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Interdicción de la DNA de la cara del policía
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Los jueces europeos podrían pelar los perfiles más que la gente de las millones de la base de datos nacional en los argumentos de la aislamiento - minar de la DNA su valor cada vez mayor al policía como herramienta investigadora.
Mientras que dos asesinos del sexo cogidos por la base de datos fueron encarcelados para la vida ayer y un detective mayor ensambló las llamadas para un registro universal, la corte europea de derechos humanos oirá un caso que podría significar 560.000 muestras de la DNA que eran destruidas. Two people charged with offences but never convicted will ask the court next week to remove their records from the database. If they succeed, 13 per cent of the 4.3 million profiles collected since 1995 would have to be destroyed.
The category of DNA profiles facing destruction has yielded vital clues in criminal cases. Official figures seen by The Times indicate that the DNA of 8,500 people never previously charged or convicted has been matched with DNA taken from crime scenes. The cases have involved about 14,000 offences including 114 murders, 55 attempted murders and 116 rapes. Europe will rule on the legality of the database as demands grow for the entire British population to be sampled after its crucial role in catching Steve Wright, the Suffolk Strangler, and Mark Dixie, the killer of Sally Anne Bowman.
Detective Superintendent Stuart Cundy, who led the investigation into Miss Bowman’s murder, said that a universal database would have caught Dixie within 24 hours of the killing. Instead he remained at large for nine months until police took a DNA swab from him after a pub fight. Dixie, 35, was jailed for life at the Old Bailey only hours after Wright, 49, was given a whole-life sentence for the murders of five Ipswich prostitutes.
Wright had been arrested after a DNA sample from one of his victim’s bodies matched the profile loaded on the database after his arrest for a minor theft.
Mr Cundy said: “I am all for a national DNA register, with all the appropriate safeguards. If there had been one at the time of Sally Anne’s murder we would have known who it was that day. It could have protected everybody else out there. For nine months between Sally Anne’s murder and the arrest one of our biggest fears and was that this man could attack again. A national DNA register could solve that.”
Richard Ottaway, Miss Bowman’s local Tory MP, said: “A universal DNA database is necessary to solve these crimes.”
The Home Office has published proposals for extending the existing database by taking samples from people detained for minor, or non-recordable offences, such as not wearing a seatbelt.
Ministers are understood to be awaiting the outcome of the European court case before deciding whether to proceed with the expansion plans.
Human rights lawyers will argue in Strasbourg that a juvenile acquitted of attempted robbery and Michael Marper, who faced charges of harassment that were later dropped, should have their profiles removed from the database. South Yorkshire police, which arrested both, has refused to destroy their records.
Peter Mahy, their solicitor, said: “This is the most important case on the human rights implication of retaining biometric data.”
He said his clients were concerned about the uses to which the samples might be put and the lack of independent oversight of the national database.
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