1 Introduction
Background to our inquiry
1. Aware of growing public concern about the increasing
size of the police National DNA Database, that certain ethnic
and age groups were over-represented on it and that it contained
information relating to people never charged or convicted of a
crime, we decided that we would take evidence on this subject
early in 2010. Our preparations for these sessions were overtaken
by the Government's introduction of its Crime and Security Bill
on 19 November 2009, which, amongst other things, proposed changes
to the system for retaining DNA samples and profiles. At the time
of writing, this Bill has completed its Committee stage and is
about to come back to the House of Commons for the Report stage.
2. Although the evidence we received from our witnesses
is already available to Members, the uncorrected transcripts having
been published on the Committee's website, we consider it useful
to the House to make a brief Report of our main conclusions. We
have therefore decided to focus on two main issues in this Report:
the principle of retaining DNA profiles taken from individuals
arrested but not subsequently charged or from those charged but
not convicted; and the lack of consistency in decisions to remove
from the database their profiles on request from those individuals.
3. We would like to thank those who gave oral evidence
to the Committee: Isabella Sankey of Liberty, and Ms Diane Abbott
MP, who have campaigned on behalf of those wishing to have their
DNA profiles removed from the database; Mr Jonathan Leighton and
Mr Greg Hands MP, who have had their DNA profiles put on the database
and who have had to apply for them to be removed; Chief Constable
Chris Sims of the West Midlands Police, the ACPO (Association
of Chief Constables) lead on forensics, and Mr Gary Pugh, Director
of Forensic Services of the Metropolitan Police and Chair of the
National ACPO DNA Strategy Board; Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys,
who invented the techniques for DNA 'fingerprinting'; and Mr Alan
Campbell MP, Parliamentary under-Secretary of State responsible
for crime reduction, Home Office. We also received written evidence,
which we have published with this Report, from GeneWatch UK, the
Nuffield Council on Bioethics, the Equality and Human Rights Commission
and from several individuals recounting their experience of having
their DNA profiles stored. We have also made use of the oral evidence
given to the Public Bill Committee on the Crime and Security Bill
in writing this Report.[1]
Scope of the Report
4. Because of the complexity of the subject, there
is frequent confusion over what exactly is being discussed in
relation to removing records from the National DNA database. Two
types of DNA sample are entered on the National DNA Database:
- samples discovered at crime
scenes, which may be those of the victim, an innocent person who
had at some time been present at the scene of crime, or the perpetrator;
these are stored in the hope that they may help to rule out the
innocent from inquiries or be linked to a suspect;
- samples taken from a named individual, which
can be described as 'personal' samples. At present, the police
collect DNA samples from everyone arrested.
DNA degrades over time. For this and other reasons,
what is entered on the database is a profile, a series of numbers
representing ten areas of DNA that are known to differ widely
between individuals, plus an indication of the gender of the person
profiled.[2] The database
contains crime scene profiles and 'subject profiles' which have
been derived from the personal samples. There is currently no
time limit for the storage of DNA samples: the Crime and Security
Bill would require the destruction of DNA samples[3]
once they have been loaded satisfactorily onto the national database
and, in any event, within six months of their being taken.[4]
5. It is important that the use of DNA in solving
crime should be viewed in context. Chief Constable Sims told us
that approximately 4.9 million crimes are reported each year,
of which about 1.3 million are 'detected' (in other words, a suspect
has been charged), and of these detected crimes about 33,000 involve
DNA matching—which compares with about 45,000 detected crimes
in which fingerprint evidence has played a part.[5]
GeneWatch suggested to us that the figure of 33,000 represented
both direct detections (detections in which a DNA match was directly
involved) and indirect detections (where a link of a personal
profile to one crime scene may, for example, result in the suspect
confessing to a number of crimes: indirect detections are a relatively
common feature in relation to burglary). Some 17,643 direct detections
were recorded in 2008/09.[6]
6. It is worth noting two further points. No figures
are available for the number of crimes where DNA matches have
been found in which convictions have been obtained: the 33,000
figure relates only to charges brought, though the Home Office
estimated in 2006 that around 50% of detections led to convictions.[7]
The second point is that the figures given by Mr Sims do not show
the breakdown between different ways in which DNA may be matched:
cases where a person's DNA is found to match crime scene DNA already
on the database (in other words, someone is arrested and their
DNA is found to match the DNA either from the scene of the crime
for which they were arrested or from another scene of crime to
which they had not previously been linked) and cases where a later
crime is linked to a personal profile already on the database.
Only the second of these types of matches would be affected if
a database of personal profiles did not exist. Again, no research
has been carried out on how many matches are of the second type.
GeneWatch has used a variety of official reports to achieve an
approximation to such research: combined, they lead to the figure
of 3,666 out of the 1.3 million detected crimes being detected
at least in part because crime scene DNA has been linked to a
personal profile already on the database.[8]
It is currently impossible to say with certainty how many crimes
are detected, let alone how many result in convictions, due at
least in part to the matching of crime scene DNA to a personal
profile already on the database, but it appears that it may be
as little as 0.3%—and we note that the reason for retaining
personal profiles on a database is so that the person can be linked
to crimes he/she commits later.
