The Shirley McKie case

The basic facts of this case are set out in this Scotsman article:

"Specialists in the Scottish Criminal Records Office (SCRO) wrongly said that a print in the home of a murdered woman came from Ms McKie, who was part of the police inquiry team.
Mr McKie said the mistake was responsible "for sending my daughter to hell and back".
Meanwhile, Alex Neil, a Scottish National Party MSP, said that Cathy Jamieson, the justice minister, should "resign in disgrace" or be sacked over the incident.
On Tuesday, Ms McKie, a former Strathclyde Police detective, received a £750,000 out-of-court settlement in a damages action against the Scottish Executive, on behalf of the fingerprint bureau in the SCRO.
At Ms McKie's trial for perjury , doubt was cast on the evidence of the SCRO officers and the jury unanimously found her not guilty."

But basic facts are all we get from the article, notwithstanding the fact that one might expect The Scotsman to raise the roof about an Executive-funded settlement of £750,000.

The Herald does rather better, by including an op-ed piece on yesterday's outcome to the case:

"Two warring parties. Emotions running high. The reputation of the Scottish criminal justice system in the balance. Experts watching around the world. Time for an outbreak of Socratic wisdom from the Scottish Executive. Having chosen to take the case this far, it had, one presumed, all the answers to hand. But answers came there none. In a clear case of throw the money and run, the executive sent in its lawyer to magisterially dismiss the case as "an honest
mistake made in good faith" by the SCRO, and hand over £750,000 to Ms McKie. No admission of liability, just goodbye from me and goodnight from the Scottish Executive. It was a shabby end to a disturbing case. "

But, presumably for legal reasons, nowhere in the media is there any kind of detailed analysis of the implications of the case.

I readily confess that I don't know what is going on here. But Alex Neil is from the more sensible fringe of the SNP - for him to demand Ms Jamieson's resignation suggests that there is more to this than is obviously apparent. And, as a natural conspiracy theorist, I am always ready to believe the worst. But one thing seems to be reasonably clear - the Scottish media know more than they are saying.