> John Wright wrote:

>> 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.
>>

> Mind you, if you do ask then they may well ask for a sample just so that
> they can check their records...but I wonder what they then would do with
> that sample, bearing in mind the mania for collecting such samples even
> from the innocent!
>
>