Fiona McBride to finally admit errors??

[Big Wullie]

From McBride's last appeal:

http://www.bailii.org/scot/cases/ScotCS ... CSIH4.html

[3] In January 1997 a fingerprint lift, labelled Y7, was taken from the scene of the murder of a woman named Marion Ross. That print was identified by the appellant and three colleagues as coming from P.C. Shirley McKie, who denied ever being at the locus. Ms McKie was charged with perjury and acquitted. The fall-out from that case is well known and will not be repeated here. For present purposes, the important points to note are that the appellant and her three colleagues were suspended from duty from August 2000 until 20 May 2002. Although it has been maintained, and indeed determined in a public inquiry, that the identification of the print as coming from Ms McKie was a "misidentification", in the present case it has not been suggested that the fingerprint officers involved acted maliciously or were guilty of misconduct. The appellant objects to the use of the term "misidentification", which is understood as meaning that an error has been made: she considers that it should be described as a "disputed identification". She continues to maintain that the print was correctly identified.

Did the experts not deliberately crop the top from the image to hide the parts that showed it did not belong to Shirley McKie ? (The Rosetta)

Correct me if I am wrong but did Peter Swann not say at the Fingerprint Enquiry that only a non expert would exlude the top part.

What palnet are these judges living on ?

The cropped image was indeed the reason Shirley McKie was paid compensation and indeed played a large part in her claim.

[Big Wullie]

McKie V Scottish Ministers

http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/search-jud ... 0000d74aa7

[33] The pursuer also alleged that the third to sixth defenders had misrepresented the fingerprint evidence in her criminal trial, by cropping the enlarged photographs of fingerprint Y7, which they included in booklets for use at the pursuer's trial, so as to remove parts of the print which would have revealed clear differences between it and the purser's print and by digitally enhancing the fingerprint Y7 in their report in a way that rendered it more obscure in order to hide differences between it and the pursuer's print.

He also submitted that the Scottish Ministers would have known that the Crown had considered prosecuting the relevant SCRO officials and that also supported the pursuer's case.

[22] Mr Smith QC accepted for the purpose of the hearing of this motion that the Mackay and Robertson report was confidential and confined his comments on it to a script which he had shown in advance to Mr Cullen. In summary he disclosed the following. Mr Mackay and Mr Robertson had provided the pursuer's advisers with precognitions. In their precognitions they had explained that they had advised the Crown authorities that in their opinion there had been criminal conduct on the part of certain officials of the SCRO during the prosecutions of both Mr Asbury and the pursuer. This conduct comprised misrepresentation of the facts and failure to disclose both the blind comparisons that were carried out within SCRO on 17 February 1997 and doubts expressed by five SCRO officers after those comparisons. I discuss in paragraphs [33]-[35] below Mr Smith's suggestion that the Scottish Ministers knew enough about these allegations as to make unreasonable their failure in the course of the litigation to accept the existence of malice.

In my mind Fiona McBride acted with criminal intent and continues to refuse to accept she made a mistake.

According to Mackay and Robertson there was criminal conduct within SCRO by certain officials.

Why have none of these obviously corrupt experts ever been charged.

If it was up to McBride, Asbury would still be wrongly imprisoned.

Maybe one day McBride will accept she committed perjury and then maybe the prosecuting authorities in Scotland will charge her with such criminal conduct. But don't hold your breath.

I know people in Scotland have been charged with perjury on less evidence.

[Big Wullie]

Fiona McBride Appeal Allowed:

https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/ ... dgment.pdf

Couldn't make it up.

McKenzie (Who was sacked) gave evidence she was Trustworthy and Conscientious lol

[Les Bush]

Hello Big Willie,

thanks for uploading these details, I agree with your thoughts, this judgement does appear to be beyond reason and the test of reasonableness. So little was made of the conduct over many years where the disputed identification was initially raised, repeatedly reviewed and finally concluded.

15. A public judicial inquiry, “the Fingerprint Enquiry”, chaired by Sir Anthony Campbell, reported in December 2011 (after the decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal discussed below). It concluded among other things that Ms McBride and her colleagues had not acted improperly in identifying the fingerprint, although it was not DC McKie’s fingerprint.

