The DNA debate

The DNA debate

On the one hand, DNA profiling is a tool in the fight against crime.

On the other hand, it is argued that putting everybody's DNA profile on the national crime database would be disproportionate in terms of civil liberties and costs.

"The threat of crime, whether from an individual rapist or a terrorist group, appears to be pushing this country ineluctably towards the presumption of guilt.

An outstanding example of this trend is yesterday's proposal by an Appeal Court judge that the DNA profiles of the entire population be kept on the national criminal database.

In a BBC interview, Sir Stephen Sedley went even further, suggesting that foreign visitors to Britain should be included as well.

Thus, from the latest figures, the police might have DNA records of more than 90 million people on their files (a resident population of 60 million and 32.7 million tourist visitors in 2006).

Sir Stephen may well believe in the logic of his proposal, though he admitted that its implications were "very serious".

Whatever the case, he has undoubtedly flushed out public opinion on the issue".

"Forensic scientists can use DNA in blood, semen, skin, saliva or hair at a crime scene to identify a perpetrator. This process is called genetic fingerprinting, or more accurately, DNA profiling. In DNA profiling, the lengths of variable sections of repetitive DNA, such as short tandem repeats and minisatellites, are compared between people. This method is usually an extremely reliable technique for identifying a criminal. However, identification can be complicated if the scene is contaminated with DNA from several people. DNA profiling was developed in 1984 by British geneticist Sir Alec Jeffreys, and first used in forensic science to convict Colin Pitchfork in the 1988 Enderby murders case. People convicted of certain types of crimes may be required to provide a sample of DNA for a database. This has helped investigators solve old cases where only a DNA sample was obtained from the scene. DNA profiling can also be used to identify victims of mass casualty incidents".

"A dozen years ago, Britain did not have a criminal DNA database. Now it is the largest in the world by far with four million profiles.

It was established in 1995 almost on an ad hoc basis to store the profiles taken from convicted criminals. There was not even any primary legislation to set it up.

Parliament has, however, subsequently passed various bits of legislation setting out the circumstances in which the police can take and retain DNA. It started with convicted criminals, was then extended to people who were tried but acquitted, then to people who were charged but never tried and then, last year, to people who were arrested but never charged.

The Government wants to go a further step and compulsorily retain DNA from people who are suspects or just witnesses and whose samples are taken for elimination purposes.

Now, a senior judge has called for this step by step, and somewhat random, accumulation of data to end.

Lord Justice Sedley says everyone should be on the database - even foreigners on a weekend visit".

"The police argue that the database is an invaluable crime-fighting tool. Cold-case investigations, using modern DNA techniques and retained profiles, have led police to murderers who thought they had got away with their crimes years after the event.

Since April 2004 sampling people who have been arrested but not proceeded against has yielded a match with a crime scene in more than 3,000 offences.

These include 37 murders, 16 attempted murders, 90 rapes and 1,136 burglary offences".