"The McKie case has led to calls for an inquiry into Scotland's fingerprint service and yesterday she gave evidence at a parliamentary inquiry into the SCRO, the first time she has spoken publicly about the case.
But rather than focusing on the future direction of the service, Ms McKie found the tables were turned on her when two MSPs - neither of whom is on the justice 1 committee - questioned her about evidence that contradicted her own account of events. Angry scenes developed when Des McNulty, the Clydebank and Milngavie MSP, asked her legal adviser, Andrew Smith, QC, about a report by an independent fingerprint expert, Peter Swann...
Mr McNulty was joined at the meeting by Ken Macintosh, the Eastwood MSP. The four SCRO officers who maintain that they correctly identified the print are constituents of the two MSPs."
Already, there seems to be a real danger that the Committee's inquiry is degenerating into a 'who was right?' battle between the McKie camp and that of the four SCRO officers, which is surely not what was originally intended. If Messrs McNulty and Macintosh were permitted to direct hostile questioning at Ms McKie yesterday (as, under the rules of parliamentary procedure, they were entitled to do), then presumably some MSP like Mr Alex Neil will be allowed to do similar when the SCRO officers give evidence. Meanwhile, the Committee convener, Ms Pauline McNeill, has to hold the coats as fairly as possible, even although her party allegiance might otherwise dispose her to favour the Executive's line (which seems confined to hoping - in vain - that the whole matter can be closed down).
The case for a proper judicial inquiry, rather than an inquiry by politicians some of whom have already nailed their colours to the mast, seems stronger by the day.
1 comment:
I agree.
In many ways I wonder what the purpose of Ms McKie's appearance before the committee was. The Executive accept that the questioned fingerprint was not hers - that being the case she herself really has nothing to contribute other than to rehearse the effect that the injustice has had upon her.
Instead, she ended up being asked questions, the purpose of which was to cast doubt on her character and to lay the foundation for the SCRO witnesses denying what the Executive already accept, namely that the questioned print was not hers.
Ideally I would like the committee to cut to the chase and have Pat Wertheim do the same demonstration which he's done on TV several times, showing that the print is not McKie's, IN THE PRESENCE OF the SCRO witnesses and asking them to comment directly on that issue. To a lay person (and to the jury at McKie's trial) Wertheim seems very persuasive and easy to understand. If there is one point of DIS-similarity then the print is NOT a match, no matter how many points of similarity there are.
I did think though that Ms McKie's ordeal yesterday further emphasised how fatuous the First Minister's assertion that all this happened by honest mistake really is.
NONE OF THE PRINCIPALS (McKie and the SCRO witnesses) accept that. Since one of the alternative explanations is that there was deliberate collusion by a number of persons to seriously pervert the course of justice it is crass to imagine that we can just 'move on' as Cathy and Jack fondly believe.
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