DNA tests call for everyone in the UK

ANATIONAL database storing every citizen's DNA should be set up, it was claimed last night, after science secured the conviction of teenage model Sally Anne Bowman's killer.

Mark Dixie – who police believe may have killed before – was yesterday convicted of murder and jailed for life, with a minimum term of 34 years.

The sentence was imposed on the day Steve Wright was told that he would never go free after a killing spree that claimed the lives of five prostitutes in Ipswich.

Both men were caught after police took DNA samples from them as part of unrelated investigations.

Detective Superintendent Stuart Cundy, who led the hunt for Sally Anne's killer, said that having every citizen's DNA on file would speed up arrests and cut down offending.

The Scottish Government is reviewing the law north of the Border, where police have to destroy DNA taken from suspects who are not convicted, other than those accused of a sexual or violent offence. In England, all suspects' samples are kept.

Paul Martin, MSP, Scottish Labour's community safety spokesman, said "model citizens" would have nothing to fear from having their DNA held on a national database and he called for a debate on the issue.

However, Bill Aitken, the Scottish Conservatives' justice spokesman, warned against setting up a database "on the basis of a knee-jerk reaction following a particularly odious murder".

But there have already been calls for such a database from the scientist who pioneered the testing. Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys said it would be a great help to police investigations and better than the present system, which discriminated by including only those who had been suspected of committing a crime. Det Supt Cundy's proposal also has the support of Sally Anne's mother, who has previously petitioned for the move.

Her daughter's killer, who was obsessed with violent sex, had 16 previous convictions for sex offences in the UK, but all before DNA was routinely taken from suspects. Five were for sex offences when he was a juvenile.

When Dixie was 16, he took part in a robbery in which a woman complained her breasts were fondled.

In January 1988, he was convicted of indecent assault and two indecent exposures when he approached a woman, exposed himself and knocked her to the ground.

He asked for five similar offences to be considered and was given two years' probation.

Six months later, he admitted the assault and indecent assault of a Jehovah's Witness in a lift. She gave evidence against him at the murder trial.

Detectives estimate it could have been two years before he was caught had he not been arrested for his part in a pub scuffle nine months after Sally Anne's murder. Det Supt Cundy, a Metropolitan Police officer, said: "If there was a DNA register, we would have known who killed Sally Anne that day (when she was murdered]."

Dixie's DNA was sent to Australia, where he used to live, and officers in Perth were quick to reply with a match for an unsolved 1998 attack on a Thai student.

Officers believe that the chef may have killed in Australia in the 1990s and was behind a series of sex attacks on women in Britain.

Wright, who was convicted on Thursday and sentenced yesterday, was convicted after DNA found on the bodies of three of his five victims was matched to a sample taken when he admitted a theft in 2003.

The Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland said it wanted the law north of the Border to be brought in line with that in England.

It also wants the profiles of all registered sex offenders to be stored, regardless of when they offended.

A Home Office spokesman said the national DNA database was "an invaluable police tool" that provided about 3,500 leads a month. However, he said there were no plans to introduce a universal national DNA database – either compulsory or voluntary – and that "to do so would raise significant practical and ethical issues".

The partially naked body of Sally Anne, 18, was left in a pool of blood in a driveway near her home in Croydon, south London, in September 2005. She had been subjected to a gruesome sexual attack as she lay dead or dying from seven stab wounds.

Dixie, 37, denied killing her, claiming that he found the teenager, thought she had passed out drunk and had sex with her.

He told the Old Bailey that he did not realise she was dead until afterwards, but the jury of seven women and five men rejected his claim and found him guilty of murder.

Sally Anne had been dropped off at home by her boyfriend, Lewis Sproston, at about 4:10am and it is thought that Dixie – who had been drinking and taking drugs – pounced after seeing the pair argue.

He cut an artery in her neck and when she collapsed to the ground, stabbed her again, so hard that the knife went straight through her body. He then rolled her skirt up and her top down before defiling her body and putting cement rubble in her mouth. He took his victim's underwear and a bag containing her mobile phone and make-up as trophies.

There were angry scenes as the killer was led away from the dock. Friends of Sally Anne sitting in the public gallery called out "I'll see you again" and Dixie replied "Come on, both of you".

Afterwards, Mr Bowman said on behalf of his family that the years since Sally Anne's death had been "torturously painful and immensely difficult", and he hoped that she could now rest in peace.

HAPPY GIRL WITH A DREAM OF FAME

SALLY Anne Bowman was a "lively and happy girl" whose naked and bloody body was found outside her home two weeks after her 18th birthday.

She had a passport with her to prove how old she was so she could get into a bar with her elder sister, Nicole.

Sally Anne had appeared on the catwalk and dreamed of being the next Kate Moss – the top model is also from Croydon.

Sally Anne was the youngest of Linda and Paul Bowman's four daughters, described as "single-minded and focused", as well as "warm and kind-hearted".

She had won a place at the Brit (British Record Industry Trust) School in Croydon.