It is the position of Liberty and other campaigners such as Genewatch UK that DNA samples of those arrested for but not convicted of offences should be removed from the database as soon as a decision not to charge is taken. But ask any police officer charged with informing a mother that their child's naked body has been found lifeless in a field and they would say that murder and its aftermath are always an emotional business.
It was only a familial link – provided via the DNA swab taken from a relative of Hutchinson following their arrest for a minor offence, that led detectives to the man who has evaded justice for nearly three decades.Ĭampaigners against the retention of profiles for any length of time of those arrested would perhaps argue the image above is an emotive one, best not advanced in the debate at the heart of the controversy over the UK's DNA database the balance between the need for society to protect the privacy of its subjects while also maintaining their security. He had never been arrested for a criminal offence and as such his details were not on the database to provide a match when police finally obtained a full profile of the killer through low-copy DNA last year.
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