page   1
 1                                      Friday, 6th November 2009
 2   (Morning session)
 3   (10.00 am)
 4                  ANTHONY JOSEPH MCKENNA, sworn
 5   THE CHAIRMAN:  Your full names, please?
 6   A.  Anthony Joseph McKenna.
 7   THE CHAIRMAN:  You will have find you have to sit fairly
 8       close to the microphone.
 9                   Examined by MISS CARMICHAEL
10   Q.  Good morning, Mr McKenna.
11   A.  Good morning.
12   Q.  I think you have provided a signed statement already for
13       the Inquiry?
14   A.  I did, yes.
15   Q.  Subject to any changes or subtleties that we may find in
16       the course of your oral evidence today, are you happy to
17       adopt that as part of your evidence?
18   A.  Yes.
19   Q.  Please feel free, either now or at any other time during
20       your evidence, if we come across something in the
21       statement that does not seem right, to draw that to the
22       attention of the Inquiry, Mr McKenna.
23   A.  Yes, thank you.
24   Q.  I would like to start, please, by looking at
25       paragraph 11 of your statement.  The reference is
page   2
 1       FI0054-02 at page 2.  You will see that we are working
 2       under a heading here in your statement of, "Testing and
 3       training of fingerprint experts as at 1997".  What I
 4       would like to ask you about is the last two sentences in
 5       paragraph 11 where you tell us that there was discussion
 6       about difficult marks and that that would help maintain
 7       skills and enhance experience.  You say:
 8           "This formed the main training as to the 'core
 9       work'."
10           I would like to ask you about the context in which
11       discussion of difficult marks would come about?
12   A.  That would be discussion between experts in looking at a
13       difficult mark and explaining to each other how they
14       found their findings.
15   Q.  How would it come about that experts would be discussing
16       these difficult marks with each other?
17   A.  There would be various reasons, you know.  Somebody
18       says, "Can you get through from one area to another",
19       you know, it's a very difficult mark or there's movement
20       or various things.  It would explanations between
21       discussion -- that's all it would be, discussions, you
22       know.
23   Q.  I am going to have to ask you to try to bring the
24       microphone a wee bit closer to yourself.  I know it
25       sounds very unnatural when you hear it echoing behind
page   3
 1       you but it is sometimes very hard for people to hear you
 2       if you can't hear it echoing.  We also have a
 3       stenographer here who is trying to get every word so I
 4       will have to ask you to slow down a little bit as well.
 5       I know it's very difficult, Mr McKenna.
 6           What I am trying to get at here is how it would be
 7       that difficult marks would come to be discussed.  Would
 8       it be because people were having a difficulty with a
 9       mark in the course of an ordinary identification or
10       verification process, for example?
11   A.  That could be a possibility, yes.
12   Q.  Can you recall that happening?
13   A.  Yes -- once or twice maybe I was looking at a mark and
14       having difficulty, saying I can see two areas but I
15       cannot adjoin the two areas and maybe there was
16       distortion or movement and maybe refer to a colleague
17       and say, "Do you agree there is movement there".  It was
18       nothing high level.  It was just sort of very low level,
19       yes, I can see distortion, so it reinforced your view.
20       It was that sort of discussion.
21   Q.  Would this arise when you were doing perhaps the first
22       examination of a potential identification or when you
23       were the checker doing a verification of somebody else's
24       work?
25   A.  Both possibilities.
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 1   Q.  If you were the first examiner of a mark and you were
 2       perhaps looking at something that you found to be
 3       difficult or complex, who would you go to?
 4   A.  One of my colleagues.  Nobody in particular, you know.
 5       It may be the first available colleague you actually
 6       looked up at and you say, "Excuse me, could you look at
 7       that", you know, for various reasons.  It would not be
 8       anybody in particular.
 9   Q.  What sort of advice would you be looking for from them?
10   A.  Maybe to agree with what I was finding they'd say, "Yes,
11       I'd agree with that, there's movement there or
12       distortion there".  That sort of answer.
13   Q.  Would they always agree with you or would they sometimes
14       say, "I'm sorry, Mr McKenna, I don't see it myself"?
15   A.  Yes.  Yes, of course they would.  Everybody has their
16       own independent opinion.
17   Q.  Thinking to the situation where maybe you are the
18       checker and someone else has identified a mark and you
19       find yourself having maybe some difficulty making two
20       and two make four, what would you do then?
21   A.  I'd go back to the person who had checked it and say,
22       "Can you explain how to get from one area to the other
23       area", and if they showed me and I agreed with it then
24       I'd be satisfied.
25   Q.  Did it ever happen that you were not satisfied after a
page   5
 1       discussion of that sort?
 2   A.  Probably, yes.  You know, I'd say, "No, I can't get
 3       through there", sort of thing and I'd say that to them
 4       and record it as such, you know.  It's not that it
 5       wasn't the person, it was that because of the 16
 6       standard, at certain times, you know, I'm not satisfied
 7       I can get the complete 16.
 8   Q.  Would that be a situation where the only difference
 9       between you would be whether you could get to
10       16 points --
11   A.  Yes.
12   Q.  -- rather than whether you were really disagreeing about
13       the identification?
14   A.  No.
15   Q.  Can you remember any time when, as the checker or the
16       verifier, you were really disagreeing about the
17       identification?
18   A.  Yes.
19   Q.  What would happen then?
20   A.  It would be referred to the Quality Assurance.
21   Q.  In the situation where you had the difference about the
22       number of points but you were in basic agreement about
23       the identification, what would happen then?
24   A.  I'd record that I had a strong suspicion but I can't get
25       through but that would very, very rarely happen.
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 1   Q.  Was that a formal process for recording strong
 2       suspicion?
 3   A.  Back then in 1997, I wouldn't say -- I couldn't really
 4       tell if it was a formal process or not, you know, if you
 5       understand.
 6   Q.  Is that because you can't remember what the process was
 7       at the time?
 8   A.  I can't remember what the process was at the time.
 9   Q.  The next question I was going to ask you was whether in
10       that situation where you say you were recording
11       something of strong suspicion, that was something that
12       the prosecution authorities would ever hear about?
13   A.  That would depend.  I couldn't tell you the answer.
14       It's not something ... it was not what you'd call full
15       disclosure then I suppose but there was precognition
16       agents so if the questions were asked you would tell
17       them what you found.
18   Q.  So if somebody came to take a precognition from you and
19       asked you a specific question about something you would
20       answer it?
21   A.  Yes.
22   Q.  But would I take it from that perhaps that if you were
23       not asked any specific question about it you would not
24       necessarily volunteer it?
25   A.  Probably not because you couldn't remember every case,
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 1       you know, because you do that many cases and to remember
 2       individual in every case would be very difficult, you
 3       know.
 4   Q.  I appreciate that I am asking you to remember things
 5       that were happening quite a long time ago, Mr McKenna,
 6       and if at any point there is something you can't help us
 7       with because you simply can't remember then, please,
 8       just say so.
 9   A.  Yes.
10   Q.  I would like to ask you about something that we have
11       heard about from some of the other witnesses in the
12       Inquiry, Mr McKenna, and that is about the standard of
13       certainty that Fingerprint Examiners work to.  We have
14       heard some witnesses express that they themselves are
15       100 per cent confident in their conclusion as to
16       identity between a mark and a print and we have also
17       heard people expressing themselves as being 100 per cent
18       confident that any other examiner would come to the same
19       conclusion as to identity.
20           I am wondering if you can tell us what your practice
21       was when you were working as a Fingerprint Examiner in
22       relation to certainty.  I will ask you the two things
23       separately.
24           Would you have expressed yourself as being
25       100 per cent confident in your own conclusion as to
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 1       identity?
 2   A.  Yes.
 3   Q.  Would you have expressed yourself or certainly been
 4       within yourself fully confident that any other examiner
 5       would come only to the same conclusion as yourself?
 6   A.  That would be second-guessing the second examiner.  I
 7       mean I cannot --
 8   Q.  I am having difficulty catching what you are saying.
 9   A.  That would be my independent opinion.  The next examiner
10       has his own independent opinion.  But was I confident in
11       my own opinion?  Yes.  Would I be confident if somebody
12       checked my work?  Yes.  But it's up to them to come to
13       their own conclusion on the mark.
14   Q.  Are you telling us that you would not necessarily expect
15       them to come to the same conclusion as yourself?
16   A.  I would expect them to come to the same conclusion but
17       if they didn't, that's not up to me.  I can't influence
18       another person to say, "You agree with me", you know.
19   Q.  If I can put it this way, given your own level of
20       confidence in your conclusion, how did it feel when it
21       came about that somebody else differed from you on a
22       conclusion about identity?
23   A.  It didn't bother me.  Well, the only time it's ever
24       happened was in this case.  If another expert wants to
25       have another conclusion then that's their conclusion not
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 1       mine.
 2   Q.  You say the only time it ever happened was in this case.
 3       Should I take it from that then that there was never any
 4       time within SCRO that anybody differed from you as to
 5       the identification of a mark and a print?
 6   A.  No.
 7   Q.  You are saying that that never happened?
 8   A.  Never happened.
 9   THE CHAIRMAN:  I presume you might have differed on a
10       particular point?
11   A.  You might differ on different points and if someone come
12       back to me and said they were not satisfied there was 16
13       then we would remove it.
14   THE CHAIRMAN:  Yes, of your 16 they might not accepted.
15   A.  My Lord, if somebody came back and said, "I can only see
16       13", then that would not go to court, that would be put
17       as an SS and not go to court.  It was not a case of
18       anybody trying to force anything through.  I mean, if
19       that's what you're trying to establish but for somebody
20       to come up to me and say, "You're completely wrong",
21       that never happened.
22   MISS CARMICHAEL:  You are describing a procedure -- sorry,
23       sir -- you are describing a procedure where if you have,
24       perhaps, yourself having 16 points and someone else
25       having 13 points that going forward with a strong
page  10
 1       suspicion notice of some sort.  What we have heard about
 2       in the case involving Y7 is that there was a situation
 3       where Mr MacPherson had identified 16 points and
 4       Mr Geddes had identified I think 10.  But what happened
 5       wasn't that a strong suspicion letter went out but
 6       rather that further experts ultimately, including
 7       yourself, were consulted and that those other experts
 8       found 16 points.
 9           Can you explain how that would come about in
10       opposition to the procedure that you have described of
11       using a strong suspicion warning?
12   A.  I was not aware of Mr Geddes having looked at the mark
13       and so therefore I can't really answer that question as
14       to that procedure.
15   Q.  I should ask you while we are on that topic at what
16       point did you become aware that Mr Geddes had been
17       involved?
18   A.  In fact, it was after the trial and ... I actually
19       couldn't tell you but it was well after 1997.
20   Q.  1997, I think we have heard there was a trial of
21       Mr Asbury and then in 1999 there was a trial
22       involving --
23   A.  It would be after 1999, as well, sorry.
24   Q.  -- Ms McKie, so it would be after Ms McKie's trial that
25       you became aware of that?
page  11
 1   A.  Yes.
 2   Q.  Again, if you are unsure about anything don't feel that
 3       you need to jump to say yes or no.  If the answer is you
 4       don't know then, please, feel free to say.  So are you
 5       clear in your mind that that was something you became
 6       aware of only after Ms McKie's trial?
 7   A.  Yes.
 8   Q.  I would like to ask for your comment on some other
 9       things that we have heard from other witnesses as to
10       practice.  We have heard some witnesses tell us that
11       where there is a certain amount of agreement between a
12       mark and a print, there comes a point in their own minds
13       where they are satisfied as to identity to the extent
14       that if there are any differences that appear between
15       the mark and the print they must have some explanation
16       and so effectively become irrelevant.
17           What is your position on that?
18   A.  My position would always be that if I was satisfied it
19       was that person, then I was satisfied in my opinion.  If
20       there was movement or distortion to the side of it that
21       could be explained away.
22   Q.  If we can perhaps break that down, can you give us any
23       idea at what point you would become satisfied?  Did you
24       have a bottom line number?
25   A.  No.  It was based on experience and the characteristics,
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 1       you knew that this was the same person but to say it was
 2       5 points, 10 points, you couldn't.  It's just your
 3       experience told you, that sort of thing.  I know that's
 4       a very difficult thing to understand but it's just your
 5       own experience tells you when you know that this is the
 6       same person.
 7   Q.  Would it ever be as few as five?
 8   A.  No.  I'm sorry, no.  Well, there are times you get a
 9       cluster of five characteristics and you maybe find that
10       five characteristics in another thing and that's all
11       you'd find but you couldn't take it any further with
12       five but your own instinct would tell you that they were
13       so unique within a fingerprint that it can only be that
14       donor, but to say to take it further without any more
15       would be wrong.
16   Q.  Would that be wrong only because there was a 16-point
17       standard in force at the time?
18   A.  Yes, probably.
19   Q.  So if there had not been that standard, would you have
20       had any inhibition about taking forward something as low
21       as five?
22   A.  As low as 5.  It would be an individual thing.  You
23       could say, look, this individual, it looks like that but
24       that's all I can say.  You wouldn't express -- I
25       wouldn't go on and, say, express a full opinion, you
page  13
 1       know.
 2   Q.  So on five you wouldn't be expressing yourself to
 3       100 per cent certainty?
 4   A.  No.
 5   Q.  So --
 6   A.  I'd maybe say I would discount, you know, other things
 7       but it wouldn't go as low as five, no.
 8   Q.  If you wouldn't go as low as five are you able to give
 9       us --
10   A.  No, I'm sorry, that was just an example.
11   Q.  I take it then we can take it that if you did have a
12       bottom line it was more than five?
13   A.  Yes.  It was just once you were satisfied within
14       yourself that you had ident but the number you needed
15       was 16 for the court purposes.
16   Q.  So could you have a situation where -- let us just take
17       the 16 because it was the standard at the time, where
18       you had 16 points in sequence and agreement and because
19       you had those 16 points you knew that there must be
20       identity between the two, even where there were some
21       bits of the mark that had differences with the print.
22   A.  Once you get reached the 16-point standard you're
23       satisfied it was an ident and if you're talking about
24       movement or distortion that does occur in scene of crime
25       marks but it didn't detract from the fact that you had
page  14
 1       reached your conclusion it was the same person.
 2   Q.  So once you have your 16 points, essentially, that's it;
 3       you're sure?
 4   A.  Yes, you were satisfied for court purposes.
 5   Q.  That is even where there may be some differences in
 6       appearance or --
 7   A.  It wouldn't be a difference in appearance.  There may be
 8       movement.  It's hard ... I'm trying to explain this,
 9       there could be movement, shift, but once you
10       reach16 points you knew it was an ident.
11   Q.  Would it follow because you knew it was an ident from
12       the 16 that if there was some difference it must be due
13       to something like movement or distortion or something of
14       the sort?
15   A.  Well, you would probably look at it and see the
16       distortion or the movement, you would see that.
17   Q.  I would like to move on to asking particularly about
18       your involvement in the Marion Ross and Shirley McKie
19       cases.  I would like to put up on screen for you,
20       please, CO1987.  It might help you to know, I think, the
21       part of your statement where you deal with this is at
22       paragraph 60 or so, Mr McKenna, starting at paragraph 59
23       where you deal with mark XF.
24           What we see here is an annotated photograph of a
25       gift tag and a mark that we have come to know as XF?
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 1   A.  What page is it, sorry?
 2   Q.  Page 10 on to page 11 is the part of your statement
 3       where you deal with this, Mr McKenna.
 4           What we see on the screen, if you can have a look at
 5       that for us, please, there is an annotation in black on
 6       the right-hand side of the screen which we understand to
 7       have Mr MacPherson's initials, Mr Alister Geddes's
 8       initials and we understand that the third set may be
 9       your own?
10   A.  That's correct, yes.
11   Q.  Is that your own writing there?
12   A.  Yes.
13   Q.  That is your own writing.
14           What you say at paragraph 61 of your statement, if
15       you can look at that for me is that you don't now why
16       the writing starts off in black and then changes to red.
17       Can I refer you on maybe to paragraph 64 as well where
18       you are talking about a worksheet that you had been
19       shown.  You say there the writing in red may reflect a
20       change in Mr Asbury's status to suspect.
21           We have heard that the black writing may relate to
22       elimination and the red writing to identification of a
23       suspect when it appears on a photograph as well.
24           Does that accord with your own recollection?
25   A.  Yes.
page  16
 1   Q.  So it may be then that the explanation is that where we
 2       see the black writing we are talking about an initial
 3       elimination?
 4   A.  Elimination print, yes.  An elimination comparison, it
 5       was always in black and identification was always done
 6       in red.
 7   Q.  I think we understand from your statement that at the
 8       time of the investigation into Miss Ross's murder you
 9       were not working on the team that was mainly involved
10       with that murder inquiry; is that right?
11   A.  Yes, I was in charge of another team.
12   Q.  So how would it come about that you would be called on
13       to come along and help out?
14   A.  Just resources, resource management, looking for bodies
15       to help out, you know.  So that sort of thing.  It's
16       not, you know, you were selected, who's available.  As
17       you can imagine yourself, you've got five/six teams with
18       different work levels.  You do have to resource one team
19       to another and you may have to release one of your staff
20       to help another team.  That's just resource management
21       and that happens in every business.
22   Q.  Just in practical terms can you remember how it was that
23       you came to be called on yourself here?
24   A.  I couldn't tell you.  I don't remember.
25   Q.  You do not remember who asked you to become involved,
page  17
 1       for example?
 2   A.  No.
 3   Q.  When you were involved with this mark and on the basis
 4       that we are dealing with an elimination here, how many
 5       points in sequence and agreement were you looking for?
 6   A.  Probably -- I was the third signature on this mark, as
 7       you can see on this mark --
 8   Q.  You are the third signature, yes.
 9   A.  That would mean it was now going to be an identification
10       so therefore I would be looking for 16.
11   Q.  Why would you be looking for 16?
12   A.  Because that is the standard for court.
13   Q.  Please put me right if I am wrong in any of the
14       suggestions that I am making to you, but would I be
15       right in saying that at the stage you looking at this
16       you wouldn't have any particular idea who Mr Asbury was?
17   A.  No.
18   Q.  Or whether he had any significance at all in the
19       investigation?
20   A.  Probably, no.
21   Q.  I think we know that, in fact, until after the
22       identification of this mark Mr Asbury have any
23       significance in the investigation?
24   A.  I couldn't have told you that.
25   Q.  I appreciate there may be things you are unaware of,
page  18
 1       Mr McKenna.
 2           Who would tell you that this was being identified to
 3       a court standard rather than being treated, I suppose,
 4       in the ordinary way as an elimination?
 5   A.  See, there is a third option -- I don't remember but
 6       there were things called elim suspects or suspects
 7       elims, somebody who is donating their eliminations but
 8       they were asked to be treated as a suspect.  So,
 9       therefore, in a situation like that you would look for
10       16.
11   Q.  In that situation we have heard that there are various
12       work sheets in a large investigation and we have heard
13       also that in this case there were police elimination
14       sheets, civilian elimination sheets and one designated
15       suspect elimination sheet.
16           In that situation, would you expect somebody who was
17       subject to a suspect elimination to be a person who was
18       named on the suspect elimination sheet?
19   A.  I can't remember.  I couldn't tell you the answer.
20   Q.  Do you have any recollection at all of how it might have
21       come about that this mark was being identified,
22       effectively, to a court standard with four examiners and
23       to 16 points?
24   A.  No.
25   Q.  You tell us in paragraph 60 of your statement that the
page  19
 1       use of the word "screen" means that you must have
 2       examined this mark on a comparator.
 3   A.  Yes.
 4   Q.  Would that mean that you had examined it only on a
 5       comparator?
 6   A.  The comparator was used to help, as an aid.  You'd
 7       probably examine it under glass then move to a
 8       comparator to satisfy yourself there was 16 but, as I
 9       said, if it says "screen" then at one point I would have
10       it on the screen but I don't remember.  I would probably
11       have a practice of looking under the glass first, then
12       move back to the screen.
13   Q.  We heard that this mark may in fact have been left on a
14       comparator marked-up for subsequent viewers, such as
15       yourself.
16   A.  I don't remember that.
17   Q.  Is that something that you remember happening generally,
18       marks being left on comparators by maybe the first
19       person who had looked at it with his points or her
20       points on it, to assist the people who viewed it later?
21   A.  They would maybe be left on for people to examine on a
22       screen but if there's points on it you'd probably remove
23       the points and do your own examination.
24   Q.  I think you said and I think we can see from the order
25       of initials here that you are the third checker here?
page  20
 1   A.  That's correct, yes.
 2   Q.  I suppose we are in a position where you have had two, I
 3       suppose, trusted colleagues looking at the mark before
 4       you?
 5   A.  Yes.
 6   Q.  Would that be fair to say?
 7   A.  Yes.
 8   Q.  With that in mind, is it possible that really all that
 9       one was doing at that stage was checking whether what
10       appeared on the comparator from an earlier examination
11       by one of those colleagues was what you were doing
12       rather than perhaps going through the whole rigmarole
13       again?