7. For the first few years when personal DNA was
systematically collected by the police, this was done when a person
was charged with an offence. From April 2004, the police were
permitted to collect DNA on arrest rather than charge.[9]
While the number of stored personal profiles has increased dramatically—from
3.1 million in 2004/05 to over 5.5 million in 2008/09—and
the number of recorded crimes has declined from its peak in 2003/04,
the percentage of recorded crimes detected involving a DNA match
has remained roughly stable, fluctuating between 0.63 and 0.76%.[10]
In other words, the presence of more profiles on the database
has not increased the percentage of crimes cleared up, even despite
the fact that the number of recorded crimes has been decreasing.
8. Meanwhile, a policy decision in 2001 to collect
more DNA from the scenes of volume crimes, such as burglary and
theft, led to a sharp increase in the overall number of crime
scene DNA profiles and, according to a Home Office report in 2005,
"the number of matches obtained from the Database (and the
likelihood of identifying the person who committed the crime)
is 'driven' primarily by the number of crime scene profiles
loaded into the Database" [Home Office's emphasis].[11]
9. It is not surprising that DNA is involved in solving
only a small proportion of overall crimes, since both the 4.9
million and the 1.3 million figures include all types of crime.
As Chief Constable Sims explained, most crimes do not have a 'scene'
as such: they are relatively minor, and they are solved because
the victim and perpetrator know each other, the police happen
upon the incident as it is taking place, or by other normal policing
means.[12] Even where
the discovery of DNA is a possible and desirable—for example,
in relation to serious violent crime or burglary—samples
at crime scenes may be so partial or compromised by the presence
of many people's DNA that they are unusable. By illustration,
in 2008/09 there was a crime scene investigation in respect of
796,780 crimes, and 49,572 crime scene profiles were added to
the database. Even if only one profile was added per crime scene
(and often crime scenes yield a number of profiles), then DNA
profiles were obtained for under 1% of recorded crimes.[13]
10. However, despite all this, DNA profiling remains
an important tool for the police. As Chief Constable Sims said:
In general, the more serious the offence, the
bigger the part that forensic science plays in its detection and
particularly the less contact there is between victim and offender,
the more important forensic science becomes.[14]
For example, in 40% of the cases where DNA can be
collected from the scene of a burglary, it plays a part in identifying
a suspect.[15]
11. We wish to make it clear at the outset that
we are strongly of the belief that DNA profiling and matching
are vital tools in the fight against crime; and that it is essential,
wherever possible, to gather, profile and store information relating
to DNA discovered at crime scenes. Although it is very unlikely
that DNA on its own could bring about a conviction for a crime—and,
indeed, we understand that the Crown Prosecution Service requires
further corroborative evidence before it will bring a prosecution—as
Sir Hugh Orde, the head of ACPO, told the Public Bill Committee,
DNA evidence places a person at the scene of the crime and he/she
then has to explain why they were there or prove that the DNA
match is faulty.[16]
12. Nor do we question the taking of DNA samples
from everyone arrested for a recordable offence. We note that
the identification of perpetrators of some very serious crimes,
including murder, has been made possible by the matching of a
personal sample taken in connection with a later, less serious
offence with a crime scene sample.[17]
We also support the principle, as set down in the Crime and Security
Bill, of destroying the actual personal samples as soon as practicable,
not least as they could theoretically be used to derive other
personal information about the individual such as family relationships
or information about health. In this Report we are solely concerned
with the retention of personal profiles on the database: whose
profiles should be retained, for how long they should be stored,
and the processes for getting one's profile deleted from the database.
1 This is the House of Commons Committee that considered
amendments to the Bill. An official report of its debates is published
and available via the Parliamentary website at www.parliament.uk/Bills Back
2
See National DNA Database Annual Report 2007-09, p7 for a description
of how a profile is derived. Back
3
Dental and footwear impressions and fingerprints are also covered
by the Bill but are not the subject of this report. Back
4
See New Section 64ZA to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act as
set out in clause 14 of the Crime and Security Bill. Back
5
Qq 38-41 Back
6
Ev 30 Back
7
Home Office (2006) DNA Expansion programme 2000-2005: reporting
achievement, cited in GeneWatch's written evidence: Ev 30 Back
8
Ev 30-Ev 32 Back
9
Under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 Back
10
Ev 32, Table 1 (GeneWatch) Back
11
Home Office, DNA Expansion programme 2000-2005: Reporting achievement,
(October 2005), para 32: to be found at www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/DNAExpansion.html Back
12
Q 44 Back
13
Number of crime scene investigations and number of crime scene
profiles added to database from National DNA Database Annual
Report 2007-09, respectively p27 and page 22, Figure 12. For
number of recorded crimes, see paragraph 5 above. Back
14
Q 58 Back
15
Qq 70-71 and Ev 35 (GeneWatch UK) Back
16
Crime and Security Bill: Public Bill Committee, Tuesday 26 January
2010 (afternoon), Q 77 Back
17
One example of this is the conviction in 2008 of the murderer
of Sally Anne Bowman: see the very clear account given by the
Forensic Science Service at www.forensic.gov.uk/html/media/case-studies Back
|
