Robin Wilton's esoterica

From the current edition of Private Eye:

"Despite complaints about "Gestapo-like" tactics purused by police investigating the cash-for-honours affair, it seems that the trio arrested by Inspector Knacker - Lord Levy, Ruth Turner and Sir Christopher Evans - may have been treated more favourably than most suspected villains.

For the past three years police have routinely taken DNA samples from people they arrest and added them to the national database, even if they are completely innocent. When the Eye phoned Scotland Yard to confirm that the cash-for-honours trio had indeed been treated like most other suspects, a spokeswoman said: "Taking DNA does not happen in every case."

We also asked Lord Levy's office, Tony's Blair [sic] new office (where Ms Turner now works) and Sir Christopher's office at his Merlin Boisciences company. Raply came there none."

As you may remember, Tony Blair and the then Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt were also questioned, but I would bet that the same policy exception will have been extended to them too.

OK, I like to think I have the customary level of middle-class angst
about recycling, littering and so on, but this is getting ridiculous.

A Home Office consultation report apparently says that respondents "welcomed the ability to reduce the threshold, including to the extent
of allowing for the taking of fingerprints, DNA and footwear
impressions for non-recordable offenses for the purpose of offender
identification and searching databases".

Who the hell are they consulting? 

The logic here defies analysis.

First, there's the notion that if a police officer spots you littering, they need to establish your identity to a degree which only a DNA sample can satisfy. Second, there's the implication that if you're caught speeding, the existing dvier and vehicle-based credentials are similarly insufficient to prove your identity. If that's the case, I look forward to challenging my next speeding ticket on grounds of mistaken identity.

Then there's the idea of searching the databases for someone who has just
committed a non-recordable offense. Either the assumption is that
people who commit one non-recordable offence (such as littering) commit
other non-recordable offences... which a trawl of the databases is,
let's face it, unlikely to reveal, or the assumption is that people who
litter also commit recordable offences such as burglary, rape, arson
and the like. So much for the presumption of innocence, but then, we
knew that had been ditched a while back anyway.

Then
there's  the implicit idea that DNA, fingerprints and footprints
are more or less equivalent as a means of identifying someone who the
police stop in the street. Wuh? Are they trying to imply that all
villains own only one pair of shoes? Does the name 'Imelda Marcos' mean
nothing to them?

To complete the Catch-22 scenario, I assume that if you decline to give a DNA sample for littering, you will be arrested for obstructing the police in the course of their duties, and a sample required on that basis. 

The Guardian's article
cites Baroness Kennedy's comment that, once your DNA sample is on the
database it is increasingly difficult to have it removed. Bear in mind
that the threshold has already been lowered in several significant ways:

1) All offences are now arrestable offences.

2) The police may require you to give a DNA sample if you are a witness to a crime, as opposed to a suspect or even a victim.

3) Being acquitted of a crime will not, by default, result in your DNA data being removed from the database.

Isn't it time the proportionality of this whole approach was challenged in the courts?

The Independent Police Complaints Commission's second and final report on the police shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell tube station two years ago (blog post, Aug 2005) is to be published any minute now. After the first report was released, the Crown Prosecition Service decided there was no basis on which to bring charges against any individual involved in the case.

Reports from the BBC and Guardian (article here, recap of police statements in 2005 here, and comment here) suggest that the IPCC's report is highly critical of the Metropolitan Police, but ultimately is unlikely to resolve the issues of (i) the killing of Mr de Menezes, whom the report itself apparently describes as "completely innocent", and (ii) the allegations of misinformation which have been lodged against the police.