14   A.  No.
15   Q.  Why would that be?
16   A.  Because you do your own examination.
17   Q.  Can you tell me in a situation where -- and if you can't
18       recall, again please do just say so -- a situation where
19       perhaps two people have identified a mark and it came to
20       a third checker, whether a dispute had ever arisen at
21       that stage?  I am not suggesting that there was any
22       dispute, I should make clear, any dispute whatsoever
23       about this mark because I don't think anybody has
24       suggested such a thing but asking you in the generality,
25       when it came to a third checker, whether any dubiety
page  21
 1       about a mark had ever been raised at that stage in the
 2       process, after there had already been two colleagues
 3       who'd reached a conclusion?
 4   A.  That's a question where maybe you want to ask the
 5       Quality Assurance Officer because anything that that
 6       would be referred to him and I believe that they had an
 7       open policy that if anybody wanted to come in and check
 8       that, he was there -- the authority didn't but there
 9       was, anything like that would go to the Quality
10       Assurance and they have their policy for it.
11   Q.  But simply from your own recollection, I suppose there
12       must have been other times when you had been the third
13       in line just because that's the way the cooky crumbled
14       that day, was that ever a stage that you recall raising
15       any problem with a mark?
16   A.  Yes.
17   Q.  I think we can leave this mark and take that down from
18       the screen.
19   THE CHAIRMAN:  Could I interrupt you just for a moment.
20       When you were looking or checking or whatever one likes
21       to call it, you found your own 16 points?
22   A.  Yes.
23   THE CHAIRMAN:  Is it only if the case is being prepared for
24       court that you have to agree the same 16 points.
25   A.  Yes, for the illustration purposes.
page  22
 1   THE CHAIRMAN:  Yes.  So that the four witnesses who are
 2       available --
 3   A.  Are satisfied.
 4   THE CHAIRMAN:  -- are all satisfied of those 16 points.
 5           What I am interested in is how do you agree the
 6       16 points?  Does the lead examiner, if I can call them
 7       that, the first person, put them on the comparator and
 8       then you all come along and look at them and see whether
 9       you can agree those 16?
10   A.  If it's for court purposes, my Lord, the person who was
11       preparing the case would mark up the 16 on the
12       enlargement, then it was passed round the four witnesses
13       to agree and if you felt a characteristic was stronger
14       not that it wasn't there but was a stronger
15       characteristic you'd maybe say, "I'd prefer to put that
16       one in", but you always agree on the 16.
17   THE CHAIRMAN:  But then they would have to mark it up again
18       to change the point.
19   A.  No.  Yes, that could happen because it was not indelible
20       ink so you could say, "Could you just move that further
21       up.  I think that's just further on than ..." I think
22       you have seen examples in the court whereupon someone
23       will mark a certain characteristic and a point and
24       someone says, "I think it's further down".
25   THE CHAIRMAN:  The reason I was asking is it occurred to me
page  23
 1       it would be easier, really, to do it on the comparator
 2       and then they could change them so that you got 16 that
 3       all four agreed and then mark it up and that would be
 4       one operation of marking-up but that is not the way it
 5       happened?
 6   A.  No.  Before the charting PC, it was photographic
 7       enlargements received and they were put down and marked
 8       and then passed round the four witnesses who were going
 9       to be involved in the case to say they were satisfied
10       with that enlargement.
11   THE CHAIRMAN:  And if they were not, it was remarked?
12   A.  You would have a discussion, you know, which is healthy.
13   MISS CARMICHAEL:  Thank you, sir.
14           I am going to move on and ask you about your
15       involvement with mark Y7, Mr McKenna.  The part of your
16       statement where you deal with this starts at page 5, if
17       that helps you.  You say at paragraph 25 that the office
18       was stretched for resources and staff and it wasn't
19       uncommon to be asked to check marks for other teams.
20   A.  That's correct, yes.
21   Q.  Was the, I suppose, the pressure of work and the
22       stretching resources something that caused you
23       difficulties?
24   A.  Not any worse than any other business that has that sort
25       of resource problems.  In other words, you got on with
page  24
 1       it, you managed it day-to-day.  It wouldn't cause stress
 2       and it wouldn't cause problems.  It is a problem but
 3       it's a problem any business deals with day-to-day.  It's
 4       just a general management resource --
 5   Q.  I think elsewhere in your statement you say your own
 6       team had two murders on at the same time that
 7       Mr MacPherson's team was dealing with the Marion Ross
 8       case?
 9   A.  That is correct, yes.
10   Q.  Was there ever any issue about the time that you could
11       spend examining marks because of pressure of work in
12       that sort of situation?
13   A.  No, no, never.
14   Q.  When you first saw the mark Y7, do you recall whether
15       you saw it on the comparator?
16   A.  I believe it was on the comparator when I first checked
17       it, when I first seen it.
18   Q.  Were there any markings on the comparator when you first
19       checked it?
20   A.  Just signatures on the side.  People would sign, "I've
21       seen it", but apart from that I don't remember anything
22       else.
23   Q.  When you say you don't remember anything else, does that
24       mean that there may have been other markings but you
25       don't remember?
page  25
 1   A.  I don't remember.
 2   Q.  You simply don't remember?
 3   A.  I don't remember.
 4   Q.  Can you tell us to the best of your recollection how you
 5       went about the task of checking mark Y7?
 6   A.  I took it off the comparator, checked it under the glass
 7       at my desk then went back on to the comparator to ensure
 8       I had 16.
 9   Q.  When you took it to your desk, can you describe for the
10       Chairman, please, how you went about your task?
11   A.  I'd have the form and the photograph in front of me at
12       my desk and I'd apply linear glasses to it, fingerprint
13       glasses, and used pointers to try and carry out the
14       examination.
15   Q.  So you would have two glasses and pointers?
16   A.  Yes.
17   Q.  Did you move straight to examining the mark and the
18       print together or did you do something different from
19       that?
20   A.  I examined the mark and the print together.
21   Q.  Should we take it from that that there was no stage when
22       you looked separately at the mark?
23   A.  No, I just looked at the mark and the print together.
24   Q.  I see.  How did you go about ascertaining that there was
25       a match between the two as they sat in front of you?
page  26
 1   A.  The same I would do in any comparison.  Once I started
 2       finding ridges in sequence and agreement I would then
 3       carry on counting in between ridges and so forth and ...
 4       just like a normal comparison.
 5   Q.  What was your normal comparison?  I know it must seem
 6       very obvious to you but to the rest of us ... I'm going
 7       to ask you a few further questions to try and get a
 8       clearer picture for those of us who don't do that every
 9       day in life as to just how you went about it.
10           How would you start finding ridges in sequence and
11       agreement with these two items in front of you?
12   A.  You'd look for a characteristic, you know -- it's very
13       difficult to explain how you ... it's just automatic,
14       start looking, scanning the area, to see, start seeing
15       if any characteristics start forming and then look for
16       further characteristics in sequence and agreement.  It
17       would be a case of scanning your eye -- it's hard to
18       explain.  Your eyes will just scan the mark and the
19       form.
20   Q.  I am going to put it a particular way and again if I am
21       putting it a way that is not natural to you do just tell
22       me but other witnesses have talked about something that
23       catch their eye?
24   A.  Yes, that's why you would scan the mark and the form to
25       try and catch an eye.
page  27
 1   Q.  The thing that caught your eye, might that be on the
 2       print or on the mark?
 3   A.  It could be either.
 4   Q.  Could be either.  I appreciate I am asking you something
 5       very difficult in terms of thinking back all the way to
 6       1997, but when you were dealing with mark Y7, do you
 7       remember what it was that caught your eye?
 8   A.  No, no.
 9   Q.  We have also heard the expression from some witnesses
10       "target group".
11           Is that an expression that means anything to you?
12   A.  Some people would maybe use a target group of round a
13       core or a delta, where there's a series of
14       characteristics, individual characteristics, and they
15       maybe use that to start looking for, you know, those
16       sort of cluster groups again.  That's my understanding
17       of it.
18   Q.  Is it something that you would do yourself or --
19   A.  I think it's something you do naturally by scanning but
20       some people maybe put a label on it and call it target
21       groups.
22   Q.  Once you had perhaps found one characteristic that
23       caught your eye, what would you do after that?
24   A.  To find another characteristic in sequence and agreement
25       with it.
page  28
 1   Q.  How would you continue?
 2   A.  You then once you start to get 1 characteristic, 2
 3       characteristics, you go for 3, 4, 5 and work your way up
 4       to 16.
 5   Q.  Should we understand that you are looking from one of
 6       the images to the other, from the mark to the print or
 7       the print to the mark or looking at both at the same
 8       time?
 9   A.  The same time.
10   Q.  You are looking at both at the same time.
11   A.  You head was maybe moving from one to the other but one
12       eye was on this and one eye was on that one.  It's just
13       you're sitting there with the two glasses concentrating.
14   Q.  So your head might move but you are describing having
15       one eye on one on another?
16   A.  You are using two glasses where you have one eye on this
17       area and one on the mark and you moving from one to the
18       other and counting and you're going across the other
19       side and look again to see if that characteristic has
20       appeared, you know.
21   Q.  You are describing counting and you are making a motion
22       with your hands which I would like to try and understand
23       and record.  Again, tell me if I am wrong but are you
24       making a motion to indicate how you might be moving a
25       pointer about?
page  29
 1   A.  I may be exaggerating the motion but the pointer was
 2       there (indicated) but you would be moving --
 3   Q.  I know this is very difficult when you are demonstrating
 4       something to us but we still need to hear what you are
 5       saying.
 6   A.  What it is you would be moving your arms and your eyes
 7       constantly between the two, the mark and the print, the
 8       ten-print form, looking for these characteristics.  It
 9       was just a natural thing you did, you know, over the
10       years.
11   Q.  Something else I would like to ask you about that
12       process: were you keeping a count as you went along or
13       did you --
14   A.  A mental count, yes.  A mental count.
15   Q.  Why were you doing that?
16   A.  That's just what you did, you know, like 1, 2, 3, that's
17       5, you'd count the ridges in your head, 5, 6, then you
18       know it's just a mental count in your head.
19   Q.  It's probably the fault of the question.  Were you doing
20       it because you knew you had to get to a particular
21       number if the mark was going to go to court?
22   A.  Yes.  I mean, you were seeing how many characteristics
23       you could find and it was just one of these natural
24       things that you did as your job.
25   Q.  I would like to ask you about paragraph 31 then in your
page  30
 1       statement where you say that you would have stopped when
 2       you found 16 characteristics in sequence and agreement
 3       because there was no need to go beyond 16.
 4           Is that right or would there be occasions when you
 5       would just count on and really see how many you could
 6       get?
 7   A.  I maybe have done that in the past but really if you
 8       were looking for the 16-point standard then it would be
 9       a wasteful resource of time.
10   Q.  So it's really 16 is what you need so you stop, you tend
11       to stop?
12   A.  Yes, but you could probably find -- you could probably
13       on most marks find a lot more.
14   Q.  Did you ever have a situation where you maybe had, I
15       don't know, take nine points that you found very easily
16       that jumped out at you as you went back and forward
17       between the mark and the print and then you had to
18       perhaps work a lot harder to find the points that took
19       you up to 16?  Could that sometimes happen?
20   A.  Of course it could happen, yes.
21   Q.  Because there was this standard of 16 which we have
22       heard from some of the witnesses was really a sort of
23       arbitrary standard that was in force at the time, did
24       you ever feel that there was any pressure to get to the
25       16?
page  31
 1   A.  No.
 2   Q.  In that situation where you maybe have 9 that seem
 3       pretty obvious but you find yourself working harder for
 4       the other ones?
 5   A.  I wouldn't put myself under pressure.  If I got to 16
 6       I've got 16, but I wouldn't, if you say, get stressed
 7       trying to find 16.  If I couldn't find 16; I couldn't
 8       find 16.
 9   Q.  I think possibly from what you say here at paragraph 31
10       and what you have told us earlier that by the time you
11       got to 16 characteristics you would be sure in your own
12       mind?
13   A.  Yes.
14   Q.  Do you remember in what part of mark Y7 you found your
15       16 points when you examined it?
16   A.  No.  I mean, it wouldn't make much difference in the
17       enlargement you seen, if any, you know.  No.
18   Q.  So you think --
19   A.  The enlargement you seen would probably more or less
20       cover the 16 that I found.
21   Q.  I think we have heard from other witnesses and seen for
22       ourselves that the 16 points, I think it came to be 17
23       ultimately across two productions, are all in the lower
24       part of mark Y7?
25   A.  That is correct, yes.
page  32
 1   Q.  You are familiar with that.
 2           Do you remember whether you ever considered at all
 3       the upper part of mark Y7?
 4   A.  The form I seen didn't disclose that area.
 5   Q.  Because it has certainly been suggested by some
 6       witnesses who disagree with the view that Y7 is properly
 7       matched with Shirley McKie's left thumb that there are
 8       differences in the upper part of the mark that can't
 9       really be explained away.
10   A.  That's their opinion.  I can't comment on that.
11   Q.  Do you remember whether you noticed any differences,
12       whether or not in areas that were disclosed by the form
13       that you actually had --
14   A.  No.
15   Q.  -- at the time?
16   A.  No.
17   Q.  Is that, no, you didn't see them or, no, you don't
18       remember?
19   A.  No, I don't remember.  I remember getting the 16 on the
20       area and disclosing I was satisfied with that.
21   Q.  In this situation you were the fourth checker --
22   A.  That's correct, yes.
23   Q.  -- so I suppose you would be aware that 16 points had
24       been identified by Mr MacPherson and Mr Stewart?
25   A.  And Ms McBride, yes.
page  33
 1   Q.  The first two of whom had very many years of experience
 2       at that time.  I think we heard from them they had been
 3       working since 1970 so I suppose that would be 27 years
 4       at the time and Ms McBride who certainly had experience
 5       into double figures of years at the time herself.
 6           In that situation, where you have three experienced
 7       colleagues who have looked at it before you, would it
 8       always be the case that you would go away and carry out
 9       your own examination separately under glasses?
10   A.  Yes.
11   Q.  Had it ever happened in your experience -- and, again,
12       it may be a question that you cannot answer for me --
13       that a query had been raised by the fourth person
14       looking at a mark in a situation where there had been
15       three who had identified?
16   A.  There must be occasions that happened in SCRO.  It's an
17       organisation going for 40 years so -- I don't remember
18       it but I would be very surprised if it didn't happen in
19       an organisation that's been going for 40 years.
20   Q.  Did you ever take any notes when you were carrying out
21       your comparison of a mark?
22   A.  No.  No, I did not, no.
23   Q.  Do you know if anybody did at all?
24   A.  No, I do not know.
25   Q.  Can we take it that simply just wasn't part of practice
page  34
 1       at the time?
 2   A.  I think maybe -- I don't know of any individual who
 3       would maybe do that.  Maybe there was individuals in
 4       SCRO that did that but I didn't.
 5   Q.  You came to be involved in this case also in the
 6       preparation of all the reports for court, I think?
 7   A.  That's right, yes.
 8   Q.  In relation to marks that you had not examined the first
 9       time round, if I can put it that way, what would you do
10       to satisfy yourself that you were happy, in the first
11       instance, with the content of the report which I think
12       we understand was drafted in the first instance
13       by somebody other than yourself?
14   A.  Probably the first witness would draft all together and
15       put all the books together and then it would be passed
16       round to experts to check and you would check every mark
17       in the case before you signing it and passed it on to
18       the next expert or sent it out to the Procurator
19       Fiscal's department.
20   Q.  You may be aware that the Chairman's also been looking
21       in this Inquiry at a mark, QI2, that was identified as
22       coming from the victim in the case, Marion Ross?
23   A.  That is correct, yes.
24   Q.  Do you remember checking the individualisation for the
25       purposes of signing the report?
page  35
 1   A.  Yes, I would do that.
 2   Q.  Do you have any particular recollection of checking mark
 3       QI2?
 4   A.  No, it would just be part of the full court productions.
 5       You would check every mark within those court
 6       productions because you were signing for it.  You were
 7       putting your opinion and your signature to that.  You
 8       had to sign it.  You had to check it carefully.
 9   Q.  When it came to the enlargements that were prepared --
10       and, again, I will take the example of this mark, QI2,
11       that was identified as coming from Miss Ross -- how was
12       the charting agreed among you and your colleagues?
13   A.  It was passed -- just passed around with the court
14       productions and you checked it to make sure you were
15       satisfied that the characteristics that were shown for
16       illustration purposes, you were satisfied with.  You
17       also checked the mark as well against the form.
18   Q.  When you got the enlargements to check, would that be
19       before or after you had checked the mark and print with
20       your own glasses?
21   A.  Probably do it round about the same time because before
22       the charting PC the enlargements were produced by the
23       Identification Bureau, okay, and there were photographs
24       so, therefore you could ... with the charting PC it was
25       printed off so whether or not -- I can't remember if it
page  36
 1       was mounted in the book at the time with the rest of the
 2       productions coming round but I would check that as well
 3       as check the individual mark against the form.  That's
 4       the only way you could actually relate the form and the
 5       mark to the illustration as well.
 6   Q.  Because the joint report itself would generally refer to
 7       the book of photographs, wouldn't it?
 8   A.  Yes.
 9   Q.  So it might be that we could take it then that when it
10       comes to you for checking it comes as a package, it
11       becomes perhaps as the joint report and the photographs
12       together?
13   A.  Yes.
14   Q.  It might well be that you have seen the charting before
15       you have done your own checking?
16   A.  Not necessarily.  You were checking the marks and the
17       charting PC or the enlargements were always at the very
18       last page of the book.  So --
19   Q.  We have seen examples, Mr McKenna.
20   A.  I don't think checking ... at the end of the day you
21       would check the mark and you could relate that mark as
22       part of the statements, you could relate that mark and
23       that fingerprint to the charting PC because, at the end
24       of the day, I mean, even when you checked it under the
25       glass and you were satisfied it was an identification,
page  37
 1       even though you checked the enlargement, you are
 2       satisfied the illustration was there, you still had to
 3       relate one to the other.
 4   Q.  I follow that and I would like to ask you some more
 5       questions about that, Mr McKenna.  Should we take it
 6       then that when you are doing your independent check with
 7       the glasses in the way that you've described what you
 8       are doing is actually looking at these to make sure that
 9       what is on the enlargement form is something that you
10       are happy with?
11   A.  I don't really think so.  You were satisfying yourself
12       this was an identification.  You were then relating that
13       to the enlargement which had been produced for the
14       illustrative guides and you checked the illustrative
15       guide.  So there might be a mark you see that you
16       checked under the glass which has maybe not been marked
17       on the enlargement but you were satisfied that both were
18       the standard for court.
19   Q.  What I am curious about is whether you might ever be
20       doing your own comparison, informed by some extent by
21       what your colleague had illustrated on the charted
22       enlargement in the book?
23   A.  At the end of the day, you had to satisfy yourself.  I
24       mean, I think what you're trying to say is would I look
25       at the charting PC, "Oh, that's correct, okay", then not
page  38
 1       check the mark.  No, the mark had to be related -- it's
 2       in the statement -- is related to the enlargement so you
 3       would check the mark and the enlargement.  If you
 4       checked the enlargement first and the mark after it
 5       didn't make any difference.  You still had to satisfy
 6       yourself there were 16 in both areas.
 7   Q.  I understand that you are telling us quite clearly that
 8       you would never just look at the enlargements and say,
 9       "Well, that's all right then", and not take it further.
10   A.  Yes.
11   Q.  But I am wondering if there's possibly --
12   A.  There would be an influence.
13   Q.  -- an intermediate possibility that one looks at the
14       enlargement and then one goes and checks the mark and
15       the print and says, "Well, now do I see point 1 that
16       Mr MacPherson has put?  Well, yes, I do.  Do I see
17       point 2 that he's put on the charted enlargement?  Yes,
18       I do", and be checking it in that sort of way?
19   A.  But you would actually do that in reverse as well, after
20       you checked your mark and you were satisfied then you
21       looked at the enlargement, you would maybe go back to
22       the mark to make sure that you could see that on the
23       enlargement was reflected in the photograph or the
24       fingerprint form.  So it's like a two-way -- I don't
25       think it would make a difference.  It's ...
page  39
 1   Q.  You are describing something that's potentially a
 2       two-way process?
 3   A.  It could be if go back and look at it, after you have
 4       checked it and checked the enlargement, you may go back
 5       to make sure what's on the enlargement you can relate to
 6       because you are saying I can relate this mark to the
 7       enlargement.
 8   Q.  Would you always though be looking at the mark and the
 9       print at a stage initially before you looked at the
10       charted enlargement at all?
11   A.  Yes, yes.
12   Q.  So it would never be the case that you would open the
13       enlargement book before you went to your own check?
14   A.  No.
15   Q.  I think Mr Stewart told us yesterday about a process of
16       consensus in arriving at chartings of marks and prints
17       for court.  My understanding was that that might involve
18       perhaps some discussion and people knocking out points
19       that not -- perhaps eliminating quite quickly from the
20       charting points that not everybody was happy with and
21       coming to 16 that everybody was happy with.
22           Do you have any experience of that happening?
23   A.  Yes.  You may put a characteristic in it and somebody
24       else maybe felt, well, although I see that one I prefer
25       maybe if you mark that because there is a stronger --
page  40
 1       not stronger characteristic but ... you came to an
 2       agreement because the marks have more than 16 and people
 3       agreed -- there are usually more than 16 and every
 4       individual would arrive at their own 16 but when it came
 5       to an enlargement you had to satisfy yourself and as
 6       long as you were satisfied of that 16 then you could
 7       call it a consensus.
