Posted by Iain McKie on January 01, 2000 at 11:32:45:
In Reply to: SCRO cover-up posted by Pat A. Wertheim on December 30, 1999 at 21:05:31:
Shirley McKie, her defence team and supporters have no need to justify their actions past or present.
Pat Wertheim and David Grieve walked from the High Court in Glasgow with their integrity intact and their reputations enhanced.
This cannot be said of the SCRO experts who gave evidence in this trial.
Rather than face the consequences of their incompetence, by opening their actions to public scrutiny, some of these 'experts’ and the ‘non-expert’ police officers who run SCRO appear to have embarked on a trail of subterfuge, deceit and half truths.
As David Grieve so eloquently expressed in his article ‘Built my Many Hands’ (See Journal of Forensic Identification 49(5), 1999) “Justice denied to just one person diminishes the protection of justice for all. In perhaps the most magnificent tribute to the happiness and prosperity of mankind, the foundation of justice rests upon a duty towards others shared by those who hold the ideal of justice precious….”
We have never doubted that Pat Wertheim and David Grieve and the majority of fingerprint experts world-wide ‘hold the ideal of justice precious’.
We now know to our cost that apparently there are those within SCRO who do not.
If there is nothing to hide why ignore our pleas for openness and a re-examination of the circumstances leading to Shirley’s trial. As things stand the whole system of the administration of justice in Scotland now stands accused.
In this spirit of openness we are willing to provide further information for interested parties who might wish to contact us via this comments page.
I will provide a further update on or about 15, January.
Shirley and I wish all contributors to this discussion, and the many fingerprint ‘experts’ who have contacted us with support, all the very best for the New Year. May your efforts continue to ‘hold the ideal of justice precious.’
David Grieve in his excellent article highlights a quotation from the famous Scottish philosopher David Hume that is incorporated into a massive frieze which dominates the High Court in Glasgow. “.…to have a fair and equitable trial, in which innocence runs no risk of being ensnared or surprised…it is all that a reasonable man can wish for, and all perhaps that is attainable to human wisdom.”
Shirley had such an ‘equitable trial’.
We wish SCRO no less.