CHAIRMAN’S DECISION REGARDING MISS SHIRLEY MCKIE

[Daktari]

Sir Anthony has issued a decision in the following terms:

"This decision is about Shirley McKie.
Shirley McKie provided a written statement to the Inquiry dated 2nd June 2009.
The Inquiry issued a notice (the Notice) to Shirley McKie, dated 1st September 2009. The Notice informed her that in terms of the powers conferred on me by section 21 of the Inquiries Act 2005 I required her to attend at certain oral hearings of the Inquiry to give evidence.
She then submitted a claim to the Inquiry seeking to be excused from compliance with the Notice on medical grounds. She provided medical evidence in support of her claim.
Thereafter I appointed a suitably qualified medical practitioner who had not previously treated or reported upon Shirley McKie to examine her and report to me. That medical practitioner has carried out an examination of Shirley McKie. He has provided a report to me on soul and conscience.
I have considered that report, Shirley McKie’s claim and the supporting medical evidence submitted by her.
I have also considered the information that she could provide to the Inquiry.
She can assist the Inquiry in respect of one principal matter: whether she entered the locus, 43 Irvine Road, Kilmarnock, at any time before mark Y7 was found. Her written statement to the Inquiry deals with this matter.
She gave evidence on this matter, on oath, at the High Court of Justiciary in the trials Her Majesty’s Advocate v Asbury and Her Majesty’s Advocate v McKie. The Inquiry has the relevant transcripts of the proceedings of these trials.
Her written statement to the Inquiry also deals with the allegation that she committed perjury in the trial Her Majesty’s Advocate v McKie.
Having considered the information already available to the Inquiry in relation to these matters and the reports provided to me I have determined that it is not reasonable in all the circumstances to require Shirley McKie to comply with the Notice. Therefore, I have revoked the Notice on these grounds.
Sir Anthony Campbell

[Pat A. Wertheim]

What, Dakkers?

No comment?

No indignant scream about how, once again, the poor, wronged "experts" from SCRO have been denied the opportunity to cross examine Shirley McKie and prove that they have been right all along?

Oh, come on, Dak. You can do better than that. Or are you starting to come around and see that maybe, just maybe, she was telling the truth back in 1997 when she testified that she had never been inside the locus in the first place?

[sharon cook]

[Taggart]

I have to applaud the decision taken here by Sir Anthony Campbell and thank Daks for bringing it to all our attention.

I guess Daks just wanted to highlight to us all that after 13 years of living hell Shirley McKie is still today suffering as a direct result of the SCRO experts.

In fact Daks was so keen to share the great news with us that he decided he had to use caps for the thread and shout it to us!

After the appalling and utterly disgusting behaviour of the SCRO experts and their lawyer with regard to unsubstantiated, and then withdrawn allegations, against Pat Wertheim I for one am glad that Shirley McKie has been protected from such pathetic attempts to try and detract from the truth.

Everyone else is to blame apart from themselves.

Sharon is right, this is a Fingerprint Inquiry. The clue is in the title.

And suddenly the experts must realise their attempts to attack and discredit a witness have disappeared they must now feel very very exposed.

The Inquiry is to be applauded for the way it has dealt with this, and I too wish to send Shirley McKie my very best wishes. She is to be applauded for the way both she and her father have fought her case with dignity at all times, without having to resort to attacking individuals. They are a true inspiration to so many.

[Colin]

I too wish to record my respect and admiration for Mr McKie and his daughter and to express my best wishes for a healthier and happier future for them both. They have done a great service to Scotland by their dogged and courageous stand against injustice.

[Daktari]

In fact Daks was so keen to share the great news with us that he decided he had to use caps for the thread and shout it to us!

Wrong again old son!
I merely copied and and pasted from the Inquiry website like so many others often do
Maybe I am becoming a wee bit blasé, but after Fiona's barnstorming performance last week, who can blame me?

No lie, even Shirley's, lasts forever.George Washington

[Taggart]

Maybe I am becoming a wee bit blasé, but after Fiona's barnstorming performance last week, who can blame me?

I see you have failed to respond to provide the links to the mythical testimonies you are reading. The flowery ones with descriptions etc.

‘Eyes meeting across the Maryhill Community Centre’ blah blah blah

I am glad you are so privileged whilst the rest of us have to read the official Inquiry ones.