 8   Q.  I am asking you this because I am understanding the
 9       process that you have just described as being one of the
10       report and a prepared charting in a book being passed on
11       to you to check rather than a process where perhaps you
12       and your three colleagues all stand round the charting
13       machine --
14   A.  No.
15   Q.  -- to make sure you are all happy with the points and I
16       would like to be clear about just how it was that an
17       agreed charting would come about.
18   A.  When you received the book, you may then stand round the
19       charting PC and have a debate and --
20   Q.  Sorry, I'm losing what you're saying and I think the
21       stenographer might be as well.
22   A.  Because the charting PC, it was a computer, a very basic
23       thing if you were not -- if somebody was not satisfied
24       you could go back and maybe go back to the charting --
25       so you bring it back up and say you prefer that mark
page  41
 1       there so may be move it down a bit and print it off
 2       again.  That could happen but, as I say, you usually had
 3       a consensus but it's very ... I mean, most things you
 4       were ... well, you checked it and if you were happy you
 5       were happy.
 6   Q.  So normally you would get a book, you would check it and
 7       you would be happy but sometimes you might go back and
 8       suggest that the charting provided should be something
 9       different?
10   A.  If you were of that opinion, somebody could, that
11       possibility could arise.
12   Q.  Should we take it then there was no initial meeting
13       between the four of you where you all sit down and
14       thrash out which 16 points should go on the machine?
15   A.  No.
16   THE CHAIRMAN:  If I could interrupt you again, I am just not
17       sure of the order of things and maybe I've missed that.
18       You were given this mark to look at to check and you
19       find 16 points and you are satisfied.  It is only if the
20       case is going to go to court that you would be asked to
21       agree the enlargements.
22   A.  If that was a mark that was required for enlargement
23       because some cases maybe had more than one mark
24       identified for an accused and what was then done was the
25       best mark was taken for an enlargement for illustrative
page  42
 1       purposes.
 2   THE CHAIRMAN:  Yes, but the timing of it is just what I want
 3       to get clear.  You have looked at it today --
 4   A.  And it could be a year's time before you go to court.
 5   THE CHAIRMAN:  When will you see the enlargements?
 6   A.  Whenever the court request came in to prepare the
 7       evidence.
 8   THE CHAIRMAN:  Then you have got to go back to it again on a
 9       second visit to see whether the 16 points in the
10       enlargement agree with the 16 that you saw on your first
11       examination?
12   A.  That is correct because you are then signing the book
13       that's saying this relates to that because it's just a
14       process of evidence.
15   THE CHAIRMAN:  You have no notes of your first
16       examination --
17   A.  No.
18   THE CHAIRMAN:  -- so you have actually got to start again
19       looking at your 16 points.  You might remember some of
20       them, but you've got to plot them again.
21   A.  Yes, under the glass and start making sure you're still
22       satisfied that that's the case.  I mean, a lot of the
23       information was recorded on the front of the envelope
24       but you didn't actually have any personal note to say
25       what characteristics -- well, I didn't have a note of
page  43
 1       characteristics I'd seen originally but I would probably
 2       go back and check it again.
 3   THE CHAIRMAN:  So that by the time that you have agreed the
 4       enlargement, you have actually plotted it twice.
 5   A.  That's a possibility, yes.  Well, it would be the case,
 6       yes.
 7   THE CHAIRMAN:  It sounds more than a possibility.  That's
 8       the way it would happen.
 9   A.  Yes.
10   THE CHAIRMAN:  Thank you.
11   MISS CARMICHAEL:  Thank you, sir.
12           I have been asking you both in general terms but
13       about your involvement with QI2 which was a mark you had
14       not identified the first time round and I would like to
15       move on in time to the time when a fresh report was
16       prepared for the proceedings against Ms McKie in about
17       January 1999.  That was a production that was prepared
18       under reference to arrest prints that had been taken in
19       about March 1998.  Is that something you remember being
20       involved with?
21   A.  No, no.
22   Q.  Are you able to tell us in general terms what you would
23       do in that situation where you were dealing with a mark
24       that you had identified before, that you prepared a
25       report on before but in which or rather you had signed a
page  44
 1       report before but where a further report was being
 2       prepared in relation to a new set of prints?  What would
 3       your role be?  What would you do?
 4   A.  If I was asked to prepare that for court, I would
 5       examine the mark against the current set of prints.
 6   Q.  Do you have any recollection of doing that?
 7   A.  I would have -- yes.  Well, I would have done it because
 8       I've signed the court production for that.  So therefore
 9       I would have compared the new prints against the mark
10       Y7.
11   Q.  We have heard that the image that was selected by you of
12       Ms McKie's known print for that report was a rolled
13       print rather than a plain print.  I am wondering if you
14       have any recollection as to whether the use of that
15       rolled image, which presumably would contain more
16       information, made any difference to your approach or
17       enabled you to see any parts of the mark you hadn't seen
18       previously?
19   A.  No, I can't remember that.
20   Q.  I think you were asked when you were giving your
21       statement about the use of case envelopes and I wonder
22       if you could look, please, at DB0529.  I wonder if we
23       could also look, please, at page 13 of your statement,
24       paragraph 72.  This is really simply to clarify
25       paragraph 72 because what you say there is that there
page  45
 1       are five signatures on the case envelope.  I think we
 2       can see that.
 3           You say that you have no idea why Eddie Bruce has
 4       signed as well.  What is perhaps confusing for me at
 5       least about that is that my understanding is that the
 6       signatures there are Mr MacPherson's, Mr Stewart's,
 7       Mr Geddes's, your own and, slightly hidden by the
 8       sellotape, Ms McBride's and I was wondering perhaps
 9       whether there might be a "not" missing or whether you
10       interpret one of the signatures differently?
11   A.  Sorry, I don't understand the question.
12   Q.  Our understanding thus far has been that Mr Bruce did
13       not in fact sign this envelope and that it has been
14       signed by other colleagues (Mr Stewart, Mr MacPherson,
15       Ms McBride and Mr Geddes) and, for that reason, I
16       wondered if in fact what we are missing from your
17       sentence there is a "not"?
18   A.  This was done in February but I don't understand.  I
19       mean, maybe that's what the case was but you must
20       remember that was the first time I'd seen that and I
21       didn't realise that I'd actually signed this envelope on
22       that day.
23   Q.  I am not criticising you in any way but --
24   A.  But, as I say, I know you're saying why is this saying
25       that Mr Bruce has signed it as well.  I mean --
page  46
 1   Q.  It may be simply that statement-taker has not put in a
 2       "not" --
 3   A.  Maybe that is the case, yes.
 4   Q.  -- and missed it in the revision process and it may be
 5       something as simple as that and I am really just trying
 6       to clarify that.
 7   A.  As I said, I don't see Mr Bruce's signature on it --
 8   Q.  That's fine.  I think that's all I really wanted to
 9       check with you there, Mr McKenna.  It is not a trick
10       question in any shape or form.
11           I think you were also asked when you gave your
12       statement -- and at this point I should refer you to
13       pages 17 to 18 and paragraph 104 -- about a report dated
14       27th March 1997.  If we can have up the next pages as
15       well on the right-hand side, we can take down the case
16       envelope.
17           You were being asked about a report of 27th
18       March 1997 which had a particular paragraph in it about
19       the location and orientation of mark Y7.  In your
20       statement you say:
21           "This is not standard text.  I do not know why it
22       was put in.  I presume that it was at the direction of
23       the Procurator Fiscal's Office."
24           Do you have any recollection as to whether it was at
25       the direction of the Procurator Fiscal's Office?
page  47
 1   A.  No, I do not remember.
 2   Q.  Is there any particular reason for thinking it was at
 3       the direction of the Procurator Fiscal's Office?
 4   A.  Not really, no, but you usually find that your directive
 5       came -- well, I don't know why it was put in and that's
 6       it, you know.
 7   Q.  If that is the simple answer, that is the simple answer,
 8       Mr McKenna.
 9           I would like to ask you a little bit more about
10       enlargements for court and using the charting machine,
11       which you have already mentioned in your evidence.  I
12       would like to take you back in your statement to page 4.
13       What you tell us at paragraph 22 is that the charting
14       enlargement machine was difficult to use and wasn't
15       user-friendly.  I wondered if you could explain to the
16       Chairman just what you mean by that?
17   A.  You had to capture -- I think it was a new machine and
18       it was very expensive and you had to capture the mark
19       first or was it the photograph of the mark first, then
20       save that and then capture the fingerprint form, the
21       fingerprint from the form, try and capture that to put
22       it together.  It was just a very cumbersome sort of
23       process and it's not like modern computers where you
24       could actually highlight this and just flick it up.
25       This thing you captured it and you had to wait for about
page  48
 1       ten -- well, nearly ten minutes.
 2   Q.  I am losing some of your voice again.
 3   A.  You'd have to capture the mark or the ... I can't
 4       remember whether you capture the mark or the fingerprint
 5       form first, and then you'd have to wait for a wee while
 6       until the machine sort of then brought up the image and
 7       you had to examine it make sure you were satisfied with
 8       the square around it where the crop -- they called it
 9       cropping round it and if it wasn't you had to start
10       again.
11           So it was a very -- it was no like this just now you
12       can actually flick on to it and just highlight.  This
13       thing took quite a long time to produce the image.
14   Q.  So it was a slow system?
15   A.  Slow system, cumbersome and you're not -- just very,
16       very slow.  A very slow system.
17   Q.  What about the quality of the images that you got when
18       you were using that system to produce enlargements?
19       What was that like?
20   A.  It varied, you know, depending on the mark.  If the mark
21       was of poor quality, then that would come off again as a
22       poor quality.  If the fingerprint form was of poor
23       quality, once you captured it and it was printed off
24       side-by-side, again that would be a poor quality.  It's
25       the old adage if you put rubbish in, you get rubbish out
page  49
 1       sort of thing.  So it was a very cumbersome machine and
 2       very, very basic.  Although it was probably innovative
 3       at the time, it was very, very basic.
 4   Q.  When you say -- it's the old story, you put rubbish in,
 5       you get rubbish out.
 6   A.  You get rubbish out.
 7   Q.  Did the use of the charting machine make poor quality
 8       prints worse or did it --
 9   A.  You tried your best to produce it but it nobody was
10       happy with it.  It's not as if it would change anything.
11       It's not as if the machine would do anything to the mark
12       it just produced what the best you could get out of it
13       and most people were very dissatisfied with it.
14   Q.  Thinking about it this way: if one has even a mark that
15       might be poor quality, in the sense of having things
16       about that it made it difficult to examine, one would
17       still get a better image of it by scanning it with very
18       good machinery at a high resolution than with poor
19       machinery at a low resolution.  Would that be fair?
20   A.  Yes, but if you look at computers now, they've come on
21       in the last ten years.  I mean, most people have got a
22       computer and a great printer at home.  This was a new
23       machine, very expensive, probably the first time it had
24       been tested so, therefore ... as I said, you got what
25       you got out of it.
page  50
 1   Q.  If I can put it this way then, perhaps: when you were
 2       getting your enlargements from the machine, were they
 3       worse than you would have expected if you were getting
 4       the same image enlarged just by a photographic process?
 5   A.  I'd say you were, yes.
 6   Q.  What about the process of plotting your points using the
 7       charting machine?  How did you find that?
 8   A.  Cumbersome.
 9   Q.  What was cumbersome about it?
10   A.  I mean, as you know, you can highlight on -- if I
11       remember rightly, you had to drag your point across or,
12       as you know, yourself sometimes when ... it was
13       cumbersome.  My memory of it is so far back in the
14       distance the actually processes of it are very, very
15       unclear but I just remember it was very, very cumbersome
16       and slow and difficult to use.
17   Q.  You have described the process of dragging.  Should we
18       understand you to be motioning as if you were using a
19       computer mouse?
20   A.  Yes, that sort of type thing.  It was very cumbersome.
21   Q.  We heard from Mr Stewart yesterday that one of the
22       problems he experienced was that you might feel that you
23       had your mouse at just the right place to plot your
24       point, then something would jump or move and you would
25       find you'd plotted it just not exactly where you wanted
page  51
 1       to.
 2           How does that accord with your recollection?
 3   A.  That could happen, yes.
 4   Q.  Thinking to the enlargements that were used in relation
 5       to Y7, either the production for Mr Asbury's trial or
 6       the production specially for Ms McKie's trial, can you
 7       recall if you had any concern about whether -- perhaps
 8       because of that sort of process -- I am not suggesting
 9       anything improper -- but because the mouse had slipped
10       there were points that were charted with less exactness
11       than you would have wished?
12   A.  No.
13   Q.  You had no concerns about that at all?
14   A.  No concerns.  We examined it and were satisfied.
15   Q.  From your point of view as a Fingerprint Examiner who
16       might go on to give evidence in court in any case where
17       there are enlargements prepared, what was the purpose of
18       the charted enlargement?
19   A.  An illustrative guide for the jury.
20   Q.  An illustrative guide to what, Mr McKenna?
21   A.  What an enlargement was, what a fingerprint
22       identification was, how it came about, you put the
23       points.
24   Q.  We have heard some witnesses say, perhaps, that it is a
25       guide to the process of how you go about identifying a
page  52
 1       fingerprint but we have also heard perhaps differing
 2       views about whether it should really be intended as a
 3       guide for the jury as to the actual 16 points that you
 4       are relying on in making the identification.  I am just
 5       wondering if you can tell us where you stand on that.
 6   A.  Would that be for generic or actual ... is that the
 7       question?
 8   Q.  No, it's the fault of my question.  I understand this
 9       does not happen now but thinking to the time when you
10       did have these charted enlargements with the 16 points
11       and you needed the 16 points, generally, for a mark to
12       get to court, thinking back to that time, was the
13       purpose of the enlargement, from your point of view,
14       just to show the jury how you, as an examiner, went
15       about your job in general terms or was it supposed to be
16       used so that you could show the jury what points you
17       were relying on in making the identification?
18   A.  Well, actually, personally, it was just your first
19       option, for the simple reason that a lot of the cases
20       you did do had more than one mark so if that was the
21       case you would be producing enlargements for every mark
22       so it was really a guide to see this is how an
23       identification is made rather than, as you say, to make
24       your own mind up on it, you know, because if you have a
25       case where maybe 15 marks had been identified and if you
page  53
 1       take the process you are trying to show the jury how
 2       your identifications were made, you would be then trying
 3       to produce 15 enlargements.  So really it's just an
 4       illustrative guide to how identification -- you know,
 5       the first option you said.
 6   Q.  Do you think an ordinary member of the public, like a
 7       juror, who comes into court should be able to be shown
 8       by somebody like yourself, a Fingerprint Examiner, any
 9       feature that you have been able to observe in the mark?
10   A.  I don't think that would be up to me.  I know you are
11       saying should I be standing there explaining all this.
12       If it was required of me, yes, I would do it but if it's
13       not required of me, no, I wouldn't do it.  If you
14       understand I don't think it's really part of my remit in
15       a court to start saying, this is -- my evidence is to
16       stand there and give my evidence what my findings are
17       and here's an illustrative guide to how we go about
18       getting our findings but to actually say to the jury, "I
19       want you to look at mark number 1, mark number 2", I
20       don't think ... I don't think a jury would get that.
21       Well, that's a generalisation but you just don't know.
22   Q.  Obviously, we all understand that you were not actually
23       involved in Ms McKie's trial but we do know that what
24       happened was that some of your colleagues did have to go
25       to court and I think Mr Stewart, in particular, was
page  54
 1       taken round the clockface of these marks and prints
 2       through from 1 to 16 on two different images.  In that
 3       situation he was being asked, I suppose, to show the
 4       jury what he saw.
 5           Is that something that you think is just something
 6       that jurors wouldn't get, if I can put it that way?
 7   A.  I couldn't second-guess juror's.  Some jurors might get
 8       that, some jurors might not.  I mean, you're asking me
 9       to put an opinion in of somebody else's mind, which I
10       couldn't do.
11   Q.  Of course not and, again, I probably asked the wrong
12       question there, Mr McKenna.
13           If we think about a situation perhaps where a
14       Fingerprint Examiner might be asked to stand up and
15       explain to the jury the various points, perhaps as in
16       this case, which is obviously relatively unusual in the
17       case of a dispute of some kind, if you had a situation
18       where there was something that, I suppose, to the lay
19       eye, looked like a straight black line not joined on to
20       anything else and you, as a Fingerprint Examiner, come
21       along and tell them, "Well, actually it joins on to
22       something else in this mark and it's actually a
23       bifurcation", why should the juror not just accept the
24       evidence of his or her own eyes and take that step of
25       seeing something, I suppose, that you can see and that
page  55
 1       you are telling them about but maybe they cannot see for
 2       themselves?  Why should they do that?
 3   A.  Well, I think they should.  A jury should be independent
 4       and make their own mind up.  The jury is an independent
 5       jury you're right, why should they?  It's up to them to
 6       go away and discuss the evidence and then come back with
 7       their own findings.  It's nothing to do with me.
 8   Q.  So can I take it from that that you would accept that it
 9       is a legitimate thing for you to be asked to explain and
10       justify to a jury why you have taken the view that you
11       have about any of the points that you have identified in
12       a mark and a print?
13   A.  Uh-huh.
14   Q.  You wouldn't expect the jury, simply because you are
15       the, I suppose, the expert witness, to take your word
16       for it.  They can go away and form their own
17       conclusions?
18   A.  That's the reason for a jury.
19   Q.  If I can take paragraph 22 down and ask you a little bit
20       particularly about paragraph 21 here, you explain that
21       there had been discussions about getting rid of charted
22       enlargements and moving to generic enlargements.  You
23       say that is something that SCRO wanted.
24           Can you tell us why they wanted it?
25   A.  It be probably easier if you had a generic enlargement.
page  56
 1       It would save resource management for experts to go away
 2       and have to produce enlargements and if you did a
 3       standard enlargement then you could have it for every
 4       case and it would make business sense, you know, in a
 5       sense.  It would just be better resource management.
 6   Q.  You say "probably" there.  Is that because you are
 7       speculating what the reason for wanting rid of them was
 8       or do you know that's why SCRO wanted to do away with
 9       them?
10   A.  I don't know why.  When you say SCRO, do you mean SCRO
11       as a corporate identity or SCRO as the experts within
12       it?
13   Q.  I think you will have to tell me because the reason I am
14       asking you is because you have said this is something
15       SCRO wanted.
16   A.  Personally, I think it was -- when I made that statement
17       I was talking about SCRO as the experts rather than ...
18   Q.  So you were talking about your individual colleagues --
19   A.  Well, my personal opinion as well.
20   Q.  So why was it that you and your individual colleagues
21       that you worked with wanted generic enlargements instead
22       of case-specific ones?
23   A.  As I said, for resource management purposes.  It would
24       be a lot easier if you had a standard generic
25       enlargement which you could produce and to show as an
page  57
 1       illustrative guide the thing we have done, then it would
 2       save time sitting at a charting PC.  You could resource
 3       that time into doing more examinations.
 4   Q.  What would happen then if you did have the difficult
 5       case where you are asked to explain and to show to a
 6       jury just what your findings are in the particular case?
 7       What would happen then if you only had the generic
 8       enlargement?
 9   A.  Well, if they were going to be addressing that, it would
10       be up to the Procurator Fiscal to come back and ask us
11       could we, in this case, produce enlargements of the mark
12       and the fingerprint for this case, as I say, but it was
13       a thought that generic enlargements would be a good
14       thing.
15   Q.  Do you know why it was that the Strathclyde Procurator
16       Fiscals who you mentioned wanted to keep the charted
17       enlargements?
18   A.  That's a question you would have to ask them.
19   Q.  But you don't know?
20   A.  I don't know.
21   Q.  Where did you get the information from that other
22       Procurator Fiscals were content to dispense with
23       individual enlargements for cases?
24   A.  I think some other bureaux in Scotland.  You would have
25       to check with them that they didn't produce enlargements
page  58
 1       for solemn, sheriff and jury or solemn cases because it
 2       was only sheriff and jury in solemn procedures that we
 3       produced enlargements.  Sheriff summaries and district
 4       courts did not need enlargements.  So that was a sort of
 5       break in continuity.
 6   Q.  When you say other bureaux did not produce them, was
 7       that they never produced them or they may have only
 8       produced them when they were requested to?
 9   A.  I don't know when they stopped or if they did stop.
10       It's my understanding.  I could be wrong but ...
11   Q.  Again, as I have said, we all appreciate you didn't give
12       evidence in the case against Ms McKie but I think you
13       were originally cited to give evidence along with your
14       three colleagues; is that right?
15   A.  That is correct, yes.
16   Q.  When did you first learn that there was a dispute about
17       the identification of the mark?
18   A.  My recollection is after the case.
19   Q.  I would like to ask you a bit more about that and to
20       refer you to pages 20 and 21 of your statement.  At
21       paragraph 122, you say that at some point before the
22       trial Chief Inspector Ian Hogg of the Identification
23       Bureau spoke to yourself and your three colleagues and
24       that he had found out that a Mr Wertheim was involved as
25       a defence expert and that was the first you had heard of
page  59
 1       Mr Wertheim.
 2           At this stage, what did you understand Mr Wertheim's
 3       position to be about Y7?
