Criminalising our children?

Deborah McGurran The Politics Show East

The precision of DNA testing is something of an anomaly for some

This week we tell the story of a 12-year-old boy whose DNA still remains on a database after he was wrongly arrested and investigated for alleged criminal damage.

While walking home from school at South Benfleet in Essex he picked up gravel from a driveway and threw a few stones down an empty road.

A resident filmed him because she wrongly suspected he had damaged her car.

Police placed the boy under arrest and took DNA samples from him.

He was investigated for alleged criminal damage but the Crown Prosecution Service threw out the case.

But the police held onto the DNA and it remains on the National DNA database.

Now his mother and grandmother are fighting to get his samples removed.

They're continuing their battle with the support of their MP.

Essex police hold the DNA of over 5,000 under 16s, more than any other force in this region.

They told the Politics Show:"We follow ACPO guidelines as set down by 2003 legislation on the retention of DNA".

DNA samples held by police forces in the East

Under 16s

16-18 year olds

Northants 2.0%

5.5%

Norfolk 3.0%

6.6%

Bedfordshire 3.1%

7.6%

Cambridgeshire 3.8%

8.1%

Suffolk 4.1%

8.9%

Essex 4.5%

8.8%

Across the country children have been arrested for:

• Drawing hopscotch on a pavement
• Taking a slice of cucumber from a sandwich and throwing it at another child
• Damaging a tree while building a den

If it is clearly a case of mistaken identity and if in hindsight we look back and quite clearly we have arrested someone who was never involved in the offence then I will probably look to delete the DNA Simon Parr Deputy Chief Constable of Hertfordshire Constabulary

Hertfordshire Deputy Chief Constable Simon Parr says it recently helped his officers catch a rapist who struck fifteen years previously.

But he says he is willing to consider requests to remove names from the database if he considers it's unjust for them to be kept.

One or two names a month are being removed.

The genetic fingerprints of four and a half million individuals are now being held on the database, 150,000 of them are from children under sixteen.

Around a third of all the DNA stored is taken from individuals who were not charged with any offence and have no criminal record.

The MP for Welwyn Hatfield, Grant Shapps, insists that the public could very quickly lose confidence in the database: "The problem is when, for example, a kid is involved in a case of complete mistaken identity.

"They had nothing to do with whatever the incident was and the police know they had nothing to do with it. The fact is, it's almost impossible for them to remove their DNA profile from the data base.

"It discredits the database itself because people lose confidence in it."

In order for it to maintain public confidence the DNA database needs to contain records which really have a good reason to be there. Grant Shapps MP (Con) Welwyn Hatfield

There are calls for the police to be stopped from keeping DNA profiles of innocent children.

Their DNA records are held on file until the day they die.

What do you think?

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Join the Politics Show team on Sunday 18 November 2007 at 12:00 GMT on BBC One.

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