Шотландиялық саусақ іздері салдарынан туған даулы іс

Scottish police detective

Shirley McKie (born August 1962) is a former Scottish police detective who was accused by fingerprint analysis staff of the Scottish Criminal Record Office (SCRO) of leaving her thumb print on the bathroom door frame of a murder crime scene in Kilmarnock on 14 January 1997. She denied she had ever been in the house of murder victim Marion Ross, but Detective Constable McKie was initially suspended, then sacked, then arrested by Strathclyde Police in 1998, and tried and acquitted in 1999. A scandal subsequently developed because of allegations of misconduct on the part of the SCRO and the police. With continuing public concern over what became known as the Shirley McKie fingerprint scandal, Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill announced in March 2008, that a public inquiry into the case would begin in September of that year (see Fingerprint Inquiry).

On 8 January 1997, the body of Marion Ross was found in her home in Kilmarnock. She had been stabbed multiple times. David Asbury, a handyman who had once worked on the Ross house, became a suspect. A fingerprint found on a tin box in his home was reported to be that of Marion Ross by examiners at the Scottish Criminal Records Office. The SCRO also reported they had identified a fingerprint found on a Christmas present gift tag inside the Ross home as that of Asbury. While checking other, unidentified fingerprints from the victim's home, examiners reported one of those prints to have been identified as Constable McKie's. During Asbury's murder trial, at which he was found guilty, McKie testified that she had not been inside the home and could not have left her fingerprint there. Because Marion Ross was known to hoard possessions, making it possible for Asbury to have left a print on the gift tag years earlier while he was working at the home, the print on the tin box in Asbury's home became the key piece of evidence in the case against him. McKie's testimony at Asbury's trial that she could not have left a print inside the Ross home implied, if true, that the SCRO examiners were capable of error in a fingerprint comparison. David Asbury was subsequently freed from a life sentence due to questions raised about the identification of the print on the tin box.

In March 1998, DC McKie was arrested and charged with perjury. However, in May 1999, the Scottish jury at the High Court of Justiciary rejected the SCRO's fingerprint evidence and McKie was unanimously found not guilty of perjury. U. S. fingerprint experts Pat Wertheim and David Grieve testified during McKie's trial that the fingerprint inside the Ross house was not McKie's.

Sir Anthony Campbell opened the inquiry proceedings at 10.30 am on Tuesday 2 June 2009 in Maryhill Community Central Hall, Glasgow. Following Sir Anthony's introductory statement, senior counsel to the inquiry Gerry Moynihan QC made a public presentation of all the material that has been collected. Thereafter, lawyers for the core participants are expected to make their opening statements. The hearing of oral evidence was scheduled to commence at 10.15 am on Tuesday 9 June. Following the hearing of evidence at the Inquiry during 2009 the Chairman Sir Anthony Campbell published his report on 14 December 2011 in Glasgow. A full copy of this report can be obtained online at Fingerprint Inquiry homepage.

Scottish folk singer and poet Michael Marra has written a protest song condemning the way the McKie case was handled. The lyrics include: "I am Shirley McKie. She is me and I am she. You are too, Shirley is you. We are she because Shirley is we." And referring to first minister Jack McConnell, they say, "We lecture children if they're telling lies, they will not prosper and they will not thrive And even the First Minister must sometimes stand naked."

Shirley McKie: The Price of Innocence by Iain McKie and Michael Russell MSP, published 18 April 2007, .