Important ruling on police keeping DNA records?

I am wondering if it would apply to me, I was arrested but not charged, had my DNA taken, but do have a criminal record for other offences. (no DNA taken then)

The judge never ruled on any other case so your DNA will be kept. It does however set legal precedent, and so you are likely to win if you can afford to bring a similar case. Importantly, police were ordered to meet the court costs which means if enough people bring cases, the police will have to destroy all the DNA of innocents that they currently possess or face massive legal bills.

Only 771 men volunteered DNA out of the 4000 asked in the Sally Bowman case - and who can blame them when the police act so blatantly illegally as to insist on DNA from someone they had no intention of charging.

I find the teacher case quite sinister - what was their possible motivation in forcing DNA from someone they weren't going to charge ? It implies a hidden motive quite separate from their public pronouncements. If they have your DNA for no good reason then you should act quickly before this sort of thing is legalised.

"The Scottish Executive is currently deciding whether to introduce measures to allow the permanent retention of DNA from people who are not convicted of a crime."
 http://www.genewatch.org/

Not sure as I am not a legal bod but may have to do with it being a wrongful arrest, so they had no legal right to take DNA?

if the judgement is online anywhere as that would be a great help in evaluating it's use.

Thanks

You are not (usually) allowed to make laws that retrospectively affect past behaviour. THUS anyone who had their DNA taken before the most recent laws came into being can expect that the law that was in place AT THE TIME THE DNA WAS TAKEN will determine what happens to that sample.

Today, Blair has the power to keep ***ALL*** DNA samples taken (after the due date) under ***ALL*** circumstances , FOREVER. He can also accumulate DNA info from whatever agencies are able to augment the actions of the state.

The main reason that Blair demanded that ALL crimes allowed an actual arrest was so that the police would ALWAYS have the option of taking DNA from a target.

The concept of wrongful arrest UNDOING the history of all events flowing from the process of arrest is an interesting one. We were all bought up on US cop shows, where the bad guy would get away with his crime, because the cops found evidence WITHOUT a valid search warrant. Today, that concept has almost vanished in the States.

Wrongful arrest vs arrest of an innocent person, given that the police have the universal right to arrest now for almost all crimes. If they can keep the DNA of an innocent person who CANNOT prove wrongful arrest- well you see where this is going.

There is no doubt that 'wrongful arrest' will be one of those last sticking points in the total erasure of all of our rights and liberties. Why? Because the elite despise the idea of being wrongfully arrested every bit as much as ourselves (consider the objections originally raised to the creation of a regular policeforce back in the day). However, soldiers give up their DNA, as do the police, and many others that work for the govenment. Blair wants EVERYONE DNA recorded, because it is expected to be possible to test DNA in real time at some point, making DNA the ultimate population monitoring/control tool when used in ID systems.

However, at this time the concept of DNA testing is really meant to suppress us psychologically more than anything else, through the "no hiding place from Big Brother" meme. You have had a recent example of this with the "ripper hoaxer", and the tracking down of "deserters" from the Vietnam war in the US.

On another note, I am NOT happy that a person of "Blair's class", like a teacher, can expect victory even when there is probable police cause to initially act against her, whereas thousands of ordinary people can be mistreated in the most outrageous ways by the police, and know that they stand ZERO chance of victory in court against that treatment. In the States, they go so far as ALWAYS punishing parents for striking their kids, but PREVENTING IN LAW parents and pupils from taking action in court against teachers that have assaulted the children.

How many teachers have been successfully punished by the courts for breaking the total ban on SADO-MASOCHISTIC RAPE (the correct term for school corporal punishment). What lesson do the children get when they discover that no matter how many of them witnessed a teacher beating a child, that teacher's word is allowed to outweigh all of their combined testimony?