Law Weblog

The balance of individual rights and the need for police investigative powers, or simple dishonesty?

Sunday 5 March 2006 at 11:00 pm | In News | Post Comment

Detective Constable Shirley McKie was wrongly identified as having been present at a crime scene; when she denied having been present she was accused of lying and was tried for perjury in 1999. She was acquitted.

McKie’s thumbprint was alleged to have been found when she was part of a police team investigating a murder in Scotland. At the trial of the alleged murderer she stated that she had not been inside the murder scene. Four experts from the Scottish Criminal Records Office wrongly identified a thumbprint from inside the house as hers and they stand accused of manipulating evidence and covering up errors.
Police and forensic experts not connected with the McKie case believe that mistakes were covered up because if they admitted earlier errors it would leave them open to a scandal. 

Donald Findlay QC, who defended McKie in her perjury trial says, “Fingerprint evidence used to be considered as sanct. Now I would be more inclined to challenge it. For all we know, people may have been convicted wrongly on fingerprint evidence, and that is an appalling business”

The point about this story which is 8 years old is that a civil hearing in a Scottish court is underway. Whatever the outcome, the whole fingerprint establishment in the UK and in Scotland in particular are under increasing pressure from critics, and this case will become a cause celebre in the debate over the “balance of individual rights and the need for police investigative powers”.

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