CLPEX Chat Board

[A MAJOR international fingerprint conference to be held in Scotland this week will be boycotted by experts over the refusal of Scottish Criminal Record Office (SCRO) analysts to admit they misidentified a fingerprint as policewoman Shirley McKie’s.]

With 130 delegates.....by the way 10 more than for Brighton last year, and with the list of speakers below, including me, Glenn L and other senior scientific figures, this does not strike me as a boycott??

This is another example of the way the media can distort and manipulate the facts. Lets be clear.....I want this matter resolved, fairly, amicably and professionally. But this won't be achieved through inuendo, backbiting and playground taunts. It will be achieved through science.

The Fingerprint Society is hosting a 1st class conference with ground breaking research being delivered to an audience of forensic professionals. The conference is NOT a political forum, NOT a grand inquisitor nor are we judge or jury. We just want to hold a conference where people feel welcome, can relax, and where scientists can learn something.

This is MY SPIN on this matter.


Friday 17 March

12.30 Registration / Buffet Lunch

13.45 Fingerprint Society A.G.M.

14.30 Opening of Conference by Margaret Barr, Director,
Scottish Police College

14.40 The Role of the Procurator Fiscal – Stewart Houston PF Lanark

15.15 Offender Profiling – Thinking as a scientist
Professor Vince Egan, Caledonian University

15.50 Comfort Break

16.00 Alternative Crime Scene Considerations:
Forensic Archaeology & Botany
Dr Jennifer Miller, Glasgow University

16.35 Forensic Entomology: Life after Death - Dr John Manlove

17.15 - 18.00 Exhibitor Presentations/Demonstrations

18.30 Pre Dinner Drinks – Castle Lounges

8.40 Gala Dinner
After Dinner Speakers: Mr Peter Wilson, Chief Constable Fife Constabulary,
President of ACPO(S)
Dr Robert Stewart,(Great Nephew of Dr Henry Faulds)


* Bar in Castle Lounges open until Midnight.

Saturday 18 March

07.30 Breakfast

09.00 The Scottish Fingerprint Service now and future partnerships under
a Scottish Forensic Science Service –Tom Nelson, Interim Director
Scottish Forensic Science Service

8.40 Lockerbie, the UK’s Largest Murder Enquiry – Kathleen Henderson
& Tom Gordon,
Dumfries & Galloway Constabulary
10.30 Coffee

8.40 ACEv thesis research – Glenn Langenburg, Minnesota, USA









11.50 Murder of Hilary Crowley – DCI Andrew Price, Central Scotland Police

12.50 Lunch and Exhibitor Demonstrations

14.00 The Suspension of Disbelief: Facts within Fiction– Alex Gray, Crime Novelist

14.35 Reviewing the Troubles Murders – Jeff Logan, Police Service of Northern Ireland

15.10 Comfort Break and Exhibitor Demonstrations

15.30 Levels of Friction Ridge Detail, Bane or Boon – Ernie Hamm U.S.A.

16.30 Exhibitor Presentations / Demonstrations

18.00 Bar open in Castle Lounges

8.40 Dinner

20.00 Some Traditional Scottish Entertainment – Dance with………
The Jiggers, Scotland’s Ultimate Ceilidh Experience (Ceilidh and Disco)


