I wish to make a statement. This afternoon's meeting is the second oral evidence session in our SCRO inquiry. It is a parliamentary inquiry, not a judicial one. The committee has determined a remit for it, which has been published, and the committee—and no one else—will determine the course of the inquiry. The committee expects that all witnesses to the inquiry will co-operate fully, will focus on the lines of questioning from members and will answer questions in good faith, to the best of their knowledge and truthfully. In view of that, although I have the power to require witnesses to take the oath, I do not intend to use that power at this stage. However, if the committee considers that any witnesses are not giving us their full co-operation and answering questions truthfully, the committee can and will recall those witnesses. In those circumstances, I will use the powers that I have under standing orders and section 26 of the Scotland Act 1998 to require witnesses to give evidence under oath.
I thank the committee for inviting me. To be honest, I would rather be anywhere on earth than here, but I am here in a last-ditch attempt to ensure that the people responsible for what has happened are dealt with. I can tell the committee how it has affected me emotionally, but a lot of information has been kept from me to protect me so that I can go through this whole process. There may be questions that my father or Andrew Smith QC will have to answer. Your question is huge and I do not know where to start.
You will appreciate that the committee's remit is to examine what happened in your case and to examine the practices and processes that were used at the time and those that have now been adopted. We also have to try to find our way through and make some positive recommendations to ensure that everyone has confidence in the process that we use. That will include the process when it is benchmarked against international standards; we want to know what the benchmarks were in 1997 and what they are now.
In my heart of hearts, I honestly believe that there was a mistake initially, rather than some sort of conspiracy. I am nothing; I am nobody. I was just a police officer at work. I believe that there was a mistake because people were under pressure, as they are during any murder inquiry when a lot of evidence is taken. Perhaps a mistake was made in the hurry to identify a random fingerprint. I questioned that on day one and said that I was not in the house, so there must have been a mistake. I believed that a mistake had been made. The case was based on fingerprint evidence and if that mistake was not sorted out, the whole case would fall.
It is your evidence that, although the situation might have started off as a mistake, something further on in the process conspired to cover up that mistake. I do not want to put words in your mouth.
I am sure that you will speak to fingerprint experts. They will easily show you how the fingerprint is different from that on my left thumb. You will have to ask them. Anyone who saw the fingerprint evidence at my trial and anyone who has examined it since then has said that it is nothing like my fingerprint because there are so many wrong areas.
You were explaining that fingerprint experts have looked at the fingerprint and said that it is quite clear that it is not yours. Given your experience as a police officer having worked with fingerprint experts in the past, do you have any idea how they could have made what you say was originally a mistake that went on to become something else?
I am sorry, I have no idea. You will have to ask the individuals themselves, or a fingerprint expert.
You were called to give evidence at the trial of David Asbury for the murder of Marion Ross. That resulted in your later being charged with perjury, and found not guilty. Is it your contention that, if the fingerprint was established at that time as not being yours, the whole case against David Asbury for the murder of Marion Ross would have collapsed?
No. If it had been my fingerprint in that house, that would have been totally unimportant. The reason why it became a problem was that I had not been there. If the people at the SCRO had acknowledged that they had made a mistake, I would never have been a witness at David Asbury's trial.
If it had transpired at that time that the SCRO had got it wrong, do you believe that that would have had a knock-on effect on the identification of other fingerprints in the Marion Ross murder case?
I do not know. I believe that, at that time, it was soon enough for the whole mess to have stopped at that point.
I cannot ask you about the culture that existed at the SCRO, because you did not work for it, but what kind of pressure were you under from your employers, the police, to say, "Yes, it was me."
Immense pressure. I was bullied, harassed and humiliated from day one of the whole thing. I appeared in front of one senior officer, then a more senior officer, then a more senior officer than that, and then a procurator fiscal. Each time, they thought that they would get me to tell the truth—as they saw it. I was completely ostracised. Colleagues were told not to contact me. I was hung out to dry, completely and utterly.
There is an old concept in justice throughout the world that a person is innocent until proven guilty. Do you think that you were afforded that—
Absolutely not. I tried to get assistance through the normal channels to fund my criminal trial, and I was refused by the deputy chief constable. His letter to me basically said, "You're guilty. You have brought the force into disrepute." I had not even gone through my trial, and I was refused funding. I had to fight. I have had to fight at every single hurdle. I have been given nothing that I did not have to fight for.
My question is for Ms McKie. It is clear that, when you met Peter Swann in his Wakefield office in May 1998, you had a high regard for the fingerprint experts—so much so that you were looking for other reasons why your fingerprint had been misidentified, including its having been planted. In your letter to Peter Swann of 7 March 1999, you even asked whether it could have been someone else's fingerprint—whether, searching his brain, Mr Swann thought that that could possibly be the case. At what point did you believe that the situation had become malicious?
Until the point just before my own trial, when Pat Wertheim came from America, looked at the fingerprint and said that it was not mine, I had believed that it was mine. The thought had not entered my head that people in SCRO were lying. I had come up with some ridiculous explanations as to how the print could have got there. I believed that it was mine. One thing that did not enter my head was that the people in SCRO had lied about it.
Referring to what Bruce McFee asked you, you believe that the maliciousness spread. We have written evidence on this, with one constable alleging that he had logged you in. Did it go further? You believe that the police were also involved, and that it was not just SCRO or the experts.
I do not know whether only the SCRO was involved or whether the police were involved as well. I have no way of knowing that.
Finally, it is clear that you were not a suspect in the Marion Ross murder case, so the very worst that should have been at stake was that you were somewhere where you should not have been. However, there seems to have been so much pressure on you to say that you were there. Can you say why that was? Why was that so important?
I do not know. Over the years, different information has come out. Initially, I thought that the reason was that the evidence for the murder inquiry was fingerprint evidence, so questioning the evidence would jeopardise the murder inquiry. Initially, I felt that that was the reason why I was treated in the way that I was treated. However, I do not know. There have been all sorts of innuendo and gossip, including that it was because fingerprint evidence was used in the Lockerbie disaster inquiry. I believe that people from the SCRO were involved in that inquiry. That might make sense, because the pressure on me has been so immense that it just does not make sense.
If it was malicious, might that be tied into the fact that you had previously been given a warning for being in a locus where you should not have been? For that to happen again would make it so much worse. Might that be part of how you think people were maliciously trying to tie you in?
I do not know, but I do not think so. I think that the reason for the failure to admit the mistake was purely that people wanted to say, "We're experts and we don't make mistakes. If we admit a mistake, we'll lose this murder inquiry and it might call into question other identifications." I still feel that the problem is complete and utter arrogance.
I have two questions, but I want to ask one brief question before that. Do you accept that we all make mistakes in life and, when we make mistakes, we should admit to them?
Absolutely.
The first of my two questions relates to Mr Swann, whom you consulted. I am interested to know where Mr Swann got his evidence from that allowed him to make a judgment. I do not mind who answers this question—if Shirley McKie cannot answer it, perhaps Andrew Smith or Iain McKie can—but where did he get the evidence from? Who supplied him with the material that enabled him to make a positive identification of your fingerprint?
When we were looking for an independent expert, we were told that Mr Swann was a good expert and we went to speak to him. You would need to ask Mr Swann, but I think that he looked at the fingermark on the door surround. However, Mr Swann did not take any fingerprints from me, so his examination—I will need to check this with my father—was only of the door surround.
Convener, I would like to clarify that, but I have lots of things to add on this issue. As Shirley said, initially she was protected from this. I have lots of information, but I am a bit uncertain as to when I can give that information. I will follow the your guidance on that.
Since we are dealing with the point at the moment, it would be helpful if you could say now.
I would like to know where Mr Swann got his information from and how he used it.
That is a mystery, because Mr Swann should not have had access to that information. When Mr Swann made his initial examination, he was taken, properly, to the productions in the sheriff court and shown that information, but afterwards he prepared the presentation. According to our sources, he should not have had access to that information, so where he got it from I do not know. I suspect that he got it from the SCRO. Again, you will need to ask Mr Swann those questions, but I am worried about where people have got that information from.
Why should not he have had the information? Did you not supply it to him?
What you have to understand about Mr Swann is that when we visited him in Wakefield initially, we thought that he was a good expert. After that, we had nothing to do with Mr Swann. He came, made his examinations, was not allowed to speak to us at all, and went away and did his reports. There was no presentation by Mr Swann at that time. He took no photographs and had no information. He did not take photographs of stuff and take them away, as far as we are aware. Later on, he obtained loads of information to which he should not have had access, so you will need to ask Mr Swann where he got that from.
Perhaps we should ask him.
I just want to be clear about this point. What you are saying, Mr McKie, is that, when Mr Swann was retained by you, he went to examine the mark but that, at a later date, you believe that he was given other sources of material by someone—not you or your team—on which he established his report.
That is absolutely correct.
Which report was it that established his view that it was—
I shall try to explain. As far as his official report was concerned—there were two of them at the beginning—that was established by visiting the sheriff court and seeing the productions. What I think you are talking about is a presentation that he prepared later on. What we do not understand is where he got that information from, because it should not have been made available to him. If that is Mr Pringle's point, my answer is that the initial report was made legitimately at the sheriff court from information that he was given. Later on, however, all that information became available, and I would certainly like to make some points relating to that, if I am able to do so.
Is it not worth while making the point now?
I shall make the point. Mr Swann has been invited to give a presentation. As far as I am concerned, that is totally wrong. Mr Swann is not the witness who matters. The witnesses who matter in this case are the four SCRO experts who gave the evidence. I cannot understand for the life of me why the four experts are not being called to give the presentation. They are the ones who are in the SCRO. They are the ones who made the mistake, and you are trying to understand why that happened. What use Mr Swann would be in giving a presentation is beyond me.
I should clarify that how the committee decides to take evidence is a matter for us. Mr Swann is being asked to take part in a session that we have not even finalised yet. He has submitted evidence, and since you are answering questions it is important that you understand this. Let us assure you that, at this stage, we are not making any judgments, but we want you to know that we have written evidence before us from Mr Swann, who says that he had a look at the mark and that he identified it as Shirley McKie's. He is apparently an independent expert who does not work for the SCRO. It is quite important for us to understand your view on that, which is why I have given you some latitude to tell us what you wanted to tell us.
