> nik.morgan wrote:

>> On Sun, 3 Aug 2008 10:58:12 +0100, Steve Firth wrote
>> (in article <1il3fia.rvmdc21fphpk1N%%%%steve%%@malloc.co.uk>):
>>

>>> Fod googlemail.com> wrote:
>>>

>>>> A friends older brother, at his girlfriends insistance, went to the
>>>> local police station to rule himself out of their enquires as he
>>>> looked like the photofit of the guy they wanted for rape.

>>> At the time of the Yorkshire Ripper business, I had a beard, black hair,
>>> looked remarkably like the photofit, worked within a few hundred yards
>>> of the place that he dumped one victim and had visited many of the other
>>> places over similar periods. Two people in the place I was working
>>> suggested that I should go to the police to "eliminate myself from the
>>> enquiry." My girlfriend at the time was a solicitior and persuaded me
>>> not to attend spelling out past miscarriages of justice as a damn good
>>> reason not to go.
>>>
>>> At that time DNA evidence was in its infancy and it's one of the best
>>> features of the use of DNA fingerprinting that it eliminates the
>>> innocent from an enquiry fairly rapidly. What's not good is that once
>>> one have "volunteered" ones DNA profile and a sample of DNA are
>>> maintained on record until ones death or 100th birthday. Being innocent
>>> does not result in the record being removed from the NDNAD.

>>
>> When did that first start happening?

>
> The basis of DNA fingerprinting was originated by Alec Jeffreys in 1984.
> Colin Pitchfork was the first person convicted using DNA evidence. This
> was in 1987. Strangely enough, the technique was discovered at Leicester
> University, and Colin Pitchfork was sentenced to life at Leicester. He
> raped and murdered two girls in 1983 and 1986.
>

>> I happily gave a DNA sample in the early eighties to eliminate myself
>> from a particularly nasty series of rapes and assaults, I fitted the
>> profile so I was happy to cooperate in order to be removed from any
>> suspicion. There never was any talk about keeping my DNA record, how
>> can I find out if it's on file?

>
> The law relating to keeping of DNA samples (effectively commencing the
> DNA database) came in to effect in 1995. So I think you are probably not
> on it. I would try asking though, I'm not sure of your rights to this
> information.
>