A fair few law breakers are about to receive good news as the Times reported that 150,000 police records have been wiped clean after a technical blunder. Arrest history records, DNA and fingerprints were all deleted from the Police National Computer (PNC). The fear for the Home Office is that this is will allow a host of offenders to walk, with no evidence to cross check with.

The error happened during a weekly “weeding” session to expunge data, but it should be mentioned that it was only the records of people arrested and released when no further action was taken. Nevertheless the deleted data did contain  “crucial intelligence about suspects”.

There have already been calls for Priti Patel to take responsibility for the error. Shadow Home Secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said:

“She must urgently make a statement about what has gone wrong, the extent of the issue, and what action is being taken to reassure the public. Answers must be given.”

The Home Office said no records of criminal or dangerous persons had been deleted.