DNA records of innocent to be kept
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The Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is accused today of undermining the principle of "innocent until proven guilty" by insisting on keeping DNA records of people cleared of crime.
Plans for a modified national database outlined by the Government today would allow the police to retain records of thousands of innocent people for up to six years. In cases of serious violent or sexual crime, the time limit would be extended to 12 years.
Civil liberties campaigners say they will fight the Government in court over the plans. Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said: "This well-spun proposal proves that the Home Secretary has yet to learn about the presumption of innocence and value of personal privacy in Britain. Wholly innocent people, including children, will have their most intimate details stockpiled for years on a database that will remain massively out of step with the rest of the world. With regret we shall be forced to see her in court once more."
The shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling said: "The Government just doesn't get this. People in Britain should be innocent until proven guilty. Ministers are just trying to get away with as little as they possibly can instead of taking real action to remove innocent people from the DNA database. It's just not good enough."
Current rules, under which everyone arrested has their genetic fingerprint stored indefinitely, were ruled unlawful by the European Court of Human Rights last year. Judges in Strasbourg said the policy of retaining all suspects' data was "blanket and indiscriminate". The Government's response, published today, makes clear criminals convicted of "recordable" offences – those which can lead to a prison sentence – will stay on the database for life, as will under-18s who commit sexual or violent crimes. But youngsters convicted of only one minor offence will be deleted from the database when they turn 18.
Police will also track down about 30,000 criminals who committed serious sex or violent crimes before the database was built so their profiles can be added. All genetic material taken from suspects, such as blood or swab samples, will be destroyed.
Ms Smith said: "The DNA database plays a vital role in helping us do that and will help ensure that a great many criminals are behind bars where they belong. These new proposals will ensure that the right people are on it, as well as considering where people should come off. We will ensure that the most serious offenders are added to the database no matter when or where they were convicted.
"We also know that the database has provided matches for a significant number of serious crimes as well as providing thousands of matches for less serious crimes that cause great concern to victims, such as burglary, which is why we are proposing to keep some profiles for six years."
The Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said: "Once again, the Home Office is fighting an undignified rearguard action designed to give as little as possible in response to the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights. Today's announcement is nowhere near good enough. Jacqui Smith must not be allowed to get away with anything short of immediately removing all innocent people from the database, except those accused of a violent or sexual offence."
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Comments
i wonder if the victims family will get a apology from Shami Chakrabarti and the judges for damaging there human rights to a family.you just know such a case will come up eventually sooner or later and I bet Shami Chakrabarti will not say a word or the judges or the Jacky smith for not standing up to them.
You know on this point Labour and Jacky Smith and I hate saying this, because I despise both but they are 100% to stand there grounds. Shame they wot just ignore the rulings EU courts altogether through.
Really how would the EU enforce then judgement, fine us, I rather pay them to save a single life.
I would suggest that very few criminals of the type you describe are "haft descent" (sic). You are creating a straw man and your argument is ridiculous. Sure, it could happen. (And if it did, it would not be Ms Chakrabarti who owed the hypothetical family an apology, but the incompetent cops who allowed this non-existent criminal to "get let off on a technicality" in the first place!) But the remote chance that such an extreme hypothetical case could happen does not justify treating tens of thousands of innocent people as criminals. This is supposed to be a free country, not a police state.
In the majority of rape cases, DNA evidence is irrelevant. The problem is not identifying the criminal, it's proving non-consent. Indeed, although DNA evidence has been a tool of detection in a number of high-profile cases, the majority still come down to good old-fashioned police work. And DNA alone will never secure a conviction. The most it can prove in most criminal cases is that a person was in a given location on approximately the right day.
This is just getting beyond ridiculous. For goodness' sake, will somebody PLEASE show this fool Smith the door!
Fit Smith up with a dunce's cap, Mr. Norman? - Don't forget the straitjacket, whilst you are about it!
To emphasise the point I quote the following:
Taken from Mein Kempf.
The best way to take control over a people and control them
utterly is to take a little of their freedom at a time, to erode
rights by a thousand tiny and almost imperceptible
reductions. In this way the people will not see those rights
and freedoms being removed until past the point at which
these changes cannot be reversed - Adolf Hitler.
The Hitler quote is totally apt!
Ms Smith, and those who advise her, who the HELL do you think you are?
On the DNA issue I would willingly provide a DNA sample if I was suspected of committing a crime and the provision of such would assist in determining my innocence. However, I believe that the police should be made to prove that they had DNA evidence from the scene of the crime for comparison purposes and not as a matter of routine. Why would the police need a DNA sample for offences such as speeding or even drink/driving when such samples would have no bearing on proving guilt or innocence? I am not, nor have I ever been, a criminal and I object to being treated by one on the dictat of such an unsavourary person as our current Home Secretary. For some reason she seems to believe that we are all criminals in waiting and she should be allowed to retain our DNA for a period of twelve years on the basis of a past wrongful arrest by the police. We would therefore be considered potential criminals despite unblemished records.