Can you understand my point, which is that Mr Wertheim and many other experts are not giving presentations? My starting point is that the SCRO made a mistake, so I am trying to assist the inquiry by suggesting how the committee could perhaps best understand the situation. The only point that I am making is that, in my opinion, the SCRO experts need to give evidence. They have complained for years about not being able to be heard. Surely it is now time that they were heard. All that I am asking is whether the committee would like to give them that opportunity. If you feel that I am trying to tell you what to do, I can assure you that I would not want to do that. You have a hard enough job without me helping you.
We will finish on that point. You will know that Mr Zeelenberg offered to make a presentation, and we have taken him up on that offer. We are trying to put together something that allows the committee to have a look at the processes from the point of view of a variety of experts, and that has not been finalised yet. As you know, we will be hearing from the SCRO officers and others who are not in the SCRO—
Can I just—
Let me finish, please. Then I will let you in.
Can I just make one point?
When I call you, you can. That is the privilege of being convener.
I have a brief point for Mr McKie on what he said about Mr Swann. You approached him first of all, but decided that he was not suitable. Why, after your initial discussions, did you decide not to pursue the issue with Mr Swann?
Initially, we went to see Mr Swann because he was recommended as a highly reputable expert. When we spoke to him we were convinced of that. However, when your daughter tells you that she has not been in the house, you know that she has not been in the house and there is evidence that she has not been in the house, you need to ponder on the matter when an expert comes back and says, "Her fingerprints are in that house." My daughter would have been going to trial for perjury with Mr Swann's evidence. Only a fool would have done that. Her lawyer suggested that she might like to come up with the silly little girl defence and say to the court, "I must have been there but have forgotten about it." We went looking for evidence from other fingerprint experts. To be blunt, Mr Swann was not taken forward because he was wrong. That was ultimately established. As you are aware, there have been 20 inquiries and 20 reports since then. He was a very reputable man who was wrong.
Initially, I thought—we all thought—that the fingerprint was mine and that it had somehow been planted. Mr Swann came back with a report that stated "The fingerprint was not a plant. Therefore it must be Shirley McKie's". He did not even take my fingerprints. As far as I am concerned, if he had been competent and done his job properly, the case would have stopped then, because we would have had a report from him that stated that it was not a plant and that it was someone else's fingerprint.
So it was not your own team that gave him your fingerprints to compare against the mark.
No. I now know that a proper fingerprint officer should have looked at the mark and done whatever he had to do, but then should have seen me and taken millions of fingerprints from me. Mr Swann did not take one fingerprint from me.
I do not know whether this question is for Shirley McKie or Iain McKie, but Iain McKie touched on the issue. Some people suggest that this comes down to a difference of opinion. They say that the SCRO has its experts, you have your experts and a balance must be reached. How do you respond to that?
My response is that I find that suggestion totally laughable. People are trying to destroy the science of fingerprinting. One issue is that it is not one fingerprint officer who looks at a fingerprint but four. I ask you to work out the statistical probability of four people in a row independently getting it wrong.
Is it possible that two people could look at one fingerprint and come up with a different answer?
Given that human beings are involved, of course it is possible that that can happen. However, if they are experts and they follow the procedures that are laid down, that should not happen. You cannot have two opinions on a fingerprint; otherwise, we might as well throw fingerprinting out the window. If cases go to court and one expert says that a mark is someone's fingerprint and another expert says that it is not, fingerprinting will be destroyed as a science. At the end of the day, the experts say that it cannot happen. If two experts say different things, one of them must be wrong. Over the years, we have proven time and again that the SCRO is wrong. That must be the starting point. I am not trying to instruct the committee, but the truth is that that must be the starting point.
The committee has to sort this out. If you do not and let people say that it is a matter of opinion, fingerprint evidence will be destroyed for ever. After everything that I have been through, I still believe that it is the most powerful piece of evidence. What they are doing is disgusting. Please do not allow them to get away with it.
I invite some of the non-committee members to ask questions, starting with Des McNulty.
I address my opening questions to Andrew Smith. I know that you were not directly involved in the procedures, but I ask for your views as an expert in these matters. Peter Swann was consulted by the original solicitor to Shirley McKie at her instruction. He reported his findings to her then Queen's counsel, Donald Findlay, who, when he got the verdict, decided that it was not material to his case. Is it normal for evidence that presumably has been paid for from the public purse to be withheld from a trial?
As you rightly pointed out, I was not responsible for acting for Shirley McKie in the criminal trial. Mr Findlay was instructed, so I am not privy to the detail of what was involved. I should also say that my experience is not in practice in the criminal courts, where different considerations may arise.
To be crystal clear, the defence sought evidence from Peter Swann.
Yes. That is my understanding.
The identification made by Peter Swann confirmed the fingerprint as Shirley McKie's.
Yes.
And that evidence was not put before the jury in that instance.
That is my understanding.
Again, you might not be able to answer this question, but do you think that it is likely that the identification by Malcolm Graham of prints Y7 and QI2 was also known to Mr Findlay but was not made available to the court?
Excuse me. Are you putting me on trial again? Are you actually questioning my integrity? I am here to assist the inquiry. I do not see the relevance of your questions and I am totally insulted by them.
Ms McKie—
May I intervene? We are quite clear, Ms McKie, that you are not being put on trial again.
But the questioning from Mr McNulty—
You should answer the questions that you feel you want to answer, but the questions are up to the member. I want to be clear that, as far as the committee is concerned, and as I said at the beginning, there is obviously information that we want to press you and others on. However, our duty is to see what contribution we can make, as a parliamentary committee, to restoring confidence in the system. That is our overall aim. I want to reassure everyone about that.
Mr Swann was not used by the defence because he was wrong and incompetent, and I was unhappy about his being there. I answered every single question in my trial honestly, unlike some people. If you have any other questions about that, that is fine.
Can I maybe move on a bit—
I wonder whether I can answer your question about Mr Graham. I was not involved at the time, but I am fairly confident that the answer is no. As I understand it, Mr Graham became involved as an expert for the defence in the Asbury case, not in the trial against Shirley McKie. You look puzzled, Mr McNulty, but I am pretty confident that matters developed in that way.
I am just wondering about the dates of the two trials.
Evidence that was obtained for David Asbury would be and would remain confidential to him and his legal team, especially given that he was considering an appeal. It would not be disclosed to those acting on Shirley McKie's behalf. As you might appreciate, it would not make sense to disclose to the defence in the Shirley McKie case the fact that the Malcolm Graham report apparently supported the identification.
Thank you for that clarification.
I wonder whether I can take that matter forward—
Well, I want to press on to my next question—
You were talking about Mr Graham. I would like to speak about him.
I would prefer it if you did not, because we are not talking about any individual's character. I am simply concerned about establishing the facts. [Interruption.]
I ask everyone to hold on. I realise that we all have a lot to say, but it is important that the witnesses answer the questions that are put to them. If by the end of the session you feel that everything has not been covered, I will let you come back on minor points.
I will make it as brief as I can, given the number of submissions that we have received.
Yes. We have a letter from Mr Graham apologising both for that and for his terrible mistake. He has now popped up again with Mr Swann and one or two other people. I put it to Mr McNulty that 20 inquiries and reports state unequivocally that it is not my daughter's print. Mr Graham is immaterial to this matter—he has apologised.
Mr Smith, the transcript of 11 May 1999—
I do not have that document in front of me.
Then let me read it out to you. According to the transcript of 11 May, the advocate depute asked Shirley McKie:
I assume so. I am sorry, but I am not sure what your question is.
If that is correct, let us turn to your document. You say:
Yes, that was my understanding.
Is that consistent with Ms McKie's comment that she did not agree with Mr Swann's evidence?
I am sorry, but are you asking me whether I think that that is consistent or not?
You are putting forward a legal case on her basis. Is there any consistency between what Shirley McKie has just said and the statement in your submission?
I am sorry, Mr McNulty, but in the submission that we prepared and lodged we stuck to the facts as best we could. We disclosed what the advice was and the instructions that we were given. I have read the entire transcript—I do not have it in front of me at the moment—and I was given certain instructions that were disclosed. The submissions were lodged on that basis. If you are suggesting that the submissions are somehow false or are designed to mislead, I would be interested to hear your basis for saying so. The submissions contain the instructions that I was given, which I followed, and show how the matter was presented. My understanding of the factual position is as recorded in the written submission.
So she did not know.
As I said to you already, I was not instructed at the material time. I do not recall—I might have seen the letter to which you refer at some stage, but I do not have it before me. My understanding is that a lot of correspondence was prepared by Iain McKie on Shirley McKie's behalf. That was a matter that I was told about. That might have been one such letter. I do not have that letter in front of me and, to be perfectly frank—and I say this with respect—it is a little unfair of you to ask me to comment on a document if I have not been provided with a copy.
I am not going to allow any further questions on that point.
Yes, because you—
I will just—
This is—
Could everybody hold on? I think that Des McNulty has aired his point.
This is outrageous.
Shirley.
It is absolutely outrageous.
Please, convener, I have the evidence here to disprove Mr McNulty.
I will let you speak in a minute.
Thank you.
I ask everybody to be quiet. Des McNulty has pursued his lines of questioning. On that point—
I have two more questions on—
That applies to you too, Des. You have had a fair airing of that line of questioning and you have had an answer. I will allow Iain McKie to come back on that point, very briefly.
Thank you. As my daughter has said, she is not on trial here. Mr McNulty is trying to put on trial—[Interruption.] Would you listen please, Mr McNulty? I am speaking to you. Thank you very much. You have just read out a totally biased and précised version of what happened in court. I have five pages of transcript evidence from that trial. How many words did you read out? If the evidence is read you will understand, as our QC and everyone else understands, that my daughter did not lie at that trial.
Are you finished your questioning, Des?
I just want to—
You will move on from your point, but you can have another question.
I will go back to Mr Smith, if I may.
It had better be on a different point.
It is on the central contention in Mr Smith's submission. I would like to summarise that point of view. I take you to page 33 of your submission, Mr Smith, as it is presented in the document before us:
As far as Mr Swann is concerned, I am unaware of his opinion on QI2, which was the print that appeared on the tin. His opinion on that has never been disclosed to me in any sense, so I am gratified to know that.
The logic that you suggest, if I have this right, is that it is an astonishing situation for four people—or, rather, five or six people—to get it wrong. You say that, on the evidence, it is more realistic to suggest that there was a deliberate misidentification of QI2 and a deliberate misrepresentation of Y7. Why should Peter Swann and Malcolm Graham lie? On what basis would they lie?
Because Peter Swann's reputation is in tatters, that is why.
