Shirley McKie fingerprint inquiry - Stage set for final closure

Published on Sunday 19 October 2008 20:09

The case that refuses to lie down comes under scrutiny once more at a public inquiry, writes Michael Howie

ANY unsuspecting member of the public who wanders into the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on certain days over the next few months might be left scratching their heads.

There will probably be drama. Perhaps even moments of theatre. But there will be no dancers, actors or musicians on stage when the venue hosts a certain public inquiry, which kicks off today. Instead blown-up images of fingerprints will be flashed up on giant screens that would almost certainly bemuse the casual passer-by.

But amid the technical jargon sure to be traded between the various expert witnesses, lies one hugely important issue which explains why the Shirley McKie fingerprint inquiry is happening in the first place. That issue is the credibility of Scotland's justice system.

At least that's what the Scottish Government would have us believe.

Setting out the remit for the inquiry in March, Kenny MacAskill, the justice secretary, claimed "a cloud" still hangs over the individuals concerned in the case. The criminal justice system, he indicated, has been tainted ever since the case erupted.

"The Scottish legal system has served Scotland well for centuries," he said.

"The purpose of this inquiry is not to try or retry any individual for the events of the past, nor to challenge the decisions of the prosecution, the defence or the courts in relation to any of those events.

"The purpose is to open up and understand those events and to learn from them, in order to ensure that, for the future, Scotland has an approach to the identification, verification and presentation of fingerprints that everyone can trust."

He added: "For over a decade the Shirley McKie case has cast a cloud of suspicion and uncertainty, not just over the individuals involved but over the criminal justice system.

"Previous reviews have helped to shed some light on matters, but they have not fully explained the events."

Others, however, believe the inquiry amounts to an expensive and unnecessary distraction.

The sceptics include none other than the man ultimately in charge of running the Scottish forensic service.

David Mulhern, head of the Scottish Police Services Authority, has told MSPs he believed a year-long inquiry by Holyrood's Justice 1 committee led to a "resolution" of the case.

Mr Mulhern said the committee's recommendations had been taken on board by the SPSA and that the Holyrood inquiry should be the final word on the matter.

"We now have resolution, so I'm not sure any (new] inquiry would give us anything further," he said last year.

The public inquiry into the McKie affair is being chaired by Lord Justice Campbell, a judge from Northern Ireland, and is something that was promised by the SNP in its election manifesto.

It is also something that the former policewoman's father, Iain McKie, and others, including SNP MSP Alex Neil, have long campaigned for.

When the inquiry ends, a long, difficult chapter in Ms McKie's life – and that of the Scottish fingerprint service – will finally, hopefully, conclude.

The origins of the inquiry date back to January 1997, when police were investigating the murder of Marion Ross in her Kilmarnock home. Miss Ross, 51, had had her ribs crushed and had been stabbed in the eye with a pair of scissors, which were left embedded in her throat.

David Asbury, a joiner who was 20 at the time of the murder, was convicted of killing Miss Ross, partly on fingerprint evidence. Asbury had previously carried out work on the single woman's home. He was jailed for life in 1997.

Experts from the Scottish Criminal Records Office (SCRO) claimed that a print taken from the crime scene belonged to Ms McKie, who insisted she was never there.

Doubts raised over fingerprint evidence led to the overturning of Asbury's conviction, with Ms McKie insisting once again during the appeal that the fingerprint did not belong to her. That triggered a perjury case against Ms McKie, which she won.

Although she was prosecuted over the offence and found not guilty, Ms McKie, from Troon, was hounded out of her job. Her reputation was ruined and she was unable to work again due to severe stress.

In 2006, following a campaign mounted by Ms McKie and her father to clear her name – and an independent police report which concluded the Scottish Criminal Records Office, which was in charge of the forensic service, had attempted to cover up mistakes – she was awarded 750,000 in compensation from the Scottish Executive in February 2006.

The fact that the pay-out was settled out of court only fuelled suspicions that the Scottish Government and the SCRO had something they wanted to cover up.

That led to a parliamentary inquiry, and eventually today's public judicial inquiry.

Mr Neil, a Central Scotland MSP, said he welcomed the fact the inquiry was finally beginning.

"I hope it will find out the truth of what happened in the misidentification of Shirley's fingerprint and in particular find out if there was a stitch-up, as many of us believe," he said. The inquiry's terms of reference are as follows:

To inquire into the steps that were taken to identify and verify the fingerprints associated with, and leading up to, the case of HM Advocate v McKie in 1999;

To determine, in relation to the fingerprint designated Y7 (the one from the murder scene, said to have belonged to Ms McKie), the consequences of the steps taken, or not taken, and to report findings of fact; and, Make recommendations as to what measures might now be introduced, beyond those that have already been introduced since 1999, to ensure that any shortcomings are avoided in the future.

Mr McKie hopes the inquiry will finally draw a line under the case that has heaped agony on his family and blackened the name of the Scottish forensic service.

"Shirley and I will do all that we can to ensure that the inquiry achieves its goals, reveals what happened over the past 11 years and generates recommendations that will help ensure it never happens again," he said last week.

"I hope the political and legal establishment will be called to account and that we can at last find out why those who had the power to resolve matters failed to do so."