Criminalisation Of The Innocent…

Nearly 600,000 people never convicted of any crime now have their details stored on Labour’s DNA database, shock figures reveal.

More than 400,000 of those were added in the past two years, further fuelling the belief that the Government is building a genetic record of the entire population by stealth.

That belief is correct. It is – and one of the names on that database is falsely-accused Robert Chong:

A grieving mother says the inclusion of her innocent son's genetic details on the DNA national database, after a woman at a train station falsely accused him of flashing, drove him to suicide.

Robert Chong was arrested by an off-duty policeman at Waterloo station in May, handcuffed, held and forced to provide a DNA sample, after the woman – who subsequently disappeared, and whom police acknowledge was a problem complainer – accused him of exposing himself to her. A cursory check of CCTV tapes would have proved his innocence, and that his only interaction with the woman was when she swore at him on the station concourse.

Naturally enough, no such cursory check was carried out, no-one acted on their initiative, and the police simply went through what they probably regard as a routine arrest, record, release-and-await-CPS-decision process. The arrestee..? Who cares about his rights? A complaint has been made, and the juggernaut of bureaucracy swings into action!

Mr Chong, a 41-year-old wood machinist from Hendon, north London, was "traumatised" by the event, and complained to his mother that he felt criminalised.

He worried that his arrest and his inclusion on the DNA database would scupper his hopes of moving to the United States or Australia to work.

He was released on police bail with an instruction to return in July.

The police said they sent him a letter telling him they were dropping the case – but it never arrived.

Oh, well, lost in the post. So sad, never mind. God forbid the police could take a little more care over informing people wrongly arrested that their accuser was a lying, serial fantasist who should never have provoked an arrest without hard evidence in the first place….

She saw him alive for the last time on the morning of 11 July, when he put his head around her bedroom door and said goodbye. She went out later and returned to find a note from him on her bed, telling her: "I can't face life any more." She raised the alarm and a few hours later received the news that his body had been found hanging from a tree at a secluded spot in a nearby park.

Chalk up another ‘success’ to Nu Labour’s obsession with government by tickbox…

Mrs Chong criticised the Government last night: "These people have to realise that not everybody who is put on the database is thick-skinned enough to deal with it. Robert thought he was being branded a criminal for absolutely nothing."

She added: "The database should be for criminals, not for the innocent.

You are meant to be innocent until proven guilty in this country."

That’s right, Mrs Chong. You are. But somewhere in the recent past, that balance shifted. And now it needs to shift back. Fast.

An inquest has been set for November, with coroners' officers asking police for information about Mr Chong's arrest. The British Transport Police, which is responsible for security at railways stations, declined to comment on the case.

Let’s hope Mrs Chong is lucky enough to draw one of those ‘activist’ coroners who wants to get his name in the papers.

It’s the only way (aside from blogging his story far and wide) that poor, innocent, dead Robert Chong will get any publicity, and any belated justice…