 4   A.  I didn't know anything about Mr Wertheim's position.
 5   Q.  What exactly is it that you say that happened at this
 6       meeting?
 7   A.  This meeting took place in the Chief Inspector's office
 8       at SCRO.  It lasted two minutes.  Chief Inspector Ian
 9       Hogg came in and said that experts who are going to give
10       evidence are a Mr Pat Wertheim and a Mr David Grieve and
11       it was shortly before the trial, very shortly before the
12       trial started, if not after the trial started, but going
13       back I just remember the meeting but the actual time of
14       the meeting, it wasn't weeks or months before the trial.
15       It was a very short time and that's all he said.
16   Q.  I am trying to clarify just exactly where this meeting
17       did fit in because -- I appreciate it may be difficult
18       for you but if I can perhaps put some further questions
19       to you, we have heard about your colleagues,
20       Mr MacPherson and Mr Stewart, meeting with the Advocate
21       Depute, Mr Murphy, shortly before the trial and seeing a
22       defence production.
23           Do you remember them at any point coming back to the
24       office and telling you about that?
25   A.  No.
page  60
 1   Q.  Do you remember at all having any knowledge of them
 2       having met with Mr Murphy?
 3   A.  No.
 4   Q.  So I take it -- well, it follows from that perhaps that
 5       you wouldn't be able to say whether the meeting with
 6       Mr Hogg took place before or after --
 7   A.  No.
 8   Q.  -- any discussion at that time?
 9   A.  No, as I say, it was very close to the trial.  I was
10       actually cited very late on.  I wasn't cited originally.
11       I was cited a week before the trial started.
12   Q.  Do you remember if the meeting was after you had been
13       cited?
14   A.  Yes, I think it was after I had been cited because
15       that's why I was involved in the meeting.  As I said, it
16       wasn't a big meeting.  It was two minutes and they left.
17       He just imparted that information about who the
18       witnesses were and that was the first time I'd heard the
19       name Pat Wertheim or David Grieve.
20   Q.  At the time of the meeting, what did you understand
21       Ms McKie's defence to the charges against her would be?
22   A.  I don't know.  I didn't have any information.
23   Q.  Were you at any stage aware that there might have been
24       an allegation that the mark had been planted or
25       fabricated or something of that sort?
page  61
 1   A.  I don't remember that, anything like that.
 2   Q.  I would like you to try to give the Chairman your best
 3       recollection of when it was that you first became aware
 4       that there was a dispute about the identification of the
 5       mark?
 6   A.  After the case started I had to go for an operation and
 7       I was off for what was the best part of two months and
 8       it was during that recovery period I remember seeing in
 9       the paper that Ms McKie had been acquitted and it was
10       based on the fingerprint evidence and that's my
11       recollection of it.  Prior to that I've no ...
12   Q.  If we go back to, say, the week before the trial and
13       even maybe the first part of the trial, you were in the
14       expectation that you might have to give evidence; would
15       that be right?
16   A.  Yes.
17   Q.  Because you had been cited?
18   A.  Yes.
19   Q.  We have heard that Mr MacPherson and Mr Stewart were
20       made aware prior to the trial that there was going to be
21       an argument about the identification of the mark.
22           What I am trying to understand is why it would be
23       that they might not perhaps come back to you and say,
24       "Look, something rather unusual is happening here.
25       We're going to have a challenge in a way that we have
page  62
 1       not had a challenge previously.  We have seen that the
 2       defence have lodged a production here", why they
 3       wouldn't perhaps tell you about that and give you some
 4       forewarning about it on the basis that you might give
 5       evidence?
 6   A.  Because I might have been off having the operation.
 7       That's what I'm trying to remember, if we could
 8       establish a time that that meeting took place and the
 9       time my operation took place there might be a
10       possibility I wasn't at attendance in the office.
11   Q.  If you just give me a moment here, we can perhaps check
12       the detail.
13   THE CHAIRMAN:  I see we are very near the break so we might
14       stop.  We will sit again just after 11.50.
15   (11.33 am)
16                         (A short break)
17   (11.52 am)
18   MISS CARMICHAEL:  Before the break, Mr McKenna, you were
19       telling us that you had been signed off from work from
20       2nd May.
21   A.  No.
22   Q.  Sorry, I misunderstood.  Thinking back to the time of
23       Ms McKie's trial, and I am looking at page 21,
24       paragraph 124 of your statement, what you say is that
25       you didn't give evidence at the trial.  You say you were
page  63
 1       absent from work from 2nd May to July 1998 though I'd
 2       rather taken that to be a misprint for 1999?
 3   A.  It must have been but, as I said, I can't remember the
 4       date of my operation.  I remember the case started and
 5       shortly after the case started I was taken in for
 6       surgery and was off for two month.
 7   Q.  Is there any reason why you would have given the wrong
 8       date in your statement?
 9   A.  I don't remember saying 4th May (sic).
10   Q.  You don't remember saying 2nd May?
11   A.  No.
12   Q.  Would I be right in thinking that would have been sent a
13       statement for revision before you signed it and that you
14       have gone through it with your solicitors before you did
15       sign it?
16   A.  I remember signing the statement but I don't actually
17       remember the date of 4th May (sic).  I can't remember
18       the actual date of my operation.
19   Q.  We can take it from what you say that it was after the
20       trial started?
21   A.  Yes, shortly after the trial started, yes.
22   Q.  I think I can tell you that the trial started on 21st
23       April.  If your operation was round about May time --
24   A.  Yes.
25   Q.  -- the trial would have had a start of at least a week
page  64
 1       before we got into May.  Would that be fair to say?
 2   A.  Yes, but as I say I can't remember exactly the date of
 3       my operation.
 4   Q.  I am curious how the date of 2nd May came to be in your
 5       statement.
 6   A.  I'm sorry about that, yes.  I didn't remember that, but
 7       I don't actually remember the actual date of my
 8       operation.
 9   Q.  Do you remember what month it was?
10   A.  It could have been April; it could have been May, but it
11       was shortly just after that, sort of thing.
12   Q.  You were still around to be cited about the week before
13       the trial.
14   A.  Yes, that was it, yes.
15   Q.  Were you at work at the beginning of the trial?
16   A.  I can't remember.
17   Q.  Were you at work when your colleague, Mr MacPherson,
18       started to give evidence?
19   A.  I wouldn't know.  Probably not.
20   Q.  Do we understand it to be your position in any event --
21       and it may be that we can check just exactly what the
22       date was your operation was or if you can check that for
23       us --
24   A.  Yes.
25   Q.  -- but do I understand it to be your position that at no
page  65
 1       time did anybody come back to the office, and by that I
 2       mean Mr MacPherson or Mr Stewart, and say, "Look,
 3       something rather unusual is happening here.  We've
 4       spoken to the Advocate Depute in the case and he tells
 5       us there's going to be a challenge to our identification
 6       evidence"?
 7   A.  I don't remember anything like that, no.
 8   Q.  Nobody said to you, "Well, you know, there's a defence
 9       production that if you are giving evidence you had
10       better have a look at"?
11   A.  No.
12   Q.  We have heard from Mr Stewart and Mr MacPherson that the
13       first mention of Mr Wertheim may have come from
14       Mr Murphy rather than from Mr Hogg.
15           I wonder if you have any comment on that?
16   A.  No, I don't have any comment on that at all.
17   Q.  Do you remember in relation to the meeting that you
18       describe in your statement whether Mr Hogg said anything
19       to you other than simply that Mr Wertheim and Mr Grieve
20       were involved?
21   A.  That was all he said, the name of the experts and that
22       was it.
23   Q.  Did you get the impression that he was expecting some
24       action from you or your colleagues because of what he
25       had told you?
page  66
 1   A.  No.
 2   Q.  Why was he telling you?
 3   A.  That's a question you would maybe ask Mr Hogg.
 4   THE CHAIRMAN:  It must have been before the beginning of the
 5       trial because if Mr MacPherson went down with Mr Stewart
 6       to see the Advocate Depute, there would have been little
 7       point in telling him that Mr Wertheim was giving
 8       evidence because he knew that.  So it must have been
 9       slightly before that.
10   A.  As I say, I cannot be certain, my Lord.
11   THE CHAIRMAN:  Or it may be the same day.
12   A.  I cannot be certain, my Lord.
13   THE CHAIRMAN:  But certainly before the trial began.
14   A.  I think it would be.
15   MISS CARMICHAEL:  Just following on from that if I may, sir,
16       you don't recall any reaction from your colleagues along
17       the lines of, "Well, thank you, Mr Hogg, but actually
18       we've already heard that from Mr Murphy", or anything of
19       that sort?
20   A.  No, that's all I can remember of the meeting, just the
21       names.
22   Q.  Did you at some stage become aware that a Mr Swann had
23       examined Y7 and Shirley McKie's fingerprint?
24   A.  When did I become aware of Mr Swann?
25   Q.  Yes, if you did become aware of it, when did you become
page  67
 1       aware of it?
 2   A.  It would be probably after the trial.
 3   Q.  How did you become aware of that?
 4   A.  I couldn't tell you, to be honest.  I don't remember.
 5   MISS CARMICHAEL:  Thank you, I don't have any more questions
 6       for you at the moment, Mr McKenna.
 7   THE CHAIRMAN:  We will begin again with you, Mr Smith.  Are
 8       there any matters --
 9   MR SMITH:  Sir, there's really just one question I would
10       like to ask which relates to one point that my learned
11       friend didn't cover relating to the response to the
12       knowledge of Mr Wertheim's involvement.
13   THE CHAIRMAN:  Yes.  Well, if you want to explore that
14       further, yes.
15                    Cross-examined by MR SMITH
16   Q.  Mr McKenna, as I understand your statement to the
17       Inquiry, you became aware, you were told before the
18       trial at some stage that Mr Wertheim was involved.  You
19       heard the name.
20   A.  Yes.
21   Q.  Did you never respond to that by saying, "Well, what on
22       earth is he going to be saying"?
23   A.  No.
24   Q.  Can I ask why not?
25   A.  It never crossed my mind.  It was just one of ... I
page  68
 1       don't know.
 2   Q.  What one might think reasonably, that the fact, the
 3       simple fact, there were going to be defence fingerprint
 4       experts, especially a name you hadn't heard before, is
 5       something that would be the talk of the shop.  Is that
 6       not a fair assumption to make?
 7   A.  No, because, as I say, we just heard there was defence
 8       experts but what they were going to speak about I didn't
 9       know.
10   Q.  I understand you say you didn't know, but what I am
11       interested in is why you weren't at least curious.  Can
12       you help us with that?
13   A.  No, I'm sorry, I don't know why I wasn't curious.
14   Q.  Is there any possibility whatsoever that it was being
15       discussed but it maybe bypassed you for some reason?
16   A.  That's a difficult question to answer, did you know
17       something you didn't know?  If you understand the
18       answer.
19   Q.  With respect, the reason I ask you is you might have
20       discovered subsequently that it was being discussed?
21   A.  No, not that know of.  I have no knowledge of that at
22       all, no.
23   Q.  Equally, you knew that there was a risk that you might
24       be, if you were fit to do so, might be cited as a
25       witness to go to the trial?
page  69
 1   A.  I was cited to go to the trial but I had a solemn
 2       conscience because of the operation.
 3   Q.  I understand that but what was it you thought you would
 4       have to be doing in the trial?  You would have to be
 5       answering questions of some kind?
 6   A.  Answering questions on the evidence in my joint report.
 7   Q.  It did not cross your mind in case you had to give
 8       evidence, you were actually asked to come to court, to
 9       know what the defence position was?  It just didn't
10       occur to you?
11   A.  It didn't occur to me to.
12   MR SMITH:  Thank you very much.
13   THE CHAIRMAN:  Miss Grahame, I have looked at your notice
14       and I think most matters seem to have been covered
15       but --
16   MISS GRAHAME:  That is correct.  We were advised that those
17       matters would be covered and we are content with that
18       but there is one issue that has arisen today in evidence
19       that relates to the situation prior to the trial, the
20       citation and Mr --
21   THE CHAIRMAN:  Yes, well I notice one aspect of that has not
22       been covered so certainly I give you leave to ask that.
23                  Cross-examined by MISS GRAHAME
24   Q.  Mr McKenna, I understand from other evidence that we
25       have heard that there would be the four people who would
page  70
 1       sign the joint report; that's correct, isn't it?
 2   A.  Yes.
 3   Q.  The normal position was, as I understand it, that two of
 4       the signatories would be called to give evidence, if
 5       required, at the trial and the other two would be there
 6       as effectively substitutes in the event of annual leave?
 7   A.  That is correct, yes.
 8   Q.  So it would be normal for the two main signatories to be
 9       cited to give evidence at the trial?
10   A.  That is correct, yes.
11   Q.  So it was not common for all four experts to be cited
12       prior to a trial?
13   A.  I think that's question you would have to ask Sheriff
14       Murphy.
15   Q.  But, as far as you know, normally there would be two
16       signatories who would go to court and give evidence to
17       the joint report and two people who were the substitutes
18       who would not?
19   A.  That is correct, yes.
20   Q.  Had you ever, in your experience prior to the McKie
21       trial, heard of the Crown citing all four of the experts
22       and requesting that all four give evidence to the joint
23       report?
24   A.  Not to my knowledge, no.
25   Q.  So that was an unusual situation?
page  71
 1   A.  If it is unusual --
 2   Q.  You had never come across it before?
 3   A.  -- I'd never heard of it, sort of thing.
 4   Q.  But you have told us that you were cited at the very
 5       last minute before the trial?
 6   A.  That is correct, yes.
 7   Q.  Was Ms McBride also cited at the very last minute?
 8   A.  That's a question to ask Ms McBride.
 9   Q.  You have no knowledge?
10   A.  I don't know when Ms McBride was cited.
11   Q.  Were you surprised to be cited?
12   A.  At a late stage, yes -- the lateness of the citation, it
13       did surprise me.
14   Q.  At that time, were you aware why the Crown were citing
15       more than simply two experts to speak to the joint
16       report?
17   A.  No.
18   Q.  You weren't curious about that?
19   A.  If you're cited for the court, you're cited for the
20       court.
21   Q.  We have heard evidence that Mr Stewart attempted, after
22       meeting with the Advocate Depute, that he attempted to
23       speak to Mr Mackenzie and he wasn't available and he
24       then spoke to another line manager, if you like, another
25       boss, a Mr Gorman?
page  72
 1   A.  I think, is it Brian Gorman?
 2   Q.  We have also heard from yourself that Chief Inspector
 3       Hogg spoke to you about the matter, about the McKie
 4       trial?
 5   A.  Yes, a quick two minute meeting, just to say what the
 6       names were.
 7   Q.  He was the head of the Identification Bureau?
 8   A.  That's correct, yes.
 9   Q.  So he wasn't part of SCRO.  He was not your boss?
10   A.  No.
11   Q.  He called all four experts into his room before the
12       trial?
13   A.  No, he came into the office and we went into the Chief
14       Inspector's room in SCRO.  As to who was actually in the
15       meeting, I thought -- well, my colleagues were there but
16       12 years ago.  I remember I being there and all he said
17       was the two names of the experts and that was basically
18       it, what the meeting was about.
19   Q.  So Chief Inspector Hogg actually came to SCRO?
20   A.  Yes, but it's not a far distance.  It's only across a
21       corridor.
22   Q.  But he came to SCRO --
23   A.  SCRO.
24   Q.  -- and went into the Chief Inspector's office, the head
25       of SCRO?
page  73
 1   A.  I don't think the Chief Inspector was there but that's
 2       where we ended up to talk.
 3   Q.  So you went into the Chief Inspector's office?
 4   A.  Yes.
 5   Q.  And all four of you went in?
 6   A.  As I said, my recollection, I was there.  As to who else
 7       was there, I thought my all three colleagues were there
 8       but I could be wrong.
 9   Q.  So you were there with Chief Inspector Hogg?
10   A.  Yes.
11   Q.  Had you been cited by that time?
12   A.  I think I had been, yes.
13   Q.  So it's at a very late stage before the trial starts,
14       you are cited and then at some point after that Chief
15       Inspector Hogg calls you into the Chief Inspector's
16       office?
17   A.  He didn't call me in.  He just arrived and asked if he
18       could speak to us.  It wasn't a case he was demanding a
19       meeting.  He just come in and explained, you know, the
20       names of the experts.
21   Q.  When you say he asked to speak to us do you mean --
22   A.  Well, I say us.  He just came in and -- there was
23       no ... it was just an ad hoc meeting.  There was
24       nothing ...
25   Q.  Do you remember now if Fiona McBride was there?
page  74
 1   A.  You'd have to ask Fiona.  My memory is I was there but
 2       you'd have to ask the people if they were there.
 3   Q.  I didn't quite catch that?
 4   A.  What I said is at that time you would probably have to
 5       ask Ms McBride if she was at the meeting, you know.  I
 6       just remember I was there.
 7   Q.  What is your recollection?
 8   A.  In my recollection I thought all four of us were there
 9       but I could be wrong.
10   Q.  But that is your recollection?
11   A.  Yes.
12   Q.  That all four were there --
13   A.  Well, my --
14   Q.  -- with Chief Inspector Hogg?
15   A.  Yes.
16   Q.  That wasn't an everyday occurrence?
17   A.  No.
18   Q.  You have said that you were just given the names of
19       Mr Wertheim and Mr Grieve as witnesses?
20   A.  That is correct, yes.
21   Q.  And no other information was given?
22   A.  No.
23   Q.  There would be no need to call, there would be no need
24       to have a meeting with all four experts with Chief
25       Inspector Hogg, just to give you the names of potential
page  75
 1       defence witnesses.
 2   A.  Sorry, I don't understand the question.  You mean it
 3       could have been related to one person and passed on?  Is
 4       that what you're saying?
 5   Q.  It could have been related to one person and passed on.
 6       It could have been passed through in a message.  It
 7       could have been a phone call to SCRO.  There wouldn't
 8       need to be a visit by Chief Inspector Hogg and a
 9       meeting --
10   A.  That's a question you would have to ask Chief Inspector
11       Hogg, not me.
12   Q.  Your recollection is that none of you said to Chief
13       Inspector Hogg, "So what are they going to say", or,
14       "Why are we being asked to speak about this", or,
15       "What's the position", nobody expressed any curiosity?
16   A.  I didn't anyway so.  That's my recollection.  That is
17       all I really remember of it.
18   Q.  You didn't.  Did anyone else?
19   A.  Not that I remember, no.
20   Q.  So nobody expressed any curiosity that Chief Inspector
21       Hogg has come to the Department, all four of you are in
22       the room with him speaking about a case shortly before
23       it starts and nobody says to him, "What's this about?
24       You don't normally come through and tell us this sort of
25       information"?
page  76
 1   A.  As I say, I'm only relating what happened, my
 2       recollection.  I can't speculate on any other things
 3       like that.
 4   MISS GRAHAME:  Thank you very much.
 5   THE CHAIRMAN:  Mr Holmes?
 6   MR HOLMES:  No, thank you, sir.
 7   THE CHAIRMAN:  I just want to ask you about, first of all, a
 8       general matter.  I noticed at the beginning that your
 9       particular division, if that is the right word, or your
10       geographical area, I think, included the English Bureau,
11       the MoD and British Transport --
12   A.  Yes, outside agencies they were called.
13   THE CHAIRMAN:  Well, obviously crime knows no frontiers but,
14       for example, would the English Bureau ask you to look at
15       prints for them or to obtain prints for them or just
16       what was the roll?
17   A.  The roll of that was if an English Bureau or MoD or any
18       other bureau -- well, we will deal with English
19       Bureaux -- felt that the criminal involved in it was
20       Scottish, they would send the marks up for us to search
21       through our database to identify the criminal and that
22       was --
23   THE CHAIRMAN:  If you saw something that looked like a match
24       you would send it back to them.
25   A.  You'd send a reply back to them.  If we searched it
page  77
 1       through the AFR database, if there was a suspect, they
 2       maybe asked for a suspect form to be sent down for
 3       comparison but if they didn't know who the perpetrator
 4       was but thought they were Scottish they would send the
 5       marks up for us to assess, to put through our AFR
 6       database to see if we could get an identification and if
 7       we did we would communicate that to them.
 8   THE CHAIRMAN:  But you wouldn't make the identification for
 9       them?
10   A.  No, we were just given the supply naming the person that
11       had identified but they would then take that on board
12       and take that identification and prepare it theirself
13       and do their own comparison.
14   THE CHAIRMAN:  So if it was going to court in England they
15       would give the evidence?
16   A.  Yes.
17   THE CHAIRMAN:  I tale it the others would be if the crime
18       was in Scotland and the MoD approached you or the
19       British Transport Police --
20   A.  If it was a crime in Scotland.
21   THE CHAIRMAN:  And the other way round.  Would you then, if
22       you thought it was an English criminal, would you then
23       send --
24   A.  Marks.
25   THE CHAIRMAN:  -- and they would send it back to you and you
page  78
 1       would make --
 2   A.  The result, yes.
 3   THE CHAIRMAN:  Or see if you could make an identification?
 4   A.  That is correct, yes.
 5   THE CHAIRMAN:  You have answered a lot of questions about
 6       the meeting with Chief Inspector Hogg.  Would I be right
 7       in getting the impression that he was just telling you,
 8       just letting you know?
