Blunkett joined board of DNA test firm

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Antony Barnett
Sunday August 28, 2005
The Observer


If any government minister should understand the booming commercial market in DNA paternity testing kits, then David Blunkett, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, is the one.

The Sheffield politician who was forced to resign as Home Secretary after an affair with Kimberly Quinn, the married publisher of the Spectator, used such DNA tests to prove he was the real father of one of her children and to discover later he was not the parent of her second child.

But now The Observer can reveal that his interest in DNA kits developed into something more than personal. Months after being forced out of the Home Office in December 2004 he took a boardroom job with a fast-growing firm that sells paternity test kits. Although he has since left the company, Blunkett has never disclosed the appointment in the House of Commons register of members' interests.

According to documents from Companies House, he became a director last April of a firm called DNA Structures, which trades as DNA Bioscience. There is no suggestion that Blunkett did anything improper, but taking such a job so soon after being involved in a high-profile paternity scandal raises questions over his judgment.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1558171,00.html