On the DNA issue I would willingly provide a DNA sample if I was suspected of committing a crime and the provision of such would assist in determining my innocence. However, I believe that the police should be made to prove that they had DNA evidence from the scene of the crime for comparison purposes and not as a matter of routine. Why would the police need a DNA sample for offences such as speeding or even drink/driving when such samples would have no bearing on proving guilt or innocence? I am not, nor have I ever been, a criminal and I object to being treated by one on the dictat of such an unsavoury person as our current Home Secretary. For some reason she seems to believe that we are all criminals in waiting and she should be allowed to retain our DNA for a period of twelve years on the basis of a past wrongful arrest by the police. We would therefore be considered potential criminals despite unblemished records.
Smith has no concept of morality, justice or the rule of law and is totally unfit for purpose. The sooner she and this discredited Government are replaced, the safer our country will become for its citizens.
This distrust of fellow citizens by flouting the principle of innocent until proven guilty will not serve government or justice. People will become highly suspicious of authority and not come forward with vital information that could help solve crime.
People are naive if they think they can trust the authorities if they have nothing to hide. Personally, I give the agencies a very wide berth if at all possible. It's an issue of trust for me - or lack of it.
God, just the mention of this woman sets me in a rage, especially so early in the morning, sorry folks...
WHY...OH WHY IS SHE STILL THERE
STILL TRYING US ALL TO SCARE
MAKING RULES THAT STIFFLE US
ALL UNECESSARY FUSS
SHE IS A NUTTY FLIP
ON HER PRIVATE POWER TRIP
A PERSONAL OBSESSION
OF MASS REPRESSION
AS SURE AS WHITE CLIFFS OF DOVER
HER SADISTIC RULE WILL SOON BE OVER.!
The Nazi regime were evil but very capable in their affairs.Labour are just a bunch of corrupt,crooked clowns playing at being autocrats.
Your all truely deeply pathetically SAD.
Maybe she will go on GMTV - the home of a really useless politician - to explain this. No doubt millions will be paid to lawyers to defend the indefensible again.
This is one seriously useless woman who really should be spending more time with that wrist job of a husband. Perhaps his dna should be kept on the db after all he loves porn and is a man - which in her little mind means he is one step away from being a rapist and pedophile.
Do we really deserve this lot?
DNA records of innocent to be kept. Tell me what I have done. I was born an Asian, never smoked, never drank, never went to the red zones, never had a car or a bike, never travelled in the train without a ticket, never had a tiff with my neighbour, and never reported to the police if some one stole my pop corns. . There are millions like me. Do you have the storage of these? We seem to have short of prison, the runways from the plane, and hospitals for the sick, money for ourselves. We have another burden. Stupid lawyers? burden that we have to keep, I swear I am the citizen of UK and that I have never committed any crime. Here are my finger and footprints. I am already 90. May be these will help you identify my grave.
I am also Minister of Interior and Posterior.
I thank you
Firozali A. Mulla
DNA records of innocent to be kept. Tell me what I have done. I was born an Asian, never smoked, never drank, never went to the red zones, never had a car or a bike, never travelled in the train without a ticket, never had a tiff with my neighbour, and never reported to the police if some one stole my pop corns.There are millions like me. Do you have the storage of these? We seem to have short of prison, the runways from the plane, and hospitals for the sick, money for ourselves. We have another burden. Stupid lawyers? burden that we have to keep, I swear I am the citizen of UK and that I have never committed any crime. Here are my finger and footprints. I am already 90. May be these will help you identify my grave.
I am also Minister of Interior and Posterior.
I thank you
Firozali A. Mulla
As far as a DNA database is concerned, I believe any dim witted criminal, knowing of its existence, will ensure the complete destruction of any DNA evidence on leaving the scene of a crime. This recently happened when two French students were murdered in London. The crime scene was torched, however, the police managed to catch and successfully prosecute the culprits on the basis of evidence from an informer.
There is also the worrying development of crime scenes being seeded with another's DNA and the burden of proof being shifted to the accused.
I would much rather see more effort and money put into preventative measures instead of new toys to help the police solve a crime after it had occurred.
Self-rule, and community level cooperation, based in spiritual priniciples and not legalistic, moralistic, and religous arguments will be the path into true peace, prosperity and harmony with the Planet. Reject this or any other government that claims legitimacy while behaving in a manner befitting the criminally insane.
What about the Government's complete ineptitude on keeping safe our data - will the insurers get my DNA. Do I trust the police - those bastions of decency to respect my code of life. Furthermore how can I be sure it will get taken off - who will be the over looker of this process. Can we sue them if they have not taken off our DNA after six years. What a cop out. Humans and power sucks.
What a further waste of taxpayers money to have to be taken to court again because they have no decency - no respect for liberty. Seriously these criminals are the ones who voted for a bloodbath in Iraq and they talk about a safer society. Remove my DNA, remove Jacqui Smith and remove the murderers who voted for the Iraq war.