Vernon Coaker - what a travesty!

Vernon Coaker is a typical New Labour apparatchik. Straight out of George Orwell's 1984. Why is it that this regime has so many creepy characters in it? This morning Coaker was on the Today Programme sparring with John Humphrys. Coaker thinks that people aquitted of a crime need to have their DNA on a database so that they can be monitored. Basically he was implying that once nicked, a person is deemed to be a serial offender by virtue of natural inclination. Says a lot, doesn't it?

In Vernon Coaker's warped world, a person arrested for a crime is to be seen as evermore a "criminal". The criminal justice system may say you're innocent, but Coaker says your guilty. Of thought crimes. The possibility of thinking of doing a crime. Come on, Coaker, get real. You just want a controlled state run by control freaks. Admit it!

On Sky News this morning the chirpy James Whale was parroting the "I've got nothing to hide" routine. OK, if that's so, give your DNA to the police. Just in case, you never know. The whole thing is pathetic. This is not about fighting crime, but about maintaining a civilised society where people are deemed innocent until proved guilty. It's all well and good saying that you've nothing to hide, but just think. Here's an example. James Whale goes to a dinner party. Great merriment is had by one and all. Next day one of the guests says she's been raped by another fellow guest. James gets a knock on his door from the police. Of course, he's entirely innocent, but it's a bit close for comfort. He's asked to give his DNA as a matter of course. No problems, he's got nothing to hide. The case eventually comes to court and the accused is found not guilty. The acquiitted man's DNA still floats around the system, as does James Whale's. A year later, Whale gets a knock on the door from the police. His DNA has been found at a house where somebody got assaulted. He thinks "what?" but can't think how that could be. It all proves to be a timewasting problem. What happened was that a beer glass Whale drank from at an office party was taken back to the house of the accused for washing but it never happened. My point for James Whale is that glib remarks like "I've got nothing to hide" are not so easy to say when caught up in a DNA-driven investigation.

Thankfully, after a European court ruling, DNA profiles of up to 850,000 innocent people held on an official database will be removed. These are all people presumably with "nothing to hide".

Seeing as this government is hiding pretty much everything they can, from the truth about the Iraq invasion to the number of illegal immgrants, it is a grievous pity that DNA cannot be used on them to check the truthfulness of their words!

Posted in: crime,DNA,Liberty,Police,Vernon Coaker