 9   A.  Yes, it was a piece of information.  It wasn't anything
10       other than a piece of information.
11   THE CHAIRMAN:  Did it raise any curiosity on your part as to
12       who was this Pat Wertheim or --
13   A.  It might have done, but not that I remember.
14   THE CHAIRMAN:  It is a long time ago.
15   A.  It's a long time ago and, as far as I was concerned, my
16       evidence was there and if anybody wanted to challenge
17       it, well, please challenge it.
18   THE CHAIRMAN:  There was just one other matter that I wanted
19       to touch on with you about the charting machine.  It had
20       cost a lot of money and when things cost a lot of money,
21       you are expected to use them whether you like them or
22       not.  Once you got the charting machine, was there no
23       room any more for having photographic enlargements?
24   A.  We weren't allowed to request photographic enlargements
25       after the charting PC.
page  79
 1   THE CHAIRMAN:  So you had no choice?
 2   A.  No choice but to use it.
 3   THE CHAIRMAN:  Whether you liked it or not, it had to be the
 4       charting machine?
 5   A.  Yes.
 6   THE CHAIRMAN:  Thank you very much and thank you for coming
 7       to give evidence.
 8                      (The witness withdrew)
 9                       FIONA MCBRIDE, sworn
10                   Examined by MISS CARMICHAEL
11   THE CHAIRMAN:  Have you any other names than Fiona?
12   A.  No, it's Fiona McBride.
13   MISS CARMICHAEL:  Good afternoon, Ms McBride.
14   A.  Hi.
15   Q.  I know that you will have heard me say over and over to
16       witnesses that the microphone needs to be quite close.
17       I should say that if for any reason at any time you need
18       a break, then please do let the Chairman know.
19   A.  Thank you.
20   Q.  You have provided two statements to the Inquiry,
21       Ms McBride, an initial one and a supplementary
22       statement?
23   A.  Yes, that's true.
24   Q.  And you signed those?
25   A.  I did.
page  80
 1   Q.  Subject to any changes that you want to make or any
 2       subtleties that you draw to our attention today, are you
 3       happy to adopt both of those statements as part of your
 4       evidence?
 5   A.  Yes, I am.
 6   Q.  I would like to start, Ms McBride, by asking you about
 7       paragraphs 27 and 28 of your statement on page 7 and
 8       also about paragraph 84 of your statement which we have
 9       on page 20.
10   THE CHAIRMAN:  Have you a copy?
11   A.  I have.  Sorry, I thought it would come up on screen.
12   MISS CARMICHAEL:  Please feel free to look at the paper
13       copy, Ms McBride, but I would like if we could have
14       page 7 and page 20 of FI0039-02 and I think the fault is
15       mine because I didn't read out the Fingerprint Inquiry
16       reference first of all.
17           If I can draw your attention particularly to
18       paragraph 28 of your statement here, what you are
19       discussing is the procedure for eliminations and the
20       numbers of people who would have to be involved in that.
21   A.  That's correct.
22   Q.  What you say in paragraph 28 is that:
23           "If there was a case where there was no suspect, a
24       whodunnit, then the procedure would be for four experts
25       to confirm the elimination to the 16-point standard in
page  81
 1       some cases."
 2   A.  In some cases, that's true.
 3   Q.  You have emphasised "in some cases".
 4   A.  Of course.
 5   Q.  I take it from that that's not normal procedure?
 6   A.  I suppose it's how you define "normal" procedure.  I
 7       didn't think there was anything abnormal about being
 8       asked to sign up to four signatures for an elim when it
 9       was required.  So I don't think abnormal/normal really
10       applies.  It's whatever's necessary for the case.
11   Q.  Maybe I can put it this way: how often in your
12       experience had four experts been asked to sign up for
13       eliminations?
14   A.  Not very often -- not very often.  I can't remember any
15       specific time.  However, I was unsurprised and was aware
16       that could have been an outcome, so ...
17   Q.  Can you remember any situation before the Marion Ross
18       murder investigation where you can recall that
19       happening?
20   A.  It's a long time ago and I can't say that it didn't
21       happen and I can't say that I was surprised when I was
22       asked to.  I just thought it was normal.  So I would
23       imagine, yes.  However, I can't be entirely sure because
24       it's such a long time ago.
25   Q.  In the Marion Ross investigation, was it your
page  82
 1       understanding that it was just because it was a
 2       whodunnit case all the marks were going to be eliminated
 3       to 16 points and four experts?
 4   A.  Well, I was informed that it was a whodunnit and that it
 5       was necessary to check them to 16 and that it was
 6       necessary for four of us to sign it and that's why I
 7       thought that was the case.
 8           Does that answer your question?  I'm not sure what
 9       the question was.
10   Q.  I may ask some follow-up questions from it, Ms McBride.
11           We can take down paragraph 28 and put up
12       paragraph 84 as well, please.  What you explain to us
13       there was that, as you explained above, sometimes four
14       signatures would be required in a whodunnit but you go
15       on to say:
16           "This was an elimination of a print close to where
17       the body was found and that Hugh MacPherson was simply
18       taking a belt and braces approach."
19   A.  Yes.
20   Q.  That might be read, Ms McBride, as suggesting that a
21       particular approach was being taken to mark Y7 because
22       of its location rather than that all the marks in the
23       case were being treated in the same way.
24   A.  Mm-hm.
25   Q.  Could you comment on that suggestion, please?
page  83
 1   A.  Hugh MacPherson just gave me further information.  So I
 2       couldn't say which was or how much weight should be
 3       attached to either pieces of information.  However, I
 4       did know that that was the case and I didn't ask him
 5       what was most important or whatever because, to me, it
 6       seemed perfectly reasonable and normal.  So I didn't ask
 7       any questions.  I said, "That's fine", so ... there was
 8       no suggestion that there was anything in particular
 9       about Y7, other than it was a cop and it was near the
10       body and people thought cops might have put some sort of
11       significance on the fact that it was close to the body.
12       But, on top of that, it was a whodunnit.  So both of
13       them would have resulted in identifications to a
14       16-point standard and four signatures.  I didn't ask
15       which was the most important.
16   Q.  Can I bring up, please, on the screen paragraph 76 on
17       page 18 of your statement.  That should, I think, appear
18       on the screen very shortly for you.
19   A.  That's okay.  I can see it thanks.
20   Q.  Perhaps I can start reading it out and it should come up
21       for members of the public to see.  You say:
22           "At the time, Hugh MacPherson told [you] that it
23       appeared the mark had been made by a police officer near
24       to Marion Ross's body and so he was taking a belt and
25       braces approach, that is eliminating the mark to a
page  84
 1       16-point standard."
 2           Why was it that Hugh MacPherson gave you to
 3       understand that this was being treated in the way that
 4       it was with 16 points and four experts?
 5   A.  He was asking me to confirm the identification to
 6       16 points for court purposes, I would imagine; so he
 7       would have to tell me that.  He couldn't not give me
 8       that information.  He might not have needed to tell me
 9       that it was close to the body, but he did have to tell
10       me that although it's an elim (an elimination), it
11       requires to be tested to the 16-point standard.
12   Q.  You see, what I am trying to get at really here is
13       whether Y7 was just one of the many, many marks in the
14       case that was treated in this way with four people and
15       16 points and that's what Mr MacPherson told you, "Look,
16       Ms McBride, this is just how we are doing it in this
17       case for everything" or whether he said to you, as you
18       would seem to suggest here, that he is treating mark Y7
19       in a special way because it's made by a police officer
20       and/or because it's in a significant location near to
21       where Miss Ross's body was found?
22   A.  It would have been a significant location, I suppose,
23       but Hugh MacPherson didn't need to tell me anything.  He
24       didn't need to give me all that information.  All he
25       needed to say was it was to the 16-point standard and I
page  85
 1       would have done it.  So I'm not sure exactly what the
 2       question is.  Is the inference that you're asking
 3       whether it was because it was Y7, whether it was because
 4       it was a cop, or whether it was because all marks were
 5       being checked at the 16-point standard?
 6   Q.  What I would like really is your best recollection of
 7       exactly the instruction that Mr MacPherson gave you.
 8   A.  I don't think he gave me instruction.  He asked me if I
 9       wanted to check the mark if I didn't mind.  I was in the
10       middle of another case and I usually do put whatever I'm
11       working to one side if it's an important matter and I'll
12       check that.  So obviously it was sufficiently important
13       to interrupt my work to ask me to check the mark and so
14       I did.
15           So it wasn't really an instruction, it was a request
16       and I was ready to walk away and find someone else if
17       necessary and I said no, that was no problem and I
18       checked it for him.  It would have just been in
19       conversation, him explaining why he was interrupting me,
20       you know.  So he wasn't really -- he wasn't giving me an
21       instruction and he wasn't giving me information about
22       the case that I needed to know.  So it was as casual as
23       that.
24   Q.  By what words did he come to make you understand that
25       you had to look for 16 points in this elimination?
page  86
 1   A.  Well, of course I don't remember the exact words.
 2   Q.  Just as best you can at this stage, Ms McBride?
 3   A.  I think he must have just -- I'm trying to remember,
 4       because it was so casual and unimportant.  I think he
 5       said "I'm checking it to the 16-point standard, it's a
 6       case, a murder case, prints close to the body and it's a
 7       whodunnit" so ... well, that's fine.  You can't rely
 8       upon that because I can't even remember exactly what he
 9       said.  So anything I say today would be misleading.
10   Q.  If you simply can't give us any reliable recollection on
11       that point, Ms McBride, it's perhaps not worth my
12       pursuing it.
13   A.  It is a reliable -- sorry, it was a reliable
14       recollection that he mentioned it was a whodunnit and
15       that he mentioned 16-point standard and he mentioned it
16       was close to the body and that it was a cop's.  I didn't
17       notice it was a female cop's.  But as to exactly what
18       his words were, I don't know.
19   Q.  So he said it was a whodunnit, close to the body and he
20       asked you to eliminate it to 16 points?
21   A.  Yes.
22   Q.  I would like to ask you a little bit about what you tell
23       us in your statement regarding differences that might
24       arise from time to time between different experts in a
25       case, Ms McBride.  I would like to refer you, please,
page  87
 1       first to paragraph 30 on page 8 of your statement.  I
 2       think you start the paragraph trying to help us
 3       understand what some of the different terminologies used
 4       in fingerprint cases are, but I am particularly
 5       interested in the last sentence there where you write:
 6           "If five experts checked the mark and four experts
 7       could find 16 characteristics in sequence and agreement,
 8       but the fifth could not, after discussion, the mark
 9       would be 'sufficient' and an 'identification' would have
10       been made."
11           The first thing I would like to ask you about is how
12       the discussion amongst the experts would come about in a
13       situation like that?
14   A.  I'm not sure exactly what you mean "come about".  You
15       mean physically or what were the words?  What exactly do
16       you mean?
17   Q.  If you have the situation where four experts see
18       16 points in sequence and agreement and another one
19       doesn't see that and will perhaps go into different
20       reasons why somebody might not agree, would it be that
21       those who could find the 16 characteristics would seek
22       the other one out and say, "Well, let's have a chat
23       about this?" or would it be the one who disagreed who
24       would perhaps come and say, "Well, perhaps we could have
25       a discussion about this and see what our differences
page  88
 1       are"?
 2           I am trying to understand the way that the
 3       discussion might come to happen?
 4   A.  Well, to use the Shirley McKie case as an example, Hugh
 5       MacPherson checked the mark to 16.  He evidently had a
 6       discussion with Alister Geddes because he came round to
 7       me and told me that he had had a discussion with Alister
 8       Geddes.  He didn't tell me that Charles Stewart had seen
 9       the mark before me and the reason he said he had a
10       discussion with Alister was Hugh was a very fair person
11       and he was making it easy for me.  If I thought it was a
12       difficult identification and I wasn't particularly --
13       not that I required to have it made easy for me -- he
14       was alerting me to the fact that someone else had said
15       that they hadn't made it to 16 so that I would be aware
16       of that and if I wished to, I didn't have to sign it
17       either, which of course is the case anyway but Hugh just
18       likes to emphasise these things.  So I was aware of a
19       discussion.
20           I didn't go back to Alister and have a discussion
21       with him and I don't think Charles Stewart would have
22       either.  So how it occurred and how it would occur in
23       any case would be that there would be a debate and there
24       would be a decision made whether to progress or not and
25       others might be aware of it, or I was certainly made
page  89
 1       aware of it, but it wouldn't impact on the later
 2       signatories.
 3   Q.  What I perhaps understood -- and I may have been wrong
 4       in reading your statement this way, Ms McBride -- is
 5       that you were describing something rather more general
 6       to us in this sentence than meaning to refer
 7       specifically to Y7.
 8   A.  Of course.
 9   Q.  Am I wrong about that?
10   A.  Well, it looks that way as well.  I can't remember
11       actually but, of course, I will have been responding to
12       questions so it will have been something more general.
13       But the Y7 case is a good example of how things would
14       usually be dealt with anyway; so I think it's a good
15       enough example to use.
16   Q.  I would like to try and leave that aside just for the
17       moment if I might, Ms McBride, and ask you if you can
18       think of another situation where there have been five
19       experts with four of one mind and another.  Let us just
20       take the example where they find points in sequence and
21       agreement but not the full 16.  Can you think of another
22       example of that happening?
23   A.  I can't think of a specific example.  It happened often
24       but I can't think of a specific example because it's not
25       worth retaining in your memory because it was quite
page  90
 1       common.  It wasn't a big deal.
 2   Q.  Are you telling us then it might be a situation where,
 3       as in Y7, perhaps you are turning to that example since
 4       you have been happy to use it, one had an expert in
 5       Mr MacPherson's position, I suppose, who finds
 6       16 points, another colleague doesn't, there's some
 7       discussion and then there's a movement on to other
 8       experts to take their views?
 9   A.  Yes, that's right.
10   Q.  And you can think of other examples where the result of
11       that further investigation with other experts has been
12       that they have succeeded in finding 16 points?
13   A.  Sorry, I couldn't hear you.  I was too busy listening to
14       what they were saying.  Sorry, what were you saying
15       again?  Could you repeat that, please?
16   Q.  If there is something that is distracting you, I'm
17       sure --
18   A.  Sorry, there was just a noise there.
19   Q.  -- everyone will take note and try to avoid that.
20   A.  No, I don't mind.  It's just I couldn't hear you there
21       for the distraction.
22   Q.  What I was asking you was whether you could think of
23       another time when there had been an expert who maybe
24       found 16 points, the second examiner says, "Well, I
25       don't see 16 points, I see 9 or I see 10" and then the
page  91
 1       matter is progressed on to other experts to see what
 2       their views are and those experts will come to the view
 3       that there are 16 points in sequence and agreement.
 4           I am asking if you can think of an example of that
 5       happening other than Y7?
 6   A.  Yes.  As I said, there were many.
 7   THE CHAIRMAN:  Was part of the idea by telling you that
 8       somebody else hadn't found 16 points to alert you to
 9       that fact that there wasn't unanimity when it came to
10       you?
11   A.  Yes.  Hugh MacPherson was being --
12   THE CHAIRMAN:  That seems quite sensible.
13   A.  Absolutely.
14   THE CHAIRMAN:  So that when you approach it, you know this
15       isn't coming down the line where everyone has taken one
16       view about it.
17   A.  Yes, that's true.
18   MISS CARMICHAEL:  In that sort of situation, which you say
19       was not an uncommon situation, was any record kept of
20       the fact that there had been one person who had not been
21       able to see the 16 points for the court standard at the
22       time?
23   A.  Not that I'm aware of, although I could be wrong.  I
24       could be forgetting but I don't think so.
25   Q.  It would follow from that that there would be no way for
page  92
 1       the prosecution authorities to become aware that there
 2       had been this, I suppose, difference of opinion at least
 3       to the extent of the number of points within the Bureau?
 4   A.  This is something of course that's been asked of a lot
 5       of witnesses and what I don't think's come out in the
 6       evidence yet is that as a matter of course
 7       identifications are led in courts on fewer than 16
 8       characteristics over many years.  The only difference is
 9       that they are called "eliminations" and when we
10       eliminate someone and we go to court, it's not included
11       in the joint report.  But if we're asked of the
12       eliminations, we give the names of the people who were
13       identified and which marks were identified.
14           So the idea that there's a difference between -- I
15       mean, the Fiscals were aware that that was the case
16       because if they were to change an elimination to a
17       suspect, they would get in touch with the office and ask
18       us if there were 16 characteristics in sequence and
19       agreement.  So they were well aware of that.
20           So I think it's strange that now it's become an
21       issue that somehow we were withholding information.  I
22       don't know how we could possibly have known that they
23       would have wanted that information as idents.  Under the
24       heading "elimination" we're in court constantly with
25       fewer than 16 characteristics.
page  93
 1   Q.  You have told us that in a situation where there was a
 2       change from somebody being an elimination to an ident,
 3       the Fiscal would have to call you up because of the
 4       difference in procedure you have described?
 5   A.  Yes, that's right.
 6   Q.  That would happen presumably quite frequently?
 7   A.  It might not be the Fiscal, it might be the police
 8       officer, officer in charge but certainly Fiscals or
 9       Fiscals' Office would be in touch sometimes and ask.
10   Q.  If this procedure was available, I'm wondering why it
11       would be that you might have investigations where, as a
12       matter of course, everything was looked at to what is
13       presumably the rather demanding and time-consuming
14       standard of 16 points if there was this other way of
15       dealing with it.
16   A.  For a start, I think the last thing you said there was
17       "more demanding and time-consuming standard of
18       16 points".  That's not true.  In the Shirley McKie
19       case, I identified over 16 points in fact and the reason
20       I know that is because I investigated all areas of the
21       mark and the part that I decided that 16 -- well, not 16
22       but there was sufficient detail and a clear area that an
23       identification could be obtainable, I went through the
24       entire mark and that entire section and including I
25       remember down toward the bottom -- of course I don't
page  94
 1       remember exactly -- I checked it against the rolled and
 2       the plain impression.
 3           Later on, for court purposes, there was an
 4       enlargement made and there were 16 characteristics
 5       marked on it but I fully investigated the entire print
 6       and that is my habit.  So time-consuming to get to 16
 7       really didn't feature for me.  It was more likely than
 8       not that I would have investigated the entire mark.  If
 9       there are more than 16 characteristics on it, unless it
10       was really over the top, the chances are I've looked at
11       them all anyway, all of the characteristics on that
12       mark.
13   Q.  If I can just stay with that theme for a moment,
14       Ms McBride, if I may.  It wasn't in every investigation
15       obviously that you were required to eliminate marks to
16       16 points?
17   A.  No.
18   Q.  In fact, in perhaps more routine matters things could be
19       eliminated on fewer points?
20   A.  That's true.
21   Q.  That, I suppose, follows from what you have told us
22       about the Fiscal having to phone up because the Fiscal
23       wouldn't obviously naturally assume that any elimination
24       was to 16 points?
25   A.  The thing is when I say that you can eliminate on fewer
page  95
 1       than 16, you would eliminate on fewer than 16 when there
 2       were fewer than 16 characteristics available.  Chances
 3       are, though, if there were more than 16 characteristics
 4       available, people eliminated on more than 16
 5       characteristics.  The difficulty is of course that in
 6       the identification process we don't count
 7       characteristics until it's necessary at a later stage.
 8       At first, we're looking to see if the characteristics
 9       are in sequence and agreement and we follow through and
10       look at every little nuance and check to see if there is
11       a difference.
12           I remember I think yesterday you wondered whether I
13       think it was an iterative process where you would go
14       over it again.  What I would do is I would check it and
15       then I would maybe go back one and say, "Does it really
16       look like that characteristic or is it similar."  I
17       would assign value -- it's obviously subjective value --
18       but I would assign value to each characteristic as I
19       went along and I might just want to double-back and have
20       another look at that characteristic to see.
21           So the idea that there might be fewer than 16
22       characteristics was usually if there were fewer than 16
23       characteristics present.  If there had been more, the
24       chances are that the Fingerprint Examiner has checked
25       them all because I'm not counting to a number and
page  96
 1       stopping, if you understand what I'm saying.
 2   Q.  I think we heard Mr Stewart yesterday and Mr McKenna
 3       today saying that essentially there wasn't much point in
 4       going beyond 16 because that's what you needed for court
 5       and that, frankly, anything else would be a bit of a
 6       difficult waste of time and resources.  Should we take
 7       it that your reaction is really very different from
 8       theirs?
 9   A.  No, not at all.  We're actually saying the same thing.
10       They would have checked the mark the same way I did and
11       they wouldn't have been counting characteristics until
12       it came to the later stage in the process.  So the point
13       I'm making is you check the entire mark, you analyse it,
14       you start looking for sequence and agreement, you're not
15       counting it.  If there are more than 16 characteristics
16       in sequence and agreement, I have no way of knowing that
17       I got to 16, if you know what I mean, until I start
18       counting them.  So if they are present, they are
19       checked.
