McKie Case: Further calls for Public Inquiry!

Justice Minister Cathy Jamieson has again been urged to hold a public inquiry into the case of Shirley McKie who was awarded a £750,000 settlement by the Scottish Executive after a fingerprint left at a murder scene was wrongly attributed to her. (see our previous report)

Opposition SNP Holyrood leader Nicola Sturgeon MSP pressed the justice minister in parliament on Thursday claiming it is a "classic case" in which a public inquiry should be held. She has already lodged a motion, co-signed by the Tories and the Greens, calling for ministers to address concerns over the case. Ministers, however, lodged an amendment seeking to hide behind the investigations which have already taken place. The Scottish Executive has tried to argue that a public inquiry would not shed any new light on the case.

Ms Sturgeon said that, under the Inquiries Act of 2005, one could be held if "it appears that particular events have caused, or are capable of causing, public concern .... Almost everything about this case has caused, is capable of causing and continues to cause public concern....No-one who has nothing to hide has anything at all to fear from the truth being told."

Lord Mackay of Clashfern, the former lord advocate and lord chancellor, and the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents have added their voices to calls for a public inquiry.

Scottish Conservative leader Annabel Goldie said the justice minister wrongly believed the controversy over the McKie case would subside. "The minister ... acknowledges that there is a fire and she reaches out for a can of paraffin to extinguish it."
Miss Goldie said an investigation by a parliamentary committee, with an in-built Labour-Lib Dem majority, would fall far short of the independent public judicial inquiry demanded by many people across Scotland.

Ms Jamieson said it was important to "look to the future, not the past" and tried to justify the Scottish Executives inexplicable refusal to consider an inquiry by claiming that: "the Scottish Fingerprint Service is very different from the fingerprint service in 1997" and that ministers had "ambitious plans" for the service.

But Cathy Jamieson misses the point - people are demanding to know what happened in this particular case and how the workings of Scottish Justice could have become so distorted for so long.

Ms McKie (33), from Troon in Ayrshire , a former detective with Strathclyde Police, was accused of perjury after insisting that she had not left a fingerprint at a murder scene nine years ago. She was cleared in 1999 and was recently awarded compensation.
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