They have used various statistics in their employment finding, one of which should have been how many times was the misidentification repeated prior to its final decision at the Enquiry. Surely a reasonable person would accept that conduct over such a length of time has to be considered as improper if the professional involved has been repeatedly making the same mistake. So many employment analogies could be raised to compare this with especially where the responsibility of result is vital to the credibility of the expert and most importantly the impact on another person, be it McKie or Asbury. Cheers from oz, Les

[Big Wullie]

Hi Les

Got to laugh when I read the following article:

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scott ... rZEo3yj.97

She only wants her job back and does not care about the money.

Aye Right

The lord advocate in Scotland has said he would never call her as a witness and surely any judge worth their salt must strike her from the credible and reliable expert witness list and never allow her to give evidence again.

Particular emphasis must be added to the fact she denies ever doing anything wrong, yet undertook two years re-training.

By her own admission she could never turn a juror into an expert in half an hour.

Article in Full:

Fingerprint expert sacked over role in Shirley McKie scandal wins unfair dismissal case

FORENSIC officer McBride was suspended from her role in the wake of the scandal and was let go in 2009, but the UK Supreme Court in London ruled she was unfairly dismissed.




A FINGERPRINT expert sacked over her role in the Shirley McKie scandal has won her unfair dismissal case.

Fiona McBride was among four experts who identified a print found at a 1997 murder scene as belonging to DC McKie.

McKie received £750,000 compensation after this was ruled to be an error.

Forensic officer McBride was suspended from her role in the wake of the scandal and was let go in 2009. But the UK Supreme Court in London ruled she was unfairly dismissed.

Five judges said she should receive extra compensation and be reinstated.

Yesterday McBride was “delighted” to have won her case. She said: “I was not interested in compensation for the loss of my job. I just wanted it back.”

In 1997, Strathclyde Police detective Shirley McKie was alleged to have disobeyed orders to stay away from the murder scene of Marion Ross in Ayrshire.

At a trial, she denied the claim but was charged with perjury based on fingerprint evidence provided by Ms McBride and her colleagues.

At the end of the day the ultimate gatekeepers of which experts give evidence are the judge themselves.

If she is not on the expert list she cannot be called to give evidence.

Para 50 said this:

50.

Further, there was no finding in the ET’s reasons that Ms McBride had ever asserted that her exclusion from the excluded duties amounted to a breach of contract
by her employer.
Mr MacNeill in his submissions accepted that Ms McBride did not have a contractual right to sign reports or give evidence, as the provision of work in the criminal
courts was not in the SPA’s gift.

[Les Bush]

Hello Big Wullie, once again thanks for the additional posting, I could have added to my earlier post that when we are tested to become a fingerprint expert the vital practical competency is to undertake and complete latent identifications from crime scenes. My personal experience involved 100 latents, 100 sets of know fingerprints and I was given days to complete an accepted total, without making one error. If an error had been then I could not achieve expert status as my identification competency was doubtful. As most jurisdictions have a similar testing concept I am sure that the SCRO was in the same mould. Fiona McBride would have undertaken a similar test (perhaps a gold standard test) and passed to enable her to carry our SCRO latent identifications. The repeated misidentification of Shirley McKie to a latent print from a major crime scene denies her the right to be an expert until she can prove her competency. If the new body in Scotland gave her a new gold standard latent identification test to prove her competency prior to recognising her expert identification ability then it would be appropriate for both the latent and inked from the McKie case to be included. If McBride truly wanted her job back she would have to exclude this identification, surely. Being such a notorious latent fingerprint if she chose not to attempt the identification that too proves she has something to hide since she is so familiar with the case and so confident with her result. Cheers from oz Les

[Les Bush]

Sorry for the couple of typo errors in my last posting it was all happening pretty quick. Today I have been reading some research papers so I would amend the proposed latent test to be given to McBride using the principle of the Occam's razor. Simply put the latent and the inked for the McKie case before her and have her repeat the examination. Should not take very long and the answer will provide the SFS with a direction. No point skirting around the issue.

[g.]

