Anger Over The “Dabs”

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31060, 16 May 1966, Page 8

Anger Over The “Dabs”

(Special Crspdt. N.Z.P.A.) LONDON, May 13.

A howl of anger about “big brotherism” is certain to be raised over the Home Office proposal to take fingerprints of every adult in Britain.

But Scotland Yard has given the idea a polite round of applause. The head of the C.1.D., Commander Ernest Millen, issued a statement saying that “the Metropolitan Police are very interested and are closely associated with this project . . . the feasibility of this is being examined by the research and planning branch of the Home Office.” The Yard also named a 1 “Mr Fingerprints”—Detective Chief Superintendent John Godsell, aged 57—who will become finger-print officer at the Home Office after retiring as head of the Yard’s finger-

print branch, which he joined in 1937.

The proposal to take “dabs” from adults is part of a longterm scheme to stamp out crime. Chief Superintendent Godsell would co-ordinate work of research groups. Commander Millen rejected claims by the National Council of Civic Liberties that the proposal might mean the beginning of a “police state”. He pointed out that the Yard already had two million fingerprints in its records. The council said that such a plan was open to abuse and was a “complete capitulation to the criminal element.”

It would not help to convict the big-time criminal and “the involvement of innocent persons would be out of proportion to any real value in tracing criminals.” Questions on the scheme are to be asked in the House of Commons and one member of Parliament said it had “very serious implications for personal liberty.”

Some senior Ministers have been reported as saying that

the proposal would not get far and Whitehall officials have stressed that it would be forced through against the public’s wishes. It is thought that about three years’ development work would be needed before the scheme gets under way.

Scotland Yard feels that because the populations of Blackbum and Reading have submitted willingly to fingerprinting in specific murder cases, then no-one would resist a national compulsory scheme which is not focussed upon a particular crime.