Supplementary memorandum submitted by
the National Policing Improvement Agency
I undertook at the Home Affairs Select Committee
on Tuesday 18 March 2008 to write to you about the number of people
on the National DNA Database (NDNAD), the reasons for retaining
DNA samples and profiles from persons who have been arrested and
sampled, but not charged or convicted, and about the number of
matches between crime scene profiles and profiles retained from
people who have been arrested, but not convicted.
2. On 31 December 2007, there were 4,920,703
subject profiles on the NDNAD from all forces (England, Wales,
Scotland and Northern Ireland). The number of profiles held on
the database is not the same as the number of individuals. As
it is possible for a profile to be loaded onto the NDNAD on more
than one occasion, some profiles held on the NDNAD are replicates.
This can occur, for example, if the person provided different
names, or different versions of their name, on separate arrests,
or because profiles are upgraded. Therefore this number of profiles
represents an estimated 4,264,251 individuals from all forces.
3. Information on whether persons with a
DNA profile on NDNAD have been convicted/not convicted of an offence
is not held on the DNA database, but is available from the Police
National Computer (PNC). It is not possible to give a precise
figure for the number of persons with a DNA profile on the NDNAD
who have committed no offence as some relevant conviction and
caution records have been weeded from the PNC. However, on 31
October 2007, there were an estimated 3,938,000 persons on the
NDNAD who had been sampled by police forces in England and Wales,
of whom 3,637,163 persons had a record retained on PNC. Of these,
3,117,942 persons had a conviction, caution, formal warning or
reprimand recorded on the PNC (79% of persons on the NDNAD sampled
by forces in England and Wales); and 519,221 persons (13% of persons
on the NDNAD sampled by forces in England and Wales) had no current
conviction, caution, formal warning or reprimand recorded on PNC.
4. The 519,221 figure includes some persons
who may have had a caution or conviction record removed from PNC
after five to 10 years in accordance with the Rules for Criminal
Record Weeding (which applied prior to April 2006); persons who
have been charged and acquitted or proceedings discontinued; persons
who have been charged with a recordable offence and proceedings
are on-going; and persons who have been arrested but no further
action was taken against them. The PNC records for the other 300,993
persons (8% of persons on the NDNAD) had been removed from the
PNC for various reasons, for example, their conviction and caution
records had been weeded after five to 10 years, the person had
been acquitted or proceedings were discontinued.
5. Prior to 2001, the police could take
a DNA sample from anyone charged with a recordable offence, but
it had to be destroyed if charges were dropped or the person was
found not guilty. The Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 changed
this so that DNA could be kept from those who had been charged
even if they were acquitted. These provisions have been challenged
in, and fully considered by, the UK courts. In 2002, two persons
(S, a juvenile, and Marper) challenged whether the retention of
fingerprints, DNA samples and profiles under the Criminal Justice
and Police Act 2001 of persons charged with, but not convicted
of, a criminal offence, constituted an interference with their
rights under Articles 8 (right to privacy in private life) and
14 (prohibition of discrimination on any grounds eg sex, race)
of the European Convention on Human Rights. In July 2004 the House
of Lords found that the retention provisions were proportionate
and justifiable and not in breach of the European Convention on
Human Rights.
6. The UK courts recognised that the retention
of samples and DNA profiles involves a triangulation of interests.
Lord Steyn commented that the privacy of those subject to the
DNA data is not the only issue at stake. The purpose of the criminal
law is to permit everyone to go about their daily lives without
fear of harm to person or property. And it is in the interests
of everyone that serious crime should be effectively investigated
and prosecuted. There must be fairness to all sides, which involves
taking into account the position of the accused, the victim and
his or her family, and the public.
7. The applicants subsequently appealed
to the European Court of Human Rights. The case was heard in the
ECHR Grand Chamber at a public hearing on 27 February 2008. The
Judgment will be available later this year, possibly in the summer.
