Investigations compromised as hundreds of thousands of records are deleted from Police National Computer
Criminal investigations and the ability of employers to carry out vital background checks may have been compromised after hundreds of thousands of criminal records were deleted from the Police National Computer (PNC).
Home Office officials are urgently trying to assess the impact of the catastrophic IT blunder as they attempt to retrieve the lost data.
The information was accidentally deleted last week as a result of human error and relates to suspects who have been investigated but not convicted of any offence.
Vital DNA and fingerprint evidence taken when a suspect is arrested is also thought to have been lost during the data purge.
Lawyers warned that without such vital information, police investigations into serious offences, such sexual and violent crimes, could be severely compromised.
Harriet Wistrich of the Centre for Women’s Justice, said the blunder could especially have implications for sex abuse inquiries.
She said: “It is very worrying because investigations into sexual offences often rely on information about the suspect’s past behaviour as well as DNA and other evidence”
The loss of the PNC data could also have implications for assessments carried out on people applying for certain jobs.
Enhanced background checks carried out by the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) provides a vital safeguard against people who might be seeking to use their employment to target children and vulnerable adults.
The checks were introduced after it emerged that Soham killer, Ian Huntley, had been able to get a job as a school caretaker despite having previously been investigated by police for a number of offences.
It is believed that up to 400,000 records may have been affected but it is not yet clear how many of those have been deleted or whether the information can be recovered in full.
Kit Malthouse, the policing minister, said the problem was down to human error and had occurred during routine maintenance to the PNC database.
He said: “We’ve already put a stop to the problem so it cannot reoccur, and we are working very closely and quickly with policing partners and within the Home Office to try and recover the data and asses the full extent of the problem.”
Mr Malthouse also said it was not clear whether any live criminal investigations may have been impacted by the data loss.
He said: “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 do recover the data.”
