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8 Jan 2007 : Column 130W—continued
| Table 3: Recorded crime by offence group for England and Wales | ||
| 1992 | 1997 | |
| Notes: 1. Prior to April 1998, ‘trafficking in controlled drugs’ was the only drug offence included in the recorded crime series. 2. The introduction of the revised counting rules in April 1998 expanded offence coverage. This included the addition of ‘possession of controlled drugs’ and ‘other drug offences’. These data are not comparable with later years. | ||
Crime Statistics
Mr. Spring: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many cases of animal cruelty were recorded in Suffolk in each of the last five years; and how many have been successfully prosecuted. [110050]
Mr. McNulty: The number of offences of animal cruelty recorded by the police are not collected centrally.
The following table uses data extracted from the court proceedings database held by the Office for Criminal Justice Reform; the table shows all convictions for animal cruelty offences from 2001 to 2005 in the Suffolk police force area.
Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority
Mr. Carmichael: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the outcome of the consultation on the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority will be announced; and if he will make a statement. [110179]
Mr. Sutcliffe: We are considering the outcome of the consultation and will publish a summary of responses in due course.
Criminal Records Bureau
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will introduce legislation to ensure that Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks are requested of all people working with children or vulnerable adults, including those already employed when CRB checks were introduced. [107617]
Joan Ryan [holding answer 4 December 2006]: Arrangements introduced by the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 will ensure that all persons working with children or vulnerable adults in either a paid or voluntary capacity will be required to apply to a new Vetting and Barring Scheme. This will be introduced in 2008 and will be phased in, covering new employees first, and those moving posts.
Meanwhile it is intended to align the categories covered by the Act with those entitled to enhanced disclosures from the Criminal Records Bureau. Whether CRB checks are compulsory depends on the specific employment sector: for example, all new teachers have been subject to checks since 2002 and all new staff working in schools are now checked.
DNA Database
Mr. Burns: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people who have not been convicted of a crime are on the DNA Database in (a) Essex and (b) the Mid-Essex Division of Essex constabulary area. [103285]
Joan Ryan [holding answer 28 November 2006]: Data on arrest and criminal histories are not held on the National DNA Database (NDNAD). However, some data are available from the Police National Computer (PNC), but not for all of the individuals with a profile on the NDNAD. Data provided by the Police Information Technology Organisation (PITO) from the PNC indicate that at the end of November 2006 there were 86,385 persons with a DNA profile on the NDNAD taken by Essex Police who also had a record retained on the PNC. The PNC records relating to approximately 2,500 other individuals with a profile on the NDNAD had been removed from the PNC, for example, because they had not been convicted of an offence or because proceedings were discontinued.
Of the 86,385 individuals with a record on PNC, 34,647 have no conviction recorded on the PNC. However, of these, a further 22,006 have another sanction detection recorded on the PNC: for example, a caution, reprimand or final warning. The number of individuals with no conviction, caution, reprimand or final warning is 12,641. The figure of 12,641 will comprise: persons who have been arrested for a recordable offence but no further action is taken; and persons who have been charged with a recordable offence and the proceedings are on-going.
No corresponding information is available for the Mid-Essex Division within Essex Police.
Mr. Burns: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people were on the DNA Database on 1 November in (a) Essex and (b) the Mid-Essex Division of Essex constabulary area. [103286]
Joan Ryan [holding answer 28 November 2006]: As at 1 November 2006, there were an estimated 89,156 individuals with a DNA profile on the National DNA Database (NDNAD) taken by Essex police. These individuals would have been arrested, detained in a police station and had a DNA sample taken by Essex police, but would not all necessarily be resident in Essex.
Information on the number of individuals with a DNA profile on the NDNAD is held on a police force area basis. It is also held by police station code, but not by police force division. It is not possible to provide data for an individual division within Essex police force area without an analysis of the police stations within each division and of any boundary changes to the Essex divisional structure that have taken place since 1995 (when the NDNAD was established).
Mr. Vaizey: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many residents of Wantage constituency are on the national DNA database. [104925]
Joan Ryan: It is not possible to provide the information requested for the Wantage parliamentary constituency as the DNA subject sample records held on the National DNA Database (NDNAD) relate to police force area, not to parliamentary constituency area or local authority area. However, data are available for Thames Valley police which covers Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire including Wantage.
It is estimated that as at early December 2006 there were approximately 103,600 individuals with a DNA profile on the NDNAD taken by Thames Valley police (TVP). These individuals would have been arrested, detained in a police station and had a DNA sample taken by TVP, but would not necessarily be resident in the TVP force area.