Let me try to deal with this. I think that we tried to make some suggestion about this in our written submissions.
You have both had a fair airing of that issue. We will now move on.
I will stick to the inquiry's remit, which is to find out why the misidentification took place, rather than attempt to retry Shirley McKie.
Convener and Mr Neil, I do not know where to start with this. As I said before, I have 20 reports that say the Glasgow bureau is wrong. Let me take up that point. The Grampian bureau believes that it is wrong. In January 2000, 14 officers from Edinburgh—I believe that it is now 13—wrote to point out the error. Let us not believe that the SCRO is at one on this; the SCRO is split. There are experts within the SCRO who do not believe that there has been an identification.
I never said that I did.
If you want to retry my daughter, report the facts to the Crown Office and then it can be dealt with. I do not believe that this is the place to deal with it.
My second question is about the statement in Sunday night's "Panorama" programme that the fingerprint that was presented at the perjury trial as being that of Shirley McKie was cropped. Can you tell me as a layman—this question might be for Andrew Smith—what "cropped" means? Why would anyone crop a fingerprint that was to be shown as evidence if they were not trying to cover something up?
I emphasise again that I am simply trying to indicate to the committee what we understand the facts to be. It would not be proper for me as a legal adviser to make any judgment about the reason for cropping. All I can say is that we had to present our case on the basis of such facts as we were able to gather.
Are you referring to the Crown Office or to the Justice Department?
The Executive pled that in its defence, which no doubt was done on instruction. However, I dare say that it is not beyond the resources of the Crown Office—I do not wish to be flippant about this—to get a larger photo book to enable the jury to see literally the whole picture. We could not work out a legitimate reason for removing the top portion. That was only one factor in the melting pot. We were trying to get to the bottom of why that happened, so we questioned its legitimacy.
Before allowing any other questions, I should say that, although what Andrew Smith has said is fair enough, we obviously will put the cropping issue, which keeps cropping up, to the experts, so Andrew Smith does not need to say any more on the issue. We do not need to examine him on it any further, because it will be of more value to put the matter to the experts.
Yes, my question is on that point. However, I want to clarify for the benefit of some other folk that, as I recall, the perjury trial resulted in a not guilty verdict.
That was the conclusion of a number of experts. May I take that further?
I would be interested to hear anything else that you have to say on the issue.
Convener, I am aware of the time, and I agree that the matter of cropping is an issue for the experts, but numerous people have made it quite clear that that occurred. With respect, I think that the question should be put to the experts.
You can rest assured that, in our evidence sessions, the committee will get to know more about why that is important. We will press other witnesses on that important issue.
I am not sure whether my final question is for Andrew Smith, Iain McKie or Shirley McKie. Is it right to say that, at the murder scene, there were actually two misidentifications of fingerprints, both of which were made by the Glasgow bureau of the SCRO? Am I correct in saying that that is unprecedented in Scottish legal history?
I would certainly like to think that it is unprecedented. Again, I do not wish to be unfair but—with respect, Mr Neil—we can go only on the basis of the expert reports. I cannot make a personal judgment as to whether a print has been correctly or incorrectly identified. It would be improper of me to do so.
The Crown Office has accepted that they were both mistakes.
I understand that, but I am anxious to make it clear that I am here as a legal adviser and not as a witness.
To the best of your knowledge, the same four officers made the same mistake—the same misidentification—on both prints.
That is our understanding.
We have one more technical question on cropping.
I am looking at the closed record that you submitted and in particular at "Ans. 8 for 2nd Defenders", which is on cropping. The fifth page of that answer gives what you regard as the unsatisfactory explanation on cropping that the Executive relied on. To assist me and the committee—as the point does not appear to have been picked up by the pursuers later—will you tell us whether there is any further discussion of the subject in the paperwork that is before us?
I hope that the copy of the pleadings that is available is the most up-to-date one. It probably should be. My recollection is that it does not really go into greater detail.
The same answer says:
It was. In fairness, I should say that there was something of a difference of opinion among the experts on that particular question as it developed. One of the experts indicated that the degraded quality may just have been because of the machinery, but another expert pointed out that they should either have gone back to the old methods or used a better machine. The fact that the enlargement had become degraded would have been obvious and those involved could have gone back to using photographic prints rather than digitally enhanced ones, which seem to have been digitally degraded for some obscure reason.
I will ask Shirley McKie some questions. You are not here on trial and we are not trying to repeat your trial in any way, but the difficulty with the proceedings is that a number of individuals are also being made the victim of a number of accusations and allegations, so we are trying to get to the bottom of those, as much as anything else.
It is normal for any police officer who is involved in a murder inquiry to have their name forwarded to the Scottish Criminal Record Office, so that any fingerprints that are unidentified can be checked, in case they belong to a police officer.
The point is that the police gave your name to the fingerprint officers.
My name and that of every other detective who worked on the inquiry.
So it was not just your name but a list of officers who may have been at the scene. The list was given to the fingerprint officers for the purpose of elimination, so at that stage they were not trying to identify you with a view to prosecution.
No. They were just trying to write off—if you like—any unidentified fingerprints.
At that stage, how many officers identified the fingerprint?
I do not know; you will have to ask them.
When your fingerprint was identified for the purpose of elimination, what happened? What was your reaction? What was the series of events?
I was informed in a matter-of-fact way by an inspector that one of my fingerprints had been identified. I had expected my fingerprints to appear on a piece of evidence. I had touched the biscuit tin that the other print that was wrongly identified is on in David Asbury's house before he was a suspect, so I expected to be told that a fingerprint had been found in the inquiry to be mine. I happened to say, "On the biscuit tin?" My detective inspector said, "No—in the locus." I said, "Well, that's impossible—they've obviously made a mistake. You'd better check it out." That is how it started.
It is clear that you were at the locus but you were not in the locus. That is the main thing.
That is right.
Even at that stage, were there any repercussions? Margaret Mitchell asked about that earlier. Were you unduly concerned? Did that become an issue quickly? When did the matter evolve into a full-scale perjury trial? Will you describe the process?
Initially, it was nothing—my inspector said, "I'll phone up and check that." I do not recall whether it was on that day or the next day when I was told that the SCRO had checked the fingerprint that was found in the house and was saying that it was mine. That is when it all turned into the mess that we have now.
At some point you were notified that the matter would become a perjury trial. Was that immediate?
No.
Were there a few stages before that?
I gave evidence at David Asbury's trial and nothing happened. I think that it was about a year later that I was arrested for perjury and put in a police cell.
At that point, your fingerprint had been identified by the SCRO and verified by a number of officers at the SCRO—you do not know how many.
No.
But that was the end of the matter. Then, suddenly, you were arrested and you faced a perjury trial. Did you try at that point to find an independent expert to help you in your defence?
Obviously, the Scottish Police Federation has lawyers. I go to a lawyer and they employ counsel. It is then for counsel to decide what should happen.
Indeed. One of the reasons why I ask about that stage in the process is that I think we will hear from Peter Swann at some point—whether or not we hear from him in person, we have received his written evidence—and, clearly, some of the dates in all this are important, albeit that they may not be so in terms of the whole inquiry. Peter Swann and David Russell make a lot of the dates that matter in this case. At what point did you become aware that Peter Swann had been approached by your defence team and at what point did you become aware that he had confirmed the SCRO findings that it was your fingerprint?
I am sorry, but I am not sure of the dates. I do not even know how soon that happened after we became involved with our lawyers. I honestly cannot remember even when the visit was with Peter Swann and what the timescale was. I do not know. You have to understand that I was in an absolute and utter state. I am sorry, but I am unsure of the dates.
But the—
Excuse me for interrupting, convener, but this is wrong. We can fully explain all the dates and times. I do not know what relevance the questioning has to the fact of the misidentification. I have to say that I feel that my daughter is being tried.
Mr McKie, I prefaced my remarks by referring to the difficulty here. Your daughter has been on trial and she has been cleared of perjury. She was found not guilty of perjury. However, throughout the inquiry, a number of accusations and allegations were made against—
Can you please speak up slightly? I cannot hear you.
A number of accusations and allegations were made against the fingerprint officers. It is important to—
The First Minister also said that this was an honest mistake. Why do you not go and ask him? Time and again, I have stood up to be counted. I have told the truth. I understand that you have people to represent and that they are in a difficult situation but, in all honesty, what else do you want me to do? What else do you want me to say?
Nothing. I am—
You are on your last question, Ken.
You are being extremely unfair. I am the honest person here.
Are you accusing my daughter of committing perjury, Mr Macintosh?
No. I am not.
But you are saying that.
She has been found not guilty of perjury.
But you are saying that her evidence—
I am trying not to at all. I am trying to get at the facts.
But you are and it is disgusting.
Why do you not admit what you are doing?
What I am trying to—
Can I just intervene at this point. If you are attempting to stray into the territory on which Mr McNulty has already questioned, I will not allow it. We have had an airing of that. Please put your final question.
To be honest, I have almost finished my questioning. I am not trying to do anything of the sort, Miss McKie.
Yes, you are. Please do not sit there and insult me. That is exactly what you are doing.
What I am trying to do is to establish what happened. A number of the points that have come out of the evidence are clearly in conflict with one another. Some of them are a matter of opinion—
Are you calling me a liar?
No, I am not. I am asking—
You are rerunning the trial, Mr Macintosh.
I ask everybody to take a break, just for a second. There is no question of that. As I have said—I am sure that members present will back me up on this—there is no question of putting Shirley McKie back on trial. There are controversial questions and differences of opinion, and that is difficult. I ask you to answer what you think you can answer. If you do not feel that you can answer, that is fine. I will allow Ken Macintosh to put his final question, after which I will move on.
If he continues to take this tack, I refuse to answer any more of his questions.
It may not be any consolation—that is not the right word—but I take no satisfaction from any of these proceedings or from the fact that a serving police officer found herself in the situation in which you found yourself. I do not think that there is anybody who does not have that human sympathy for what is happening to you. However, other people are also involved. You talk about a campaign for justice, but it is also very important that we recognise that public servants in this case have not had the opportunity as yet to—
They had their opportunity to tell the truth at David Asbury's trial and at my trial and they failed to do that. I have been through hell on earth.
I do not feel that there are any more questions. Are there?
I am sorry. Because so much time has passed, I was trying to establish in Miss McKie's own words some of the events and her perspective on them, rather than rehearse the entrenched positions that everyone is taking up. I am trying to find out the facts as they happened.
