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Requests for DNA on police database
INNOCENT Wearsiders who want to delete their DNA from police databases face a postcode lottery.
Figures reveal huge differences in the way police forces handle requests to remove DNA records by people arrested and cleared.
Just 26.8 per cent of removal requests were granted by Northumbria Police. The force rubberstamped 22 of 82 requests.
Durham Constabulary received just nine requests and complied with five.
Senior Conservative minister Damian Green used the Freedom of Information Act to reveal figures for the financial year ending in March.
He successfully asked the Metropolitan Police to delete his DNA profile after he was arrested as part of a Whitehall leak probe in November 2008.
More than half a million DNA samples are taken from suspects every year and the database holds more the 5.5million profiles.
Proposed changes before Parliament would reduce how long innocent people can be kept on the database.
Repeat offenders or people convicted of serious crimes would have their DNA profiles held indefinitely.
Unconvicted 16 to 17-year-olds would have them held for six years after they were arrested for a serious offence, three years for arrests over minor offences.Younger juveniles would face a three-year limit.
A spokesman for Durham Constabulary said as with other police forces, it followed guidelines set down by the Association of Chief Police Officers.
Chief Inspector Fred Elrick of Northumbria Police's Scientific Support Unit, said:"In exceptional circumstances, a person who gave DNA, or in the case of a young person, a parent or guardian, can apply to the Chief Constable to have the DNA removed."
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Wednesday 08 February 2012
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