Parliamentary committee doubts role of DNA database in crime fight

Figures published in a Home Affairs Select Committee report suggest 3,666 crimes are detected every year with links to an existing DNA profile.

That is one in every 1,300 of the 4.9 million crimes carried out; only one in 350 of the 1.3 million crimes solved by police.

Senior police officers told the committee that around 33,000 crimes are solved using DNA matches.

But many of those would be solved even without the need for a national database, said the report, published yesterday.

It quotes the 3,666 figure, which was calculated by Genewatch, a pressure group, but warns it is difficult to be sure the figure is accurate.

The report states: "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 it may be as little as 0.3 per cent."

Committee chairman Keith Vaz said it was a very complex issue to balance the potential benefit of retaining data against the threat to individual privacy, especially in the case of those who were arrested and had a DNA sample taken but were then never charged.

He added: "It is vital that it is made easier for those wrongly arrested or who have volunteered their DNA to get their records removed from the database."

The inquiry was launched amid concern over the database, which holds the profiles of more than 5.5 million people.