Peter Swann confirmed that it was not a plant. That is what he confirmed.
We will let Peter Swann speak for himself. You are saying that the SCRO officers are in a conspiracy—
Convener, this is absolutely outrageous.
I am just trying to work out what—
Everybody calm down. Ken, you have had a fair shot at this. There are not really any questions in what you are saying, so I will end it there.
When I gave evidence at David Asbury's trial, I was perhaps more terrified than at my own trial—I do not know, because it was all horrendous. At David Asbury's trial, my fear was that, because I stood up and told the truth, I would be arrested when I left the witness stand. I felt that that could happen. When nothing happened, everything went quiet and I got back to some sort of work, I thought, "Well, okay, they've got their conviction and they'll leave me alone. There may be a way back to work for me. Who knows?" When the police turned up at my door and arrested me, it was a bolt from the blue.
However, you are saying that, when you gave evidence, because you knew that there was already an argument about the print, you were conscious that some action might be taken.
Yes.
Thank you. I want to move on soon to discussing the way forward, so I will take a last question from Margaret Mitchell.
Mr Smith, I ask you to look at page 30 of your submission and reflect on whether you are still happy with what it says at the very bottom of the page. It says:
No, it was not. You have to build into that the presumption or hypothesis that there was a misidentification; that is the background against which we made our case. Of course, I am not suggesting that a police officer should necessarily be believed every time they make a comment about a fingerprint, although one would think that that would carry significant weight. What we were driving at was that, because it was a mistake, when he went back to look at it he should have seen that it was a mistake and should have owned up to it.
Perhaps it might have been better to say that he should have immediately gone back and reassessed his original assessment rather than that he should just have said, "Oh well, I will just drop the whole thing and admit I was clearly wrong because I have been challenged by a police officer."
I am happy to accept that. Your comments are taken on board.
I want to take this opportunity to draw on these three people's knowledge and experience of what happened in the SCRO along with their broader knowledge of the system to look at what happened in the SCRO subsequently. It is probably beyond much debate that there was a need for change in the SCRO, as indeed there is in organisations generally as technical developments are made and management theory changes. I want to ask the three of you in turn whether you think that there have been identifiable improvements in the way in which the SCRO works and is managed. If you cannot answer that question, I want you to tell me that you cannot answer it and not just answer it because I have asked it. Perhaps I will ask Iain McKie first as I venture to suggest that he has the longest experience.
I have an opinion, which is all I can give you. I believe that legitimate changes have been made to procedures following the HMCIC's inquiry and the many other inquiries. The unfortunate thing is that there are two things that have not altered: the culture of the organisation and the management team in that organisation. I must be completely blunt about that.
Can I just play back and paraphrase what you have said? Are you in essence saying that it was and remains difficult for more junior but probably more recently trained people to challenge the conclusions and processes that stem from people of long experience but whose training is more distant? Is that the essence of what you are saying?
It is, and there is evidence of that going back to 1995. That is relevant to Mr Ferry, who is the committee's next witness. There was institutionalised arrogance and complacency. The culture was that the senior experts were in charge and the young experts had to do what they were told. That has carried right through the organisation to the present day. Members should observe that there have not been just two mistakes; apparently a mistake was discovered in 2000 and one was made in the Sinclair case. More mistakes could be made until the culture is changed. Experts are experts and in the SCRO senior experts were given the status of gods. We have minutes of meetings held in 1995 to prove that, which we would be quite happy to provide to the committee if required.
Is it your assertion that, in part, the relationship between more junior personnel and more senior personnel is derived from the police service within which they operate, where it is necessary for good discipline in a uniformed service that there be a lack of questioning of people in a senior position? Is that part of the issue? If you agree with that proposition, to what extent does the creation of the Scottish fingerprint service, somewhat more distant from the police, start—if not, in your view, complete—the process of addressing those culture issues?
That is an extremely important point. I have said for years that we should be separating the forensic science services from the police service. Whether we like it or not, the police are in business to fight crime and root out criminals. I know that because I was in the police force for 30 years. In my opinion, forensic scientists are there to establish the truth in an objective fashion. One of the tragedies of the case is that that has not happened in this instance. The truth has not been established objectively by forensic scientists. The way ahead is to separate the forensic scientists from the police. I would have no police involvement at all in forensic science at any level, because we must create a culture for the forensic scientists.
Miss McKie, with your more recent experience of being in a more junior position than your father ended up in, do you share his views, or do you have anything to add to them?
I agree that the two areas should be totally separate. The most important thing is that any supervisors in the SCRO need to be fingerprint experts. I understand that, at the moment, the supervisors know nothing about fingerprinting. If, in my case, there had been a supervisor who knew something about the way the system worked, the case might have been stopped dead at the very beginning.
From what you know, which may not be sufficient to answer the question, do you think that the changes in the processes in the SCRO and the changes in the way in which it deals with things are likely to move in the right direction and to address your concerns?
No. While there is a mixture of police and fingerprint personnel, and supervisors who know nothing about fingerprinting, things will not move on at all.
Mr Smith, I note your previous remark that you are not a criminal—
I am glad to hear that.
The pause was to have been followed by the word "lawyer", but some people might not wish to hear that other word. Although you are not a criminal lawyer, do you have anything useful to add from your knowledge and experience of the SCRO and your dealings with the police?
My only experience of the matter is from my involvement in this case. To be perfectly frank, I do not think that I can add anything useful to what has been said already.
That is fine. I do not want to force you to answer.
I know that Mike Pringle is quite interested in that area.
The two questions that I might have asked about that have already been answered, but I would like to return to the question of confidence in the Scottish fingerprint service. If this is a question that the McKies cannot answer, it is something that I might come back to with other witnesses. There is some evidence that there is a bit of a rift in the fingerprint service. Do you think that the culture in the Glasgow bureau is different from the culture in the Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen bureaux?
I would like to answer that. As I said before, culture is all important. The Scottish fingerprint service has many good experts—in fact, some of the world's best. However, the culture in the Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen bureaux is different from the culture in the SCRO. Mr Stevenson hit the nail on the head—the SCRO is a large, bureaucratic organisation that was, until recently, closely tied to the police. Unless you resolve the differences between the Aberdeen officers and Edinburgh officers, who agree that there was a misidentification, and the other officers, there will be no way forward.
We talked about how we can restore public confidence. I think that it is your assertion—you can confirm this or not—that the scientific side should be separated from the police force. You believe that fingerprint experts should run the fingerprint service and not civilians. Is that right?
Not civilians?
In other words, it should be experts who run the fingerprint bureaux—experts who have some knowledge of how the fingerprint service works.
Absolutely.
There is a problem with the management. Is that what you are saying?
The circumstances in my case, I believe, were that four fingerprint people said, "That's Shirley McKie's print." The supervisors would not know what they were looking at, so how could they possibly oversee that? They took the word of those people without being able to check it themselves.
The committee will take time to understand the processes. What were the processes supposed to be? What were the processes in the circumstances surrounding your case? What has happened in the intervening time? There is also the question that we are discussing now, which is what lessons can be learned.
I approve of the principle of moving from a fingerprint service to a forensic science service. If someone has achieved the status of being a forensic scientist, I am not going to argue with that, but it is abundantly clear that training and other areas of verification need to improve and that staff need to become forensic scientists. I am all for them moving into the forensic science service. Why are the two services separate? Only for historical reasons. In England, again, there is a national forensic science service but the fingerprint service is separate from that.
So, in your view, the first structural issue is about the fingerprint service moving away from direct control by the police. There is a second issue about where it should be placed. You support David Mulhern's suggestion that we should move quickly towards the fingerprint service being brought together with forensic science services.
Yes. The fingerprint service should be moved totally away from control by the police. I do not want the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland to be involved in it at all. ACPOS may well be there in an advisory role, but we should have a Scottish forensic science service headed by an independent civilian.
I have a checklist of things that I want to be clear about. One of them is the process. We have not examined this in depth, but it is apparent to me that, at various points of checking the fingerprint, the experts were aware that they were checking the prints of police officers. They might even have been aware why. In your view, is it important that the work is done completely anonymously? Should fingerprint experts be made aware of the importance of a particular print?
There must be an interface between the police and forensic scientists. The information that the police have obtained at a crime scene should be handed over to forensic scientists. This is not "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation"; this is the real world. Forensic scientists are objective scientists. They can sit in back rooms in darkness—I do not care what they do—away from any police influence. The problem is that people want to get someone for high-profile murders such as the Marion Ross case. I feel that that was an issue in this case. The police needed to get someone for a brutal murder.
I just want to be clear about this. Are you saying that, in a case in which a fingerprint expert is eliminating a print—in this case, whoever was eliminating the print might have known that it was quite an important print—
Absolutely.
Are you saying that they should not know anything about the print at all? Should they know that there has been excitement—I think that that is one of the words that you have used—around a particular print?
Yes—the expert should not get caught up in the emotions of the crime. That is not their responsibility; that is the responsibility of the police. The expert should be independent from that emotion, and they should be carrying out an objective assessment. Police officers take evidence to the forensic scientists. Those officers know the forensic scientists and they talk about cases. When Marion Ross—who has been forgotten in all this—was killed, that was an awful crime, and I do not blame the scientists for wanting to solve the case. However, we need to divide things off so that there is no suggestion or hint of pressure by the police on the scientists. I think that there was pressure in this case.
I turn to the final point on my checklist. I presume that you would agree that it is important to make international comparisons. I would have thought that you would want to make international comparisons from the beginning to ascertain whether we were in step or out of step and whether now, as we have been moving to make changes, we are in step with international thinking. I take it that you would agree that that is important.
Yes. If I am wrong about this, you will tell me, but I believe that there is a burning necessity for international standards to be applied in fingerprinting. We find that there are different standards around the world. It seems that Scotland has a big opportunity to lead the world in this area and to work towards an international standard, with Interpol or others, so that, whether a print is identified in America, the Netherlands or Scotland, the same process of verification is applied. Currently, a whole lot of different processes are applied. Some of them are good, but some of them are not so good. Let us lead the way on this in Scotland. Let us go forward from this misidentification and the awful time that our family and the families of the experts have endured and gain international recognition for an international standard. Does that answer your question?
It does. We will draw this evidence session to a close with some brief final questions.
I return to the question of amalgamating the Scottish fingerprint service into the Scottish forensic science service. Are you suggesting that it should be amalgamated in one place for the whole of Scotland? Some people work in Aberdeen, some in Glasgow and some in Dundee. Could the two services be amalgamated in Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee, or do you envisage one great big conglomerate?
