to this as much as I do, contact your MP via http://www.writetothem.com and make your objections clear!

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  38. Martin

    Is it me?

    Or do the posts supporting DNA retention, on here and on other sites, look a bit sameish?

    Our beloved leaders have not hired some firm to post such twaddle, have they?

    Nooo surely not

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  39. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A database perfect for framing someone

    Now that we are all on the database we just need to rummage about in the bins at Westminster and collect a few snotty hankies and leave them around our crime scenes.

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  40. Anonymous John

    Phantom of Heilbronn

    It's only just over a month since we had this wonderful example of what can happen if you assume that DNA testing is the Holy Grail of criminology.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/27/phantom_dna/

    All the evidence other than the DNA was dismissed out of hand. It's only a matter of time before this mindset results in a miscarriage of justice.

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  41. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    @AC destroying evidence

    Well - keeping the orginals is all very well - but it does allow the police to seed a crime site with evidence that could be extrapolated (through DNA 'magnification' techniques) to incriminate people. Given the British police's history who would trust them.....

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  42. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's always the same

    New powers are always backed by the same argument: not having them makes investigation and prosecution harder. Look at it the other way - when you *don't* have those powers, it's because you *do* have laws which limit your power. There is a reason for that.

    There are nations which have these inconvenient laws, and nations which don't. The only question is, which do you want to live in?

    I propose that we should all be put on the DNA database, and while we're innovating crime prevention why not stop wasting tax-payers' money on trials too? All they do is prevent some people from going to prison. What's the point of that?

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  43. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Simon Miles

    I think you miss the point of innocent til proven guilty, or just don't value basic liberty as much as most people seem to. As Ms Bee illustrated, the issue only has to be about privacy.

    If you wanted to provide the police with naked photographs of yourself and access to your diary all in the effort of making their job easier then that would be your choice. In doing so you would be exercising your rights of liberty, a right which means nothing without a right to not do so.

    It is inevitable that peoples rights will not always aid law enforcement. There is no harm caused by taking the DNA of innocent people off the database immediately and it should not be negotiable by time limits, arbituary or otherwise. One innocent persons right to retain control of their personal information should negate any potential benefits to the law enforcement process. If they do not retain that right then you have to come up with a system where everyone is treated equally whether they have been in a criminal investigation or not and then come up with a standard by which invasive non situational investigation methods are allowed on innocent people.

    Personally I think the police struggle too often with the responsibilities they already have, giving them access to everyones private lives seems like a bad idea.

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  44. RW
    Alert

    Jacqui's little secret

    One of the dailies had a comment revealing Mrs. Timney's former occupation as a teacher: a teacher of cookery. Truth of assertion not asserted by me.

    I'll leave it to the rest of El Reg's disrespectful readers to play around with that one.

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  45. Jeffrey Nonken
    Thumb Down

    A modest proposal

    Any national identification scheme, not limited to but including any linked to criminal records, starts life by having its database populated with information about the politicians who supported it.

    Rules are for other people. If they weren't, hardly any would be enacted.

    Eat your own dogfood, folks, and then you can make speeches about how wonderful your scheme is.

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  46. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Re: Not strictly "innocent"

    Your thinking seems to be that the police - nudge nudge, wink wink - are the ones in the know as to who the real bad guys are, and the rest of us ought to just defer to their vast experience and sense of fair play. Does that about cover it?

    Well, call me Winston Silcott, but given that all it seems to take to get arrested these days is wearing a loud shirt in a built up area, I'd prefer to stick to the old system where people with some demonstrable intelligence decided who the bad 'uns were in a place called a 'court'.

    Public confidence in the police is haemorrhaging at the moment, not least due to the somewhat crappy recent track record on killing, arresting and just generally hassling the innocent. Offering the filth the opportunity to fill in the blanks in their DNA database by arresting anyone they fancy probably isn't the way to get the public back on side.

    I've been given enough needless grief by smug little shites in uniform over the years to think of the police as rather more the problem that the solution. So with all due respect AC PC, FU.

    Paris; far too brainy for the Met.

