Crime and Security Bill

If a motor vehicle is involved, a separate form for that vehicle will have to be filled out by the officer. The problem at the moment is that even if a vehicle is not involved, the police officer has to fill out a form that is applicable to one being involved. Whether we are talking about doing all four occupants in the car at one hit is another matter, but we must seek to reduce the bureaucracy to a bare minimum. One major feature of the Bill is the proposed new framework for the retention of DNA records. No one in the House can doubt that the development of DNA profiling has had a profound impact on the police's ability to bring to justice the perpetrators of some of the most horrific crimes. That was underlined yet again when Paul Hutchinson was convicted just before Christmas of the 1983 murder of 16-year-old Colette Aram, the subject of the first ever appeal on the television programme "Crimewatch". Hutchinson was traced only because DNA had been taken from one of his relatives, who had been convicted of a minor offence in 2008.