Photo: PA Your DNA is unique to you and it also contains personal information about your health so that there is a potential danger for abuse if anyone as to infiltrate the system Dr Helen Wallace, director of Gene Watch

Despite Home Office findings that African Caribbean people are less likely to commit a crime, figures show that 77% of people on the national criminal DNA database are African Caribbean compared with 9% of Asians and just 6% of the whites.

And in a month that has seen the introduction of a private members Bill calling for the removal of all innocent people from the DNA database, a public meeting on July 21 hosted by Sarah Teather MP, is to raise awareness about the over representation of innocent African Caribbean people, some 57%, on the database and to stop ‘criminalising a community by stealth’.

Organised by the campaigns group Black Mental Health UK, in association with Gene Watch, 100 Black Men and Christian's Together in Brent, this meeting is said to represent the last opportunity to engage with Government over this issue before parliament's summer recess.

The UK’s position on a criminal database is unique. It has the largest depository in the world set to increase to 4.5 million profiles by 2010. Yet, over 500,000 people on the database have no current conviction, caution, formal warning or reprimand.

Claims that some names on the database are false, mis-spelt or incorrect and recent high profile Government data losses has lead to little or no confidence in the treatment and handling of the database.

A number of high profile names lined up to express their views about the DNA database and its over-representation of African Caribbean people.

Sarah Teather MP said:

“If someone is black, their details are three times more likely to be stored on the database than if they are white. In a world where much crime goes undetected, a small skewing of police behaviour leads to a large discrepancy in outcomes for different ethnic and racial groups… It is time we broke the cycle,”

Bishop Wayne Malcolm, of Christian Life City Chair in Hackney East London said:

“We have to raise awareness about these issues in our churches. We are a critical mass who needs to speak out with one voice as this needs to be addressed. Just being on that database suggests that you are involved in criminal activity. These statistics suggestion is that black men are criminals and this is not the case. This goes against the original purpose of the database, which was to keep records of convicted criminals. Something needs to be done as the Government may change the rules on how this technology used which may go against us in the future.”

Sarah Teather MP is leading the campaign to raise awareness about the over representation of innocent African Caribbean people. In a world where much crime goes undetected, a small skewing of police behaviour leads to a large discrepancy in outcomes for different ethnic and racial groups. Sarah Teather MP

“If you want the BME communities to trust the police and the establishment then they must be open and transparent. What are the reasons for storing such large numbers of innocent peoples DNA? It undermines community cohesion and a lot of good work that has been done. This has to be dealt,' said Pastor Desmond Hall, Christian Together in Brent.

Olu Alake, president, 100 Black Men of London, added:

“It is a travesty that we have to lobby our government and lawmakers to take action to protect the innocent and some of the most vulnerable groups in society. This database poses a real threat to community cohesion and good social relations. The Government now need to take this issue seriously and change the law to address this situation as a matter of urgency.”

Dr Helen Wallace, director of Gene Watch said.

“The recent massive expansion of the DNA database is not helping to solve more crimes, but rather threatening the rights o those who have been arrested and have their DNA on the database indefinitely.

Your DNA is unique to you and it also contains personal information about your health so that there is a potential danger for abuse if anyone as to infiltrate the system where this data is stored.

We need to see regulation that removes innocent people from the database and safeguards to protect this information from misuse.”

And Matilda MacAttram, director Black Mental Health UK added:

'The time has come to ensure that the surveillance measures introduced by the Government to protect society from crime do not instead begin to oppress society. We need to see the removal of the DNA of all innocent people from the database anything less raises questions to the reasons behind for the need for all this data in the place.”