I do not think that having a big conglomerate works. I have no real problem with having the various bureaux around the country. They are all equals. The SCRO in Glasgow is equal to the other bureaux. There is no harm in having people in their separate bureaux. In fact, I do not think that it is good to bring them all together, because that leads to having another bureaucracy.
I return to the issue of the four SCRO staff. A number of points have been made, and I have let them flow, but I would like to ask Mr Smith a couple of questions.
You may ask one question before I draw the session to a close.
Mr Smith, you are aware that four SCRO staff faced a disciplinary tribunal. The procurator fiscal then investigated whether there was a case against them. The decision in both cases was that the staff had no case to answer. If the process has been tested and the people have been thoroughly investigated, do you think that it is reasonable for you and your clients to continue to make allegations of dishonesty, corruption and perjury against them, without evidence?
I am unclear about the context—you are saying that the allegations have been made by me. Will you clarify that for me, please?
You are sitting here as one of a group of three witnesses. A disciplinary tribunal—a quasi-judicial legal process—has taken place. As far as I understand the law of Scotland, those people have been found entirely innocent of any offence. Two years on from that decision, is it reasonable to continue to make allegations? If you want to make an issue of your involvement, have you sent any letters to anyone to warn them about what might or might not be said in defence of those four people or anybody who wishes to speak on their behalf?
I am sorry, Mr McNulty, but I was instructed in a civil litigation case, which then came to a conclusion. My client was invited to come along today to give evidence and I was invited to give her legal advice. I did so. I have not made allegations about those people and, quite frankly, I resent the suggestion that I have. If you are not prepared to tell me when I am supposed to have made such allegations, I am certainly not going to try to answer a question that has not been asked properly.
I am simply asking whether it was reasonable that allegations were made; not whether you made them personally.
With respect, you said to me, "Is it reasonable for you and others to make allegations?" I resent the suggestion that I have done so.
My final question is just out of interest. Given all that has happened to you over the past nine years, Ms McKie, if you could change just one thing, what would it be?
Gosh. One thing. I do not know; I cannot answer that. I just wish that the experience had not taken such a toll on my family. I cannot believe that I am involved in this situation because I told the truth—it is just ridiculous. I wish I could change my dad's health—what we have gone through is awful. I do not know what I would change. It is too difficult a question.
As we draw to a close, I realise that we have asked controversial and frank questions, but when we conduct a parliamentary inquiry, we have to try to get everything out as much as we can and we intend to let everybody air their views. I see that Iain McKie has his hand up. Perhaps you think that we have not covered everything. I want to have the last word, but go on—you can have 60 seconds.
You indicated that we might be able to say something briefly at the end, so I would like to do that. I am not getting at Mr McNulty—it is just the way things work out—but he referred to the independent Black report that looked into the discipline of the SCRO staff and cleared them. That report has been totally discredited—it took no account of Mr Mackay's criminality charges. However, I believe that the authors are to give evidence to this inquiry.
I thank all three of you. I thank you, Shirley McKie, for coming in person and giving evidence. We are pleased that you have come along and spent an hour and a half answering our questions. As you know, Iain, we have had an exchange of correspondence about the issues and we might have to agree to differ on some of them. I hope that you will take it in good faith when I say that the committee is endeavouring to be transparent and impartial throughout the process. Unfortunately, we have limited time—because of the legislation that we have before us, we are officially the busiest committee, and this is an extra meeting. However, I reassure you that we take the whole matter very seriously. We have a list of witnesses, not all of whom have been revealed yet because there are some logistical problems in getting everybody together. Not everyone is coming from Scotland. That list will be disclosed in due course once the committee has had a chance to consider the logistics.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
I welcome Hugh Ferry, the former head of the Scottish Criminal Record Office. I am sorry that we are nearly an hour behind schedule. We manage that most weeks. Thank you for coming along to answer our questions. A number of members have questions for you.
I would like to ask a factual question. Can you confirm the period during which you were director of the SCRO, Mr Ferry?
To be pedantic, I was known as head of the SCRO. The term "director" was introduced fairly recently. However, I was in charge of the SCRO.
From what date were you head of the SCRO?
I was head of the SCRO from 13 November 1995 until 28 November 1998.
That gives a context to your evidence that is quite important. During your period as head of the SCRO, were you aware of and seeking to remedy any problems related to the management structure and processes of the SCRO?
Very much so. I was deputy head of the organisation from 1990 to 1993. At that time, I was in charge of personnel and training matters, and a few changes were introduced. Forgive me, convener, if I go off at a tangent, but I am trying to sketch out the context. Automatic fingerprint recognition—the computerisation of fingerprints—was tendered for in 1990. I was part of the group that was responsible for the tender. We realised that the use of computers to help us with fingerprint identifications could change dramatically the way in which the operation was carried out. A number of changes were set in place as early as 1990, before I returned to the SCRO in 1995.
Would you have expected the first matching to have been done by computer and to have come up with one of three conclusions: high probability of match, high probability of mismatch and unable to decide? Would that be reasonable?
The process was slightly more complex than that. Once a mark had been fed in for identification, the computer would give a score of 10, 20, 30 or 40. It was up to the operator to determine the level at which to place the suspects and then to compare fingerprints manually on the screen.
It is being said that in 1997, when you were responsible for the organisation, there were no documented processes. Do you agree with that statement?
I am sorry, Mr Stevenson, but I do not understand the question.
I think that we have been told that there were no systematic processes for putting fingerprints through the system. In the period to which I refer, steps 1, 2 and 3 were not documented and recorded.
I disagree.
Can you describe the process during that period? How did a fingerprint arrive, and how did it pass through the various stages of handling?
You are talking about 1995-97.
Yes.
The first point that I must make clear is that the fingerprint database that the computer used at that time was only for people who had been convicted of crimes in Scotland or people resident in Scotland who had been convicted of crimes outside Scotland whose tenprint form we subsequently received. Once the mark came in, the expert would examine it to see whether he or she could identify a particular pattern type: a loop, a whorl or whatever. The committee should bear it in mind that I am not a fingerprint expert. The expert could then feed that information into the computer to minimise the number of possible matches that would come out. That was documented.
I have found the specific evidence for which I was looking. John McLean, in a letter to the committee, states:
I disagree with that.
So, if we were to ask you to return to the committee you could bring with you the written procedures that existed at that time.
I doubt whether I could. I have been away for nine years.
Can you point us to anyone who could provide a copy of those written procedures?
The head of the fingerprint section.
As it exists today?
No. As it existed at the time.
Why would Mr McLean write to us and say in unambiguous terms—colleagues can correct me if I am misquoting or taking his remarks out of context—that
I can think of no reason why he would say that. All I know is that when I came back into the SCRO—I will rephrase that. When I started off as the deputy in 1990, written procedures were drawn up. As far as I am aware, those written procedures continued to be in place during my absence and after my return.
So in 1990 you were responsible for drawing up written procedures.
Yes.
What form did those take? Roughly how many pages were there?
I cannot remember.
Who had access to them? Did the procedures take the form of a volume stuck on a shelf somewhere so that you could say when any inspections were conducted that you had them, or did every individual who was operating in the service have them at their elbow as their guide to the steps that they were required to take?
It would be fair to say that they were not available to everyone every day. During training, people were given instructions on how searches were to be carried out. At that time, a project team, whose members have now also retired, was also in place. They were responsible for working with the manufacture of the computer and advising people on how searches should be carried out. That work was all done in 1990. The procedures could then have changed, but when I came back in 1995 I had no reason to believe that they had been changed nor did I have any reason to ask to look at the procedures.
You returned as the head of the service in 1995. Did you at any time during your time as head review and in any way amend the procedures that you say exist but that John McLean, the current director, says did not exist in 1997?
To put the whole operation into context, there was a weekly meeting attended by me, the head of the fingerprint section and the other sections in the SCRO, which conveniently seem to have been forgotten about. On a weekly basis, we discussed how procedures were operating and the changes that were needed, and it was left to the head of the fingerprint section to implement the changes.
In implementing those changes, would he have changed the written document that documented the processes that were supposed to be carried out? How would he have communicated the nature of those changes to the people in the front line who were doing the job?
That was down to him; he was the head of the section.
Are you saying, "I don't know"?
Correct.
So, you are saying that, as the head of the operation, you had no knowledge of the extent to which the people in the front line who were doing the fingerprint comparisons were adhering to any standards that you tell us existed but that John McLean—in contradiction to that—asserts unambiguously in his letter to us did not exist.
All that I can tell you is that, on a weekly basis, I reviewed the procedures with the head of the fingerprint section. It was up to him to implement any changes that were agreed.
Let us be clear about this. You say that you reviewed the procedures on a weekly basis.
Yes.
Are you saying that you reviewed the activities and processes on a weekly basis? Procedures must be applied with consistency. Are you suggesting that they were in such a state of fluidity that they had to be reviewed every week?
No.
So, what do you mean when you say that you reviewed them every week?
I checked whether everything was in order, whether we were experiencing any problems and whether anything had to be changed.
How would you have known whether you were experiencing any problems if, as you say, you did not know whether the practitioners in the front line were operating according to the procedures?
I would not have known. I depended on my line manager to tell me what was happening.
What process did you go through with your line manager to satisfy yourself that he was applying the standards that you say existed?
I simply considered the number of identifications that were being made, the number of marks that were coming in and what the backlog was. In general, I ensured that the department or the section was working as efficiently as it possibly could.
Does that mean that individual cases in which there was dispute, disagreement or difficulty would end up on your desk or at your management committee for discussion?
Yes.
How often did that happen?
Very rarely.
How often is very rarely?
I find it difficult to remember a specific occasion on which we had a real problem with the procedures.
So, you are saying that that did happen but that you cannot recall a specific occasion. You have said that you were in post as the head of the operation for three years and 15 days—that is around 1,000 days. In that period, were there any such cases?
I honestly cannot remember a problem arising with regard to the procedures or the computerised fingerprint system.
But you have said that specific issues relating to specific cases would come to you or your management committee for review.
Yes.
I am talking about the number of instances of that happening, as distinct from my initial line of questioning, which focused on whether there were adequate documented, understood and shared processes. I am now talking about how many cases came to the head honcho's desk in the 1,000 or so days for which you were in charge.