Sunday 19 March

07.45 Breakfast

08.30 Asian Tsunami: Introduction - David Charlton, Sussex Police

8.40 Asian Tsunami: DVI Command Structure - D/I David Llewellin,
West Mercia Police

09.10 Asian Tsunami: Occupational Health at Major Disasters – Margaret Thompson,
West Midlands Police

09.30 Asian Tsunami: Victim Identification By the Use of Fingerprints –
David Charlton, Sussex Police

10.00 Asian Tsunami: Forensic Odontology and Its Uses in Victim Identification –
Dr John Robson

10.30 Coffee and Exhibitor Demonstrations

11.05 Probabilistic Evaluation of Fingerprints – Paul Chamberlain &
Cedric Neumann, Forensic Science Service

11.30 Close of Conference Speeches

Hi Dave,

I hope you have an enjoyable meeting and it brings together the progress of fingerprint science in your region. From afar the timing and place seem to put a huge cloud over why the McKie case isnt part of that agenda? Now that we are out of the darkness of court restrictions the matter can clearly be talked through. I understand that the meeting was planned during the process of court proceedings but the delegates would really want to know what happened. There is a large interest in the case both regionally and internationally and the meeting is being held at the epicentre so what better place for a discussion. Mr Mackenzie could present his famous result of comparison and open the meeting for discussion. Les

Hi Les,

I do hear what you are saying. The Society cannot win on this one. Had we had the sort of presentation on the case as you describe, the society would have been highly criticised. We always wanted to keep the conference for education.

Now, if all parties were to agree to an open and honest debate on the technical issues of the fingermarks in question as scientists in a conference setting at some later date then I would be the first to put my name on the delegate list.....I want to understand myself how respected experts can have two such diverse conclusions as to the same data. This really does fascinate me. Who might organise such an event is open to offers and who would make an 'honest broker'. I can think of a few bodies that might want to act as broker....trouble is too many people have too many public opinions on this matter...what is needed is for the science and the scientists to take ownership of this debate once and for all...and dare I say it....take it away from the protagonists who will naturally have their own agendas. I for one would love to see both sides in this debate present their own data to a conference of experts in the field and to have a 'without fear or favour' debate on these technical questions.


Will this happen...I doubt it.....but I hope this may happen one day....I fear too much water has gone under the bridge over the past 9 years for this ever to be a reality. We shall see.


cheers

Dave

Dear Dave,

While I respect you as an expert and a person you well know that the Fingerprint Society has been warned for years that their continued failure to act in the Shirley McKie case would harm your profession. Now the Society stands accused of allowing more and more damage to be caused to a vitally important forensic science.

In an inexplicable act of stupidity the Society allows its annual conference to be hosted by experts from SCRO.

As if to compound this misjudgement you state, “I want to understand myself how respected experts can have two such diverse conclusions as to the same data.”

Would you please explain to me on what grounds you base your conclusion that the SCRO experts who made two wrong identifications in the one case are ‘respected experts’ when enquiry after enquiry and hundreds of experts worldwide have accused them of incompetence and criminality.

There are indeed ‘respected experts’ within SCRO and throughout Scotland but to so describe the experts who for 9 years have continued to deny their errors is an insult to those others and provides ‘open day’ for your critics to further weaken your profession.

The experts are not respected David they are wrong and refuse to accept that they are. They are causing untold damage to fingerprinting and until you and the Fingerprint Society accepts this there is no going forward.

The media bears no responsibility for this. The Fingerprint Society has had the opportunity for years , “to take ownership of this debate” , but has completely failed its members in this respect.

One way forward is for the international fingerprint community to get its act together, offer to examine why things went so badly wrong at the SCRO and to recommend how those wrongs might be righted. Only through the creation of international standards and co-operation will you silence your critics. Sitting on the fence hoping that the controversy will go away is the strategy of despair.

Best wishes,

Iain

In recent times and by means never to be disclosed I've had the opportunity to see the charted 45 point analysis by McKenzie who was/is the Deputy head of SCRO. Ive also seen the comparison done by Zeelenberg of the areas used by SCRO and those he mapped out in the McKie print. We are talking about serious 'red flags' that cannot and should never be acceptable in our profession. I now know why McKenzie will not present his findings at the FS symposium as it would be embarrassing to him and the society. Whatever is the 'action plan' to restore best practice in SFS if the members of SCRO still 'believe' in their conclusion about the McKie print it will make little difference to restoring faith in their service. It will take a total capitulation to what true science requires and I'm afraid the current generation in SCRO have been tainted by a system that cannot face the truth. Bring on a public inquiry!