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DNA suspects database

01 January 1994

In a little publicised move Home Secretary Michael Howard announced that the Forensic Science Service and the Metropolitan Police Forensic Science Laboratory are to carry out a pilot study on setting up a national DNA database. The study will be completed by the end of March and, together with the greater police powers to take DNA samples set out in the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill currently before parliament, will allow for the creation of a national database of DNA samples. Mr Howard said that the police would be able to take "DNA samples from suspects and match them to those found at the scene of a crime".

Under the powers set out in the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill the police will be able to take non-intimate samples without consent from persons arrested, charged or convicted for recordable offences. Police powers of "search" on arrest are to be extended to permit them to "search" a suspect's mouth to target suspected drug dealers. The powers also allow "hair roots" and "mouth swabs" to be taken without consent. "Both are good sources of DNA", says the Home Office press release.

The situations in which these "non-intimate" samples can be taken is also extended. At present, under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, non-intimate samples can be taken without consent where it relates to a suspect's involvement in a serious arrestable offence. Now DNA samples can be taken from anyone charged with a "reportable offence" - a much lower standard which covers the most trivial of offences. Moreover, the DNA sample can be taken "whether or not DNA is relevant to the particular offence", which suggests the police are going to be encouraged to use the power widely to build-up the national DNA database.

The introduction of such powers are, in the view of lawyers and civil liberties groups, a gross infringement of peoples' rights especially as they will cover almost every offence and can be used against people who are arrested but who may not be charged, and people who are charged but who may later be acquitted in the courts.

Home Office press release, 3.2.94.