Let me put it into the proper context. We seem to be being sidelined by the idea that there was only one section in the SCRO when I was there. There were three sections. Procedures in all three sections were examined on a weekly basis and any changes were left to the head of each section. During that weekly meeting, there would be occasions on which a specific problem arose; however, I cannot recollect a specific problem that led to any changes in the way in which we operated the AFR system.
But there were problems that did not lead you to conclude that you needed to change the processes—is that correct?
Yes.
In reviewing the particular cases that came into your purview, did you conclude that issues were associated with the conclusions on the case that had come to you? In other words, while the process did not require to be changed, it may have been applied incorrectly or may not have been followed correctly.
Correct. Equally, a mistake could occasionally be made in our identification procedures. However, the mistake would be down to human error rather than to something that would require a change in the procedures. I hope that my distinction between the sets of circumstances is clear. A problem would come to me not because it was a problem of procedure, but because someone had failed to adhere to the procedures or had made a mistake in interpreting them.
Three separate units were applying the same processes. If we were to ask others who were involved in the management of those three units, do you think that we would be able to see a tangible copy of the processes as they existed at that stage?
I doubt it very much.
Why?
Because in the time since I retired, they have probably gone.
When did you retire, Mr Ferry?
In 1998. A lot has happened since then.
I have to say to you, Mr Ferry, that in the early 1970s I worked in a technical environment in which I was responsible for developing processes and standards and I could give you a copy of them today. I find it quite astonishing that you are telling me that the processes, procedures and standards that were involved in a technical environment were so ephemeral as to have vanished off the face of the earth in a very short space of time.
All I can tell you, Mr Stevenson, is that you and I are obviously of different managerial breeds. I was there principally to be responsible for the strategic running of the organisation. I trusted my heads of section to implement. I did not have the time to sit and look at every piece of paper that came across my desk or their desks. It was their job to run their departments and they reported any problems to me. We will obviously have to differ on the point that you raised.
How many staff were you responsible for?
About 100.
Right—a fifth of the number for whom I was responsible.
Can you clarify a point, Mr Ferry? Who was the head of the fingerprint section to which you referred?
If we are speaking of 1997, it was Chief Inspector William O'Neill.
What are the three sections to which you referred?
There was the fingerprint section, the computer print section and an administrative section, as it was called then. That has changed now; it is no longer an admin section, but some other thing—I do not know what it is called. However, that group was responsible for carrying out the vetting inquires with regard to people having access to children and so on.
In your answer to Mr Stevenson you said that there were procedures. Were there procedures for dealing with such circumstances as a disputed mark? If there were, would they be written down?
No. It was quite simple. If a mark was identified as belonging to an individual, it was then checked by three other experts. In fact, because I was concerned about effectiveness, efficiency and the strategic view, which I mentioned earlier, I argued with the head of the fingerprint section and with some of the senior experts that it was a waste of people to have one expert identify a mark and then to have three others identify it. However, they convinced me that that procedure was correct because there had been occasions when, at the fourth check, someone had said, "No, I don't agree with the other experts" and the mistake had been picked up then.
But at the time, if the first expert identified or eliminated a print, three others would follow the same procedure on that print.
Yes.
What would happen if the second expert said, "I can't agree that there's sufficiency to eliminate that mark"?
Again, it would be referred to a more senior expert and there would be a discussion—almost a case assessment—to determine where the differences were and why there was disagreement.
Was that procedure written down at the time?
I am not aware of that, no.
But it might have been.
Yes, it could have been.
Would you expect it to have been?
Yes, I would have thought so.
I will move on from the weekly meetings and the question of four officers being required to check the fingerprint. Were you aware of any circumstances—whether they were brought directly to you or not—in which some experts refused to sign identifications when other experts would sign them? In other words, they simply could not find 16 points of comparison.
If you are asking whether there were occasions when four experts could not agree, there were.
What about when one expert refused to sign an identification because, let us say, they could find only 10 points of comparison?
That would mean that they were not in agreement.
Yes, it would mean that they were not in agreement. How was that dealt with?
By the head of the fingerprint section.
How did they do that?
By having a case conference and determining, in their opinion, who was right and who was wrong.
Did you receive, or were you aware of, any complaints from any members of staff who felt that they were pressured to mark identifications up to 16 points when they could not find them?
Never.
You were never aware of that?
Never. I can assure you of that.
My next question may or may not relate to one of your weekly meetings. Were you aware of concern being shown over the taking of the names of persons who refused to sign identifications because they did not see 16 points? Were you aware also that that would happen only when somebody continuously refused to sign that there were 16 points?
I am not aware of anything whatever of that nature.
Do you know what a Q circle is?
A Q circle? Yes.
What is it?
Quality control.
Are you aware of the meeting of 24 March 1995, when that precise issue was raised?
I am not aware of it. I cannot remember it.
You do not have any knowledge of that being raised.
I am saying that I cannot recall it.
Yes, but I am asking you whether it was ever raised in the time that you were there.
No, I cannot recollect it being raised.
You have no recollection of it being raised at quality meetings. Were you not kept informed of what happened at those meetings?
Yes, I was.
But you cannot recall that incident.
No.
Were you aware that the matter was raised with Chief Inspector Law?
I am sorry, I missed that question.
Were you aware that matters of that ilk were raised with Chief Inspector Law?
Chief Inspector Law never raised with me any issues about people being pressurised, but he made me aware of what was going on at quality circles.
To be absolutely crystal clear, in your view, no officer ever made any complaint at any time that they were being pressured to mark up 16 points in an identification when they could not find 16.
No one ever made that complaint specifically to me and I am not aware of anyone else being informed of that and then telling me. I can assure you of that.
Okay. We may return to that at a later date.
Not being a fingerprint expert—
Nor am I.
Nonetheless, perhaps you can help me with what my colleague has just been checking with you. You can correct me if I am wrong, but my assumption is that, if a fingerprint expert finds 16 points of comparison on a fingerprint, which is then passed to a colleague who is asked to identify it, but that colleague says that they can find only 10 points of comparison, that does not necessarily mean that the person who has identified the 10 points is saying that it is not the fingerprint that it was identified as being. Or does it?
The whole problem, in my experience, was to do with the 16 points. That was referred to earlier by Mr McKie. There seemed to have been some heaven-sent reliance on a 16-point identification. However, during the time when I was involved, I was learning from other experts in other areas that I visited and from experts within the SCRO that, because of the unique nature of a particular mark, 10 or 12 points could be sufficient to give an identification, even if there were not 16 points, provided that there were no dissimilarities. It is quite possible that I would find 10 points of similarity and you would not find 10, or that you would find 16 and I would not find 10. It is as simple as that. It is not a science. Let us be honest. There is a forensic value attached to it, but it is not a science and you cannot say conclusively that you have found a match.
So, if the expert who looks at the mark says initially that there are 16 points of similarity and the second person says that there are 10 points, would it be likely that the first person would take the mark to somebody else to look at?
Yes.
And to other people thereafter?
Yes.
Would the person who had identified 10 points of similarity then disappear from the equation completely, so that there would be two, three or four new people, excluding that one person?
As I said, there would be—for want of a better expression—a case conference, until a sufficient number of experts were agreed; the one who did not agree would have to explain why they did not agree and say where they saw the dissimilarities or where they did not see the similarities. Then there would be a consensus.
What if there was no consensus?
Then the print cannot be identified.
So if there is one expert who cannot confirm an identification, the print is not identified.
That is right.
We will return to that.
That is what we have been advised by the SCRO.
I would like to go back to some general questions. What, if any, organisational failings did you identify during your period as head of the SCRO?
A number. It is hard to try to enumerate them all just now.
Rather than ask you to say how many such failings there were, I was going to ask you to explain what steps you took to address the issues as they arose. That is what we are interested in.
Among the problems that I encountered in the fingerprint section was the fact that we were finding accommodation and the volume of work difficult. As far as I was concerned, those basic problems had to be addressed by creating a good working environment for the staff. That might sound simplistic, but that was the first problem that had to be resolved. We then discovered that we had six police officers and—returning to the point that Mr McKie made—we had to ask whether we needed police officers in there at all or whether the fingerprint section should be detached. Eventually, the police officers who were forensic experts were replaced by civilian fingerprint experts.
Can you give us an idea of the dates of those changes?
We started the AFR project in 1989-90. Later on, we had another problem with getting fingerprints into the SCRO in tenprint form, as we called it. That led us to bring in what we called the Livescan system, which allowed the electronic capture of fingerprints at remote locations and speeded up the system. That was an ideal operational tool, because it meant that at the point where a person was arrested, whether he was in Aberdeen or Dumfries, he could be identified on a central database. Those were the general issues that we had to address.
I presume that the replacement of police officers with civilian experts was done gradually. What kind of timescale are we talking about for that?
That was achieved over the period from when I started in 1990 until about 1995. It took about four or five years.
Did you ever raise any of those matters with the SCRO's controlling board?
Yes.
Were representations about those matters made in writing? Do you know whether those documents are still available?
The minutes of the controlling committee should still be available from what was then the Scottish Office. The Scottish Office was responsible for the minutes of the controlling committee.
So those might be available to us.
I have quite a few thoughts on that. This is the first time that I have been given an opportunity to address the issue. First, I feel quite lonely sitting here today. Secondly, I object to this idea of a conspiracy and to the way that I have been criticised—perhaps not directly, but when people talk about the SCRO's management they are talking about Hugh Ferry—for bad management. The one thing that annoys me is that that is never put in context.
Good afternoon, Mr Ferry. To provide an indication of the on-going work of the fingerprint bureau, can you say how frequently disputes would arise over the identification of a fingerprint when you were there?
I have no idea. I honestly cannot answer that, Ms Mitchell.
I just wondered how often the identification of a print would seem unclear to someone but clear to someone else. I wondered whether that situation would have been, say, a weekly occurrence. Are you saying that you would not have been in a position to know about that kind of routine work?
I am saying that the head of section would have dealt with that. If he had difficulties with a problem, he would raise it with me, but dealing with problems on a day-to-day basis was what he was paid for.
I understand that.
I need to put something into context here that has not come out earlier. As you will be well aware, every police officer has his fingerprints taken when he joins the police. However, under an arrangement with the Police Federation, those fingerprints are stored not in the central database but in a separate database. Therefore, a routine examination to try to trace the person who had left their mark at the scene of a crime would not include the fingerprints of police officers.
You mentioned the logging of people who go to the scene of a crime. Was there ever any other occasion when a print was in dispute, regarding someone who was not on the log but who was a police officer?
