UK coppers lose DNA data down the back of the sofa
Oh here it is
BRITISH PLOD, while being terribly efficient at shooting innocent Brazilians and changing the film in speed cameras, leave something to be desired when it comes to IT matters.
Dutch police sent a CD holding DNA data on 2,000 suspects for checking but Knacker of the Yard didn't do anything with it for over a year. When the data was eventually checked, it showed matches for 15 people suspected of crimes including rape and murder, who, surprisingly, had long gone.
The disc, holding details of DNA samples taken from crime scenes in the Netherlands, was sent to the Crown Prosecution Service last January. Now the unconvincingly-named Serious Organised Crime Agency is attempting to track down the 15 UK suspects. µ
L'Inq
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Comments
Daffy Dutch!
"Why is it that this government is so incompetent when it comes to protecting information from criminals?"Slapdash, indeed! Protecting information from criminals is one of the highest priorities of the CPS; which BTW is a prosecution service, and not a police investigations agency.
The Code for Crown Prosecutors states explicitly:
2.6 The Crown Prosecution Service is a public authority for the purposes of the Human Rights Act 1998.
3.2 Crown Prosecutors make charging decisions in accordance with the Full Code Test (see section 5 below), other than in those limited circumstances where the Threshold Test applies
(see section 6 below).
3.3 The Threshold Test applies where the case is one in which it is proposed to keep the suspect in custody after charge, but the evidence required to apply the Full Code Test is not yet available.
3.4 Where a Crown Prosecutor makes a charging decision in accordance with the Threshold Test, the case must be
reviewed in accordance with the Full Code Test as soon as reasonably practicable, taking into account the progress of the investigation.
5.6 In 1951, Lord Shawcross, who was Attorney General, made the classic statement on public interest, which has been supported by Attorneys General ever since: “It has never been the rule in this country — I hope it never will be — that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution”. (House of Commons Debates, volume 483, column 681, 29 January 1951.)
The CPS is still waiting on the appropriate test results, and should therefore not be grilled in a Dutch Oven by Commons members.
When the Dutch mistakenly sent us a CD, we naturally assumed that it contained ABBA songs.
Why must the Home Office at this stage, insist on beating a dead horse?