HL Deb 10 February 1997 vol 578 cc105-12

9.15 p.m.

Lord Taylor of Warwick

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.

I am grateful for this, my first opportunity to introduce a Bill in your Lordships' House, In doing so, I thank my honourable friend Mr. Nigel Evans, who proposed the Bill in another place. With all-party support, it enjoyed a very speedy passage.

Noble Lords will be aware of the horrific rape and murder of 15 year-old Naomi Smith and the part that DNA played in securing the recent conviction of her killer, Edwin Hopkins. This Bill has the potential to make a significant impact on the fight against crime. Its central purpose is to add the DNA profiles of some 7,750 serious violent sex and burglary offenders who are currently serving prison sentences or are detained under Part III of the Mental Health Act to the national DNA database. All those offenders will have been convicted before 10th April 1995 and therefore escaped the operation of the new powers to take non-intimate samples from convicted persons introduced by the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. A number of these people might well, if tested for inclusion on the DNA register, prove to have been involved in other as vet unsolved crimes.

The immediate origins of this Bill are to be found in the Government's consultation document, published in June 1996, on the sentencing and supervision of sex offenders. That consultation document sought views on a number of proposals designed to improve the protection of the public from sex offenders and to enhance opportunities for the treatment of such offenders. The Bill would implement one of those proposals.

Convicted sex offenders have often established a pattern of repeat offending. Research has shown that, when interviewed under confidential conditions, men convicted of rapes have, on average, confessed to having carried out six or even seven rapes as well as other less serious sexual offences. However, the median figure was much lower at one or two rapes, which suggests that a small number of offenders may be responsible for a much larger proportion of sexual offences.

Given that incidence of repeat offending, it is clear that DNA profiling can make an important contribution towards increasing the number of convictions for serious sexual crime. The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 extended the circumstances in which the police could take samples for DNA profiling purposes from persons under investigation for a recordable offence. It also created a new power to take such samples from persons charged with or convicted of these offences.

Crucially, however, the power to take samples from convicted offenders applied only to those convicted on or after the coming into force of the relevant provisions of the 1994 Act; that is, on 10th April 1995.

The Government's consultation document proposed taking these existing powers one step further. In particular, it proposed that the power be extended to enable the police to take samples for DNA profiling purposes from all sex offenders who were sentenced to imprisonment before the implementation of the 1994 Act and who are still in custody. Such a measure would deter those prisoners from reoffending on release and aid their detection if the deterrent failed. This proposal in the consultation document received widespread support. I understand that the Home Office has received 74 responses, of which 82 per cent. were in support.

I believe that it is equally important for the police to have the power to take a DNA sample from persons who have been convicted of violent and burglary offences. We should take all reasonable measures to assist the police to prevent and detect such crimes. DNA profiling and the DNA database have proved their worth not just in relation to sexual offences but also in relation to violent crimes and burglary. With all those crimes, it is not uncommon for an offender to leave behind a blood, semen, saliva or other body sample which can subsequently be used to link him to the scene of the crime. Indeed, it is those three broad categories of offence which the police service has targeted when building up the DNA database.

The Bill will build on the tremendous success of the DNA database so far. It now contains more than 110,000 samples from suspected and convicted offenders and some 8,900 crime-scene stain profiles. Matches which either link suspects to crime scenes or one crime scene to another are occurring at the rate of 100 per week. To date, nearly 3,300 matches have been achieved.

As I mentioned, the core of this Bill is the extension of the power of the police to take DNA samples from persons convicted before 10th April 1995 of a sexual, violent or burglary offence and who are still imprisoned or detained under the Mental Health Act. That is covered in Clause 1.

Clause 2 enables DNA samples to be taken from certain other detained mentally disordered offenders. Not all such offenders will have been convicted of an offence but will instead have been found either not guilty by reason of insanity or unfit to plead. It is appropriate that the police should have power to take DNA samples in such cases, as in the case of convicted offenders.

Clause 3 enables the powers to take DNA samples from detained mentally disordered offenders and juvenile offenders to be exercised in the place of detention. That mirrors an existing provision in Section 63A of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 which enables the police to take samples in prisons.

Clause 4 is a tidying-up measure. The new Section 63A of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, inserted by the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, omitted to impose a time limit on the exercise of a constable's power to require a person informed that he will be reported for a recordable offence to attend a police station so that a non-intimate sample may be taken. Clause 4 corrects that omission by imposing a time limit of one month.

Schedule 1 lists the sex, violence and burglary offences which determine that a detained person may have a DNA sample taken from him under the provisions of Clauses 1 and 2.

