Two hundred crimes, including arson, robberies and burglaries were undetected for up to 11 years as 26,000 DNA samples were not added to the national database, the Home Office disclosed yesterday.

This latest fiasco was revealed months after the department admitted that 27,000 files on Britons convicted overseas had not been put on to the Police National Computer. Officials at the Forensic Science Service told the Home Office about the backlog of DNA profiles in July 2005. Ministers were only told in January.

Among the undetected offences arising from the backlog were one paedophile crime, three robberies, nine burglaries and nineteen drugs offences. More than 26,000 DNA profiles were not added to the database between 1995 and 2004. A review – which ran from September 2005 until January last year – led to 1,168 “matches” between forensic samples from crime scenes and DNA profiles on the system.

Of those, 355 were “first-time” matches, which had not come to anyone’s attention before the review. The 355 matches were sent to police for further investigation, leading to 85 suspects being identified for 183 crimes, the Home Office said.

Today the Forensic Science Service faces further embarassment with the publication of findings from an independent inquiry into its failings in the Damilola Taylor case. They show that scientists missed fibres and two bloodstains.

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