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Thousands of ex-offenders are to be targeted in a national drive to add their profiles to the police DNA database in an attempt to solve hundreds of crimes.

The campaign will focus on 11,993 criminals convicted of serious offences such as murder, manslaughter and rape in the past 40 years, the Association of Chief Police officers said on Thursday.

A linked operation in Greater Manchester began last week with police aiming to test 2,000 people convicted of serious offences before 1995.

Forces are using powers under the Crime and Security Act 2010, which became law last year. The aim is to gather DNA profiles from criminals who were convicted before the database – which now contains 6.5m profiles – was set up in 1995. Meanwhile, the profiles of 1.1 million individuals who have been arrested but never convicted remain on the database.

Codenamed Operation Nutmeg, the sweep aims to ensure all those convicted of serious offences are added to the database. Their profiles will then be checked against unsolved crimes to see if there are any matches. Many of those...