"Franz Heymann" wrote in message
...

"Jaques d'Alltrades" wrote in message
...
The message
from martin contains these words:

DPA was used as a very poor excuse for police incompetence in the
Humberside Police Force. It was quite clear that the DPA does not
apply in this case.

The Humberside dibble claim to have taken legal opinion.

They have to be absolutely scrupulous about adhering to the law
(criminal law especially) and whatever your gut feeling is about the
stupidity of some legislation, they have to heed legal opinion -
especially in an area so easily checked.

Perhaps they might consider sacking their legal advisor, just in case
another booby like this occurs?

If they had disregarded theit legal advice, which no doubt cost them a lot
of money, they would probably have solved the case much more quickly, thus
saving themselves money which might have helped the progress of other
cases.
The worst that could have happened would be that they might have had their
knuckles formally rapped with a cotton wool covered ruler. But they would
have emerged from the issue with considerably more honour.

Franz

No, the worst would have been headlines in the tabloids screaming how the
stupid police broke the DPA by not erasing data of 'innocent' people, and
demanding the person in charge be sacked. Thats the way the DPA works in
practice, its so vague that its meaning is defined by the results of
prosecutions, rather than by anyone being able to make sense of it and no
what to do in the first place. The very fact that different police forces
work differently with regard to it shows this, they are just going on legal
advice, and the lawyers cant make their minds up collectively what it means.

--
Tumbleweed

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