20           Later on, when you start counting them, yes, you
21       would stop at 16 no doubt just to make sure -- well, not
22       just to make sure actually because there's no point in
23       going any further, but you've already carried out an
24       analysis of the mark that includes at least the majority
25       of the characteristics available to you.  Does that make
page  97
 1       sense?
 2   Q.  I think you have given your position very clearly,
 3       Ms McBride.
 4           Moving back to the situation where you would be
 5       permitted, if I can put it that way, to eliminate on
 6       fewer than 16 points, do I understand your position
 7       rightly to be that in what we've heard is quite a busy
 8       bureau -- probably the busiest, I suppose, in the
 9       country by some way -- you would not just stop at 8 or
10       10 for an elimination to get that through the system
11       knowing that that was all you had to do for an
12       elimination?
13   A.  Well, again, the number of characteristics that are
14       required for an elimination I said the minimum that I
15       was taught at the time I was training was around
16       eight -- around eight.  However, again that depends on
17       the quality of the mark and the quality of the
18       characteristics and how closely represented they are on
19       the scene of crime mark and the inked, how
20       closely ... how can I say?  Or how common the
21       characteristics, if it was particularly unusual
22       characteristics not at the core, not at the delta,
23       although there are unusual characteristics at cores and
24       deltas too.  So it's all to do with how unusual the
25       characteristics are and how clear they are and that
page  98
 1       would help form your opinion on whether it was that
 2       person or not.
 3           So there's no such thing as only requiring eight
 4       characteristics for elimination purposes, it's actually
 5       a requirement for an identification is that you have
 6       come to the conclusion based on all the information in
 7       front of you that there is enough there to say it's an
 8       identification.  So, again, the numbers aren't helpful
 9       here because an elimination of a particularly poor mark
10       might not be eliminated on eight, it might require a
11       great deal more characteristics before the person's sure
12       in their own mind that that is that person.
13   Q.  I will ask you a little bit more about that later,
14       Ms McBride.  I think we got to this discussion, which is
15       a helpful discussion, via questions about what might or
16       might not be intimated to the Crown.
17   A.  Oh yes.
18   Q.  And you pointed out to me eliminations may be very
19       important in an investigation and may be mentioned in
20       court, that there have been eliminations.  So they can
21       be significant in their own right?
22   A.  Quite often we wouldn't know that in advance.  We
23       usually didn't.  That's why it wasn't included in the
24       report but it might be the Advocate Depute or the
25       defence that asked us those questions, maybe inferring
page  99
 1       that the person that was eliminated was really
 2       the person that did it or something along those lines
 3       and that's why they needed to know who was eliminated
 4       and where from.
 5   Q.  But back in 1997 while eliminations were reported to
 6       court and they were important things, it would not be
 7       normal for anybody to be in a position where they might
 8       go to gaol on the basis of the elimination standard.
 9       That would generally only arise where people had found
10       16 points in sequence and agreement.
11   A.  You had dire and crucial and I did -- I heard you asking
12       whether people had any experience of it.  I did.
13   Q.  Tell us about it.
14   A.  I checked a case and I can't remember the details I just
15       know that I couldn't reach the 16-point standard.  I'm
16       guessing here that it was probably a robbery because I
17       did robberies around that time, although it may have
18       been prior to that time and it might have been -- I
19       don't know what would have been dire and crucial about
20       the case if it wasn't the robbery section perhaps it was
21       something about another case I was working on for
22       specials or something but at least a serious crime.  I
23       couldn't get 16 and I reported it to Alan Dunbar and he
24       instructed me to mark it as an identification, however,
25       fewer than 16.  I did the casework as usual and at the
page 100
 1       end of it I presented to Alan Dunbar and he took it
 2       through to the Chief Super of the time -- and I don't
 3       now who the Chief Super of the time was -- and I think
 4       he came back and said that's fine but at that time you
 5       didn't have to appear in court with whatever you'd
 6       actually checked.  Nowadays that's the case.
 7           If you sign for a identification you definitely go
 8       to court with it, whereas in those days, because of
 9       annual leave, et cetera, it was handed out to whoever
10       happened to be available for when roughly they thought
11       the court case was going to be, with substitutes to
12       cover with different annual leave dates.
13           He came back and said that's fine and I heard no
14       more about it.  So either the case was progressed or the
15       Fiscal didn't need it or -- I don't know what happened
16       after that.
17   Q.  Leaving aside that situation, Ms McBride, normally
18       people wouldn't find themselves in court charged on the
19       basis of fingerprint evidence unless there were experts
20       who had seen 16 points and who were prepared to come
21       along and answer questions from the Crown to say they
22       had found 16 points.
23           You would accept that in the generality, leaving
24       aside the dire and crucials?
25   A.  I really don't know.  I mean, I would prepare the
page 101
 1       fingerprint evidence and what the Crown did with it and
 2       whether they decided to take it further, I don't know.
 3       I will say this much: I had a court case in the High
 4       Court in Glasgow.  It was a drug case and I appeared
 5       thinking I was to give evidence and the Fiscal said that
 6       wasn't necessary.  He was more interested in the
 7       insufficient marks and whether any of them could be
 8       attributed to the accused or his co-accused.  I said
 9       well, that's not possible if it's insufficient but he
10       said, "Is there anything with similarity that you think
11       could be, possibly could be", or whatever, and I said,
12       "Well, we don't usually do this", but I was instructed
13       to do it so I went back to the office and checked and it
14       just so happened that there was absolutely nothing
15       between the marks and the people I'd been asked to
16       check.  There was absolutely nothing to suggest that it
17       could be, that there was something in sequence and
18       agreement.  So I went back and I went to tell the Fiscal
19       what the result was.  This was the next day.  I turned
20       up at court and he said he didn't want to know because
21       they'd pled guilty so he didn't want to know what had
22       happened.  That was the end of it.
23   Q.  I think perhaps the end result of many cases that you
24       thought you might be going to be involved in at some
25       stage, Ms McBride.
page 102
 1   A.  That's true.  From that, that's why I'm saying I don't
 2       know exactly what the Crown does with certain number of
 3       characteristics or whatever.  I was asked to go back and
 4       can you see if two or three or four and what does that
 5       mean.  I couldn't see any and why they were asking me
 6       that I would suppose would be introduced into evidence
 7       or given to or put to an accused and I don't know
 8       whether it would be put to an accused in court or
 9       outwith the court or whatever.  I just prepare the
10       evidence.  I don't know what they to with it afterwards.
11   Q.  Indeed, you -- and I don't think mean this
12       discourteously in any way -- but I think you are
13       speculating about what the significance of that is just
14       as much as I would be speculating if I tried to work
15       that out myself.
16   A.  Yes.
17   Q.  We know from what you have told us that in this case,
18       the case involving Y7, there was a reason for going and
19       seeing if people could find 16 points after Mr Geddes
20       hadn't been able to.
21   A.  Yes.
22   Q.  That is because that was the normal standard for court
23       at the time, if I understand you rightly?
24   A.  Again, normal standard.  There were various standards.
25       There's the dire and crucial, strong suspicion.  You
page 103
 1       have heard about them all.  So they are all normal
 2       standards.  It was the most commonly used standard but I
 3       wouldn't say it was the normal standard.
 4   Q.  Are you suggesting that you would have expected Ms McKie
 5       to be prosecuted for perjury on the strength of anything
 6       less than a 16-point identification?
 7   A.  Again, I'm a fingerprint person; I'm not a legal person,
 8       therefore, I don't know.  It could have been a dire and
 9       crucial.  If Ms McKie had not been a police officer with
10       a reason to be there but instead had been another
11       elimination, she may have turned into a suspect because
12       her print was near the body and she could have been
13       charged with murder and that would have been dire and
14       crucial and, yes, it would have gone on less than 16.
15   Q.  That is not the situation, is it?  We are talking about
16       a prosecution for perjury, not a prosecution for murder.
17   A.  I'm just making the distinction between fingerprint
18       experts, our officers and legal people.  We provide the
19       evidence that we provide on the information in front of
20       us.  What anybody else does with it later on is not a
21       matter for us.  There were different standards.  That
22       was the standard that was reached.  What decision would
23       have been taken by a Fiscal or anyone else after that,
24       had it not reached that standard, I don't know.
25   Q.  I think we have heard from Mrs Greaves and from
page 104
 1       Ms Climie, the two Fiscals who were involved in the
 2       cases here, that each of them would have been very
 3       interested indeed to know about fingerprint experts who
 4       had not been able to see the 16 points and that is
 5       because the Crown was seeking to lead evidence to a
 6       16-point standard at the time?
 7   A.  Mm-hm.
 8   Q.  You do accept that?
 9   A.  I accept that that was what their evidence was.  It
10       would have been useful if Ms Climie or Mrs Greaves or
11       some other fiscal had informed the fingerprint
12       department that they wanted to know such information.
13       We did provide evidence to court on fewer than 16
14       characteristics.
15           It was allowed.  It was within, as I said earlier
16       on, there were procedures, dire and crucial, et cetera.
17       So that was acceptable.  There were also eliminations
18       going to court regularly, in fact commonly, on fewer
19       than 16.  We're not mind readers so it would have been
20       very useful if the Fiscals had let the fingerprint
21       department know there was something missing and we would
22       have provided it of course.
23   Q.  Why would it be then that the joint report in this case
24       could not just have been signed by Mr MacPherson,
25       Mr Geddes, Mr Stewart and yourself?
page 105
 1   A.  I don't now what you mean by that question.
 2   Q.  Mr MacPherson found 16 points, Mr Geddes finds 10, you
 3       find 16 and Mr Stewart finds 16.  What is wrong, on your
 4       scenario, with the report going forward in those names,
 5       including the name of Mr Geddes who can only find
 6       10 points?
 7   A.  Because normal procedure was that we all found 16.
 8       Those who didn't weren't included on the joint report
 9       and the report was sent out.
10           It wasn't normal procedure for Mr Stewart and
11       MacPherson to provide a report with an enlargement with
12       two signatures but they were asked to do so and they did
13       so.
14           It wasn't normal procedure for four Fingerprint
15       Experts to be cited for a court case.  We didn't know
16       until the last minute we were going to be cited.  I was
17       Hugh MacPherson's substitute merely for annual leave
18       purposes.  That wasn't normal procedure either but we
19       did exactly as we were requested.
20           So I don't understand what exactly, what the
21       question is inferring.  We provide evidence based on
22       whatever we're required, whatever we were asked for.  It
23       was normal procedure in the office.  No-one said,
24       "Please tell us about Allister Geddes" or, "Please, tell
25       us about anyone who may have looked at the case and not
page 106
 1       reached a 16-point standard".  There were many cases
 2       that went out that way and I'm sure since have gone out
 3       that way as well.
 4           So there's nothing -- I'm not sure exactly the
 5       importance.  There's obviously an importance being
 6       placed on it by the Fiscals Office and I have to say
 7       that is something in the last, listening to the evidence
 8       session, that I found particularly of concern, the idea
 9       of, I think, full disclosure was used.  I'm aware that I
10       think, in fact, a police officer -- in fact, I've got
11       the article here --
12   Q.  Could you tell us what you are looking at, Ms McBride?
13   A.  I certainly will, sorry.  I'm looking at an article
14       printed off, it was published on November 29th 2008 and
15       it says:
16           "Police in dock over crime data kept secret from
17       Fiscal."
18   Q.  Can you tell us what publication this comes from,
19       please?
20   A.  It's from the Glasgow Herald and it's Lucy Adams is the
21       Chief Reporter.
22   Q.  Can I ask you, perhaps, not to read from that at the
23       moment and I can perhaps take a look at it over
24       lunchtime and see whether it would be useful to ask you
25       questions about that.
page 107
 1   A.  Yes.
 2   Q.  I don't want to cut you off in any way.
 3   A.  I don't mind.  I can speak in generalities.  I was just
 4       using this as evidence that it's a very, very serious
 5       allegation that there was not full disclosure on the
 6       part of the SCRO officers or the Department and that's
 7       what's concerning me, that this question is being
 8       brought up.
 9           I am aware that whatever happens in this forum may
10       be acted upon later on.  So if the Crown -- and I'm not
11       saying that they are, but the questions came from the
12       Crown, I believe, and from Digby Brown and if they are
13       thinking of criticising the Bureau or of taking further
14       action against the SCRO officers involved in this case,
15       I think it only fair that we should know now so we can
16       explore it in-depth in this forum.  It is the
17       fingerprint Inquiry, unless of course they can say
18       unequivocally that they do not intend to take further
19       action because there has not been -- because they admit
20       that -- they agree that there was full disclosure to the
21       best of our knowledge, to the best of our abilities to
22       satisfy the Fiscals' Office requirements, then that
23       would be fine.  But otherwise I think this has to be
24       taken much further in far more depth.
25           After all, over the past 13 years we have had many
page 108
 1       accusations levelled at us and I'm not saying that there
 2       are accusations, I'm just saying it needs to be thrashed
 3       out now and we need to know exactly -- I need to know
 4       exactly -- what the inferences are from this line of
 5       questioning, if you understand what I'm saying.
 6   Q.  Can I suggest this to you, Ms McBride, that we might
 7       proceed in this way, that I ask you questions and if
 8       either your lawyers or the Chairman think that I'm
 9       asking you anything improper, they will no doubt stop
10       me.
11   A.  That's quite all right.  I didn't think you were being
12       improper at all.
13   Q.  I should put you this way: if I am asking you any
14       question that for some legal reason you shouldn't answer
15       either your solicitors will object or the Chairman will
16       tell me to stop.
17   A.  To be clear, just to be clear, I'm not seeking to ask my
18       lawyers to intervene.  Of course I will answer all
19       questions and I'm not seeking to hand in a sick line and
20       not make it to the Inquiry.  I'm perfectly happy to
21       answer all questions.
22           However, I would like to know if there is something
23       that we should know about that will be taken further and
24       then I can chat to my lawyers and still answer the
25       questions but at least it will be in full knowledge of
page 109
 1       what's going on and I do think it's actually rather
 2       useful to explore these issues in this forum.  It's not
 3       that I don't want to answer the questions.  It's that I
 4       want to know precisely what the ramifications might be
 5       and whether they can be explored now, just so that no
 6       accusations or allegations or things can go on the web
 7       and all the rest of it.
 8           I'm aware that this is going into a transcript, it's
 9       being published on the web.  I think that's extremely
10       useful and in that way, if there are any issues and they
11       are explored by the Inquiry team and the Chairman, then
12       at least then they can be put to bed and finished with
13       instead of another ten year saga.
14   THE CHAIRMAN:  I should make it clear that, as far as I'm
15       concerned, I am really just trying to discover what the
16       practice was in SCRO at the time and I can't answer for
17       others but I agree with you that it is better that it
18       should be discussed here and not in other places.
19   A.  Thank you.
20   MISS CARMICHAEL:  Should I take it perhaps from what you
21       have said, Ms McBride, that it simply never occurred to
22       you to pass information to anybody about Mr Geddes's
23       identification of 10 points because it was simply not a
24       matter that you thought of any significance at all?
25   A.  That's absolutely true, yes.
page 110
 1   MISS CARMICHAEL:  I am moving on to a different topic.
 2   THE CHAIRMAN:  This would be a good time then.  We will sit
 3       again at 1.50.
 4   (1.00 pm)
 5                      (Luncheon Adjournment)
 6   (1.50 pm)
 7   MISS CARMICHAEL:  Good afternoon, Ms McBride.
 8   A.  Good afternoon.
 9   Q.  I would like to turn to ask you some questions that I
10       have asked a number of other fingerprint experts who
11       have given evidence to the Inquiry and that is about the
12       level of certainty to which you reach and to which you
13       express your conclusions.
14           We have heard of examiners or experts who express
15       themselves as 100 per cent certain in their own
16       conclusion as to identity and we have also heard people
17       say that they would be 100 per cent certain that another
18       examiner following after them would reach the same
19       conclusion on identity.
20           I would like to ask you in relation to the first of
21       these, would you as a fingerprint expert express
22       yourself as certain on identity to 100 per cent?
23   A.  No.  No, I wouldn't use percentage terms at all.
24   Q.  How would you express your degree of certainty about an
25       identification?
page 111
 1   A.  I would say that I had no doubt that it belonged to that
 2       person.  Having said that, if the person behind me
 3       checking my work were to come back to me and say that
 4       they think I should look at it again, look at the
 5       identification again, then of course I would.  I don't
 6       expect the person behind me to identify it if I've
 7       identified it.
 8           Having said that, no doubt people come to -- that's
 9       what the checking process is for.  Every time you do
10       something, every time you make an identification, an
11       elimination or whatever, the person coming behind you is
12       expected to come to their own conclusion and of course
13       you are very aware that the person coming behind you may
14       reach a different conclusion, otherwise there would be
15       no point to the checking process.
16   Q.  Thinking about the way that you express yourself, which
17       is that you have no doubt, I am wondering how that
18       differs really from 100 per cent certainty because,
19       obviously, if you don't have any doubts it implies that
20       you are certain about the matter?
21   A.  I think 100 per cent certainty suggests that there's a
22       scale, a moving scale; whereas with fingerprints it's
23       not possible to, as I said earlier on, say that there's
24       definitely -- or definitely concluded a match on a
25       particular number of characteristics.  To say
page 112
 1       100 per cent certainty, do you then, to my mind, do you
 2       then divide the number of characteristics and say well I
 3       have 4 out of 10 so I'm 40 per cent sure, that other
 4       person's 100 per cent sure because they have 10
 5       characteristics.  I don't think it's useful because
 6       there's such a variation and it's so subjective.  So all
 7       I can say is I have reached a threshold in my mind that
 8       I'm happy with that I'm sure it's an identification.
 9           Having said that, if someone comes along after me
10       and says, "I'm not sure", then of course I would look at
11       it again.  So I don't think 100 per cent certainty is
12       useful because it implies, I think, a range and it's a
13       sliding scale and it's dependent on numbers.  I don't
14       think numbers are something that's particularly useful
15       in fingerprints.
16   Q.  You said that earlier.  I take from that that you would
17       have a point in relation to a particular comparison
18       where you were satisfied and whereby you were,
19       therefore, certain in your own mind?
20   A.  Yes.
21   Q.  You have said that numbers are not helpful?
22   A.  They're not useful -- not terribly useful.  Maybe I did
23       say helpful, sorry.  I mean terribly useful.
24   Q.  I may be referring to a note of something you said
25       before lunch because I think you referred to numbers
page 113
 1       being helpful or useful at that stage as well.
 2           Did you have personally any kind of bottom line
 3       numerical threshold for your own satisfaction, as
 4       opposed to any numeric standards in the justice system?
 5   A.  As I was trying to explain earlier but I don't think I
 6       went into it in enough depth, certain characteristics
 7       are assigned a value in your mind and they are assigned
 8       a value according to your experience and what you're
 9       used to seeing and you know that, for example, a
10       particular characteristic is particularly common say
11       around the delta area in its geographical location and
12       spatially with other characteristics surrounding it.
13       However, if that were to occur in another area of a
14       print then you might lend more weight to the fact that
15       that group of characteristics appears in a particular
16       area where it's less common.  It is purely subjective
17       and it is based on experience and the Automatic
18       Fingerprint Recognition and now in AFIS is very useful
19       in that.
20           I'm happy to say I had the best of both worlds.  I
21       was trained in a manual system, which meant that a lot
22       of time was spent looking at the characteristics and
23       then searching manually for them and you had to really
24       get into the mark, you had to classify it and all the
25       rest of it and decide what you thought it was,
page 114
 1       et cetera.
 2           Now the machinery can automatically code it for you
 3       or you might choose to put the characteristics on
 4       yourself, which I used to prefer, and you would search
 5       it against the database.  That removes the experience of
 6       having to really know every characteristic in the mark
 7       and know what the likelihood of the pattern is and all
 8       the rest of it.  It's not necessary for the machine.
 9       But the advantage of the machine, the computer, is that
10       there are so many variables that are thrown up that you
11       might not have seen in a manual search and there are so
12       many -- and of course you can ask it to bring up so many
13       candidates.  You might check 15; you might check 40,
14       depending on the type of case you're checking and it's
15       much faster.
16           So I had the benefit of, in the past, solely working
17       with a manual system, which you really had to be able to
18       classify and when you classify you note the differences
19       between inked prints even.
20   Q.  If I can stop you there and just ask you what you mean
21       by classify there?
22   A.  Sorry.  Classify might mean that you determine whether
23       it's an ulnar loop or a radial loop or a whorl or
24       whatever, then you might do a ridge count between the
25       core and delta.  When you do that you note a lot of
page 115
 1       different characteristics that you might not have gone
 2       into in so much detail if you were just putting it on to
 3       the machine and choosing certain characteristics.
 4           The machine searches and pulls out candidates with
 5       that group of characteristics whereas when you were
 6       doing a manual search the person pulls out that group of
 7       characteristics from each possible candidate.
 8           The benefit of the machine is that it produces so
 9       many candidates that you can get through so much more
10       work, you see so many more fingerprints in a shorter
11       period of time and so I think it was a benefit to have
12       learnt under the manual system but to have had the
13       advantages of the computerised system.
14   Q.  When you say that you come to recognise some
15       characteristics as common or less common or less common
16       in a particular location, should we take it that you
17       learn that in terms of your experience of the marks that
18       you have actually seen in the course of your work?
