Need to know: Home Correspondent speaks on new data disaster

Gordon Brown today admitted that criminals wanted in the Netherlands had committed a number of assaults in Britain while a disc containing their DNA details gathered dust in a drawer in Whitehall.

Facing hostile questions over the mislaid data at Prime Minister's Questions in the Commons today, Mr Brown announced an inquiry into how the disc sent by the Dutch government containing the DNA of 4,000 wanted criminals was mislaid for more than a year.

The Prime Minister admitted that at least 11 crimes were committed in the UK by the criminals - including assaults - while the disc was missing.

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There are suggestions that it had been left in the drawer of a Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) employee on long-term sick leave, although this has not been confirmed.

Action was only taken to try to match the DNA of the suspects, who the Dutch Government believed had absconded from the country, last month even though it was sent to Britain in January, 2007.

Mr Brown told the weekly Prime Minister's Questions session: "The Attorney General has asked the CPS to conduct an inquiry into this very matter.

"This was a request by the Dutch authorities for us to look through our DNA records. There were 4,000 names put to us by the Dutch - eleven cases have been discovered as a result of the investigation."

The Prime Minister added that the criminal acts so far discovered included "assaults and non-payment of fines", and said that the checking of DNA data was only possible thanks to Government legislation which the Tories had opposed.

However David Cameron, the Conservative leader, sought to blame the Government for the fiasco, which is the latest in a series of missing data incidents that have embarrassed ministers.

"In January last year the Government was sent details of 4,000 dangerous foreign criminals," he said. "For an entire year it did absolutely nothing with that information.

"Can you explain how such a catastrophic failure to protect the public took place?"

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