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| NEWS > 23 February 2006 |
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UK: Police corruption probe ov
A JURY must decide whether police corruption played a part in the deaths of a couple murdered in their Trusthorpe home, an inquest heard.
As reported, John and Joan Stirland were found shot dead at their bungalow near Mablethorpe, on August 8, 2004.
Nottingham man Colin Gunn, 40 – who had persuaded police officers to provide him with information – was jailed for 35 years for the murders.
John Russell, 29, and Michael McNee, 22, were jailed for 30 and 25 years respectively in 2006 for conspiracy to commit the murder.
The inquest, which opened yesterday at Lin... Read more
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 Article sourced from
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Scotsman - United Kingdom
23 February 2006
This article appeared in the above title/site.
To view it in its entirity click this link.
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The Shirley McKie case has rai
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Pressure builds for a public i
SENIOR legal figures yesterday added their weight to calls for a public inquiry into the Shirley McKie case, a move they said was vital to restore public confidence in Scotland's criminal justice system.
Top lawyers, retired judges and academics said the integrity of fingerprint evidence could only be rescued by an independent inquiry. They made the call as Cathy Jamieson, the justice minister, told MSPs why she was refusing to bow to growing pressure for a full inquiry, which would inevitably investigate claims of a "cover-up" at the Scottish Criminal Records Office (SCRO) and the Scottish Executive in the case.
Ms McKie, then a detective with Strathclyde Police, was part of a team investigating the murder of a woman at her home in Kilmarnock in 1997. Later, at the trial of David Asbury, who was accused of the murder, Ms McKie denied ever having gone inside the house, although experts from the fingerprint bureau of the SCRO insisted a print on a doorframe came from her.
Asbury was convicted, partly on fingerprint evidence, and jailed for life. Ms McKie was prosecuted for committing perjury at Asbury's trial, but she was acquitted after the fingerprint evidence from SCRO witnesses had been discredited by experts from the United States. Subsequently, Asbury's conviction for the murder was quashed and Ms McKie sued the SCRO through a damages action against the Executive, alleging she was subjected to a malicious prosecution.
The action was settled this month with an announcement that the Executive was to pay Ms McKie £750,000, although there was no admission of liability. The Executive said there had merely been "an honest mistake" in identifying the print.
Since then, with the SCRO still refusing to accept that the print was not from Ms McKie, the "cover-up" claims, and the very fact that fingerprint evidence - which forms the basis for a large number of prosecution cases - has been so publicly disputed, has led to mounting political pressure for a public inquiry. Yesterday, senior lawyers added their voices to that demand.
The calls were led by the Criminal Bar Association, which represents Scotland's most senior criminal defence lawyers. Margaret Scott, QC, chairman of the association, said: "We are concerned that confidence in the criminal justice system has been seriously undermined.
"We now know that there has been a miscarriage of justice in the Asbury case and a 'near miss' in the case of Shirley McKie. This has resulted from serious defects in forensic procedure at best and, at worst, the manipulation of evidence."
Ms Scott said she and her colleagues worried that no attempt had been made to look at other cases where convictions may have resulted from unreliable fingerprint evidence. It was not good enough, she added, to wait and see whether people raised the issue in an appeal.
"Unless and until there is a thorough review of all cases which have involved prosecutions based on such evidence, there will remain a concern that there have been further miscarriages of justice," Ms Scott said.
That position was echoed by myriad legal experts, including individual QCs, other lawyers, and a former judge. Only one person interviewed by The Scotsman, Paul McBride, QC, was against a public inquiry.
Addressing the Scottish Parliament, Ms Jamieson and the Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd, insisted decisions on the case had been made on the basis of evidence available at the time and argued that a public inquiry would not resolve the differences between Ms McKie and fingerprint staff at the SCRO.
But their refusal even to consider a public inquiry was attacked later by Iain McKie, Ms McKie's father. He said: "They don't care about the science of fingerprinting or Shirley McKie, all they care about is preserving their own political skins."
Ms Jamieson told MSPs that the fingerprint service had been reformed and was now better in some respects than the equivalent service in England. Dismissing calls for an inquiry, she said: "I believe we have to accept that neither Ms McKie nor those alleged to have wronged her will ever be reconciled. Neither I nor a public inquiry can change that. But as a minister, it is my job to learn lessons from the past while looking to the future."
She told MSPs: "I know that a number of members have expressed support for an independent public inquiry. We need to consider whether anything of value could be achieved by such an inquiry, how long it would take, what impact it would have on the process of reform while we awaited the outcome."
The Lord Advocate's role has been under intense scrutiny since the compensation deal was reached with Ms McKie.
Yesterday, he defended his actions. Mr Boyd told MSPs: "It does not follow that because Ms McKie was acquitted that those who gave evidence against her must be guilty of perjury."
The reaction to the statements from opposition parties was damning.
Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish National Party's Holyrood leader, accused ministers of colluding in a cover-up by not allowing an inquiry.
Annabel Goldie, the Conservative leader, echoed calls for a public inquiry and told the justice minister that it was needed to clear the air.
Ms Jamieson replied that measures had been put in place at the service since a report was carried out in the aftermath of the case.
SCRO to be closed down as part of reform
THE Scottish Criminal Records Office is to be shut down and its services - including the fingerprint branch - absorbed into a new nationwide police body, the Executive confirmed yesterday.
Cathy Jamieson, the justice minister, told MSPs that the fingerprint service will be incorporated into a new organisation, the Scottish Forensic Science Service, which is designed to keep all the experts in this part of crime detection in one body.
The changes are expected to be passed by MSPs when they vote on the Police, Public Order and Criminal Justice Bill in the next few weeks. A central part of the bill is the crackdown on knife crime - the legislation will double the maximum penalty for carrying a knife in public from two to four years.
The overall body will be the new Scottish Police Services Authority, which will be responsible for providing services to police forces on a national basis. This will include the new forensic science service, with the fingerprint service a part of that.
The new authority will replace the Scottish Police College and the Scottish Criminal Records Office.
The bill also establishes an independent police complaints commissioner to investigate non-criminal complaints against the police and make the police complaints system more transparent and accountable.
It will place the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency on a statutory footing under the control of its own director. For the first time, there will also be provision for officers to be directly recruited to SCDEA.
Ms Jamieson told MSPs: "I have instructed the interim chief executive of the Scottish Police Services Authority to bring forward by the end of March an action plan to develop the Scottish Fingerprint Service as an integral part of the new Scottish Forensic Science Service from April 2007."
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