Sir, It is disappointing that a Professor of Law should seek to defend the DNA database by confusing the practical exercise of justice with omniscience (“No, no, no: not guilty does not mean innocent”, Michael Zander, Opinion, Mar 7). Of course, it is true that some unconvicted defendants did commit the crimes for which they were arrested, but that is beyond the purview of the judicial process, at least as it is exercised in this country.
The phrase “innocent until proven guilty” does not claim, and never has, that the individual is innocent in reality; it asks only that they should be treated as such for all practical purposes — one of them being that they should not have their details stored indefinitely for the sole reason that they happen to have been arrested in the past.
Of course, we could just keep files on all citizens from birth until death. That has been quite popular with a number of regimes past and present.
Paul Jervis
Crewkerne, Somerset
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Sir, Michael Zander’s article is a refreshing breath of sanity. Many are the defendants who escape conviction because the standard of proof against them cannot be achieved. DNA registers are a considerable aid to the police in the arrest of criminals, and also in the elimination of innocent suspects.
Is this another case of the UK having to bow to a Strasbourg court ruling, when good British common sense knows better? Human rights are ill-served by this sort of nonsense.
David Bowerman
Retired JP
Pulborough, W Sussex
Sir, The learned Professor of Law seems to have forgotten that in English law one is innocent until proven guilty and not the other way around.
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Martin Heneghan
Fareham, Hants
Sir, Is Michael Zander arguing that he is guilty of every crime committed in Britain unless he proves his innocence? If so, he’s going to have a busy year with the police.
Frank Roseman
London W1