The Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington and Liberty lawyers will be available to provide help and advice to those who want their DNA profiles removed from the national database.
Diane Abbott, MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, said:
“I am glad that Damian Green has been able to get his DNA wiped off of the database. But, as the Home Affairs Select Committee pointed out this month, black men are disproportionately represented on the database. In particular there are tens of thousands of completely innocent young people who have been stigmatised in this way. It is time that the government acted on the ECHR ruling that automatic retention of DNA is wrong. And I am looking forward to working with Liberty to make sure that young people in Hackney who are innocent of any crime can have their DNA taken off the government’s database just like Damian Green"
Liberty have dismissed new Government proposals for the DNA database as ‘inadequate’ and called for the UK to comply with last December’s European Court of Human Rights judgment and remove innocents from the DNA database.
Anna Fairclough, Legal Officer for Liberty, said:
“If Damian Green MP can have his DNA destroyed in record time, young people in Hackney should be entitled to the same. Those without a powerful voice are just as innocent, yet the police seem to find their requests for DNA destruction considerably easier to dismiss.”
Forty percent of Britain’s criminals are not on the database but hundreds of thousands of innocent people are. The National DNA database is one of the largest in the world, holding 4.5 million profiles - this includes around 300,000 children and approximately 850,000 innocent people who have never been charged or cautioned.
Contact: Mairi Clare Rodgers on 0207 378 3656 or 0797 3 831 128
Notes to Editors
1) The DNA clinic will be held in Hackney from September. Dates still to be announced.
2) An estimated 37% of black men and 77% of young black men had records on the DNA Database in 2006. There were 3.8 times more arrests of black people per head of population than of white people in 2007/08.
3) Liberty agrees that a DNA database can be a valuable crime detection tool. However, repeated legislative changes have rolled out retention policy by stealth so that anyone arrested for even very minor offences can have their DNA held for the rest of their life, even if they have been mistakenly arrested. DNA is relevant only to a small number of serious offences, mainly involving sexual assault or violence. Liberty believes that the correct and proportionate approach to the National DNA Database would be based on allowing retention of DNA for those convicted or cautioned of these types of serious offence. This approach is the one adopted in Scotland and many other EU and comparable states.
4) Government proposals would mean that hundreds of thousands of DNA profiles of innocent people would be kept on the national DNA database for up to 12 years despite the European Court of Human Rights ruling that the "blanket and indiscriminate" retention of suspects' DNA is unlawful. Read Liberty’s response to the Home Office’s Consultation ‘Keeping the Right People on the DNA database’ here:
http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/pdfs/policy-09/liberty-s-response-to-dna-database-consultation.pdf 5) S & Marper v United Kingdom, heard in the European Court of Human Rights on 27 February 2008, establishes that the automatic retention of DNA samples, profiles and fingerprints from those who are not convicted of any offence is a breach of the right to a private life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
