Four hundred thousand police records accidentally deleted

Hundreds of thousands of records were accidentally deleted from the Police National Computer (PNC) which may have compromised criminal investigations and the ability of employers to carry out background checks.

 

Home Office officials were left urgently trying to retrieve the lost data and assess the potentially disastrous impact of the mistake. The lost information relates to suspects who have been investigated but not convicted of any offence. Fingerprint and DNA evidence taken when a suspect is arrested is also thought to have been lost as a result of the human error.

 

It is believed that the gaffe may have affected up to 400,000 records but it is not yet clear whether the information can be recovered in full, or how many of those have been permanently deleted.

 

The policing minister Kit Malthouse said: "We've already put a stop to the problem so it cannot reoccur." He added: "We have put in place contingency measures to allow the police to continue with their investigations that rely on the PNC, or indeed to rerun checks when they do recover the data."

 

The loss could have serious implications for enhanced background checks carried out by the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS), which provide a safeguard against employers hiring people who might be seeking to use their job to target children and vulnerable adults. 

 

Lawyers have warned that police investigations into serious offences such as sexual and violent crimes could be severely compromised.

 

The Johnson Partnership

Barnsley Crime Solicitors