McKie case closes with £750,000 settlement

Policewoman clears her name after nine-year fight over flawed fingerprint analysis

News, 8 February 2006

Shirley McKie, the former detective accused of perjury because of a flawed fingerprint analysis, is to receive £750,000 in an out-of-court settlement with the Scottish Executive.

The agreement announced yesterday has been made without any admission of liability. The Executive has insisted that the experts compared the fingerprints in good faith, and that it had been an "unfortunate but honest mistake".

The case arose from a murder investigation at a house in Kilmarnock in 1997. Fingerprint officers attached to the Scottish Criminal Records Office (SCRO) maintained that a fingerprint found at the house was Ms McKie's. At the trial of David Asbury, who was later found guilty of the murder and jailed for life, Ms McKie said she had never been in the house.

She was prosecuted for perjury on the basis of the fingerprint but cleared on a unanimous verdict after a fingerprint expert from the US discredited the evidence.

The case led to a reorganisation of the fingerprints bureau at the Scottish Criminal Records Offfice (SCRO). A review identified management weaknesses and failures in training and quality management.

Mr Asbury has since had his conviction quashed because of doubts about the fingerprint evidence at his trial and is pursuing his own £150,000 damages action against the Scottish Executive, which is responsible for the SCRO.

Ms McKie, who lost a £100,000 claim against Strathclyde Police for the psychological trauma she suffered when she was arrested, said that she hoped the government and politicians would pursue a proper, independent public inquiry, and that the people repsonsible should face serious criminal charges.

She claimed that the SCRO's continued insistence that her fingerprints matched the print found on the door of the house was done to preserve its reputation of the SCRO. At the time, that reputation had been rarely challenged in court.

She further claimed that during the murder investigation the then head of SCRO had told the police that three of his officers had confirmed that the fingerprints were a match. However, he had not disclosed that five of his colleagues had not made this conclusion.

Her damages claim represented compensation for being prosecuted and the effects on her mental health, which led to her ill-health retiral from the police. The payment could cost the public purse more than £1 million, once legal expenses are included.

A spokesperson for the SCRO said the case had been a tragedy for all involved, and had caused a great deal of division among fingerprint experts.