Keep believing daktari!

I see one of the former SCRO supporters has come out of the woodwork again in today’s Herald claiming the SCRO experts are the ‘real victims’.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/crim ... y-1.931613

Funny given his is called support he actually voted against holding a Public Inquiry.

Critics have questioned the point of an inquiry if Ms McKie is unwilling to take part.

Ken McIntosh, the Labour MSP for Eastwood, who has long defended the four fingerprint experts who lost their jobs following the misidentification, said that the hearings would provide an opportunity to show they have been the “real victims” of the affair.
“Despite all the inquiries saying they have done a professional job they continue to be portrayed as responsible for the fate of Ms McKie,” he said

If Mr. McIntosh even for one minute thought about this he would see no need to criticise Miss McKie. This after all is a Fingerprint Inquiry and those he so desperately defended are finally getting their say, so where is the problem? Maybe the fact they are finally being exposed??

Is Mr. McIntosh actually following the evidence or are you supplying him with your Harry Potter version and keeping him misinformed?

I understand when the Report comes out the findings will be debated in the Scottish Parliament as part of the process.

I hope good old Ken and his old pal Des McNulty will make the effort to go along and take part in that debate. Perhaps then they will be able to make their apologies to the Scottish Public?

[Taggart]

What has just stuck me is the extreme and utter arrogance of Ken McIntosh MSP.

The 'real victims' in this case are the SCRO experts according to this man.

Where does that leave poor Marion Ross?

Where does she fit in in his league table of victims I wonder?

[Gerald Clough]

Am I missing something here? It's quite possible, since I don't follow every bit of comment, and I certainly have no direct knowledge.

"This is the opportunity to have an independent judicial inquiry to investigate fully and publicly the controversy surrounding these fingerprints, and to reach conclusions in relation to the fingerprint examinations that were carried out to learn lessons for the future and ensure the public can have confidence in the reliance placed on fingerprint evidence in trials in Scotland."

That sounds to me like an inquiry into the practice of fingerprint identification there. Nothing at all to do with whether Shirley McKie was or was not in the crime scene or whether she did or did not lie about it or who killed the victim. It seems to me that it's about the analysis, not whether the conclusion happened to reflect the true source of the print or not. Why on Earth would anyone care about whether the possible source appeared in person? In the unlikely event that she appeared and said, "Yes. I lied. I really did enter the scene, and I might have touched that spot.", would that say anything about whether the impression should have been officially identified? For that matter, if a video tape turned up that showed that she never got near that spot, would it really settle what's at issue in the inquiry? Not if I understand the purpose, even with the political baloney factored in.

If the test is whether or not the conclusion happened to be consistent with what physically happened there, that's woefully silly logic, frightening, really, if any analysis is deemed correct if it happens to hit the right actor. Might as well use psychics.

[Daktari]

Nothing at all to do with whether Shirley McKie was or was not in the crime scene or whether she did or did not lie about it

Good point Gerald.
However, Ms McKie's position has always been
“I was never in the house therefore Y7 can't be my mark!”
So, if it was shown that she had been in the house it would make her out simply as a liar, not that Y7 belonged to her!

[ian harrison]

However, Ms McKie's position has always been
“I was never in the house therefore Y7 can't be my mark!”
So, if it was shown that she had been in the house it would make her out simply as a liar, not that Y7 belonged to her!

Likewise, it is the stand of the SCRO protagonists that Y7 is Shirley's left thumb print.

If it is resolved that it is not, does that then not show them simply as liars???

[Daktari]

If it is resolved that it is not, does that then not show them simply as liars???

No, that, should it ever happen, would only mean that they were mistaken.

There seems to be a bit of confusion in this forum about what constitutes a lie.
Perhaps I can help;

If someone gives evidence that they believe to be true but it subsequently turns out to be false or contradicted by other evidence, then that person would be incorrect, mistaken or simply wrong. But they have not lied.

On the other hand is someone gives evidence that they know to be false, for example "Do you know if anyone else has looked at the marks? And they answer "I don't know" when they did know then that is clearly a lie. No matter what her father says.

[Taggart]

No, that, should it ever happen, would only mean that they were mistaken.

