MORE than 100,000 DNA records have been placed on a national database by Thames Valley Police.

Police chiefs held 106,051 different genetic profiles when a survey was carried out in July.

The figure - which includes Oxfordshire - was disclosed by Home Secretary John Reid in response to a Parliamentary written question from an MP.

Most of the profiles were of people over the age of 21.

But the Thames Valley database also contains files on 4,000 children under 16, about 5,000 teenagers aged between 16 and 18 and more than 7,000 people aged 19 to 21.

In March, we reported how the database included the genetic details of 102 under-18s from the region who have never been convicted, charged or even cautioned for an offence.

The database has expanded significantly over the last five years, following Government and police investment of more than £300m.

It has become the largest of any country in the world. More than five per cent of the UK population is on the database, compared with 0.5 per cent in the USA.

In total, about 3.5m profiles are retained nationwide - the profiles of the majority of the known active offender population.

Almost three million of the profiles are for people over 21 and 140,000 are from children under 16.

A controversial amendment to the law in 2001 permitted police to hold samples of people who have been arrested but not cautioned or charged with any offence.

Conservatives accused the Government of building a "DNA database by stealth" - including the genetic information of people found innocent of any crimes.

The Government rejected demands that police be made to delete samples taken from under-18s who are arrested but subsequently released.

Former Home Office Minister Andy Burnham insisted the relaxing of the law had allowed the police to match teenage samples to crime scenes from unsolved offences.

Mr Burnham said no samples had been retained from under-tens, where they had been taken without the consent of a parent or legal guardian.

The Government has said there are no plans to introduce a universal DNA database, whether compulsory or voluntary.