27th June 2011
Labour Still Doesn’t Get “Innocent Until Proven Guilty”
Mark Hanson
Innocent. It is, in English law, the default status of any and every person in the nation. The term “innocent until proven guilty” is known the country over. Except in the Labour Party.
At Prime Minister’s Questions on the 22nd June, Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, rounded on David Cameron, accusing him of effectively allowing women to be raped. Miliband said:
"Around 5,000 people each year are arrested on suspicion of rape and not charged ... in certain cases these individuals have gone on to commit further offences and be convicted as a result of the DNA being held on the national database, but his proposal is that for those arrested and not charged the DNA would be disposed of straight away.
"I ask him again, why is it right to discard the DNA of those arrested but not charged with rape?"
David Cameron was somewhat wrong-footed, not knowing the details of the Protection of Freedoms Bill currently progressing through Parliament, yet the answer is simple: it is right because a person is innocent.
Sadly, the Labour Party is insisting that the model of DNA retention it introduced, that was widely criticized by Peers, civil liberty groups, senior judges, and many others including a ruling that the policy was illegal by the European Court of Human Rights, is still the right course of action. Guilty, until proven innocent. Or, effectively, guilty, full stop, regardless of evidence, courts or even a decision to charge a person with any offence.
Yvette Cooper, the shadow Home Secretary, said: “Ministers are putting the treatment of data on crime suspects above the fight for justice for victims of crime.” The difficulty is that a crime suspect is not always a criminal. They are suspected at a particular point in time, and then the considerations of the police and the Crown Prosecution Service decide that the person in hand did not commit any offence.
“Innocent Until Proven Guilty”: A cornerstone of English law, but one that currently is in dispute.
