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POLICING minister Kit Harrington was unable to guarantee yesterday that no criminal case would be compromised by the accidental deletion of hundreds of thousands of police records.
The minister was facing a grilling by MPs in the Commons yesterday over the loss of hundreds of thousands of pieces of data from the Police National Computer, including fingerprints, DNA and arrest histories.
Asked whether the deletion could lead to the compromise of investigations, Mr Harrington replied: “We will know the full extent of the impact of this issue over the next few days as our plan swings into action, and we are working very closely with police forces… to make sure that any operational impact is obviated or mitigated.”
Home Secretary Priti Patel’s no-show in the Commons was branded “shameful” and “embarrassing” by Labour.
Shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said: “It’s an abject failure of leadership and dereliction of duty not to grip a crisis that has seen 400,000 records deleted and criminals set to walk free.”
Responding to outrage over Ms Patel’s absence, Mr Malthouse told MPs it was “perfectly usual” for a department minister to make a statement on a matter.