The Alan Titchmarsh Show
On Tuesday I appeared on The Alan Titchmarsh Show on ITV alongside LBC breakfast radio presenter Nick Ferrari and TV presenter Ulrika Jonsson to discuss the merits, or otherwise, of DNA and CCTV. The discussion became polarised when Nick stated that such measures are an infringement of civil liberties. Nick also contended that DNA does not work, citing a case of a 72 year-old Swindon man suffering from Parkinsons disease who was arrested and charged after his DNA profile matched that found at the scene of a burglary 200 miles away in Bolton. BBC’s Panorama featured this particular case and attributed the error in identification to either a mislabelling of samples or a chance DNA match. The charge against the male was subsequently reversed by the CPS. In light of this and similar examples, DNA evidence cannot be regarded as infallible. However, its effectiveness ought to be considered on the basis of successful outcomes which far outnumber rare identification anomalies and transference of DNA. Importantly, DNA always requires supporting evidence linking the offender to the crime and not merely to the scene itself. A jury would be unlikely to convict on the strength of DNA evidence alone and no judge is likely to instruct a jury to do so. Whatever the infringement of DNA and CCTV upon civil liberties, in respect of crime investigation and detection the advent of both has proved invaluable.
I wish to begin by explaining that due to the prevailing culture of risk assessments and litigation, police officers have much to do to ensure accountability. Private information such as phone records, bank details and surveillance images is not laid bare for the police to have unhindered access. Police officers are required (rightly so) to create a paper trail by which to justify why they require the information they seek in addition to whether such intrusion is proportionate to the proposed outcome of the investigation, whether the information can be acquired by other non-intrusive methods, how the information will serve to progress the investigation and also the extent to which intrusive methods are likely to infringe upon the civil liberties of innocent persons (referred to as collateral intrusion).
Addressing the above points requires the completion of a document called a RIPA (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000) which can run to several pages and in no way guarantees that because police officers ask for the information they are assured of getting it. The RIPA form passes through the hands of a liaison officer before reaching the Superintendent and, in some cases, the Chief Constable, for authorisation. It is then sent to the appropriate crime liaison department at the independent company/agency who then release the information to the intelligence bureau within the investigating force before it is passed to the investigating officer. It is easy to draw alarming conclusions regarding the accessibility of private information based on the media’s portrayal of police practices. I daresay I would draw similar conclusions if I were unfamiliar with the level of justification officers are required to show and the administrative hoops they have to jump through in order for the information to be considered for release. Of course, I can only offer testament to the necessity for police officers to apply for private information in pursuit of the investigation and detection of crime. As for the motivation and intentions of other bodies with similar access to the same information, I cannot truly say.
With regard to DNA and CCTV, however sinster or menacing some may consider them to be, to an investigating officer with few lines of enquiry, the existence of one or both can affect the outcome of their investigation dramatically. Having performed exactly the same tasks as 130,000 other officers allocated low to medium level crime to investigate, I feel justified in drawing from operational experience. On Tuesday’s programme I retold an incident which occurred in High Wycombe involving a male arrested for being drunk and disorderly outside the town nightclub. A DNA sample taken from the male in custody and sent to the Forensic Science Service for inclusion on the national database matched the profile recovered from the scene of an unsolved rape which occurred three years previously. The male was charged with the offence and subsequently convicted. Similarly, as the investigating officer of several crime reports where the aggrieved party did not report a crime against them for several days, I was left to retrieve CCTV footage as the last possible line of enquiry. More often than not, subsequent circulation to other officers of stills from the CCTV images came back with a positive identification of the offender.
Whilst I take into account Ulrika Jonsson’s point regarding more police officers on the beat, a robust and sustained officer presence is likely to drive down crime but will never completely eradicate it. However, in order to investigate an offence they were unable to prevent, officers must have recource to certain investigative tools which increase the likelihood of a successful outcome. I also wish to address the argument that CCTV drives crime into areas with no CCTV coverage. Once again, I draw upon operational experience that in a large proportion of incidents, from drug induced thievery to a drunken rumpus or a violent assault, many such acts are opportunistic and are committed without regard to whether or not the offence is captured on CCTV. Conversely, the progression of many an investigation can be scuppered by a timer-rotating CCTV camera pointing in the opposite direction to where the crime is taking place!
Of course, in an ideal world where no crime is committed, police officers, DNA databases and CCTV cameras would be unnecessary. However, we live in a world where those who successfully commit crime will not tell the truth about doing so. Perhaps I am mistaken in thinking that the public place less trust in the Government than the police. Yet, it is likely that public perception regarding the Government’s potential misuse of private information is the reason why many are unnerved by the increasing accessibility to it. For a police officer, such information is not easily accessible at all, cannot be trawled through arbitrarily and indeed cannot be requested unless an offence has been committed where it can be shown that the individual is a suspect. Furthermore, if a belief in the Government’s possible misuse of a national DNA database provides the strongest objection to it, establishing a database which is protected by an independent body accountable to the people and not to the Government ought to be considered. Nonetheless, an issue of particular national importance is worthy of extensive national debate to decide if, having regard to all information and facts, the investigation and detection of crime justifies the continued infringement of civil liberties.
Next time: The falsehood of identity cards as a crime prevention measure.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_7010000/newsid_7012100/7012121.stm?bw=bb&mp=rm&news=1
