For the past two years I have been attempting to uncover what happened during two critical incidents that occurred at the River House facility operated by the South London and Maudsley (SLaM) NHS Foundation Trust on 2012-10-01. I eventually exposed that 48 Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) officers were deployed and that four TSG officers drew their Tasers on the mental health ward.
Using the Freedom of Information Act, I got SLaM to initially publish a redacted summary report and then to unredact it, fully. This revealed it was hiding a full report. Using that information, I got it to publish an extensively redacted version of the full report. After an internal review in which SLaM found it was justified to do all these redactions on health and safety, and third party personal data, last week, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) disagreed and decided against SLaM:
South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust
21 January 2015, Health (NHS)
The complainant has requested a copy of an investigation report that was commissioned to investigate an incident that occurred on a ward at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (the Trust) in late 2012. The Trust initially relied on the future publication exemption (section 22) in FOIA to withhold a version of the report. Upon its publication, parts of the report were withheld under the health and safety (section 38) and third party personal data (section 40(2)) exemptions in FOIA, although these were later released to the complainant. However, during the course of the Commissioner’s investigation it became apparent that the Trust had only considered a summary of the report rather than a version containing the complete findings. A further partial disclosure of the complete report was made with the remaining information withheld under sections 38(1)(b) and 40(2) of FOIA. The Commissioner has found that section 40(2) but not section 38(1)(b) of FOIA is engaged. He therefore requires the disclosure of the information to which section 38(1)(b) has been applied. The public authority must take these steps within 35 calendar days of the date of this decision notice. Failure to comply may result in the Commissioner making written certification of this fact to the High Court pursuant to section 54 of the Act and may be dealt with as a contempt of court. [Emphasis added]
FOI 38: Upheld FOI 40: Partly upheld
Here are my previous posts about this incident:
SLaM has to publish an unredacted version of its full report that complies with the ICO's decision by 2015-03-25.
The Protection of Freedom Act 2012 introduced more restrictive rules about the retention of DNA profiles of individuals on the National DNA Database (NDNAD) including the deletion of the DNA profiles of most individuals who are not charged (No Further Action) or acquitted. This was a change welcomed by activists who had been campaigning that keeping tabs on innocents should not happen in a liberal democracy and that it does not make policing more efficient (adding hay to the hay stack makes finding the needles harder). What would have increased the crime detection rate would have been to fund for more DNA profiles from crime scenes to be added.
As of 31 March 2014, the National DNA Database held 5,716,085 DNA profiles from individuals down from 6,737,973 a year earlier, and 456,856 DNA profiles from crime scenes up from 428,634 a year earlier. In 2013-14, 1,384,905 DNA profiles from individuals were deleted from the database. Of these, 1,352,356 of these were deleted under the provisions of PoFA; 31,690 profiles taken by Scottish forces were deleted under Scottish law. A further 6,837 crime scene profiles were deleted because the crimes had been solved.
I wrote nearly three years ago:
It is a success for all the privacy activists and victims who campaigned to restore the presumption of innocence and the rehabilitation of offenders having been convicted of a minor crime. GeneWatch UK –as an indefatigable organisation at the forefront of the campaign to change the law to make the National DNA Database much smaller and more carefully controlled, and to safeguard privacy and rights without compromising the use of DNA in fighting crime– deserves much credit in this success.
Last month the government eventually agreed with what we had said all along. Lord Bates, Lords Minister and Minister for Criminal Information, Home Office in his ministerial foreword to the National DNA Database: annual report, 2013 to 2014 recognised that:
The reduction in profiles held from innocent people has not led to any reduction in the number of matches the database produces. In the quarter from 1 April to 30 June 2014, the database produced 37 matches to murder, 127 to rapes and 6,111 to other crime scenes. In the same quarter of 2013, when the old system for retaining DNA was in effect, it produced 37 matches to murder, 103 to rapes and 6,141 to other crime scenes.
[Emphasis added.]
Chris Sims, Chair, National DNA Database Strategy Board Chief Constable, West Midlands added:
The NDNAD match rate on loading a crime scene profile reached 61.9% in 2013–14. This was the highest annual rate yet and shows the success of the NDNAD in detecting crime and protecting the public.
The NDNAD Strategy Board showed some surprise at this outcome at its September 2014 meeting, but could not find any error in the draft annual report!
4.6 MC presented a draft of the National DNA Database Strategy Board’s Annual Report for 2013–14 (Paper 4.1) to the Board. He thanked Carl Jennings for his hard work on the report. He said that this was the first report since the implementation of PoFA. The proportion of profiles from innocent people had fallen from 50% to 3%. He reported that the number of profiles on the database had fallen from 7.2 million to five million but that the match rate had had in fact risen slightly from 59% to 62%. He had checked this with KF and they could not find any errors with the figures. JA said that the increase in match rate was not expected; in fact, a decrease had been anticipated. She asked if the number of crime scene profiles had reduced. MC said that the report would be published as soon as the Board were content. CS added that it was good that we were near publication.
4.7 CS asked if we had got the chronology on the deletion of samples correct and MC confirmed that we had. Batches of deletions took place in fairly short timescales (for example over a weekend). CS said that we needed a proper review of PoFA implementation and MC added that any analysis of implementation must be independent and not carried out by the police or the Home Office. CH added that such a review would need ministers’ co-operation as well as funding and an appropriate experimental design. AP said that the scientific design committee could input into any such review.
[Emphasis added.]
Blanket and indiscriminate surveillance is not the solution. It is neither necessary nor appropriate.
Bootnote:
Retention periods for DNA profiles and fingerprints (as presented in the annual report).
1. Non-convictions:
| Occurrence | Fingerprint and DNA Profile Retention |
|---|---|
| Minor offence – arrested or charged | None – but speculatively searched |
| Qualifying offence* – arrested not charged | None, but in exceptional cases on application to the Biometrics Commissioner, three years retention may be authorised, plus two year extension by court |
| Qualifying offence* – arrested and charged | Three years plus possible two year extension by court |
| Minor offence – Penalty Notice for Disorder | Two years |
2. Convictions (include cautions, reprimands and final warnings):
| Occurrence | Fingerprint and DNA Profile Retention |
|---|---|
| Under 18 – Convicted of a minor offence | First conviction: five years (plus length of any custodial sentence), or indefinite if the custodial sentence is five years or more. |
| Under 18 – Second conviction | Indefinite |
| Under 18 – Convicted of a qualifying offence* | Indefinite |
| Adult – Convicted of an offence | Indefinite |
*Qualifying offences are serious violent or sexual, terrorism and burglary offences.
Where an individual has more than one arrest on their record, the longest retention period will be applied.