Well that makes it okay. Not a lie, or anything sinister, just eight SCRO experts who have all ‘independently’ checked the prints and were merely 'mistaken'. Checked on multiple occasion with multiple charts prepared etc etc over the last 13 years. And what do we end up with? A great big OOPS!

Perhaps you can help out the readers with the following.

I gather from your posting that if the Inquiry report back that both prints were misidentified the SCRO exeprts line will be ‘oh well we must have been mistaken’.

If I take you back to two separate letters prepared by David Russell, lawyer to Peter ‘Doyen’ Swann he publicly commented on your chums position regarding ‘mistakes’.

On 23 February 2006 Mr. Russell wrote directly to Jack McConnell, Scottish First Minister and I quote verbatim:

‘Not one of the SCRO Fingerprint Experts acknowledged or accepted that they had made “an honest mistake’.

Mr. Russell had previously stated in a letter to the Scottish Executive in 2005:

‘… there was no “honest mistake” on the part of the Co-Defenders...The four Co-Defenders will not, under any circumstances, give evidence that they made an honest mistake…The four Co-Defenders will not, as stated, admit to “honest mistake”.

Your posting suggests that if, sorry when, the Inquiry comes back and shows your daddy and his pals got it wrong, then it will show they merely made mistakes.

Where my problem with this is, if these experts have publicly stated that any mistakes are not ‘honest’ mistakes, then what are these mistakes?

Dishonest mistakes?

What is a dishonest mistake?


In fact the reality is the SCRO experts were so adamant that they had not made any ‘honest mistakes’ they wrote and officially complained to the Scottish Ombudsman.

http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/McC ... 2763839.jp

McConnell is accused over McKie case claim
02 April 2006
By KATE FOSTER AND EDDIE BARNES

A GOVERNMENT forensic expert at the centre of the Shirley McKie fingerprint scandal has lodged an official complaint against First Minister Jack McConnell over his notorious "honest mistake" claim to parliament.
Lawyers acting for Fiona McBride, who ministers now say was wrong to identify McKie, have demanded McConnell be investigated by Scotland's public services ombudsman, the body which examines complaints of maladministration in the public sector.

McConnell told MSPs in February that "all concerned" in the affair had accepted the experts had acted wrongly. "All sides have accepted that," he added.

However, McBride and three other experts who are accused of making a mistake, continue to maintain they were right in their actions, and claim McConnell wilfully misrepresented their position.

McKie's print was identified by the experts at a murder scene in 1997. The former police officer denied having set foot in the area, triggering a nine-year battle to clear her name. The row turned into a major scandal in 2000 when police alleged evidence of "criminality" within the Scottish Criminal Records Office (SCRO) over the matter.

McKie was finally awarded £750,000 by ministers last month, but the affair has continued to bedevil amid near unanimous calls for a full public inquiry.

McBride has insisted all along that she was correct to identify McKie. SCRO officials say they were shocked when McConnell suddenly announced last month that there had been an "honest mistake".

Her lawyer, David Russell, now claims that McBride had been effectively "gagged" by the SCRO under threat of disciplinary action.


Russell told Scotland on Sunday: "We first issued a complaint to the Office of the First Minister that he had misled parliament. But they have ignored that complaint, so we have decided to take our complaint to the Public Services Ombudsman."

A spokeswoman for the Public Services Ombudsman said it would not comment on individual cases until investigations had been concluded.

A Scottish Executive spokesman said: "Scottish ministers have always made clear that they believed settling with Ms McKie was the right thing to do. The McKies chose to settle out of court rather than take their case forward in a court."

The spokesman added: "Ministers are now focused on what they see as the real priority here - building on the work done to improve the fingerprint service in Scotland over the past five years to establish a truly world-class service."

What you are also alluding to is mass incompetence on a scale never seen before in the entire history of fingerprinting.

Can we assume from your posting when the Inquiry comes back and reports that both (or more) prints were misidentified, if they were simply errors, then your chums will issue a personal apology to the McKie’s over their ‘mistakes’ and also issue an apology to the Scottish Public over their ‘mistakes’?

I am sure Ken McIntosh MSP will be able to have them attend the official Scottish parliamentary debate where they can issue their apology in public?

I am encouraged by your posting that finally you are waking up and smelling the coffee. It feels good doesn’t it my friend.

In the meantime please enlighten us what your understanding is of a ‘mistake’ that is not an ‘honest mistake’?