Kenny Farquharson - Civil liberties less important than lives

THERE'S one detail from the Ipswich murders I cannot shake from my mind. It's the moment Maire Alderton was asked in court about the last time she saw her daughter alive. Twenty-four-year-old Anneli had stopped by her mum's house to drop off some Christmas presents. Asked if she spoke to Anneli as she left, her mother replied: "No, I didn't. She shouted: 'Goodbye mum, I love you.' But I didn't answer."

It's not hard to imagine what scene will be replayed in the mind of Maire Alderton every day for the rest of her life, each time enhanced with different things she wished she'd said as her pregnant daughter breezed out of the door for the final time.

We should keep moments like this uppermost in our minds when we consider the lessons our criminal justice system needs to learn from Ipswich. In particular, we should remember Maire Alderton's grief when we ponder whether we should have a compulsory national database of every British citizen's DNA, as called for by some senior police officers this weekend.

The argument against a compulsory database has some legitimate points to make. Its most compelling argument is that we do not yet know what uses a government might have for our DNA in the future. Could it be used to identify those of us with a genetic disposition towards criminality? Could it determine which of us are worth treating in the NHS, and which of us are so compromised by our genes we're barely worth spending money on? Could insurance companies demand access to the database so they could decide how high to set our premiums for life insurance?

These are perfectly reasonable concerns. Yet this cannot just be a debate about civil liberties. It must also be a debate about preventing the most odious of crimes. The question the civil liberties campaigners have to ask themselves is this: Is your fear about what the government may or may not do with our DNA in the future more important than the prevention of rape and murder? Because let's be clear, if we resist a compulsory DNA database there will be lives destroyed or cut cruelly short that could otherwise have been saved.

Inevitable comparisons have been drawn between Ipswich killer Steve Wright and the Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe, and the lesson is a stark one. Wright was caught within 50 days of starting his killing spree, thanks to the fact that his DNA had been taken by police in 2001 after a minor theft. Back in the 1970s, before DNA was used to fight crime, Sutcliffe preyed on women for six long years and 13 lives were lost. Last week's conviction of Mark Dixie for the gruesome killing of model Sally Anne Bowman was made possible by a DNA swab that was taken from Dixie after he was involved in a pub brawl. Within six hours he had been arrested for Bowman's unsolved murder.

It can be put as simply as this: a compulsory national DNA database would mean fewer serial killers. Because in many cases the culprit would be identifiable after the first murder. Is this really an advance that can be resisted because of our squeamishness about the state knowing a bit too much about us?

Not only would a truly national database be a revolution in crime detection, it would also be a revolution in crime prevention. What better disincentive is there to committing a violent or sexual crime than the perpetrator's knowledge that he would be extremely unlikely to get away with it? Everyone has seen CSI on the telly. Everyone knows how clever the forensic scientists can be. Everyone appreciates that a flake of skin or a single hair can be enough to link someone incontrovertibly to the scene of a crime.

Here in Scotland the Ipswich case should give us additional pause for thought. South of the border the DNA of every suspect in every crime is kept on file. In Scotland, the DNA is only retained if the crime is sexual or violent. Yet in Ipswich, Wright was caught because his DNA was taken in connection with the theft of £80 from a hotel. Is this distinction between different types of crime really credible? Scotland's chief police officers want the law in Scotland brought into line with that in England. After Ipswich, can this in all conscience now be resisted?

I repeat, this is about the prevention of serial rape and serial murder. Maybe the civil liberties campaigners believe a half-dozen or so lives a year is a price worth paying to safeguard our theoretical notions of personal freedom. Personally, I don't.

It's true there are difficulties with DNA evidence that science has still to resolve. When dealing with tiny amounts of human matter it's possible that DNA can become contaminated. When the DNA of two or more people is found together it can produce a misleading genetic profile. But these should be regarded as challenges in a science that is still in its infancy; they are not reasons to reject DNA as a prime crimefighting tool.

The advances in genetic science since James Watson and Francis Crick made their DNA breakthrough in 1953 have changed the world fundamentally. They pose moral, legal, medical and philosophical questions that demand answers from each and every one of us. But to view genetic science only in terms of its potential dangers is perverse.

This scientific advance can and should be a force for good. What's more, it cannot be uninvented, so the dilemmas it raises have to be engaged with honestly and in all their complexity. Simply sticking our heads in the sand and wishing the world was otherwise just won't do.