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  47. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re : AC @ 7th May 2009 09:30

    This is a typical plod view point. It's British and Breathing, therefore (sorry big word) must be a criminal.

    You say that you were a Plod but seem to disregard the FACT of British law that if you have not been found guilty in a court of law then you are NOT a criminal.

    Simples.

    That there may be a problem with the courts and the CPS does not alter this fact.

    And please tell me why a person who makes a single mistake should suffer for it for the rest of their life. Wasn't there something in the peanl reform acts about trying to rehabilitate offenders?

    Habitual criminals need to be punished / rehabilitated. It is the PLODs job to nick these bastards and it is the CPS' job to take them to court. If both parties, or either, is not fulfilling their function then they need to be replaced. If either organisation had to operate in a true comercial environment then they would both have been ditched for uselessness years ago.

    Now for all plods (ex, current & future), the CPS and the Home Secretary. JUST BECAUSE WE'RE BRITISH DOES NOT MEAN WE ARE CRIMINALS.

    Now fuck off out of my life!

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  48. John Smith Gold badge
    Boffin

    A few numbers might help

    This comes from the Channel 4 news report in Dec08 when the Court found against the English, Welsh and NI systems. The system in Scotland was not felt to breach the charter on Human Rights. The 17 judges decision vote was 17-0.

    Home Office stated that in the period may01-Dec05 they had c200k profiles of people who either had charges dropped or were acquitted after trial. 8500 profiles from 6290 actual individuals were *linked* to 14000 offences. That included 114 murders, 55 attempted murders, 116 rapes. They talked to the National Policing Improvement Agency who run the DB about what "Linked" means.

    It means someone who appears to have been present and left a profile. The NPIA stated "there are *no* figures centrally on how many innocent profiles led to actual convictions"

    So 3.145% (roughly 1 in 32) of the innocents also left DNA at *other* crime scenes, all told. Not charged, not found guilty, just *present*.

    Meanwhile 200k has become 850k.

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  49. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Jacqui's little secret

    Strangely a number of the Cabinet do not have qualifications or a background for the position they hold, this is true of the current and last finance ministers.

    However, WJ does have a degree in Economics, so the next cabinet reshuffle, who knows!!!

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  50. Ascylto

    Real life

    Here's a real life story. It's mine so I can verify it.

    Some years ago I was "investigated" for a serious sexual offence. I was charged and taken to court. The only "evidence" was hearsay but the CPS decided to prosecute because they had been having some success in prosecutions of this nature. I went through all the Police interviews without a lawyer, naively believing that all I had to do was tell the truth (nothing to hide - nothing to fear!).

    The judge threw out the case even before a jury was sworn. Even prosecuting counsel agreed I could not have a fair trial and I was found Not Guilty on all charges. I was innocent then and remain innocent to this day. Nonetheless, my DNA will remain on a database for at least 12 years.

    I cannot explain, especially to those of you who theorise about retention/non-retention, just what this does to an innocent person. My health has dramatically declined and I have an overwhelming fear of the Police, the CPS and the Judicial System in this country. I now regard the Police as potential enemies and would never offer them assistance. I keep all receipts - hundreds of them - in case I need to explain where I was at any given time. My privacy, a wholly misunderstood right, has been invaded and now resides in a computer somewhere.

    The Police were so lazy they didn't properly investigate. One simple example ... an accuser said an offence took place at night and a certain DJ was playing on the radio. I (not the Police, note) checked with the BBC who confirmed that programme was never broadcast at night. Why didn't the Police discover this lie?

    I found out, because of legal process, that the Police list accusers as people against whom an offence HAS BEEN committed, and the accused as the perpetrator of the offence. They've made their minds up already!

    I won't bore you with further details but assure you that the notion of "Innocent until proven Guilty" has long ago gone from this country. Many Police officers believe, along with some politicians, that innocence is a relative issue and that they will be proved right in the end. Those of you who believe there's no harm in the Police State which is already here really should try to think the whole thing through.

    Under Labour, EVERY offence (and that includes dropping litter) is now an arrestable offence and the Police are obliged to take DNA sampling for EVERY arrestable offence.

    The political aim is to have a DNA database of all persons in the UK. They're winning.

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