Public inquiry into case of a former police officer accused of leaving her print at crime scene concludes she was innocent

A public inquiry into a fingerprint scandal in Scotland centring on a former police officer accused of leaving her print at a crime scene concluded that she was the innocent victim of "human error".

The inquiry also issued a set of key recommendations including fingerprint experts acknowledging their findings were opinion rather than fact and that new procedures should be established for complex cases. The inquiry's findings could have implications for cases elsewhere in the UK and internationally where fingerprint evidence has been central.

Following the publication of the findings Tom Nelson, the director of the forensic services at the Scottish police services authority (SPSA) issued a personal apology in public over the handling of the matter to Iain McKie, father of the former policewoman at the centre of the scandal.

The case of Shirley McKie has haunted the Scottish criminal system for more than a decade.

She was a police constable in January 1997 when she was accused of leaving a fingerprint on a door frame at the Ayrshire murder scene of victim Marion Ross, a claim she consistently denied. This led to her arrest the following March and a charge of perjury on the basis of evidence she had given in the case against the accused murderer David Asbury. In May 1999 she was unanimously cleared of all charges at the high court in Glasgow.

An earlier inquiry in 2000 by HM chief inspector of constabulary supported McKie and went on to recommend reorganising procedures at the then Scottish criminal records office (SCRO). The justice minister at the time, Jim Wallace issued an apology to her and confirmed the print was not hers. Asbury, the builder convicted of the Marion Ross murder saw his conviction overturned by the appeal court in August 2002. In 2006, following a legal battle which saw McKie launch a damages case against the Scottish executive, she received a settlement of £750,000.

Among the inquiry's findings on Wednesday was the conclusion that there was "no impropriety on the part of the SCRO fingerprint examiners" who had misidentified the fingerprint alleged to have belonged to McKie and that these "were opinions genuinely held by them". It added that there was "no conspiracy against McKie in Strathclyde police".

The report also said the misidentification of that print and another known as "Q12" which allegedly belonged to the victim Marion Ross, did "expose weaknesses in the methodology of fingerprint comparison and in particular where it involves complex marks".

The report also contained 86 recommendations, including a key proposal that from now on "fingerprint evidence should be recognised as opinion evidence, not fact", and thus should be treated by courts "on its merits".

Other recommendations suggested that print evidence cannot be treated with "100% certainty or on any other basis suggesting that fingerprint evidence is infallible". The report recommended new training for experts to emphasise their findings were based on "personal opinion".

It recommended that any features in a print should be "demonstrable to a lay person with normal eyesight" and that explanations "for any differences between a mark and a print require to be cogent if a finding of identification is to be made".

The report concluded that the body which now deals with fingerprint evidence in Scotland, the SPSA should develop new procedures to ensure complex marks such as those featured in the McKie case, are "treated differently" and should include three qualified examiners who make detailed notes from start to finish to explain their independent conclusions.

Experts were also encouraged to not only work on "learning and practising the methodology" of their work but also to engage "with members of the academic community working in the field".

Afterwards McKie said he was "shocked and pleasantly surprised by the apology and the fact it took place publicly".

He added: "The system has kidded itself on in Scotland for years that it's been effective, but it hasn't and there's been a culture of arrogance and invincibility and I hope that finishes."

Professor Allan Jamieson of the Forensic Institute in Scotland said: "For the proper functioning of an adversarial system of justice, it is essential that the defence have the opportunity to prepare for trial. Scotland is the only jurisdiction in the UK where all forensic science laboratories are owned and operated by the police. It also has the most restrictive practice in the UK regarding access to scientific results and files."