Court rejects DNA sample challenge

24 September 2013 Last updated at 12:35 ET

An ex-prisoner has lost a legal challenge at the High Court against a request by police for him to provide DNA samples.

The man, known as R, had argued that the request infringed his human rights.

Under Operation Nutmeg, which runs in England and Wales, DNA has been gathered from people jailed for serious crimes before routine collection.

The Home Office said the judgement was a common-sense one that supported the work of the government and police.

Police could have been ordered to destroy thousands of samples if the legal challenge had been successful.

Since 1994, individuals convicted of serious crimes have had DNA swabs routinely taken to add to the national database.

The aim of Operation Nutmeg is to see if there are any matches to unsolved crimes among those who offended before that date.

By July of this year, 6,204 samples had been taken under the scheme with 111 being matched to crime scenes.

R - who was jailed for manslaughter in the 1980s but after his release was in trouble for a lesser, non-violent offence - argued that he had turned his life around since 2000.

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Court rejects DNA sample challenge