Les,

The test that you described, 100 latent prints and 100 exemplar sets:
1) Do all 100 latent prints have an identification expected to be found?
2) Do you have to identify all 100 or some percentage of them?
3) Can you exclude any of the latent prints (i.e. does the test also test one's ability to report an "exclusion" decision where all 100 suspects were definitively excluded)
4) do the exemplars include palm prints or major case prints; or are the latent prints limited to (and thus the exemplars as well) fingers?

Thanks for the additional information regarding your testing process (what we in the U.S. would call a "competency test" - the test required to pass to allow an examiner to begin independent casework.

Regards,

g.

[timbo]

G -
There would be 100 latents and at least 100 exemplar sets - mine had 115. You are given 5x 8hr days to do the comparisons.

1) Not necessarily, depending on which state's test you received to sit. The test you took would be provided by another jurisdiction (for an added layer of independent testing)
2) You have to provide a correct conclusion for 80% of them, with 100% accuracy.
3) Yes you could - but why would you. If you can ID 80, surely that is the easier option. Unless, I guess, your exclusion is really really easy.
4) Each exemplar set was fingers and palms.

By the way - no, you could not rule someone out for the other latents after ID'ing them to one. My test had multiple people with multiple IDs, and I even had one person ID to 3 latents.

When I left Aus, they were discussing making a digital version - I'm not sure if that has been implemented or not, so I imagine a current Australian examiner would be able to shed some light on any changes to the process in recent years.

Hope this helps,
Tim.

[g.]

Thanks Tim,

Yeah that completely makes sense. It's sounds like a giant IAI certification test and a good challenge.

Agreed if 80% are required, then it makes sense to have a few non-idents in there to increase the difficulty, but then not require that exclusions be reported. But having some non-mates in there, keeps the examiner from overconfidently identifying anything that is close. An important test control.

One question for you, having now the experience of working with U.S. examiners...do you think a U.S. examiner (typically 18 mo. training program including processing training) would be able to pass the Aussie test? [I know it seems like a loaded question, so feel free to email me offline with a private answer, but just wondering on your assessment. Do you think the 4-5 years of training is actually NECESSARY to pass that test, at 80% ident rate? Given recent research that there aren't vast differences in performance between US experts with a few years experience v. 20+ years of experience... it suggests a baseline performance that is achieved and after that it's all gravy. Just wondering your thoughts.

Sorry I hijacked this thread. Answer in a separate thread if you wish.

g.

[Les Bush]

Hello Glenn,

The test I did was back in 1992, I think there was a combination of digits and palms, being me I went all out and exhausted every latent but I have no recall how many I completed, beyond sufficient, no errors. Yes they would be going over to digital testing for new candidates, most states in Australia would have operational desktop processing. I know the AFP have been using desktop processing for many years and have combined it within their laboratory information management system, which is a modified USA program. It is a very workable system for completing all aspects of fingerprint examinations, exhibits, notes with tables or spreadsheets, photographs, comparisons, verifications, quality assurance, and proficiency tests. I was using CTS digital tests when I left in 2012 and before that I scanned the test photographs so as to complete the test digitally. I embraced the digital environment right from the start since the latent examination process allowed for the marking of images with different coloured points to provide separation of development hypothesis from testing hypothesis. I could go back to any of my latent examinations and look at the marked image and know exactly where I started and where I finished, very repeatable.

When Pat came to Australia (possibly >2000) we had a sort of State championship of latent examinations, his testing examples were all paper based but with good degrees of difficulty. I think the whole Oz group went fairly well with a few standouts, myself not included, the younger ones have quicker eyes and brains. Pat would have those results as a comparison between our group and those he tested in USA or even Canada. As always there is more to the science than having a good 'eye', knowing the biology and knowing method and being able to logically explain an identification or exclusion. All the best from oz. Les

[timbo]

G -
I'll email you offline.
T.

[g.]

Thanks Les (online) and Tim (offline) for your thoughtful responses. Good information and it should be used to initiate a healthy debate about what constitutes appropriate training (in requisite traits of trainees, requisite traits of TRAINERS, in length of time and training content, etc.). Clearly some big differences between our countries. It would be nice to see if there is a data-driven answer here, depending on one's metrics of determining "expertise".

Thanks gentlemen for your insight,

g.