19   A.  That's true.  Again, an advantage that I had was that it
20       took me five years to qualify and when you begin in the
21       Fingerprint Bureau you are immediately set to work on
22       fingerprints, on the ten-print section at first, so you
23       are checking clear mark against clear mark and then you
24       build up.  It's a quick -- it's a fast process.
25           Once you go to Scene of Crime you are given a small
page 116
 1       case because they don't want to swamp you, say with two
 2       marks and two suspects and you work through it.  But
 3       it's a short period of time before they give you more --
 4       this is just when you are at the very beginning.  It's a
 5       short period of time before they give you more complex.
 6       In fact, they don't even regulate what cases you are
 7       getting.  You are lifting cases out the basket and you
 8       are expected to work on them as an expert would.
 9           Of course, you are being followed by experts who are
10       checking your work.  I think that the idea from Alex
11       McGinnies' evidence, I don't think it come out very
12       well, I don't know if it's different now of course, he
13       said you build it up but the build up is actually quite
14       quick, fast, so that you are getting the benefit of five
15       years almost of working on live cases of varying
16       complexities.
17           I know that nowadays I think the training period has
18       reduced so I think that, again, I had the advantage of
19       being trained back in the old days when you had to work
20       for it.  I know that everybody else in the case as well,
21       they did seven years training, so it was quite something
22       but it was worthwhile and that's what we base our
23       decisions on.
24   Q.  I am going to ask you again about another topic that I
25       have asked other Fingerprint Examiners about,
page 117
 1       Ms McBride, and that is we have heard evidence that
 2       sometimes when one gets to a certain number of volume of
 3       points in similarity and agreement between a mark and a
 4       print, one might be at a point of personal satisfaction
 5       or certainty such that, effectively, differences that
 6       might appear in other parts of the mark and print become
 7       irrelevant, they drop out of the picture, because they
 8       must have some explanation.
 9           Can you comment on what your position is on that
10       scenario?
11   A.  I would agree with that.  I think that particularly the
12       example that Martin Leadbetter showed I think in the
13       Evett & Williams test where there was a characteristic
14       that was not explicable to him -- obviously, I haven't
15       checked the mark against the form so I can't see but it
16       appeared to be the case -- that was fine, that was
17       acceptable, as far as I'm concerned.  Obviously, it was
18       acceptable to the people who set the test and it was
19       acceptable to all the UK bureaux who got 100 per cent
20       success in that test.  I know it was nine out of nine.
21   Q.  Just to be clear, you are squarely with the camp who say
22       that once you get to a certain volume of information in
23       sequence and agreement, even if there is a difference,
24       you may very well still be quite happy in your own mind?
25   A.  Particularly with the Automatic Fingerprint Recognition
page 118
 1       System and in AFIS, often we have found that for some
 2       reason prints would be taken on LiveScan and there would
 3       be characteristics which could only be described as
 4       artefacts because it was from a known source, it was
 5       being checked again against a known source, we knew it
 6       was the same person, all the other digits matched and
 7       yet there were characteristics that appeared -- and it
 8       must have been to do with the glass surface, we guessed,
 9       or perhaps it was the electronic transmission -- but
10       characteristics seemed to appear in one that didn't
11       appear in the other but that didn't mean that they
12       weren't the same person.  So it's a similar thing with
13       scene of crime --
14   Q.  If I could stop you there to clarify what you are
15       talking about.  You are talking about a situation where
16       a known print is being compared to another known print?
17   A.  Yes.
18   Q.  But you were seeing differences?
19   A.  Yes.
20   Q.  Do you know of any experimental work that has perhaps
21       been done formally to explore the extent to which these
22       differences may occur in that sort of situation?
23   A.  I believe that a previous witness, Terry Kent, so I've
24       heard -- I could be wrong -- in 1965 was helping to
25       produce the first AFIS system or AFR system and his
page 119
 1       experimentation was on how the fingerprint changes, the
 2       same fingerprint, changes when it touches a surface and
 3       there were differences and I heard that he experimented
 4       with the same fingerprint time and again on the same
 5       surface and checked the differences.  That was way back
 6       in 1965.
 7           So I'm guessing that he can't be the only person
 8       that's conducted such experiments.  So while I can't say
 9       specifically what's been done, I wouldn't say that
10       nothing's been done.  There must be something.  Perhaps
11       I should have checked before I gave evidence.
12   Q.  Just still on the same theme, in that situation where --
13       and if I can return to the scenario of the crime scene
14       mark as against the known, as opposed to the known
15       against the known -- the situation where you have that
16       difference but you are nonetheless satisfied, would you
17       always personally be able to come to any explanation for
18       the difference?
19   A.  Quite often, of course, you could come to an explanation
20       but, even then, how do I know that my explanation is
21       correct?  It's my assessment of what likely has happened
22       but since I wasn't actually at the crime scene, I can't
23       say 100 per cent that that's the case, and no doubt the
24       person who left the mark would be unable to say as well
25       because it's such a slight, momentary thing.  So I think
page 120
 1       it's asking too much for people to say you definitely
 2       know what happened here.
 3           We can give you our very best guess based on our
 4       experience and various opinions, et cetera, but in the
 5       end even our explanation isn't guaranteed to be correct.
 6   Q.  I would like to move on, Ms McBride, and ask you about
 7       your involvement with mark Y7.  I know you have already
 8       told us some significant things, I think, on the way
 9       past in the course of questions earlier in the day.
10           Should we take it that the mark and the print were
11       on the comparator when you saw them for the first time?
12   A.  No.
13   Q.  Where were they?
14   A.  I remember, just for clarification, yesterday Charles
15       Stewart thought that I'd written a name or thought it
16       was possible that I'd written the word "glass" because I
17       was being pedantic and, yes, I am quite pedantic
18       sometimes but that wasn't the reason.  The reason I
19       wrote the world "glass" was because I check every mark
20       under the glass.  The reason I wrote the word "glass"
21       was to differentiate from the usual list of initials
22       appearing on the back of a photograph which denotes the
23       fact that it's been seen on the comparator screen.  I
24       hadn't seen it on the comparator screen and I wanted to
25       make that clear by writing the word "glass".
page 121
 1   Q.  How did you know that Mr MacPherson or Mr Stewart had
 2       seen the mark and the print before you had?
 3   A.  I knew that Mr MacPherson had seen it because he handed
 4       me the mark.  I didn't know that Mr Stewart had seen it.
 5       I knew that Alister Geddes had seen it for the reasons I
 6       said earlier on.  I checked the mark and then when I was
 7       finished, I put my signature -- well, my initial on the
 8       back as a means of tracking it so I would remember
 9       because I was in the middle of another case I put to one
10       side.  I checked a single mark and I was going back to
11       that case.  I hadn't signed any paperwork so I wanted to
12       remember that that was actually the mark that I had seen
13       earlier on so I put my signature on the back or
14       initialled it and then I asked Hugh did he want me
15       to put his -- I said, "Do you want to put your signature
16       on?  I think it's a good idea or whatever", and he said,
17       "Oh ..." thought about it for a while and said, "Well,
18       you can stick it on, if you like".  I said has anyone
19       else seen it and he said it was Charles Stewart.  I
20       said, "Do you think he'd mind", and I think he went
21       round the corner and asked him.  I could be wrong about
22       that but I think he went round and the corner and he
23       said, "Okay", and I put "CS" on it as well.
24   Q.  I appreciate we are asking you something very difficult
25       to remember --
page 122
 1   A.  No, I do actually remember that, well most of it.
 2   Q.  When you say something might not be right, it does make
 3       me very keen to be sure that we are getting your very
 4       best and clearest recollection.
 5   A.  Of course.
 6   Q.  So could we just be quite clear as to what it was
 7       Mr MacPherson said to you about who had seen the mark?
 8   A.  I asked him if anyone else had seen it and he said
 9       Charles Stewart and I asked -- my recollection is
10       actually that Hugh went round the corner and asked
11       Charles Stewart but if someone was to say that didn't
12       happen, I didn't check with Charles first or
13       whatever that's fine but my recollection is that he did
14       actually go round and check with him that it was okay to
15       put the initial on.
16   Q.   I wonder if we could look, please, at page 19,
17       paragraph 81, of your statement.  You explain a little
18       bit about this here and you tell us that once you had
19       completed the identification of Y7 you asked
20       Mr MacPherson if you should put your initials on the
21       photograph.  Yes?
22   A.  That's right, actually.
23   Q.  You say after some thought Hugh MacPherson agreed and he
24       tended to think deeply about most things?
25   A.  That's true.
page 123
 1   Q.  Then you say you placed the thew initials of
 2       Mr MacPherson, Mr Stewart and yourself on the back of
 3       the photograph.
 4   A.  Yes.  It just doesn't mention the middle part but it is
 5       true that I checked -- I had to ask who had seen it
 6       before.  I didn't know.  I knew that Alister had and
 7       that was it and that was for a specific reason because
 8       Alister hadn't reached the 16 standard on it.  So I
 9       asked, he said Charles Stewart and my recollection is he
10       went round the corner to ask Charlie if it was okay to
11       put his initials on, because it wasn't usual.  I was in
12       copying Kenny Grahame because I thought it was really
13       quite a good idea to keep a track of things that way and
14       I think eventually it was adopted and I don't know if it
15       was subsequently done away with but it was a good idea,
16       I thought at the time, particularly because I was in the
17       middle of something else so ...
18   Q.  What you tell us is it was the standard practice to mark
19       up the fact that a mark had been reviewed on a
20       comparator screen in this way and you thought it would
21       be a good thing to do this on photographs which had
22       been examined by glass?
23   A.  That's true.
24   Q.  We can bring up the image if you need it but I think it
25       is beside your own initials that we see the word
page 124
 1       "glass"?
 2   A.  That's true.
 3   Q.  So should we take it that it is only in relation to
 4       yourself that you are certifying that it was looked at
 5       on glass?
 6   A.  Yes.  Having said that, if this helps any -- I'm not
 7       sure if it does or if I should be saying but if it's not
 8       any use you can tell me -- I know that Hugh MacPherson
 9       must have checked it under the glass because he was the
10       first to review it or check it.  I know that Alister
11       Geddes or I believe Alister Geddes must have checked it
12       under the glass because he had a debate about it.  So
13       there's no way that he would have had a debate on the
14       screen.  You could have included it in the debate but
15       you must always check it under glass.  So Alister must
16       have seen it under glass.
17           Hugh MacPherson came round to me with it in his
18       hand.  Had Charlie Stewart had it on the screen and not
19       had it under the glass, it would still have been on the
20       screen.  Instead, Hugh came round and asked me and said,
21       "If you like, I'll put it on the screen for you", and I
22       said, "No, thank you", and checked it then.  So he was
23       just offering but he wouldn't have taken it off the
24       screen to come round and ask me did I want it on the
25       screen.  So it must have been the case that Charlie
page 125
 1       Stewart had examined it under the glass as well.  Of
 2       course, I didn't know it at that point, I didn't know
 3       the sequence but now after that I did know the sequence
 4       and retrospectively that's what must have happened.
 5           Once I handed it back to Hugh MacPherson, he
 6       continued on down the office looking for someone to --
 7       for a fourth check and I didn't notice who he gave it to
 8       and, of course, it was Tony McKenna.
 9   Q.  I think we have heard from Mr MacPherson that initially
10       after he finished his comparison he did have it up on
11       the comparator and I think, I will be corrected if I am
12       wrong, that he had some discussion with Mr Geddes around
13       the comparator.
14           I think we have heard also from Mr Stewart that
15       while the mark may have been on the comparator when he
16       found it, he took it away to look at separately but just
17       to understand your position when it was given to you, do
18       we understand you rightly to say it was simply handed to
19       you?
20   A.  Yes and what I meant by that sequence of events, I'm not
21       saying that it wasn't on a screen, I'm saying that they
22       must have also -- if it was on a screen and they checked
23       it on a screen they must also have viewed it under the
24       glass, except for Tony McKenna.  I don't know what he
25       did because he came after me.
page 126
 1   Q.  As I say, I am just asking you about yourself at the
 2       moment, Ms McBride.
 3   A.  That's okay.  I'm trying to be helpful.
 4   Q.  I am very grateful for that and the Inquiry is grateful
 5       for any information.
 6           Your position is that you didn't see it for the
 7       first time on a comparator screen, the real size images
 8       were passed to you simply by hand?
 9   A.  Yes.
10   Q.  I would like to ask you, as I have others, just to
11       explain exactly how, in practical terms, you went about
12       the task having been handed mark Y7 and the left
13       thumbprint of Shirley McKie that day back in
14       February 1997.
15   A.  I was handed the elimination form and the photograph and
16       I had a quick look at it and when I say a "quick look",
17       my initial glance at it, looking at the top, I initially
18       thought, "Oh, that looks like a right thumb because of
19       the slope at the top".  When I looked at it closely I
20       realised it wasn't and checked it against the left thumb
21       of Shirley McKie.
22           The reason that I checked it against the left thumb,
23       of course, apart from the fact it looked like a thumb,
24       is that part of the process was the front of the
25       photograph would be marked with which digit it was.
page 127
 1       Having said that, I clearly didn't pay any attention to
 2       it because the first thing I did was look at the right
 3       thumb.
 4           After that, I carried out my comparison very much in
 5       the way that was described before by Charles Stewart and
 6       whoever else.  It was a binocular comparison --
 7   Q.  That is just the point, Ms McBride.  I know we have had
 8       the description from others but I would very much
 9       welcome it in your own words, if you would.
10   A.  Not at all.  So I had two linen glasses, the round linen
11       glasses, and I placed one over the thumb and the other
12       over the mark and I checked it.  Prior to that, of
13       course, I looked at the whole mark, even though I knew
14       it was number 6 I had to -- or it was marked as number
15       6, I had to understand by why the top was sloping the
16       other way.  But it's quite clear to me and, I have to
17       say, to most, I would say, if not all, that were trained
18       in SCRO, including ten-print identification officers,
19       that it's not a continuous print.  I'm not saying that
20       it wasn't put down at the same time --
21   Q.  Sorry, I realise you are anxious to give the Chairman as
22       much information as possible but I would like to stay
23       for the moment as closely as we can with the topic of
24       what you remember doing back in 1997.
25   A.  Sorry, I thought you wanted it in that detail.  That's
page 128
 1       fine.
 2   Q.  Yes, I do want it in detail but I've a feeling we were
 3       straying, perhaps for understandable reasons, into the
 4       views of others and I simply want to examine with you
 5       the process, in as much detail as you think helpful,
 6       that you carried out in February 1997.
 7   A.  To me, it was clear that it was broken and that it was
 8       moved at the top and so I focused on the bottom part.  I
 9       can't remember if it was a third or whatever.  And I
10       can't say what target area -- I don't use the term
11       target area anyway but I can't say what target area I
12       chose.  I did look at everything and I pushed it, as I
13       said, by, as in I checked every characteristic that I
14       could on the clear part, what I believed to be the clear
15       part of the mark, against the rolled and the plain
16       impression, so that even, as it turns out I must have
17       checked over 16 characteristics because 16
18       characteristics could be found on either of the marks
19       but for my purposes I just checked both the plain and
20       the rolled impression to get as much information out of
21       the bottom part of the mark as possible.
22   Q.  I would like to stop you there and just go back a little
23       bit.  You said you don't use the expression "target
24       group" yourself.  We have heard I think what may be the
25       same idea expressed by different people in different
page 129
 1       ways.  Some people have talked about characteristics
 2       that catch their eye, perhaps characteristics that they
 3       hold in their head.
 4           Does either of those expressions make more sense to
 5       you than target group?
 6   A.  The thing is it doesn't actually require to catch your
 7       eye or you don't actually have to hold it in your head.
 8       You have a core and a delta in some marks and you know,
 9       even if it's nothing like it, if you're checking
10       something that's negative, you know that's the core and
11       you look at the core and say, "That's nothing like
12       that".  So it's not always necessary to have -- you're
13       talking about searching someone or people are maybe
14       referring to searching a mark, which is where you choose
15       a target group and you check it against a number of
16       candidates.
17           I had one particular mark that I was to check that
18       against.  It had already been indicated.  So I may have
19       chosen a group of characteristics to start with but it
20       would have been far easier to start at the core and work
21       out.  So that's possibly more likely what I did at that
22       point.
23   Q.  In that respect, there may be a slight difference
24       between what one does as first examiner where one is
25       perhaps checking against a number of things --
page 130
 1   A.  That's true.
 2   Q.  -- and what one does in your checking role where you
 3       have been directed?
 4   A.  Not necessarily.  Again, if you were searching you might
 5       just choose the core and so many characteristics around
 6       the core.  I suppose in a way I'm almost describing the
 7       same process but there are slight nuances.  All I am I
 8       am saying is it is not always necessary always to have
 9       something catch your eye and if it's a particularly
10       bland not very interesting print you can still check it.
11       You don't have to look for something, "Woah, that's
12       totally different.  I must look for that".
13   Q.  So, again, returning to that theme, if it wasn't a case
14       of a target group in this particular role, where did you
15       start?
16   A.  I don't know.  It was far too long ago and there was
17       nothing different about this mark to any other mark in
18       the case.  The only difference was that I got it in the
19       middle of doing another case.  I knew that they wanted
20       it to 16, that's fine, not hugely different, acceptable,
21       I didn't think very much about it and there were other
22       marks in the case later on, of course, I think I've seen
23       my signature on sheets that indicate I checked other
24       marks in the case.  Of course, I couldn't have told you
25       that either and of course I checked every identification
page 131
 1       in the case.  There was nothing particularly interesting
 2       about this mark, if you know what I mean.  There are
 3       other marks that have a movement in them and, yes, as it
 4       turns out, if you study the movement in detail then it
 5       is a very complex mark.
 6           However, I obtained 16 or I obtained enough for an
 7       identification.  I checked that there were 16
 8       characteristics in it, on the bottom part of the mark.
 9           The top part of the mark was not required for the
10       identification.  I could see that it was moved.  I could
11       see it was in pieces.  Looking at it, the chances of
12       getting 16 in sequence and agreement, even if I could
13       have unravelled it at that point, were very small and it
14       would have been -- I don't know that I could have
15       afforded as much time as has been spent on it by others
16       over a long period of time just to ascertain what this
17       mishmash at the top which I knew -- I didn't know it was
18       Shirley McKie's.  Further though, to make it quite clear
19       that it was clearly insufficient for our purposes,
20       unless of course you are going to study it in great
21       detail, as it has been, is that it was never checked
22       against any other person in the case because it was
23       deemed the top part was insufficient for our purposes at
24       that point.
25           Obviously, we have had to look at it in greater
page 132
 1       detail now but, again, it was an unremarkable print in
 2       that there was nothing to indicate that later on
 3       somebody was going to say it wasn't theirs and we were
 4       going to have a big investigation into it.  At that
 5       point we were just checking identification and there was
 6       no need to venture -- of course, I analysed the top in
 7       order to discard it but there was no point in spending a
 8       long time on a not particularly significant mark when it
 9       was clearly not going to reach the standard in any case.
10   Q.  I am afraid I cut you off perhaps earlier on when you
11       were starting to tell us about using the glasses and the
12       way that you would do things.
13           I think you used the word "binocular"?
14   A.  That's true.
15   Q.  I would like you to put in your own words the process
16       you used once you had the two glasses, one over the mark
17       and one over the left thumbprint.
18   A.  To be clear, it's not always possible to check a mark in
19       that way because if it's a piece of palm that you're
20       checking or the digit that you're checking is in the
21       middle of the photograph in an awkward position the way
22       it's orientated, where you are checking it, it may be
23       that you can't get the two images close enough together
24       to have two glasses on it with your eyes over the top of
25       it.  But in this case it was possible and it is true
page 133
 1       that you look through and I did look through the glasses
 2       and you hold your head still so you don't lose where you
 3       are.  But I think an important thing about the process
 4       is that rather than focus on the eyes, as people have
 5       been, quite obviously, of course, in this Inquiry, it's
 6       important to remember -- well, from my point of view,
 7       that actually the picture is in your head.  It is after
 8       all visual analysis but the picture is in your head, in
 9       anybody's head, in any picture that you see, obviously.
10       So when people are saying, for example, the pointers,
11       you're counting two and you're counting two, you have
12       the pictures in your head but you change focus but that
13       doesn't mean that you're focussing differently through
14       the eyes, it means you're focussing differently your
15       mind.  You're paying attention to that side and you're
16       paying attention to that side but you're not actually
17       moving.
18           But it is quite -- when I first joined fingerprints
19       I did move my head and use one eye until someone said,
20       "You don't do that.  This is a better way", and it was
21       quite difficult to get used to at first and then of
22       course you gain that skill.  That's how it's done.
23           Having said that, I wouldn't say that anyone else
24       should do it the same way.  It was much easier.  It is
25       difficult.  You have to really spend time to get that.
page 134
 1       You have to be given a lot of time on the mark to get
 2       used to seeing, not moving and changing the focus of
 3       your mind on each image but people -- I can't tell -- I
 4       wouldn't say that everybody should check it the same way
 5       and, of course, it's not always possible just because of
 6       the size of the -- just whereabouts the marks appear on
 7       the form and the photograph, you can't bend them.  You
 8       don't want to waste what you are looking at, and the
 9       palm-print.
