Ministers will today announce a partial retreat over controversial plans to store the DNA samples of thousands of innocent people on the national database.

Adults arrested but later cleared of violent and sexual offences will have their DNA removed from the database after six years instead of an earlier proposal to store it for twelve years.

But the Home Office is pressing ahead with plans to keep the DNA of adults arrested and cleared of less serious crimes on the database for six years.

The DNA of seventeen and eighteen-year-olds, arrested for violent and sexual crimes, will also remain on the database for six years even if they are released without charge or later cleared at a trial.

The watered down proposals are similar to those operating in Scotland where the DNA of those convicted of serious crimes is retained for two years and then, if the courts agree, for a further three years.

Shami Chakrabarti, the director of the human rights organisation Liberty, said: “It seems the Government still refuses to separate the innocent and the guilty and maintains a blanket approach to DNA retention.

“This grudgingly modified policy creates a repeat collision course with the courts and ministers look stubborn rather than effective or fair.”

She added: “Nobody disputes the value of DNA and anyone arrested can have a sample taken and compared to crime scenes.

“But stockpiling the intimate profiles of millions of innocent people is an unnecessary recipe for error and abuse.”

Ministers argue that holding profiles of those without criminal convictions is needed to track down offenders. An example is the case of the murder of Sally Anne Bowman, which was solved because her killer Mark Dixie was on the database after an earlier arrest.

The announcement follows a ruling in the European Court of Human Rights last year that said holding indefinitely profiles from everyone who was arrested was “blanket and indiscriminate”.

The decision was a victory for two Britons who have been fighting to have their DNA samples removed from the database after police insisted on keeping them.

Michael Marper, 45, was arrested in March 2001 and charged with harassing his partner. His fingerprints and DNA were taken, but before his trial he and his partner were reconciled and the case was later discontinued. Mr Marper from Sheffield, South Yorkshire, had no previous convictions. In a separate case, a 19-year-old named in court only as S was arrested and charged with attempted robbery in January 2001 when he was 12. S, also from Sheffield, was cleared five months later.

Latest Home Office figures show there are 5,910,172 DNA profiles on the database, the largest of its kind in the world.

Chris Grayling, the Shadow Home Seretary, said: “Alan Johnson [the Home Secretary] just doesn’t seem to understand that there is a fundamental principle at stake here — that people are innocent until proven guilty.

“But the reality is that it’s now almost certainly too late for this Government to make any changes before the election and so it will fall to a future administration to do the right thing and end Labour’s Draconian approach.”

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