Welcome to this new video. Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of our Constabulary, was tasked to investigate the case in 2000. Two news experts were consulted. They are Arie Zoelenberg and Torger Rudrud, at the time respectively Head of the National Fingerprint Unit in the Netherlands and in Norway. They concluded, "That the mark was not made by Shirley Mckie." The same applied to the other identification in the case. Based on this record, David Hasberry was granted the interim liberation after more than two years in prison. His conviction was crushed in 2002. The September 2000 report of the Chief Inspector of her Majesty recommended a major reform of the SCRO. Civil action was taken by Shirley Mckie against Strathclyde police. Over many years, the four SCRO expert never accepted making any mistake or wrong doing. All along, they stood by their conclusion. Even offering additional evidence to support their position; they identified additional matching feature and claim their roles in correspondence in term of shapes of ridges. The defense expert pointed systematically to what they describe an obvious discrepancy between the marks Y7 and the left thumb print from Shirley Mckie, that led them to an obvious exclusion. The SCRO expert however, declared these differences are explainable due to the unpredictable nature of the touch. They saw it all as a difference of opinions. The battle continued in the media, politically, and within the fingerprint circle. Without any form of resolution, senior government minister and the higher rank police officers were talking about an honest mistake. The SCRO fingerprint expert refused to acknowledge a mistake, harnessed or otherwise, and continued working. In 2006, the Scottish parliament ask its Justice 1 committee to investigate the running the SCRO and to suggest ways to restore public confidence in the Scottish fingerprint service. All parties and expert where heard again. In it's rare report of February 2007, the Justice 1 committee just observed the differences of opinion and state, "What emerged from the evidence-taking process was that the differences of opinion as to the identification of mark Y7 are so fundamental that they cannot, in the opinion of the Committee, be reconciled. The Committee also has not given a view as to whether mark Y7 was correctly identified or not. It was not part of the remit of the inquiry to give a view on this matter. A year of mounting pressure for an inquiry from the Mckie family, where legal team, politicians, fingerprint experts and the media coincided with a change of government, and the new Scottish National Party administration promised to mount a public inquiry. In 2008, a judicial inquiry was ordered by the cabinet secretary of justice. The inquiry was led by Sr. Anthony Campbell, with all power to investigate the matter. After three years of investigation, he published his findings in 2011, with 86 recommendations, in a 752 pages long report without counting the appendices. One key recommendation reads as follows: Fingerprint evidence should be recognized as opinion evidence, not fact, and those involved in the criminal justice system need to assess it as such on its merits. It follows: In the sense that examiner should discontinue reporting conclusions on identification or exclusion with a claim to a 100% certainty or any other basis suggesting that fingerprint evidence is infallible. Before going any further, let me highlight Sr. Antony Campbell conclusion on mark Y7 on the door frame. I quote, "SCRO where in error in identifying Y7 has having been made by Ms. Mckie. Sr. Antony stressed that there is not enough to identify the mark. He had accepted that at most six of the point relied upon by SCRO bore a degree of similarity, but didn't declare that an exclusion was the only appropriate conclusion. Then he had in the report, I quote, "as with any source of evidence, it ought properly to be assessed in the light of the evidence as a whole. The absence of any evidence that Ms. Mckie went beyond the porch at the entrance to the house has to be factored in. That is consistent with the conclusion that the mark was not made by her. Having reviewed the evidence as a whole, my conclusion is that the mark Y7 was misidentified and was not made by Ms. Mckie." For us, here lies two main learning points. The first, there is no need for experts to pretend to certainty or infallibility as any piece of forensic information needs to be put into a context. The second is that the ultimate decision on an identification is a matter for the court, not a matter for the expert. Now, I'd like to take you through the lessons that can be learned from this case as I was quite heavily involved with the judicial inquiry. So, I was asked to prepare two reports by the inquiry. One on the various reports served by the expert, and they were a lot, and one on the merits of a fine Level 3 features used in fingerprint cases. Both reports can be found on the internet, as are all the documents associated with a judicial inquiry. I would like to draw your attention to some additional recommendations that are essential when it comes to assess the merits of fingerprint case. The first is recommendation nine. I quote, "Features on which examiners rely should we demonstrable to a lay person with a normal eyesight as observable in the mark." Hence it means, practically, that an expert should be able to show you the features he will rely on and these features should be visible. There is no eagle or magic eye in observing the features of interest on the mark. The second, is recommendation 53 that reads, "Note-taking as to the detail found on analysis and the process of comparison, though not mandatory, should become the general practice for all fingerprint comparison work." I think that it should be an absolute requirement to have detailed notes taken at the time of examination, and not produced at a later stage when the case escalated the ladder of dispute. In addition, when the mark is complex, we should ask for detailed notes taken only when the mark was examined alone before looking at the print of interest. That will ensure that there is no circular reasoning in a sense but you are sure of your observations on the mark because you have been unduly influenced by the print. Recommendations 6 to 8 invite to train examiners and adopt procedures to reduce the risk of contextual bias. It is advised that examiner should be given only information that is deemed necessary for their work, and that information should be recorded. It was clear that the four experts who concluded to an identification did not reach that conclusion independently and were influenced, consciously or unconsciously, by biasing information. Here, we are talking about information of the following kind. For example; knowing the conclusion reached by your colleague before undertaking your work. Or knowing that the mark found on the doorframe was assessed in the context of the 'elimination' of a police officer who was known to have attended the site in question. It leads me to one fundamental question. At the end of the day, is fingerprint evidence just opinion evidence? Yes it is. At the moment, it does not offer a lot to the fact finder to assess its reliability. The risk with 'opinions' is that it can range from respectfully informed opinions to more speculations. Societies entitled to more than opinions and applying the recommendations we just highlighted as advised in the fingerprint Inquiry report, is a good starting point. How often fingerprint experts may get it wrong? Well, this is a point of debate that we keep for the next case. There are numerous lessons from the Asbury Mckie case. We will benefit from the interview of Ian McKie, the father of Shirley Mckie, on some of them. Her father published a book that described the ordeal Shirley Mckie went through in that case. Our aim here is to develop your critical mind towards fingerprint evidence. Let's sum up this way. No forensic evidence, even the most long-standing and trusted, should be fought as incontrovertible and beyond question. It is not infallible evidence. The case file associated with a case should provide evidence of the following nature: First, detailed note-taking made at the time of examination. In complex cases, these notes should distinguish the observation made on the mark alone and then the observations made during the comparison with a print. Of course, less weight should be put on features observed during the comparison only. A second point is that the examiner should be exposed only to task relevant information and should be protected from biasing information. We all remain available to answer any question on this case in the forum. Thank you for watching