I am not aware of anything like that.
You have said that, if there were any dubiety, a conference would be held and experts would all consider the issue.
Yes. That was my understanding.
You said that you would be asked to withdraw the fingerprint cards of people who were on the list of those who had been at the locus. It appears to be beyond dispute, although I could be corrected, that Shirley McKie's name was not on the list of people who had been at the locus—albeit she was on the team. Would there be any explanation of why her name would be put forward—in the process that you have described—to have her card withdrawn, given that she was not on the police's list of people who were at the locus?
I have no knowledge of who was at the locus. All that I had knowledge of—or, rather, that the head of the fingerprint section had knowledge of—was the names that were disclosed to him by the senior investigating officer.
You are saying that the process was that, under those circumstances, the names that you would be given would be the names of those who had been at the locus.
Yes.
And if you were given a list that included Shirley McKie's name, that would have come through a process within the police and would have had nothing to do with you. That is reasonable; I would not expect it to be to do with you.
It would be a matter for the inquiry team in U division of Strathclyde police to submit to us the names of the police officers whose prints they wanted to have eliminated against the outstanding mark.
But your expectation is that that list—
Would be of people who had been at the locus.
Was that the nature of the agreement with the federation—that only people who were on the log as having been at the locus should be listed?
Yes.
You are saying that the list of police officers that the SCRO received would contain only those police officers whom the investigating officer had told you were at the locus. It would not contain the full list of officers who were involved in the investigation of the crime.
The instruction was that the list was of officers who had been at the locus. As to whether the senior investigating officer decided to submit other names, that was up to him. At that time, we could not question the rights or wrongs of who was on the list. We had to accept that, bearing in mind that we were totally detached from the inquiry. We were just trying to do our best.
At what point in the process would the SCRO be told that there was an issue in respect of an officer's print?
The situation was that all the marks had been identified except one, which was outstanding. Because of the disclosure requirements, the senior investigating officer would be aware of that. First, we would check whether the print belonged to a police officer who had been at the locus. Once the names had been submitted, we would do that.
Is it correct that, at some point in the McKie case, the SCRO was given information about the significance of a mark?
I do not understand what you are getting at, convener.
In the evidence that was submitted to us by fingerprint experts who checked the print for elimination, they indicated that they knew that there was some excitement—that is the word that they used—about the mark that they were checking. They seemed to know that the process was about eliminating a police officer. Are you not aware of that?
No. I think that we are confusing matters. My knowledge of the case was, quite simply, that there was an unidentified mark at the locus. In an attempt to determine whose mark that was, we checked the prints of the police officers who were at the locus against that mark. It was not a case of saying, "We'll have to prove that it was a police officer." It was just an attempt to eliminate that possibility.
In my view, the question is pertinent. Looking back, I wonder whether it is appropriate for experts who are eliminating a print to be told why they are doing that. If I believe the evidence that we have been given, it is clear to me that experts who were checking the print were told that the mark was significant because it belonged to a police officer. Are you saying that that never happened?
I am saying that the mark was significant because it could have belonged to a police officer. We were trying to eliminate that possibility. If the print was not that of Shirley McKie or any other police officer, we would have been left with a murder scene at which there was an unidentified mark.
I think that you are skipping over some key events. Because of the concern around eliminating the mark—
With respect, the excitement to which you refer was created by Shirley McKie, not by the SCRO or anyone else. As far as I am concerned, this was a routine murder inquiry, if there can be such a thing. In this case, there was a mark that could not be eliminated. There are such marks in most cases. The mark could have belonged to the gas meter reader.
The whole point of the checking and rechecking was that there was an issue around the mark.
That is correct—after the print was identified as Shirley McKie's. That is a significant difference.
That is what I am talking about.
It became an issue after the fingerprint was submitted to us and the mark was identified as belonging to Shirley McKie, in our experts' opinion, because she had denied that it was her fingerprint.
Looking back on the process, do you think that it is right that fingerprint experts should be aware of the level of interest in a particular mark?
They were aware.
I know—we have established that.
They were aware that the print could have belonged to a police officer.
With hindsight, do you not think that the process should have been completely anonymous? It is clear to me that the excitement around the mark being identified as Shirley McKie's led to checking, further checking and further confidence. We will go into that matter in some detail. Everyone knew that the mark was very significant and that it belonged to a police officer who claimed that she was not there. I am suggesting that, in a pure process, experts should not get to know the significance of a mark.
On a tenprint form, the details of the individual are shown at the top and the ten fingerprints are underneath. How do you make it anonymous? Do you cut the top off?
Why does an expert need to know that the reason for eliminating or identifying a print is that it is the mark of an officer—
But they do not need to know that.
—who is disputing her presence. Why do they need to know that?
We are at cross-purposes. I will give you my version of what happened, as I recollect it. We had one unidentified mark and it was suggested to us that we compare it with the police officers who had been at the locus. I was informed that the mark had been identified as that of a police officer but that she had denied it. That is quite clear. We all know that. I was attending a meeting that day so I asked the expert who told me what had happened, "Look, just in case there is any dubiety here, will you have that checked again and see me when I get back from the meeting?" I came back from the meeting and he told me, "Another three experts have looked at it and it is definitely the girl who is responsible, but she is still denying it."
But the three experts who rechecked it knew that they were checking Shirley McKie's print and they knew why.
They were asked purely and simply, "Could you identify that mark against that tenprint form?"
That is all they were asked to do?
Yes.
Going back to what you said earlier about misidentifications, what was the process if an expert was unhappy with an identification? How often did that happen? Unless I misunderstood you, you implied that it is very rare.
That there was a misidentification?
Yes.
Yes.
When Charles Stewart gave evidence under oath in 1999, he said:
No.
Why not?
I think that it is quite clear what we are talking about. You are suggesting that Mr Stewart was pressured into—
No. I am not saying that at all. What I said was that, under oath, Charlie Stewart said:
I was not made aware of that. I was aware of misidentifications that never became full identifications, but I was not aware that anyone was pressured or was signing forms that he was unhappy with. He should not have signed forms that he was unhappy with: it is as simple as that.
I am not suggesting that he signed any forms. I am trying to find out how often mistakes were made. In his evidence under oath, Mr Stewart said that it happened perhaps twice a year. Therefore, during the period that you were at the SCRO, it must have happened five, six, seven or eight times, but you were never aware of that happening. Information about that did not come to you.
No.
Were you ever consulted on your replacement, Harry Bell? Have you ever met Harry Bell to discuss the McKie case? What discussions did you have with Harry Bell subsequently? He was the next person in the post.
I met Harry Bell once after I retired, when the SCRO moved to its new premises at Pacific Quay, in Glasgow. My wife and I, along with the other still-living heads of the SCRO, were invited to a social evening. That has been my only involvement with Harry Bell since I retired.
You were not involved in the interview process when you were replaced?
No.
So, you have not discussed the Shirley McKie case with him.
No.
Okay. Let us move on. There seems to be a divergence of opinion between the Glasgow fingerprint bureau and the bureaux in other parts of Scotland. During your time in Glasgow, was there any difference? Was the whole fingerprint process approached differently? Were different practices followed in the other bureaux?
There is one point that I would like to make, for clarification. Mr Neil raised it earlier when he talked about the SCRO Glasgow bureau. When I was in the SCRO, it was a common police service that was funded jointly by the eight police forces and the then Scottish Office. It was the Scottish Criminal Record Office that had a fingerprint section and that held the whole of the fingerprint collection for the whole of Scotland. We happened to be based in Glasgow. For reasons best known to themselves, the police authorities in Lothian, Dundee and Tayside, Grampian and Fife maintained their own bureaux at their own expense in addition to the central service that the SCRO provided.
But in relation to the experts in each bureau—
I do not know what their practices were. I cannot tell you that. I have not a clue. That was not in my remit.
Perhaps the committee can follow that up and find out whether the practices were different.
I had no involvement in that case, although I was aware that there had been a murder. At the weekly meetings, I was told about all the serious crimes, as we had to allocate resources based on the seriousness of the crimes, bearing in mind the total workloads and the backlogs that we had. Other than knowing that a murder had been committed, I had no knowledge of the case until I was told that one outstanding mark had been identified as belonging to a police officer. That was my first involvement with the Marion Ross case.
Had you no further involvement thereafter?
I have had no involvement since then. I made a statement to Tayside police after I retired.
I was just about to ask about that. Were you interviewed by James Mackay, as part of his official police inquiry? If so, what information did you give him and have you since been made aware of any findings of the Mackay report?
I was not interviewed by Mr Mackay; two officers from his team visited me at home.
Were they from the inquiry team?
Yes—they were working for Mr Mackay's team. It was suggested to me that I would receive a copy of my statement to give me the opportunity to clear up any anomalies and to correct any errors, but I was never afforded that opportunity nor have I had access to the Mackay report. My appearance today is the first time, other than the Tayside inquiry, that I have had anything to do with the whole inquiry.
I want to be clear about the process for identification. Are you saying that, at the relevant time, if a fingerprint identification was disputed by one of the experts who looked at it, a case conference would take place?
That is my understanding.
How many people would attend the case conference?
It would involve the head of the section and the senior fingerprint experts.
Would there typically be four experts?
Yes—probably four or five.
If one of the experts disagreed before or at the conference but the conference nevertheless agreed to go forward with the majority view, would the Crown or the defence in the case be informed that one or more experts had disagreed?
I doubt that very much.
The Crown and the defence would not be informed.
They have been informed since the disclosure rules were introduced—which are fairly recent, as you know. However, before we had—
When were those rules introduced? Did they apply when you were at the SCRO?
Yes.
At the time of the Shirley McKie case, would the defence normally—
That is why we were checking the print.
At the time of the Shirley McKie case, if one or more experts had dissented, would the Crown or the defence normally have been notified of that?
That would have been the case only if the senior investigating officer was aware of the dispute. It should be remembered that the SCRO does not present the case; we present evidence to the SIO.
I want to be clear about that, because it is very important. If there were four fingerprint experts and one said, "I disagree with that," or, "I'm not sure about that," the procedure was that the matter would go to a conference. Is that correct?
Yes. Are you talking about what happened in the SCRO?
Yes. In that situation, a conference would always be held, and even if after that one or more officers still disagreed, as long as the senior officer said that it was so-and-so's print, the SCRO would submit it to Strathclyde police—or whatever police force—as that person's print.
That is my understanding.
