CLPEX Chat Board

The debate over the McKie case seems to have ended on this site, but it goes on unabated in Scotland -- http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotlan ... 892006#new

Will the SCRO apologists never learn? The four who made the erroneous identification to Shirley McKie have been forced into early retirement with the announced reason their testimony could never again be trusted. Apparently, then, the new administration at SCRO knows the situation and is trying to correct it without airing too much dirty laundry in public. Where does that leave Peter Swann? Does he think any barrister on cross examination would fail to point out that others have lost their jobs for making the same erroneous identification he apparently will go to his grave defending? How much credibility does think he can still muster in court? Maybe retirement would be a good option for him, too.

Besides the SCRO four, the Lord Advocate Colin Boyd has suddenly and unexpectedly retired, too. In spite his retirement proclamation to the contrary, there are many who are convinced that he left office primarily due to the McKie debacle. After all, he chose to prosecute Shirley McKie in a case other prosecutors at the time recognized as a very weak case, at best, then refused to prosecute the SCRO four for perjury, even though an enquiry he called for made that recommendation. Others believe Boyd vacated his office because the conviction he secured in the Lockerbie bombing is about to come unravelled, as well. Whatever the case, his replacement, Elish Angiolini, is seen as a poodle of the executive. She is expected to do nothing controversial, such as call for the much demanded public enquiry into the Marion Ross murder fingerprint evidence.

All of this ignores two other important questions – 1) What of David Asbury? Although the police refuse to acknowledge his innocence and openly state they are still convinced of his guilt, he will not be retried. The Crown Prosecution apparently feels there is not sufficient evidence against him to go to trial, leaving him innocent under Scottish law. The key fingerprint identification used against him, like that used against Shirley McKie, has been accepted by the government as erroneous, which was the reason he was released from prison and the announcement was made that he will not be retried. The second fingerprint used against him was on evidence which has apparently gone missing from the vaults of the Procurator Fiscal’s office. No surprise there, to some. If Shirley McKie was given £750,000 by the Scottish government without a hearing, what will David Asbury receive for the two and a half years he spent in prison for a murder of which he is innocent?

And 2), What of the killer of Marion Ross? If the police refuse to reopen the investigation, is the killer to go free? Or does the philosophy, “We’ll catch him next time,” prevail? If it was Asbury, why not see what other evidence there is? If, as most believe, it was not Asbury, why not go after the real killer?

Not only is the rest of the world tired of hearing of Shirley McKie, David Asbury, and poor Marion Ross, Scotland is tired of it, as well. The truth will eventually come out when academic researchers take up the cause decades from now. Or the Scottish government can go ahead and launch the judicial enquiry for which people on both “sides” are clamouring. This case has become unquestionably the most controversial case in the history of fingerprints. It will not rest forever, in spite of the fact we are all tired of it.

Any bets on what will happen next?

For those who have not been following the website provided by nigeus lowlef above, my following comment was composed as a response to the discussion thread there. Unfortunately, when I tried to post, the site responded by saying the comments were closed and I was unable to log on. If you want to put the following comment in context, please read the discussion at the bottom of that thread. My original post on that chat board was #58. This response is directed at "Chic" and his posting #59.

Why, Chic, thank you for your constructive suggestion! I had hoped that since I am not afraid to tell the truth on your side of the pond you might be willing to air your grievances on my side. Be that as it may, I truly like your idea of applying for registration in the CRFP. That would provide a forum for you to complain on your home ground, well within your comfort zone, I presume. Of course, having testified in Scotland and England as well as before Scottish Parliament, I thought my credentials had been accepted there without registration. But I will gladly apply with the CRFP and, hopefully, the proper complaints against me will be filed there and the CRFP can decide who is correct and who is in error. Seriously, I hope that is the way they do things. If you will but provide me with information on how to go about applying, I shall do it within days.

I do take issue with one comment you make. This is NOT a Scottish matter. It is a matter affecting the credibility of fingerprint identification world wide. Do not delude yourself that what happens in Scotland, stays in Scotland. Hadrian's Wall has come down.

You may post the procedure for application here or email me directly at foridents@aol.com

Pat,

Applications packs for CRFP are available upon request.
Their contact details and a description of the registration process is available on their website at http://www.crfp.org.uk
The application for registration is available online and not too difficult to navigate to, or simply write to them stating your chosen speciality and they'll send you everything you need to get the process started.
I look forward to your name appearing in the register, adding to it's credibility.

Yes, I am back. I have been away and posting as DD on the Scotsman site.

This debate is hot as ever in Scotland, and the suggestion is that clpex has gone quiet because everyone is so bowled over by Peter Swann's presentation to the Parliamentary Inquiry.

Can I please hear comments about whether Swann's theory has any validity from experts who have seen his material produced to that inquiry? I will provide links if necessary.

