Crime and Security Bill

That system will be set out in the Bill; there will be no discretion for chief constables on that. What I am saying is that we need to keep the DNA records of those arrested but not convicted for terrorist charges for longer. The Conservative Party has made unfavourable comparisons between the retention framework that we are proposing in this Bill and the model that has been adopted in Scotland. The Conservatives believe that that system should be enshrined in this Bill, but they are profoundly wrong. The Scottish model, like our proposals, accepts that those who are arrested for an offence, even if they are not convicted, are more likely to be convicted of an offence on a future occasion, but it differs on three significant points. First, it only retains DNA records of those who are arrested for but not convicted of serious crimes. It does not take into account the most recent research—I mentioned it in response to an intervention—which shows that the seriousness of the offence for which someone is initially arrested but not convicted has no bearing on the likelihood of re-arrest. Indeed, the Scottish model was based on no research whatsoever. In 2008-09 alone, 79 matches were drawn from the DNA database for cases of rape, murder or manslaughter from people who had been arrested but not convicted of an offence. This is an important point. In 36 of those cases—nearly half of them—the DNA match was vital in securing a conviction. In respect of those 36 cases, 13 of the perpetrators were on the database because they had been arrested for but not convicted of a serious crime. That means that 23 perpetrators were on the database because they had been arrested for but not convicted of a minor offence. So if we were to apply the Scottish model, as the Conservative party urges us to do, it is highly likely that in this year alone these 23 victims of the most serious crimes and their families would have been denied justice—23 killers and rapists would have remained free to kill and rape again. It is unlikely that the cases I referred to earlier of Cathy Marlow's killer, Matthew Fagan, or the rapist Abdirahman Ali Gudaal would have been detected through DNA evidence, because both were arrested but not convicted for less serious crimes. This is at the heart of this debate.