It’s a while since I’ve written about Low Copy Number (LCN) DNA testing, but the news today that – as a result of the Omagh bomb trial – the use of this technique is to be reviewed (see BBC story for details) is welcome.

As I wrote previously, “LCN DNA should only be used cautiously – and only with corroborating evidence”, and as I put it in an article on the dangers of DNA databases and the like, it is highly risky to place your faith in technology always working flawlessly: “As investment goes in, a commercial imperative is involved and as DNA increases its aura of infallibility – will the police (or the public, when the information is ‘conveniently’ leaked?) believe those who say they weren’t at the crime scene even though their DNA was? And how long before corroborative evidence becomes less necessary?” (read the rest of the article here).

Reading through last week’s newspaper articles – at last – I find that finally the cavalry is joining my campaign to stop innocent people’s DNA being stored in
perpetuity by the police on the national DNA database – and even The Sun has given the story a decent write-up. Hurrah!

And if you’re wondering – “but what does an innocent person have to fear?” – then the answer is “plenty!” as I wrote in an article titled What do the innocent have to fear from a DNA database? on my website.

Basically, I have lain prone on a beach in France virtually immobile for the last six days. Generally, I like more active holidays – visiting cities, galleries, sites of historic interest or natural beauty – but as this was it for the summer – lying down was required. (And yes – I went there and back by train). No – I didn’t think about politics – other than four calls from the print press – I was a politics-free zone.

One of the calls was from The Independent on the back of answer to a parliamentary question I had tabled on the DNA database. Ironic really as part of my holiday reading was Michael Crichton’s novel ‘Next’ which is basically about the perils of DNA and mucking about with genes. He takes it to extreme of course – but that is what makes it a fun novel.

The media call fed into the more pragmatic side of DNA. The answer had come back to my question showing that something like 500,000 of the entries on the database had errors. Without going into the ins and outs of what I think about the dangers of the DNA database again (you can read my previous DNA article here) – at its very basic you would think accuracy was a key requirement?

You can read The Independent’s DNA story here. I will now be asking for an investigation into just how so many mistakes are not only made – but kept!

After PMQs I dashed over to College Green to shoot for Spotlight – a Northern Ireland news program with a good reputation. They were tracking DNA (so to speak) and in particular Low Copy Number (LCN) DNA.

They had picked up on my track record of challenging some of the issues around this super-detection tool and apparently there is a big case in Northern Ireland concerning DNA. The thing about LCN DNA in particular is that it can use something as small or infinitesimal as a single cell found at a crime scene – which sounds great at first because you think, “that means it’s much easier to track down criminals as you don’t need as much evidence to identify them.”

But – my argument is that I shake hands with people all day long and therefore my LCN DNA will be in their clothes, houses, offices etc. It will end up all over the place, on people and in places I haven’t had anything to do with. So LCN DNA should only be used cautiously – and only with corroborating evidence.

I also met up with World Development Movement who are busy lobbying ahead of the introduction of the Climate Change Bill. We are on the same page apparently (hate that expression!) in the key issues around how climate change will hit the ultra poor countries of the developing world much, much harder than us in the Northern hemisphere – so it is both a development and an environmental issue.

So we talked over how to challenge some of the issues in the current proposals and how to get them amended to include things like annual targets for carbon emissions and a development expert on the panels etc.

Labour’s national DNA database-by-stealth has been in the news again, though there is also good news that some decent ethical oversight of the whole exercise might be put in place. Typical however of Big Brother New Labour – do the database first and worry about whether it’s the right thing to do or not afterwards!

You can take part in the Lib Dem campaign on this issue on our DNA database website.

I was speaking yesterday in a break out group at the CRE Race Convention. My session was about race discrimination in the criminal justice system. It was a pretty lively debate. A core problem – on which there was widespread agreement – is that of “disproportionality” running through every part of the criminal justice system. This means that people from ethnic minority communities are far more likely to be stop and searched, have DNA records taken and a host of other things than they should be given their proportion of the population or of the criminal population. And – despite a great deal of talking the talk – the issue appears very resistant to fixing.

My own view is that it comes down to leadership. If everyone understood that any discrimination would be monitored and recorded and SUPERVISED – and that jobs would be lost as a result – then we would see a shift. But despite the very genuine efforts – that level of priority and commitment is not yet truly there.

Take the police and the borough commander level. If the crime targets were down – top brass would be on the phone to the local commander wanting to know the reason why! The same cannot be said around issues of disproportionality. So perhaps the next step is, as one man suggested, disproportionality targets. Only the police are already drowning in targets – and unless the top brass take this as seriously as the crime stats – then the results won’t change.

And in case anyone has forgotten – the stats in London (for example) on DNA retention are that against a background of 28% BME population in London, there is a disproportionate arrest rate of 48% and a rate of 60% of DNA records are from the BME population. Translated – that means that not only are the police disproportionately arresting black and ethnic minority people – they are getting it humungously wrong! And time spent wrongly arresting innocent people is time lost on catching criminals.

I have a meeting coming up with a senior Met Officer to discuss the arrest policy. For it seems clear to me that disproportionality starts with stop and search and the continues through the criminal justice system from arrest to sentencing. Another chap very wisely suggested that there be an independent study of disproportionality across the whole criminal justice system – and I think that would be an excellent thing to do.

As for Ken Livingstone’s purile attack on the Race Convention – typical brattish behaviour from a spoilt child! As usual.