Finally, Schedule 2 reproduces Sections 63 and 63A of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act as further amended by this Bill. That will be a welcome point of reference, particularly for lawyers—and I am sure that we all have sympathy for lawyers.

In conclusion, this is an important Bill. At the heart of it is the simple objective of protecting society from serious sex and violent offenders. The purpose of the Bill is to build upon the successes already achieved through DNA. Brian and Catherine Smith lost their only daughter, Naomi, at the hands of a sadistic killer, but with the help of DNA testing he was caught and convicted. Accordingly, I commend this Bill to your Lordships' House.

Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Taylor of Warwick.)

9.25 p.m.

Lord McIntosh of Haringey

My Lords, I preface my very brief remarks by saying that, as always, we do not take a collective view on Private Members' Bills and, therefore, I speak for myself and not necessarily for my party. I also preface what I have to say by confirming that we have no objection to the Bill; indeed, we support it and wish it to go through.

That was the nice part of my speech, I shall now very briefly be slightly more sour. The Bill has clearly been drafted by the Home office and I mean no disrespect to the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Warwick, in saying that. It has all the hallmarks of Home Office drafting and is none the worse for that. However, the real point is that this Bill is simply a reflection of defects in the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. All the points concerned ought to have been—and, indeed, could have been—made in that Act.

I find it most unsatisfactory that the very limited opportunities that there are for Private Members' Bills for those who win the ballot in the House of Commons for such Bills should be taken up by government Bills which have been drafted to remedy the defects of their own previous legislation. I believe that Private Members' Bills should be for issues which come from outside government rather than being inspired by government, as this one clearly is.

9.26 p.m.

The Earl of Courtown

My Lords, I should like, first, to congratulate my noble friend Lord Taylor of Warwick on introducing the Bill and on doing it so concisely. The development of DNA profiling has made possible a major advance in the investigation of crime. The technique itself is now some 15 years old, and it is with increasing frequency that we read in newspaper reports that some horrific murder or rape has been solved with the help of DNA. The purpose of this Bill is to build on the successes already achieved through DNA by enabling the profiles of over 7,000 of the country's most serious violent and sex offenders to be entered onto the national DNA database.

To put the Bill in context, it may help noble Lords if I explain some of the background to the creation of the national DNA database. The catalyst was the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice, which reported in 1993. The Royal Commission made a number of recommendations relating to the classification and taking of samples for DNA profiling purposes and the retention of such samples in order to facilitate the creation of a national database.

In relation to the classification of body samples, the Royal Commission recommended that saliva should be reclassified as a non-intimate sample so that mouth swabs may be taken without consent. As such samples are non-invasive and can be taken easily, the proposed reclassification would greatly facilitate the taking of samples for DNA profiling.

The Royal Commission went on to recommend that the police should have the power to take, without consent, non-intimate samples for the purpose of DNA analysis from all those charged with serious criminal offences, whether or not DNA evidence was relevant to the particular offence. It was also proposed that it should be permissible for the DNA profile to be retained for subsequent use if the person concerned is convicted.

The Government accepted those recommendations, but in one important respect believed that they should go one step further. The Government considered that the power to take non-intimate samples should be available to assist the investigation of a wider range of offences; namely, all recordable offences. That would enable the police to take samples for DNA analysis on essentially the same basis as the power to take fingerprints.

The Royal Commission's recommendations were implemented by the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. This amended the relevant sections of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and provided the legislative framework for the national DNA database. As I have indicated, in order to facilitate the taking of samples for DNA profiling, saliva and mouth swabs have been reclassified as non-intimate samples. Mouth swabs are simple to take and hence are the preferred method of obtaining samples. As an alternative, a sample of some 10 plucked hairs are taken. A sample of hair was already classed as a non-intimate sample, but the 1994 Act clarified this to include hair with the roots.

The amendments made to PACE also significantly extended the circumstances in which a non-intimate sample could be taken without consent. Prior to the 1994 Act, the circumstances in which such a sample might be taken were narrowly defined. A non-intimate sample could only be taken from a person without consent if he was in police detention and the taking was authorised by a superintendent or above. The conditions were relatively narrow as the superintendent could only give authorisation where he had reasonable grounds for suspecting the involvement of the person concerned in a serious arrestable offence and for believing that the sample would tend to confirm or disproved involvement.

There are now three broad circumstances in which a non-intimate sample may be taken without consent. First, the original power has been expanded in respect of the offences for which such samples may be taken. Previously it was where a person was in police detention suspected of involvement in a serious arrestable offence. Now a sample may be taken if such a person is suspected of involvement in a recordable offence.

