Solicitor's persistence pays off in DNA and fingerprints battle
Thursday 11 December 2008 by Jonathan Rayner
Who? Peter Mahy, 37, partner and head of civil liberties at Sheffield firm Howells.
Why is he in the news? He successfully challenged the police’s right to retain fingerprints and DNA samples from people who had been arrested, but subsequently released without conviction.
The government defeated Mahy’s challenge three times from March 2002: in the divisional court, court of appeal and House of Lords. The European Court of Human Rights ruled last week that retaining such information breached people’s right to respect for private life protected by article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Such a practice ‘could not be regarded as necessary in a democratic society’. The government has until March 2009 to destroy more than 1.6m DNA and fingerprint samples or find a way of retaining records that satisfies the court. It can continue to build a database of people who have been arrested, found guilty and convicted.
Thoughts on the case: ‘Persistence paid off. Seven years ago I decided to use two clients as test cases - and we got the decision last week. This is the strongest judgment I have ever seen, with Europe’s top 17 judges unanimously ruling that innocent people’s fingerprints and DNA should not be retained. There is a very clear principle here that innocent people should not be disadvantaged in any way. The state needs to deal with the public fairly. If you are innocent, you should return to the position you were in before you were arrested - which means your DNA not being kept.’
Dealing with the media: ‘The first time round, when we were losing in the UK courts, the questions from reporters were hostile, like why were we letting murderers go free. Now the government has been shown to be in the wrong, the questions are more understanding of the issues.’
Why become a solicitor? ‘I always wanted to be involved with civil liberties. The squeeze on legal aid isn’t making things easy, but I head a team at Howells of a dozen or so.’
Career high point? ‘This case.’
