Government rejects calls for compulsory national DNA database

There are no plans to make the national DNA database compulsory – the Home Office has said.

The debate over the database was sparked by the conviction of Mark Dixie for the murder of Croydon model Sally Anne Bowman.

The teenager`s killer was arrested because his DNA was taken in connection with another offence.

Home Office minister Tony McNulty said a national database was not a “silver bullet” and it would raise practical as well as civil liberties issues.

“How to maintain the security of a database with 4.5m people on it is one thing,” he said.

“Doing that for 60m people is another.” Policing minister Tony McNulty said: “I understand the debate, but we think the balance is right where it is now.”

Sex-obsessed Dixie was jailed for life with a minimum term of 34 years on Friday for murdering the model.

The Association of Chief Police Officers is also calling for a debate on the issue.

Lincolnshire`s Chief Constable, Tony Lake, who speaks for the association on DNA, said he was not convinced by the need for a universal database, but recognised the arguments on both sides.

He said: “If there was a national database of everybody then we would solve more crime, of that there is absolutely no
But any database that we hold has to be reasonable and proportionate in the eyes of the public.”

In September 2007, Lord Justice Sedley – one of England`s most experienced appeal court judges – called for the register to be made universal, and condemned the existing system as “indefensible”.

However, the existing register could be threatened when the European Court of Human Rights is asked to rule next week on a test case of two Britons who want their details removed from the database.

The pair, from Sheffield, had their DNA taken after they were arrested in 2001, but charges were not pressed.

The applicants say their human rights have been infringed by the decision to leave their details on the database, despite the fact that they had never been found guilty of a crime.