A NOTORIOUS rape case has been cited as a prime example of the importance of a national DNA database.

Without advances in DNA technology, sex beasts like Graham Darbyshire, who was at liberty for 11 years after raping a woman in Witton Park, Blackburn, could still be walking the streets, the House of Lords was told.

Cold case reviews, made famous by primetime TV dramas such Waking The Dead and New Tricks, rely on innovations in DNA analysis.

Home Office Minister Baroness Scotland, in response to a question by crossbencher Lord Turnbull, said cases such as Darbyshire's highlighted the importance of DNA advances.

Lord Turnbull had asked if any murder or rape convictions had been quashed by the use of the DNA database.

But Baroness Scotland said: "Cold case review is a process of examining past unsolved crimes to see if new evidence can be gathered in the light of scientific advances, rather than an attempt to prove that convicted persons are in fact innocent."

She provided a list of cases, including that of Darbyshire, to prove how successful the process was.

Lorry driver Darbyshire, then aged 52, was not caught for the October 1995 Witton Park rape of a woman dog walker until more than a decade later.

Darbyshire, from Leyland, had also carried out a sex attack on a 22-year-old dog walker, off the East Lancashire Road at Boothstown, near Salford, nearly two years before the Blackburn outrage.

That case was reinvest-igated by Greater Manchester Police's cold cases review team, and DNA clues linked Darbyshire to both attacks.

He was jailed for life last December at Manchester Crown Court after confessing to rape and indecent assault.