Brown goes crime-fighting
Peter Hoskin, writing in the Spectator Coffee House blog, comments on a speech by Gordon Brown:
Paul Waugh has already blogged on what may turn out to be the most significant passage of Brown’s speech – at least so far as the cut ‘n’ thrust of the election campaign is concerned. In it, Brown highlights the case of Jeremiah Sheridan, who raped a woman some 19 years ago, but was caught last year thanks to DNA evidence retained after Sheridan was arrested – but not convicted – for an offence in 2005. Brown ends his story thus:
“The next time you hear somebody question the value of retaining DNA profiles from those who have been arrested but not convicted, remember Jeremiah Sheridan. And most of all remember the innocent woman he attacked.”
The heavy implication is that Sheridan would still be walking the streets if the Tories had their way on DNA retention. Hm. As Alex of this parish points out, it’s far from edifying politics. But you can expect Labour to repeat that dubious charge over the next few weeks, nonetheless.
The Sheffield Star carries a story with a few more details of the Sheridan case.
March 2nd, 2010 at 13:03
Fuuny that Gordon Brown made a speech about retaining innocent people of the National DNA Database when he himself should be on it! a couple of years ago Mr Brown unvailled a statue to Nelson Mandela and then gave a political speech all within 1km of Parliament he should have sought police permission to do this but he did not, therefore he should have been arrested and convicted of breaking the SOCPA law.
March 4th, 2010 at 10:26
The whole thing is dishonest nonsense anyway. The issue is about retention of DNA samples. Sheridan would have been caught regardless of whether the profiles of innocent people were removed from the database, as his DNA would have been taken and matched against the database of samples. In fact this case simply proves that it is unnecessary to store the profiles of the innocent.