DNA database scandal is damaging UK race relations says expert.

A leading black community figure has warned that the police DNA database is one of the biggest crises facing race relations in the United Kingdom, according to a report by Maxine Myers on www.voice-online.co.uk.



Matilda MacAttram, founder and director of Black Mental Health, said unless the Government listened to the calls to destroy innocent people\'s profiles contained in the database, there would be serious \"consequences\".



\"This database is one of the most damaging things in race relations we have seen in this country,\" she stated.



Her comments came after a parliamentary committee found that almost one in four black children from the ages of 10 have had their profiles placed on the police DNA database. MacAttram described the findings as \"disturbing\".



\"Black children are being criminalised by a system that is supposed to protect them,\" she said.



About a million children have been added since the national DNA database started in 1995. However, there has been a dramatic rise from 2004, when police were given the power to add the profiles of people routinely arrested even if not convicted of a crime.



According to new figures obtained by the campaign group Genewatch, almost 45,000 black children aged 10 to 17 in England and Wales have been added to the database in the past five years. In contrast, the DNA profiles of just fewer than 10 per cent of white youth have been added.



\"These figures don\'t help to enhance community relations,\" MacAttram argued.



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