Over my cold, dead body

I've never exactly liked Germaine Greer very much, but at one time I did have some grudging respect for her. I think that respect has been eroded over many years, but yesterday it all but disappeared after I read her stupid comments in the Guardian concerning Gunther von Hagen's Body World exhibitions. Greer claims that it's all showbiz, and it's not educational. She could be right about it being showbiz, but how can one dismiss any educational value with a wave of the hand like that? You may not like it. You may even be disgusted by the fact that real dead people are on show; but that doesn't make it un-educational does it?

We can educate ourselves in all sorts of ways, and I certainly learnt something from my visit to the body world exhibition in Taipei a few years ago. That incidentally is more than Greer has done. Greer claims, "I would no more go to an exhibition of dead bodies than I would eat a live one". The inference is that the show is in poor taste. It may well be in poor taste, but how does that lead her to lack of educational value? I'm saddened by the lack of substance to the Greer statement anyway.

On a completely different note, by my count three very public murder trials have this week resulted in the conviction and sentencing of three murderers. Stephen Wright was convicted of the murders of 5 Ipswitch prostitutes and will spend the rest of his life in prison. Mark Dixie was convicted of the murder of teenager Sally Anne Bowman, and was sentenced to a minimum of 34 years in prison. And today we learn that Levi Bellfield has been convicted of two murders and one attempted murder, and will also seemingly spend the rest of his life in prison.

All the victims in these three cases were young women. All the crimes were horrific in nature and they have of course captured the national imagination. The Sun newspaper has predictably started stirring things up by calling for the death penalty. I saw a comment this morning in one or other of the papers from the mother of one of the victims. The mother was against the death penalty. She claimed she didn't want to lower herself to the killer's level and that she wanted him to live with what he did for the rest of his life. In other words, she wanted the guy punished for the crime, and she thought keeping him alive was a better punishment than the death penalty.

My personal opinion is this; I'm broadly in favour of the death penalty. I don't think it will work as a punishment or as a deterrent. I just think the world would be a nicer place without some people. There was a list of convicted killers published in the Sun as part of the death penalty rally. The list included Sutcliff, Rose West, and a number of other odious convicted criminals. Among the listed names was Michael Stone, who was convicted of a double murder and is currently serving 25 years in jail. Seeing Stone's name on the list made me think. Stone was convicted entirely on circumstantial evidence. In fact the prosecution relied almost entirely on a witness who claimed to have heard Stone confess while in custody.

I don't think I would want to be on any jury that sent Michael Stone to the gallows. For me the death penalty should only be used when more than circumstantial evidence has convicted the criminal.

There has also been a call this week, again, for a national DNA database. It seems that police think they could have caught Dixie faster if such a database was in operation. This bothers me. Dixie was caught after his DNA was matched with samples found on Sally Anne Bowman. It was taken from Dixie after he was arrested for his part in a pub brawl in 2006, after he murdered Sally Anne Bowman. It seems to me the current system worked in that instance. I don't see the police looking to charge Dixie with any other serious crimes committed between the time he murdered Sally Anne Bowman and the time he was convicted of the crime. I don't think it matters much that it took nine months to bring him in.

The police claim that more crime would be solved if DNA from the entire population was recorded. That is undoubtedly true. It is however a bit like saying, "if we ban cars completely, we can eradicate road accidents". One can't argue with the logic, but there is a downside.

For many, the downside of giving DNA to the authorities is not immediately apparent. A huge crowd of people are still claiming that those with nothing to hide have nothing to fear. I ask these epeople to stop and think. Think about who will have access to this data, not just now, but in ten years time, in twenty or thirty years time. Because, once you give this data to them, you will never be able to take it back.

The truth of the matter is, even if you trust the people in power now to use this data responsibly, you simply can't trust future authorities. And it's not just about authorities abusing the data, it's about authorities failing to keep the data secure. What if this data got into the hands of say the British National Party, either through poor security, or by legitimate means? What would Nick Griffin do with a list of every person in Britain with a genetic fingerprint that betrays their African or Asian lineage. The thought terrifies me. Nick Griffin is a vile, white-supremacist mad man, but misguided people are voting for him, and he has some influence. I will give Griffin access to my family's DNA over my cold, dead body.

I've written far too much. Congratulations to anyone who made it this far. You win today's prize.