Secondly, a non-intimate sample may be taken without consent from a person if he has been either charged with a recordable offence or informed that he will be reported for such an offence, provided he has not had a non-intimate sample taken in the course of the investigation of the offence, or if he has had a sample taken that was not suitable or was insufficient for analysis.

The third circumstance in which a non-intimate sample may now be taken without consent is where a person has been convicted of a recordable offence. Crucially, this power to take a sample did not apply to anyone convicted of a recordable offence prior to the coming into force of the relevant amendment to PACE; that is, prior to 10th April 1995, as mentioned by my noble friend. It is this restriction which is the genesis of the Bill we are debating today and one I shall return to in a while.

The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 also clarified the law in relation to the destruction of samples and the use to be made of information derived from a sample. In particular, the Act provided that the information derived from samples may be the subject of a speculative search. This allows the DNA profile of a suspect to be checked against the DNA profiles derived from crime stains and so reveal whether he has been involved in another, yet unsolved, offence.

As I have indicated, these provisions in the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 came into force on 10th April 1995. At the same time the police service launched the national DNA database.

The database, which is operated by the Forensic Science Service, contains the DNA profiles of persons suspected of, charged with or convicted of a recordable offence. In the case of persons suspected or charged with such an offence, I should explain that their DNA profiles are removed from the database and destroyed if they are not proceeded against or found not guilty. The database also contains the DNA profiles derived from crime scene stains.

The database now holds over 110,000 profiles of individuals and nearly 9,000 profiles from crime scene samples. The success and evident value of the database are fully demonstrated by the 3,269 matches that have been thrown up. Over 2,000 of these have matched a suspect to a crime scene and some 1,200 have matched one crime scene to another.

The database itself does not tell the full story of the success of DNA profiling. In an effort to find the perpetrator of a particular crime, mass screens have been conducted on volunteers. In such cases, the profiles are not put on or searched against the national database but are held separately and compared only to the crime stain profile from the case. These volunteer samples and profiles are destroyed once the case is finished.

The 26 mass screens so far processed have resulted in 14 matches. These have all been for serious crimes; namely, murders and rapes. These range from the rape and murder of an 18 year-old woman in West Yorkshire, to the rape of a 78 year-old handicapped woman in her own home in Derbyshire. These are vile crimes and we can take some comfort from the fact that, in no small part due to DNA, the evil people who committed these offences will spend a very long time in prison where they can no longer be a danger to society. My noble friend's Bill will build on these successes by adding some 7,750 serious sex, violent and burglary offenders to the national database.

I have already alluded to the problem the Bill seeks to tackle. Under the provisions of PACE, as amended by the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, the police have the power to take non-intimate samples from persons convicted of a recordable offence. However, the power applies only in the case of persons whose conviction was on or after 10th April 1995. As a result, the database does not contain the DNA profiles of persons convicted before that date. It is this loophole which the Bill will plug.

While the law as it stands enables the police to take samples from offenders with a post-April 1995 conviction for a recordable offence, in practice, because of the numbers involved, samples are taken only from sex, violent and burglary offenders. A similar approach is adopted in Clause 1 of the Bill. In backdating the power to take non-intimate samples, the Bill targets those sex, violent and burglary offenders convicted before April 1995 and who are still in prison or detained under the Mental Health Act.

Clause 2 of the Bill brings the arrangements for taking non-intimate samples from mentally disordered offenders, dealt with under the criminal insanity legislation, broadly into line with the arrangements for taking such samples from convicted offenders. The clause will enable a non-intimate sample to be taken from certain offenders detained under Part III of the Mental Health Act 1983 having been found either not guilty by reason of insanity or unfit to plead.

I shall not detain your Lordships further by going into the other provisions of the Bill, save to mention Schedule 2. This schedule sets out Sections 63 and 63A of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, as amended by the provisions of the Bill. It is not always easy finding one's way through legislation which has been amended on a number of separate occasions. I am sure that the sections of PACE reproduced in Schedule 2 to the Bill in their amended form will be a welcome point of reference, as mentioned by my noble friend.

The Bill has the Government's wholehearted support. I once again commend my noble friend for bringing it forward and I wish him every success in securing a swift and smooth passage.

9.34 p.m.

Lord Taylor of Warwick

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, and my noble friend Lord Courtown for their constructive observations on the Bill. While I note the comments of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, about the past, I am delighted that he is now prepared to look to the future. The Bill is designed to protect the public. I am glad that it appears to receive support from all sides of the House. I commend the Bill to your Lordships.

On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.