If that was the case, would the police be informed that the view was not unanimous?
I doubt it.
So nobody would be informed other than the people who were inside the SCRO.
Correct—people in the fingerprint section.
Would the dissent be minuted in the SCRO?
I doubt it.
Would the conference be minuted?
I doubt it.
There would be nothing at all.
I doubt that anything would be produced.
If that is the case, to the best of your knowledge in the Shirley McKie case, did any officers take a different view from the first officer who looked at the print?
I was not made aware that any officer dissented from the view that it was Shirley McKie's fingerprint.
I am sorry to cut across you, Mr Ferry—perhaps I am having difficulty in following the discussion, although I am trying—but I thought that you said earlier that if dissent was expressed at the case conference, that would be enough for a mark not to go forward.
No—I am sorry. I misled you there—that was my mistake. I picked you up wrong. I thought—I do not know what I thought, to be honest, but I obviously misheard you. As far as I was aware, if dissent was expressed and fewer than three experts were in agreement, I want to make the point clear—
I asked a specific question about what would happen if one expert disagreed; you told me that if one disagreed, it was not an identification. Are you now saying that that is not the case?
No—I am saying that it is possible that other experts could examine a mark and have a consensus. I am trying to make a distinction.
So you just keep going until you get a consensus.
That is possible.
We need to be absolutely clear about what the process was supposed to be. If you want to think about that and set it out for us in writing, that is fine, but we need to know what the process was supposed to be, so that we can consider what the process was in the McKie case. That is very important.
I appreciate that, convener.
You appear to have given at least three different scenarios, all of which must be contradictory.
I apologise if I have done so; that was not my intention.
Okay. In the Shirley McKie case, was there any dissent about the fingerprint identification?
To my knowledge, there was no dissent in the Shirley McKie case.
By your own account, the fact that you were not aware of it did not mean that dissent did not happen.
That is correct. There could well have been dissent.
Did you disclose to the Crown or to the defence at any time that you had gone to the assistant chief constable once you had been told—
I was never given the opportunity to speak to anyone other than the Tayside inquiry.
You never gave evidence to any third party.
No.
Is it true that a conference of 20 experts was held within the SCRO to discuss the Shirley McKie identification?
When was that?
In 1997.
What date?
I do not have the precise date with me. Let me rephrase the question. I remind you that although you are not under oath, we expect you to tell the truth.
Of course.
Was there at any time in 1997 a meeting of 20 SCRO officers held in a private office to discuss Shirley McKie's fingerprints?
That is not something that I recollect. I am not saying that it did not happen, but I certainly was not at any meeting of 20 fingerprint experts.
Were not you involved in calling or authorising such a meeting?
Yes. I remember that there was something, but not the date. I would have to have time to think about it. It is not clear at all.
Let us leave aside the date. To be fair to you, it was a long time ago. Was a meeting of 20 experts called?
I cannot recollect it. I am not saying that it did not happen; it could well have happened, but I would have to think about it. At this particular moment, I cannot remember such a meeting taking place.
Did you at any time discuss Shirley McKie's fingerprint with Detective Chief Inspector Stephen Heath, the officer in charge?
The only person that I can remember speaking to about it was Detective Superintendent Bob Lauder.
What was the nature of that conversation?
Just that the fingerprint had been identified as being Shirley's.
So you spoke to the assistant chief constable and the chief superintendent.
Yes.
Did anyone else in the SCRO know that?
They knew that I had been to see the ACC.
To the best of your knowledge, during your time at the SCRO, was any information disclosed to third parties, specifically Peter Swann, or was any information provided in any way to Peter Swann about Shirley McKie's fingerprint?
I heard that question being asked earlier. I have no recollection of any information being disclosed to Peter Swann.
That is not to say that it did not happen.
That is not to say that it did not happen.
Before we go any further, I am sensing rumblings from the committee. I realise that you are feeling a bit lonely, Mr Ferry, so perhaps we need to rethink who else we need to call. It is absolutely critical that the committee understand the processes that were used in 1997. That is vital. I know that you can provide some evidence of that, but the committee might have to go to other people as well. We will need to think about it.
I understand that Mr Ferry will not have the answers to everything, but my concern is about the inconsistency of the answers that have been given to date. I have a couple of quick questions. Is it the case that a lower standard of identification pertained to elimination prints than to, for example, prints that would eventually appear in a courtroom?
Yes, that is my understanding.
So a lower standard was applied to elimination prints.
Yes.
If a lower standard is applied—in other words if the points of comparison may number only a few—do you accept that the possibility of a mistake is increased?
Yes, if there is only one person, or fewer than four people, checking the print.
You have told me what the process is. I am asking you whether you consider that the application of that lower standard increases the possibility of a mistake.
Yes.
In reply to Alex Neil, you said that you are not aware of there being any experts within your department who disputed that the print was Shirley McKie's. Were there any people in the department who could not find 16 points of comparison?
That is a question I cannot answer, because I am not aware of anyone who could not find 16 points.
Who?
I said that I am not aware of there being someone who did not find 16 points.
You are not aware of anybody who did not find 16.
No, I am not.
That is amazing.
Why is it amazing? With respect—
It is amazing because some of your officers have said in their reports to this inquiry that they could not find 16 points.
Let me make an observation. This is the first involvement that I have had in the case and I am being asked to recall events from nine years ago. I am doing my very best to be truthful and honest and to tell you the procedures as I knew them. If I made a mistake, I apologise sincerely to the committee. However, nothing has been done in malice.
I hear you. Basically, whether we were talking about a thumbprint or a footprint, you would not necessarily know unless one of your officers told you.
That is absolutely correct. I am not a fingerprint expert.
I understand that. I am now trying to understand what control you had within the department for which you were ultimately responsible, with the sort of evidence that we are discussing going through in a developing situation in which individuals were not finding the same number of points of comparison.
Yes.
What is a blind test?
A blind test is where a mark has been identified by an expert or a number of experts and is then fed into the workload of another expert to test whether he or she can identify it as being from the same individual.
At the time of the blind test, did anybody disagree? Did anybody say that they believed that the print was not Shirley McKie's fingerprint?
I am not aware of that. I can only give you the information that was passed to me.
Sure. Did you authorise the blind test?
This is your last question.
I do not know.
You do not know whether you authorised it.
I did not specifically authorise the blind test. The head of department or head of section would be responsible for that.
I presume, in that case, that you did not receive the results of that blind test.
No, I did not. I can only give you my knowledge.
Are you aware that ACPOS has acknowledged that print Y7 is not that of Shirley McKie? Do you have any views on that, given that you were the head of the service at that time?
As I have stated, I am not a fingerprint expert. I had worked with the individual fingerprint experts concerned for a number of years and I had no reason to doubt that the information that they were submitting to me was accurate, in as much as they believed the print to be Shirley McKie's fingerprint. In my opinion, they had absolutely no axe to grind. The exercise was not going to gain the experts any recognition, and it was not going to harm them in any way if they did not say that the print was that of Shirley McKie. It was purely and simply an academic exercise, if I may use that term. They were happy that it was Shirley McKie's fingerprint.
I appreciate that the events happened some time ago and that you have tried to answer our questions as best you can from memory. However, at that time, if there had been somebody among the experts—you say that you are not an expert—who felt that the print was not as it was identified, would the matter eventually have come to you for resolution?
I would have hoped so.
Was there a process whereby the matter should have come to you if there had been a misidentification?
I am sorry to keep going on about this, but the head of the fingerprint section was the person who was responsible for the day-to-day running of the section. He was responsible for procedures, and I was sitting at the top of the tree to resolve any conflicts that came around. All I can tell you is that I was never aware of any problem with anybody saying that it was not Shirley McKie's fingerprint. I am not saying that that was not the case; I just do not know. It is as simple as that. I have no axe to grind with Shirley McKie. I have never met her.
I have a couple of brief questions to finish up with.
I want to wind up. Mr Ferry is not in a position to say much more—that is what concerns me.
I have two brief questions before we get to that. You heard the evidence that was given earlier. You acknowledge that you had no knowledge of fingerprinting at all. Do not you think that the head of the fingerprint service should have, if not expertise in fingerprinting, at least some knowledge about fingerprinting? Should he not have come through the process? Is it a good idea to have in the future a complete novice who does not understand the process at the head of the service? I am looking forward. The committee is going to have to look to the future.
I will put the matter into context as briefly as I can. Originally, all the fingerprint experts in the SCRO were police officers. That is why there was a hierarchy of police officers from the chief inspector all the way down. Principally because of cost and other pressures on policing, the police officers were gradually phased out and replaced by civilian experts. There is now only one police officer left in the SCRO—the chief inspector—and that should be phased out; however, that cannot be done overnight, as he will have to be replaced by someone else who has his expertise.
It is helpful for us to hear that. You mentioned Willie O'Neill. Was he a fingerprint expert?
No. He was the second-last police officer.
Who was the most senior fingerprint expert below him?
I believe that at that time it was Robert McKenzie. Charlie Stewart was also senior.
Given that Mr Ferry left the SCRO in 1998, it would be useful for us to hear also from Harry Bell, who succeeded him. Obviously the practices that we are discussing were relevant throughout the period.
With the committee's indulgence and your co-operation, my view is that we need to try to piece together the bits that we do not have. That may mean talking, on or off the record, to the person who was the head of fingerprint services at the time, whether it was Harry Bell or someone else. We will need to think about the logistics of that. You appreciate what we are trying to do—we are not trying to make life difficult for you, but it is fundamental for us as laypeople to understand what the process was supposed to be in 1997. We are having difficulty piecing together that information, which we would like to have for our report.
That is important. As I indicated earlier, I was responsible for three sections of the SCRO. I am not a computer expert, but I was responsible for the computer section. My responsibility was to ensure that we got value for money and provided a good service to the Scottish police service. Perhaps I was a bad manager, but I realised that the person who was best able to deal with the fingerprint section was the head of the fingerprint section. The same was true of the computer section. I was not involved with fingerprinting on a routine, day-to-day basis. I am not a fingerprint expert, so I could have been fooled or outfoxed even if I had been involved on that basis. It is as simple as that.
I appreciate how open you are being with us, which has been helpful. There are no more questions, but perhaps we could have dialogue with you from today on how we can move forward and get the information that we need. Thank you for coming along to face our lines of questioning. We are pleased that you were able to come here in person to do that. You will have an opportunity to look at the Official Report of today's meeting.
Thank you for your time.
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