Glad Pat is back in the picture and I await Peter Swann's involvment in this matter.

Unfortunately the Scotsman forum closed before I was able to post a reply to Siobhan from Glasgow. I am sorry that she did not answer the questions I put. I had understood from her earlier posting that she was one of the examiners in the case against McKie, but it seems not. She is not qualified apparently, but willing to comment on matters. Is this the way SCRO operate?


I do know what sub judice means and the fact is that the Asbury case is NOT sub judice according to the rules of the current inquiry. This has been pointed out to them, but it is convenient for them not to discuss Asbury. Siobhan suggests that my facts are wrong. I have yet to be proved wrong about any of the facts that I posted. I have had access to original documents and have copies of them. YOu will note that Siobhan has not answered the questions I put. You will note too that David Russell has posted on this site that he has complained against McKie's lawyers. We shall wait and see what the result of his complaint is as it will no doubt be an independent inquiry in to the issue of alleged perjury by McKie in her own trial.

The sub judice rule does not gag individuals from giving statements in any event. THe SCROs were asked to give statements to McKie's team and they refused. They were entitled to give those statements. Are those the actions of "innocent" witnesses?

What is clear is that this debate will never be resolved without a proper inquiry. It is not clear if that will be allowed in Scotland, but we all hope there will be. If there is not, can I suggest that the IAI holds a conference where the issue of Swann's 66 degree twist is discussed in front of experts, who can not only cross examine him on it through a chairman, but vote on whether it is valid? Is he prepared to defend his position before experts as opposed to MSPs? I know that Pat and Arie did too, but are they willing to do this again? Could it be televised to let the public in on the presentation?

Dick,

I feel I am qualified to answer a specific question in your post because I have personally visited with Peter Swann and he has presented to me the same images he presented at the inquiry. The detail he charted out was incorrect at best, and fraudulent at worst. I demonstrated many areas of inconsistency even between his own charts, much like Arie did at the inquiry. He advised me that no examiner had ever disagreed with him, and I said "well now one has!" This was several years ago, so naturally I was quite surprised to hear him say during the inquiry that he had presented it to many people, and no examiner had ever disagreed with him.

On the other hand, I feel that Mr. Swann sincerely believes in his opinion and that no amount of persuasion will ever change his mind.

-Kasey

I stopped posting on CLPEX about the McKie case because I was tired of banging my head against a stone wall. I am happy to hear that the SCRO four have been retired. My reaction to the Swann "evidence" was that it was tiresome, wrong, and badly out of focus. I was, in fact, "bowled over"--but not in a good way.
One gets tired of personal abuse instead of reasoned argument.
Didn't someone get arrested and confess to killing Marion Ross? Did anyone check his fingerprints against the crime scene prints? (The ones they can still find, of course).
David Asbury deserves a big bucket full of money from the Scottish government.

DD,

I watched live via the Internet Peter Swann's and the other's testimony and presentations. I found Mr. Swann's presentation to be unpersuasive, although the quality of video made his visual aids of only limited use in trying to make a determination. Mr. Swann did appear to be sincere in his beliefs, although I saw and heard little that would lend credence to his view.

I subsequently viewed the exhibits as posted on-line by the Justice 1 Committee, and found those images, although much better than the live presentation, to also be of limited use, due to insufficient resolution, and I suspect lossy file format. The quality of Swann's photographs/charts as posted is far inferior to the alleged McKie identification prints that were posted years ago on the "onin.com" website. I would like to see each photo & chart scanned as a separate image file.

The relative poor quality notwithstanding, the exhibits were also not persuasive to me, and in fact appear in multiple instances to be inconsistant with Swann's testimony. I would like to see originals, or at least better quality reproductions, before passing final judgement.

The lack of recent debate on this forum may stem from the belief by many who are truly knowledgable and experienced in latent print identification, that the SCRO examiners and their supporters (Swann, et al) had utterly failed to present a defensible position. After all these years, more was expected, perhaps evidence that would truly require a re-evaluation and/or be worthy of debate.

Since much of the commentary on this forum has been in response to apparent mis-information or interpretation presented by SCRO supporters, the lack of those kind of comments leaves little reason for response.
Regards, RLT

Sharon:

David Asbury did NOT confess. The only evidence against him was a print on the tin (conceded by the prosecution on appeal to be a misident) alleged to be of the late Mrs.Ross and found in his house; and a print of Asbury found on a piece of paper in Mrs.Ross's house. He did not give evidence in his own trial and was not obliged to do so.

He had previously been in Mrs.Ross's house, working for his grandfather's building firm. He had (and has) no previous convictions for anything and had never been in trouble with the police. On the day of the discovery of the body, he went missing. He, his mum and his sister confirmed that the tin was the family tin for pencils etc and the money in it was DAvid's: a factor proven by reference to his bank account withdrawals and the prints of the banker at his bank on the notes.

