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/Flawed fingerprint evidence led to a travesty of justice
I posted, briefly on this case here.
I bought the book 'Shirley McKie: The Price of Innocence' written by her indominable father Iain McKie and Michael Russell. If you have any interest in justice or the way the establishment in all its forms is prepared to sacrifice innocent people to protect itself I urge you to read this book.
Shirley was fortunate to have a father like Iain to tenaciously fight for her. Even so the real guilty people (and I'm not talking about the murderer - who is still at large) carry on their merry way through the system. It's a shocking story which deserves widespread publicity.
The solitary fingerprint was found halfway up a bathroom door frame in the bungalow where a reclusive spinster named Marion Ross had been brutally stabbed to death. At first, detectives attached no importance to the slightly smudged print, for, over the years, dozens of people had been in the house. Indeed, the print was among 400 discovered when fingerprint officers dusted down the murder scene. Besides, the police had already arrested David Asbury, a young builder from the same town where 51-year-old Miss Ross lived, and were convinced he had killed her - with such savagery that she was found pinned to the blood-soaked carpet by a pair of scissors which had been driven through her throat and spinal column.
It was only when the supposedly 'insignificant' print on the door frame was examined by criminal records experts that events took a different turn. This was in the winter of 1997 and over the next decade the result of that one routine test would drive a dedicated young Scottish policewoman to the brink of suicide and destroy her promising career. It would also undermine the previously unassailable, century-old practice of fingerprinting - and spark one of the most damaging scandals in British judicial history.
I posted, briefly on this case here. I bought the book 'Shirley McKie: The Price of Innocence' written by her indominable father Iain McKie and Michael Russell. If you have any interest in justice or the way the establishment in all its forms is prepared to sacrifice innocent people to protect itself I urge you to read this book.
Shirley was fortunate to have a father like Iain to tenaciously fight for her. Even so the real guilty people (and I'm not talking about the murderer - who is still at large) carry on their merry way through the system. It's a shocking story which deserves widespread publicity.
Synopsis: Her crime - to speak the truth and refuse to accept the mis-identification of her fingerprint, allegedly found at a murder scene she should not have entered. During those nine years, her case became an international cause celebre during which she gained the support of the world fingerprint experts community and much of the world's press whilst at home being persecuted by government ministers, smeared by senior police officers and having her integrity traduced by Scottish forensic experts and Scottish politicians. Now, for the first time the true and authorized story of the Shirley McKie case is told by her father Iain - her strongest champion - and former MSP Michael Russell who has worked alongside the McKie family for over seven years.
