Off to Sidcup in Kent for a briefing from the Senior Met Detective in charge of Operation Minstead. In short, this is a police operation to catch a serial rapist of elderly women in South London. The crimes have been committed over the last 12 years and the police have the criminal’s DNA but have not been able to catch him.

My involvement in this case is to do with the so-called ‘voluntary’ collection of DNA to try to catch him. There is a cutting edge technique being used to genetically identify from DNA the genealogical origins of an individual.

In Minstead’s case this is a man between 25 and 40, black and from a particular area / island in the Caribbean. Using this information, the police narrowed down their ‘persons of interest’ from an original 20,000+ to 917 men. The police want to test all their DNA so they can eliminate them from their investigations. Now, not everyone was happy to be tested. If they refused they got a letter from the Met saying that a senior officer would look into the reasons for their refusal and let them know of their decision. If they still refused and there were enough grounds to arrest the refuseniks – they did. This resulted in five arrests – although two men changed their mind at the last moment.

I have a number of concerns around all of these issues. One is the change in legislation which allows the police to keep on record DNA from persons who are taken to a police station even if not arrested or anything. I am also concerned that the word ‘voluntary’ is meaningless as it is clear that what is actually happening – albeit carefully – is mandatory testing. If we’re going to have mandatory testing, there should be a proper debate – and a change in the law and rules – rather than it happening by the backdoor.

In fact a very, very senior Met Officer was talking to me about Minstead at a meeting and, when I voiced my concern over the grey area around what was ‘voluntary’, he said – “Oh voluntary is voluntary – until they say no.” No doubt he would say he was joking. Poor judgement I say.

Another key issue raised is the actual science of genetic identification in this way. It seems to me, following my time looking in detail at the use of stop and search by the police, that any of the mechanisms in the police force that are discretionary – like stop and search – can fall prey to discrimination.

This new science cannot be applied as yet to the white European population. The group is too big and the individual components are as yet unidentifiable. Thus this new forensic ‘miracle’ may have built-in discrimination. To be pursued.