8. The retention of samples, DNA profiles
and fingerprints has demonstrable benefits for policing but does
not have any practical consequences for individuals, unless their
DNA profile matches with a DNA crime scene profile. The retention
of DNA records is no different to holding other forms of identification
information. There is no personal cost or material disadvantage
to the individual simply by being on the DNA database. It is an
information database and not a criminal database. Inclusion on
the DNA Database does not signify a criminal record and does not
imply that a person is an offender. It does not hold any information
about criminal records and does not affect applications for jobs
or visas for foreign travel.
9. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act
1984 provides safeguards governing the use of retained samples
and profiles. This specifies that DNA samples and profiles may
only be used for the purposes of the prevention and detection
of crime; the investigation of an offence; the conduct of a prosecution;
or the identification of a dead person. As a result of these provisions,
the use of retained material is strictly controlled, and there
have been no cases of misuse of data retained on the DNA database
to date.
10. A DNA profile is simply a sequence of
numbers and is obtained by analysing some of the non-coding or
"junk parts" of the DNA sample. These parts do not contain
genetic information. DNA profiles therefore contain very little,
if any, material information about an individual's medical history
or disease liabilities. It is the sequence of numbers which is
held on the National DNA Database. The use of the retained profile
only occurs when an automated search of the database occurs. If
a match occurs, the matched record is identified and the details
for that record revealed: the name of the individual and a limited
amount of personal information attached to that record (gender,
date of birth, sampling force etc). The identifying details may
then be used in the criminal investigation of the crime, either
to rule out innocent parties, or potentially identify the real
perpetrator of a crime. In the absence of a match, the storage
of their records has no practical consequence for the individual.
11. The power to retain DNA from persons
arrested and not convicted therefore maintains an appropriate
balance between the rights of the citizen and their freedom from
arbitrary interference and ensuring that the police have sufficient
powers to tackle crime and deal with offenders on behalf of the
wider community.
12. Research shows that in the period May
2001 to December 2005, an estimated 200,000 DNA samples taken
from people charged with offences were retained on the National
DNA Database, which would previously have had to be removed because
of the absence of a conviction. From these, approximately 8,500
profiles of individuals were matched with crime scene profiles
during that period, involving nearly 14,000 offences. These offences
included 114 murders, 55 attempted murders, 116 rapes, 68 sexual
offences, 119 aggravated burglaries and 127 of the supply of controlled
drugs.
13. The Criminal Justice Act 2003 (which
came into force in 2004) extended police powers further so that
DNA could be taken and retained from anyone arrested for a recordable
offence and held in a police station. Research carried out in
the period April 2004 to December 2005, shows that the retention
of DNA profiles of arrested persons who had not been charged or
proceeded against had resulted in matches with crime scene profiles
from over 3,000 offences including 37 murders, 16 attempted murders
and 90 rapes.
14. These are real cases where the police
have been provided with a lead in serious crimes, and future crimes
no doubt prevented, because of the retention of DNA evidence on
the database which would previously have been destroyed. To give
a real case example:—"AA" was arrested in February
2005 for alleged violent disorder at his home. He had a DNA sample
taken and added to the DNA database and was later released without
charge. In July 2005, a stranger rape occurred 25 miles away from
"AA"s home. The only clue was a DNA crime scene profile
obtained from skin beneath the victim's fingernails. The profile
was searched against the NDNAD and generated a match with "AA"s
DNA profile. There were no other leads to solve the crime; the
DNA evidence proved vital in detecting "AA" as the offender.
He was jailed for six years for sexual assault.
15. "Matching" means DNA taken
from a crime scene matches that from a person whose profile is
on the NDNAD—in other words, a match is information pointing
to a person's presence at a crime scene, and does not necessarily
indicate guilt as a person may have had legitimate access to the
scene. "Detections" are crimes with a DNA match which
were cleared up by the police. In 2006-07, there were 41,717 crimes
with DNA matches. Of these, 19,949 were classified by police forces
as detections. However, there were a further 21,199 indirect detections
in that year—that is, crimes detected as a result of further
investigation linked to the original offence, for example because
an offender on being presented with DNA evidence of his involvement
in an offence also confesses to other offences.
1 April 2008
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