Under close police questioning and repeated demands to explain his actions including lengthy questioning without a lawyer, when asked to explain the print on the paper in the house, he said that his car broke down and went in to use the phone. Whether this was true or panic is not yet known. What is known is that there is a real issue about whether he could or did leave a print on that paper in the house. That is yet to be discussed in the case he is litigating.

The point is this: IF the tin mark was wrong AND the door frame ident was wrong, by the SAME fingerprint experts in SCRO, what chance is there of that happening by accident?

And where are the originals of the print on the paper?

This murder house was extensively searched for prints and they came up with ONE print on a bit of paper...... No other forensic evidence: no blood, no fibres, no eye witnesses, no confession, no motive, no psychotic history, and no chance, when he is picked to be the person that will be convicted in a high profile case with no other suspect.

I am glad the reasons for lack of postings have been explained. As you know, it has been said on the Scotsman site that everyone was so convinced by Mr.Swann that everyone now thinks that SCRO is right.

I thought this had gone.

I found Swann's evidence unconvincing. I agree he looks like he believes it which is the most dangerous type of "expert".

Only questioning by an independent expert who has not given his opinion yet would get to the bottom of this. Has Mr.Swann published his findings in hard copy? I cant get good enough images on onin to get a handle on whether it makes sense or not.

This endless dispute is causing the profession to be in disrepute. It needs to be ended soon with the public being told what the answer is. This story is now causing problems in Oz...

Quote:
Didn't someone get arrested and confess to killing Marion Ross? Did anyone check his fingerprints against the crime scene prints?

I remember reading some time ago that a person in custody for unrelated charges was bragging they had committed this murder. I have been wondering what became of that story...

About three years after the murder of Marion Ross, a man named Docherty was convicted of the murder of an elderly lady less than four miles from Mrs. Ross's house.

Docherty was a psychopath and convicted of the murder.

It was noticed in the productions in the McKie case that Docherty was a suspect, and police had been provided with anonymous information that he had admitted killing Mrs.Ross. He was brought in and interviewed, but he "took the fifth". No evidence could be put at his door, and he was released. It was after that that Asbury was investigated.

So who carried out the fingerprint analysis against Docherty? Yes, you've guessed it, the SCRO. Now it may be that Docherty did not commit the murder of Mrs.Ross (although psychological profiling suggests that this is his type of crime); or if he did, maybe he did not leave prints; or, of course, it may be that he did leave prints but they were incorrectly excluded. Only a reopening of the murder inquiry will help with this....

One can only hope that Docherty is being looked at as a viable suspect, especially since Asbury has been acquitted.

It seems unlikely that the misidentified impressions from this murder investigation were searched against an AFIS database since they were attributed to Ross, McKie and Asbury (is this a correct assumption?). Since Docherty probably has a fingerprint record perhaps someone with access should compare the impressions to him. It would undoubtly resolve a host of issues if one or more of the disputed impressions were correctly identified.

The problem is that no one is inclined to reopen ANY investigation in this series of screwups. The police have flat out announced that as far as they are concerned, the case was closed when Asbury was arrested and they see no reason to revisit their investigation. I guess in spite of the fact that Asbury is innocent under law, once the police have declared him guilty, that's the end of it. What the courts decide does not matter in the least. Marion Ross' killer is given a "Get Out Of Jail Free" card on this one, whoever he is, because the police simply don't care.

The Scottish Ministers are strongly against a judicial enquiry for political reasons. Will the new Lord Advocate convene a judicial enquiry? Not likely! Will the Parliamentary Enquiry by Justice 1 Committee result in any hard hitting conclusions? Not likely. Possibly after the next elections in Scotland, if there is a change in governing party, something might happen if there is still pressure. But even in Scotland, memories may not be that long and there are a lot of "ifs."

As for the machinations at SCRO, David Mulhearn said when he was appointed to clean things up that it was crucial to conduct a full investigation, find out what happened, admit the mistakes, and deal with the wrongdoers. His position now is rumored to have shifted to let the past be the past and let us just look forward, not backward. That may be the best thing for the people at SCRO who haven't been handed their retirements yet, but it is the worst possible thing for fingerprint specialists everywhere else. Bondi is being raked over the coals in Australia about McKie. Where is it safe? Probably only in Scotland if you work for the SCRO!

So, to repeat my question from my first post in this thread,
"Any bets on what will happen next?"

I just wanted to respond to the comment that "The four who made the erroneous identification to Shirley McKie have been forced into early retirement with the announced reason their testimony could never again be trusted. "

To my knowledge this is untrue and they are all still employed.

Nigeus, where did you get this information from?

Michelle: See this link for SCRO officers offered "job deal"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/5336842.stm


The Lord Advocate in his evidence to the Inquiry stated that the four SCRO officers were no longer being relied upon to prepare court evidence.

DD.