Mr. Godsiff: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many DNA profiles are on the DNA database as a result of investigations by (a) the police and (b) security services. [109590]
Joan Ryan: At 10 December 2006, there were an estimated 3,706,399 individuals with a DNA profile on the National DNA Database taken by the police. It has been the policy of successive Governments neither to confirm nor deny in response to questions about the activities of the intelligence and security agencies.
Lynne Featherstone: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department in how many and what percentage of cases in which an arrest was made on the basis of DNA evidence was the DNA evidence found to be mistaken or false, since the establishment of the National DNA Database. [108546]
Joan Ryan: It is not necessarily straightforward to say that an arrest is made on the basis of DNA evidence, as police investigations will often involve looking at several different types of evidence including DNA, and an arrest may be made on the basis of the whole package of evidence. We are, however, aware of two cases in which arrests were made on the basis of mistaken DNA evidence since the establishment of the NDNAD in 1995.
In October 1997 a bloodstain from the burglary of a dwelling was matched to a Mr. K who was arrested by the Metropolitan Police. In fact samples provided by Mr K. and Mr. H had been accidentally switched in the laboratory. Mr K. began legal action against the Forensic Science Service but did not complete it within the legally prescribed period.
In August 1999, Mr. E was arrested on the basis of a DNA sample found in a burglary 150 miles from his home. He was suffering from Parkinson's disease and could not have got to the crime scene unaided. This was an SGM match—use of the more discriminating SGM plus technique (explained as follows) showed the first match was incorrect and the charges were dropped.
These errors must be seen in the context of almost 300,000 matches between crime scenes and individuals during the period 1998-99 to 2005-06. Use of DNA profiling is an extremely reliable technique.
Continuous quality monitoring of suppliers is carried out through the NDNAD's supplier accreditation section, and barcode and electronic document scanning systems are used in laboratories to minimise the possibility of human error.
The SGM technique introduced in 1995 looks at six areas of DNA plus the area showing the person's sex and has a one in 50 million chance of being incorrect (the odds are very probably much better than this).
Home Office Circular 58/2004 and the ACPO DMA Good Practice Guide advise that where a match of a crime scene to an individual involves an SGM profile, strong consideration should be given to upgrading the SGM profile to SGM Plus to ensure that there is still a match.
If a person is to be charged on the basis of a DNA match, the CPS require that there must be supporting non-DNA evidence available to be used in evidence. No-one is ever prosecuted solely on the basis of a DNA match; the DNA evidence is one piece of the information that the courts would require for a successful prosecution.
David Davis: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the cost was of retaining DNA samples linked to the National DNA Database in the last year for which figures are available, broken down by police force. [109248]
John Reid: The costs for retaining DNA samples fall to individual police forces and establishing this is dependent on the contractual agreement between the force and the forensic supplier. This information is deemed to be commercially confidential.
Domestic Violence
Mr. Andrew Turner: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much his Department spent on (a) tackling and (b) preventing domestic violence in each of the last five years; and how much he expects to spend on such provision in each of the next five years. [108780]
Mr. Sutcliffe [holding answer 12 December 2006]: Between 1999-2000 and 2003-04 the Government allocated funding for victims of domestic violence and their children through the Violence Against Women Initiative within the Crime Reduction Programme. The allocated budget for England and Wales from 2002-03 was as follows: 2002-03—£6,355,000; 2003-04—£7,145,000 (£6 million allocated to the Violence Against Women Initiative, £1 million allocated to a national awareness raising campaign, and £145,000 allocated for domestic violence victims with no recourse to public funds); 2004-05—£1,650,000 (£1.1 million allocated to the Home Office Regional Directors fund for local delivery of support for victims of domestic violence and their children, £500,000 allocated to a national awareness raising campaign, and £50,000 allocated to implement the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004); 2005-06— £5,500,000 (£3 million allocated to the Home Office Regional Directors fund for local delivery of support for victims of domestic violence and their children, £1 million to support the development of the Specialist Domestic Violence Court Programme, £1 million to fund a variety of projects including a matrix of national domestic violence helplines, and £500,000 allocated to a national awareness raising campaign which rolled out between 2005-06 and 2006-07); 2006-07—£6,000,000 (£3 million allocated to the Home Office Regional Directors fund for local delivery of support for victims of domestic violence and their children, £1 million to support the Specialist Domestic Violence Court Programme, £1 million to develop Independent Domestic Violence Advisors services for Specialist Domestic Violence Court Programme areas, and £1 million to fund a variety of projects including a matrix of national domestic violence helplines).
These budgets contribute towards the delivery of the National Delivery Plan for Domestic Violence, a cross-Government plan which focuses on a range of key work objectives from early intervention and prevention through to developing a co-ordinated community response to tackling domestic violence. The budgets for the next five years are not yet confirmed. However, the effective prevention, and tackling, of domestic violence continues to be a Government priority.
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