10           I don't know if it's helpful but it might be
11       helpful, there was some research in Glasgow University,
12       I think, or something about -- I've actually got the
13       article here and it's about a girl who's -- I think, the
14       right hemisphere of her brain hadn't developed so she
15       saw out of one eye but they've tested, I think she's ten
16       years old, and they tested and found that she had
17       binocular vision through one eye.  So that's what I
18       mean.  I wouldn't tell anybody what they should be
19       seeing or how they should go about it.
20           Having said that, the way I was trained was
21       extremely useful because you weren't moving and you
22       couldn't -- it's your concentration that's moving, not
23       the focus of your eyes.
24   Q.  You keep your eyes in the same place?
25   A.  As far as possible.  We're not machines.
page 135
 1   Q.  If I'm understanding you rightly the focus of your
 2       attention moves from the one to the other?
 3   A.  Yes, that's true.
 4   Q.  Is it a process where we should understand that the
 5       focus of your attention, if I can put it that way, is
 6       moving back and forth from -- what from mark to print,
 7       or from print to mark; how does it work?
 8   A.  I would have to -- unless, of course, other people might
 9       do it differently.
10   Q.  I am just asking about your own practice.
11   A.  That's fine.  Well, my focus of attention moves because
12       I'm not melding into one image, those two images.  I'm
13       seeing both images simultaneously but I'm focussing my
14       attention on that side and focussing my attention on
15       that side, keeping as perfectly still as I possibly can
16       so that I don't lose place, because that's what the
17       pointers are for.  Because of course you're moving your
18       attention, you must have a reference point of where you
19       were last, if that makes sense.
20   Q.  Yes, and that's what the pointers help you with?
21   A.  Yes.
22   Q.  I think I picked you up rightly earlier on, you saying
23       you didn't personally keep any sort of internal count,
24       would that be right?
25   A.  When you first look at the mark, I'm looking for
page 136
 1       similarities and dissimilarities, well, dissimilarities.
 2       Is this right; is this true; is this accurate; all the
 3       way through it.  When you get to a point where you
 4       think, yes, it is, then you start to count and see
 5       whether it's -- that's why it's important to go back
 6       over -- the first part's important because you're
 7       assessing the actual characteristic.  The second part
 8       you're counting.
 9           So if you were to count without already having
10       assessed whether that was something that ought to be
11       counted, if you know what I mean -- so, for me, speaking
12       personally, that wouldn't work so I check each
13       characteristic, double check it, keep going back
14       spatially because of course when you're checking a mark
15       you're not checking in a line you're checking everything
16       around it and seeing that it's all in the right place in
17       conjunction with other characteristics.  So it's a group
18       and a group or an angle or a shape of a ridge, pores,
19       all sorts that you are taking into consideration.
20           When you are as certain as you can be of course,
21       beyond reasonable doubt or beyond your own doubt that it
22       is a match, then you're focussing on counting.  I
23       couldn't look and see if that's a true characteristic
24       and at the same time say and I'm going to count it as
25       characteristic number 2 because you're -- the
page 137
 1       enlargement, I think, shows it quite well, the process
 2       of the counting part, because you're going in a
 3       clockwise direction and you're counting ridges between
 4       each one.
 5           But that's not how, in reality, you would be
 6       checking.  You would be checking that characteristic
 7       against, say, characteristic number 1 and against
 8       characteristic number 4 and characteristic number 5
 9       looks at a slightly different angle.  Can you account
10       for why there's a difference of angle.  It might be all
11       right with those characteristics but is it okay with
12       that characteristic?  Does it make sense?  Does it
13       match?  Whereas in the actual counting process you're
14       just counting through in a more sort of linear way, if
15       that makes sense.
16   Q.  So should we understand you would only start counting
17       after you have reached a personal point of certainty?
18   A.  Yes.  Having said that, just to be clear, when you're
19       training it's not possible to do that because you have
20       no experience, you can't know whether it's that print or
21       not.  So we are told that over 16 characteristics -- 16
22       characteristics establishes identity beyond reasonable
23       doubt but what I did as a trainee was I would get to 16
24       and then I would say, "Is this true?" and I would test
25       every characteristic on the mark just to see is it true,
page 138
 1       is there a difference or whatever.  Then eventually you
 2       realise that they are -- not that they wouldn't be
 3       telling you the truth but you have to check for
 4       yourself.  You have to know that that is the case.  So
 5       you're constantly testing this until you reach a point
 6       where you have enough experience where you don't have to
 7       count any more because you know, you have established
 8       that that is the case and then, of course, over time
 9       you've acquired enough experience to know, "That's
10       exceptional, unusual, that's not, I will give more
11       weight to that than I will to these other
12       characteristics".  But that's how you build up.
13           So I think it's impossible to train someone without
14       counting.  I don't know how that would happen but
15       certainly once you've had a lot of experience it's not
16       required.
17   Q.  Of course you'd some considerable years of experience at
18       the time you were looking at Y7?
19   A.  I read my transcript and I think it said 14.
20   Q.  I was going to say 15 but I will take your word for it.
21   A.  I think it says 14 but I could be wrong.
22   Q.  Sticking with that, with you as the experienced examiner
23       at that point and perhaps moving away from Y7 to a
24       general question about the counting and your personal
25       point of satisfaction.
page 139
 1           Did you ever have a situation where you reached your
 2       personal point of satisfaction and you obviously haven't
 3       been doing a count on the basis you explained to us, but
 4       then you start your count and you find that you've got
 5       ten.  Would you then look at it and think, well, there
 6       may well be more here that I've not noticed the first
 7       time round.  I'm going to have another look at it.  I am
 8       not suggesting anything improper here but that you
 9       think, well, there is a 16-point standard here.  I am
10       going to have another look and see if I can make any
11       more of some of the rest of this mark?
12   A.  I would look at it again.  I wouldn't be teasing out the
13       points.  I would just be double checking my own work to
14       be certain before I say to someone, "I can't get 16 but
15       it is" -- of course I would have to check it, otherwise
16       I would be a little bit arrogant, I think.  So of course
17       I would check it.  It doesn't mean I'm looking to tease
18       out -- and I'm not saying you are suggesting this -- but
19       it's not that I'm looking to tease out points as one of
20       the phrases that have been used or whatever, it's just a
21       case of being certain and making sure before you pass it
22       on and say, "I'm not able to get 16".
23   Q.  That is in the situation where perhaps somebody else has
24       seen 16 --
25   A.  No, no.
page 140
 1   Q.  -- or would that be in any situation --
 2   A.  That would be in any situation, absolutely any
 3       situation.  You check and double check and check your
 4       own work before you hand it -- and you are absolutely as
 5       certain as you possibly can be and you hand it over to
 6       the next person and the next person may or may not agree
 7       with you.
 8   Q.  Of course and, again, please, don't take this as any --
 9   A.  No, I'm not taking any.  No, I'm not at all.  Sorry if
10       I've got an expression on.  I don't.
11   Q.  But it was part of your job to make sure something that
12       should have been an identification wasn't missed?
13   A.  Absolutely, yes.
14   Q.  And that the chance to take it to court wasn't missed?
15   A.  Absolutely, yes.
16   Q.  So there could be reasons for going back and looking
17       again to see if you could get the 16?
18   A.  Of course because, again, a fingerprint, it's not a
19       linear set of -- they are unique sets of characteristics
20       so you may have counted in a direction and you think, "I
21       wonder if there's something I can get up here", or,
22       "Where those -- are very really pores or are they a
23       lake?"  I'll check it against another, perhaps another
24       form that we have on file for the person, check it
25       against the plain impression, the rolled impression,
page 141
 1       just basically trying to see if it's possible but if it
 2       isn't possible, it isn't possible, but you just want to
 3       make sure that you are correct before you pass it on and
 4       say, "I cannot achieve the court standard here".
 5   Q.  When you say checking it against another form would
 6       there be situations perhaps where you had more than one
 7       form to look at?
 8   A.  Oh, absolutely.  Of course the database has the master
 9       form, the database of the -- the computer database and
10       the master form is the best form and of course that's
11       arbitrary.  It's some have a good thumb on it but it's
12       not such a good little finger, et cetera.  You've got to
13       make a judgment.  What's most likely to reveal the
14       greatest area with the best clarity for a scene of crime
15       mark, an unknown mark, to have the best chance of
16       hitting it on the machine.  So you choose what you think
17       overall is the best form and it goes on to the computer
18       database.  But every single time a person's arrested or
19       charged or whatever and they have a fingerprint form
20       taken we would get the fingerprint form and we would
21       file it as a spare so we have all those fingerprint
22       forms to check, to choose from.
23   Q.  Would I be right in thinking though that if you were
24       taking a case to court there might be a problem with
25       going to court using any form other than the arrest
page 142
 1       form?
 2   A.  Absolutely.  For example, if there was a suspect to be
 3       quoted but the police hadn't actually arrested him there
 4       wouldn't be a fingerprint form in existance for that
 5       person for that crime.  You have to identify them first
 6       to give the information over to the correct parties and
 7       they may go out and arrest that person, take a
 8       fingerprint form and when we've got the fingerprint form
 9       in we would have to check that form to see that revealed
10       the correct area for that particular case.
11           So there was a system in the office where we wrote
12       at the top of a master, at the top in pencil, "Current
13       form required", and the CR number, so that when the
14       person who received -- it would be clerical people who
15       would receive a bundle of ten-print forms.  They'd file
16       them and when they filed them they would look at the top
17       of the form to see if there was a request for that
18       particular form and, if so, they would take it to the
19       person who had signed for it saying, "Please pass the
20       form on", and that person would pull the case and make
21       sure that they were sufficient characteristics on it,
22       the right area was revealed for the identification to
23       continue.
24           That was something that, of course, you have to be
25       careful of in court when we're asked, "At what point did
page 143
 1       you identify this person", the answer would be, "I
 2       identified that mark against that form on that date".
 3       If the person -- if it was -- if they were asked again,
 4       we would then ask the judge or say, "It may be
 5       prejudicial to the accused to answer this question", and
 6       if he said answer it then we would answer it.  Having
 7       said that, the Fiscals' Office sometimes, if we didn't
 8       have a current form, they would authorise use of a form
 9       with previous convictions or they had that opportunity
10       and they did sometimes take it up, although it wasn't
11       very often.
12   Q.  I think it's probably my fault for leading you down that
13       diversion because you weren't faced with that problem
14       with Ms McKie?
15   A.  No, she was an elimination and later, I suppose, I
16       suspect.
17   Q.  You told us a moment ago about your view of the upper
18       part of the mark.
19   A.  Yes.
20   Q.  You said, I think, you could see it had moved and you
21       don't know if you could have afforded the time and I
22       think you said to do something like going through the
23       mishmash?
24   A.  Well, I could have afforded the time but I'd already
25       reached a conclusion on the bottom part of the mark.
page 144
 1           Looking at the top part of the mark, when I said
 2       "mishmash", basically what I meant was I was describing
 3       what's been on the screen very often is the top part of
 4       the mark.  We identified Second Level Detail
 5       characteristics so there was not going to be 16 in
 6       sequence and agreement in any part of the mark that I
 7       could see at the top and, therefore, there was no
 8       benefit to spending any time checking a mark that was or
 9       spending a great deal of time on something I'd already
10       identified and the part at the top was clearly
11       insufficient and was designated so because it hasn't --
12       nobody has checked the top part or at that point we
13       hadn't checked the top part against anybody else, any
14       other suspect because you were never going to achieve
15       the 16-point standard anyway.  So it was insufficient
16       for our purposes.  It was broken with a couple of points
17       here or a few points there.  It was dark in places.
18       There were compressed ridges.  It was clearly not a
19       straightforward mark.
20           I did have a look at it against Ms McKie to
21       understand why the ridge flow was the wrong direction.
22       I could see that it was broken and that it wasn't a
23       continuous single movement that had produced that mark.
24       I couldn't say it was Shirley Ms McKie's mark.
25   Q.  If I can just stop you there, you say you were never
page 145
 1       going to find 16 points in sequence and agreement in
 2       that part of the mark?
 3   A.  At that point that's what I thought, yes.
 4   Q.  I suppose what others might seek to say against that
 5       approach is that you might have looked there to see if
 6       there were actually things that showed any difference
 7       between what you could see on that part of the mark and
 8       what you might be able to find on the fingerprint form
 9       available to you?
10   A.  Well, I did analyse it.  I came to the conclusion that
11       it was of no value, certainly to the standard that we
12       were working.  Below that thumbprint there's a piece of
13       palm as well but it's also insufficient and I haven't
14       spent time looking for that either, so ...
15   Q.  Because we have heard I think many times and you have
16       heard the evidence as well, much of it, I think,
17       Ms McBride, about a characteristic called the Rosetta
18       characteristic.
19   A.  Yes.
20   Q.  Which those who say that you and your colleagues were
21       wrong say is a point of difference between Shirley
22       McKie's print and mark Y7.
23   A.  Yes.
24   Q.  Do you recall whether that was a characteristic that
25       passed through your consciousness back at the time that
page 146
 1       you first viewed this mark?
 2   A.  I can't recall.  However, I would imagine -- in fact,
 3       I'm pretty sure -- having looked at the entire mark, I
 4       must have seen it and I must have discounted it as part
 5       of the top area.  There is an area which suggests
 6       movement or there's a fault line, or whatever, they're
 7       called it a fault line or whatever, and a particularly
 8       useful exercise I found with this mark is to take the
 9       enlargement or the photograph -- I've not tried it with
10       the photograph I've only tried enlargements -- and to
11       hold it up against the light and you can see a clear
12       digit there, a clear digit there.
13           I'm not sure, I think the Rosetta characteristic
14       could be described, without going into great detail, as
15       existing in the twilight zone between the two.  Having
16       said that, I'd have to double check that to make sure
17       that I'm absolutely accurate but that's what I would say
18       at this point.  So the chances -- yes, I would have
19       looked at that characteristic and I would have had an
20       explanation that the top part of the mark is moved,
21       broken, or whatever, not necessarily Shirley McKie's and
22       there was sufficient detail below that, the bottom third
23       or whatever of the mark, to effect an identification to
24       the 16-point standard.
25   Q.  Would it assist you to have any of the images on screen
page 147
 1       to help you describe what you mean?
 2   A.  I don't know.  Was that a sufficient description do you
 3       think or would want me to?  I'm fine, from memory, that
 4       that's fine.  As far as I'm concerned, I will have noted
 5       a Rosetta characteristic, as it's called.  I would have
 6       noted the characteristic at the top.  I would have noted
 7       the compressed ridges and the movement and the line.  So
 8       it's all, as far as I'm concerned, not part of my
 9       identification because it was above what I needed.
10           I had my identification in the bottom part and to me
11       at that point it would have been as futile as spending
12       hours on the palm below the thumbprint just to discover
13       it might be that person but I can't do anything with it.
14   Q.  If you have 16 points in sequence and agreement, will
15       that always be an identification?  Will it always be the
16       same person?
17   A.  Again, it depends.  16 characteristics of what quality?
18       I have -- I do check beyond, obviously, when I am doing
19       the analysis, 16.  However, if there is something that
20       is perhaps poor quality, I will work on and on and on in
21       that mark until I achieve certainty and if I count the
22       characteristics at the end I will probably have checked
23       over 16 because being ultra cautious, yes, that's in the
24       correct area; yes, it looks like that; it's fairly faint
25       or it might not be that, it could be -- it's slightly --
page 148
 1       it looks as though it's going in and out of reverse.
 2       Sometimes it's in reverse and another part of the mark
 3       it's the right way round it's -- the black ridges are
 4       white and in another part of the mark the black --
 5       sorry, what am I saying.  Black ridges are white and in
 6       other parts of the mark they are the correct way round
 7       and they are black.  That quite often happens with
 8       ninhydrin which is a particular process carried out by
 9       the IB and you can have digits with it changing from
10       black to white throughout.  So, yes, you are then
11       counting the spaces as ridges instead of the other way
12       round.
13           So in a case like that, in a mark like that, just to
14       be doubly doubly sure, I would continue on just to
15       make -- apart from the sequence and agreement part I
16       would quite often find I'm just exploring the mark and
17       I've gone well past the required standard.
18           At what point was I satisfied?  I don't know because
19       I was still wanting to explore it because there are
20       certain things that are different that I want to be
21       certain of.
22   Q.  I think I understand from what you said earlier that you
23       personally might well go beyond 16 in some situations
24       but, if I can put it this way, has there ever been a
25       situation where you have got to 16 and you've thought it
page 149
 1       wasn't a match?
 2   A.  No.
 3   Q.  I'm sorry --
 4   A.  Not that I can remember, anyway.
 5   Q.  I think my earlier question maybe wasn't as clear as it
 6       should be for you, Ms McBride.
 7           I would like to ask you a little bit about preparing
 8       reports in situations where, unlike with Y7, if I can
 9       put it that way, you have not had a previous involvement
10       with the mark and the print before you come to prepare
11       the case for court and I think an example in this case
12       was QI2 because you became part of the team that was
13       preparing things for court and you weren't one of the
14       people who had initially identified part of QI2 as
15       Marion Ross's?
16   A.  Yes.
17   Q.  Could you tell us, please, what you would do -- first of
18       all, how would the case come to you?  In what form and
19       with what papers?
20   A.  The case would come to me as a package, everything
21       together, with all the signatures on it of the people
22       who had seen it before on front of the case envelope
23       with the marks in order in the packets inside the
24       envelope and with the forms attached.  I would check
25       that all the marks were there.  I would check that the
page 150
 1       details were correct and I would check the
 2       identifications on the front.  So it would really be a
 3       first check for me of the scene of crime mark against
 4       the known print.
 5   Q.  Is this something that would happen before -- assuming
 6       you're not writing the report yourself and not preparing
 7       enlargements yourself, is this a package that you would
 8       get before the joint report was prepared and the
 9       enlargements prepared or after that?
10   A.  Prior to that you would have to have it before it
11       because it may be the case that I would check it and
12       then disagree with something.  So you couldn't have a
13       joint report made up without everyone who was signing
14       for that report agreeing on identifications in the case.
15   Q.  If we can move on to the stage then when the joint
16       report is being prepared and you have perhaps not been
17       involved in the case in first instance.  Should we take
18       it from what you have said that you will have had a
19       packet that has permitted you to carry out your own
20       examination of the mark?
21   A.  Yes, I would have the entire case and I would check
22       everything, so yes.
23   Q.  Do you have any recollection yourself of being involved
24       with the mark QI2 in that capacity, in getting the
25       packet and dealing with the mark and the print?
page 151
 1   A.  Of course.  It was at the point when I was allocated the
 2       case.  So I got all the paperwork and I checked all the
 3       marks.  So when you say QI -- I know that it must have
 4       been in there because it would have been on the front of
 5       the envelope and I would have checked it because it was
 6       on the front of the envelope.  In fact, I think the
 7       envelope has been shown on the screen with a piece of
 8       sellotape over my name.  I wouldn't have signed that if
 9       I hadn't checked everything that was on the front of the
10       envelope.
11   Q.  You are describing the case envelope we have looked at
12       with five signatures on it, including yours?
13   A.  Yes, that's right, yes.
14   Q.  But do you have any particular recollection of your own
15       examination of QI2?
16   A.  No.  I think there were many identifications of Marion
17       Ross but that's just retrospectively.  I can't remember
18       that.  There wouldn't have been any -- I would have just
19       gone through the case and checked it --
20   Q.  -- at the time when the case --
21   A.  -- it wouldn't have been part of everything else, sorry.
22   Q.  Sorry, I didn't mean to talk over you, please go on.
23   A.  No, it's quite all right.
24   Q.  At the time when the case came to you for preparation
25       for court and you get the packet that you describe, did
page 152
 1       you have any picture of the significance of the mark QI2
 2       in the case against Mr Asbury?
 3   A.  No.
 4   Q.  Because I mean, we have heard from other colleagues and
 5       I think, again, you have heard the evidence yourself,
 6       Ms McBride, in the hearings, that the police had
 7       regarded the mark as a significant one and that had been
 8       brought to the attention of at least some of your
 9       colleagues in the earlier stages of the investigation.
10           Just thinking of an office environment and, again, I
11       am not suggesting anything improper by any means --
12   A.  Of course.
13   Q.  -- might it not be there would be some sort of chat
14       about the case, even to those who came to check it at
15       the stage that you did?
16   A.  No, not at all.  The reason for that is something that
17       has been, in a way it was a -- we had so much work, we
18       had a high workload which, in effect, insulated us.  We
19       just didn't have time to talk about marks in particular,
20       unless we were working with it at the time and it was
21       exciting, explain this characteristic, do you know why
22       this has happened and it would be shown round the office
23       and we would discuss it.  But as for ordinary casework,
24       there was no reason for them to impart that and I had no
25       idea and there wasn't any chat and -- because it was
page 153
 1       just another case.  Yes, it was a special case.  It was
 2       a murder but, unfortunately, there were a few murders,
 3       there were a few murders on the go at the time, and it
 4       was always be the case so there was nothing to attach
 5       specific significance to any of the marks in the case.
 6       The only reason I remember Y7 is because I was busy
 7       doing another case and I happened to look up at the
 8       wrong time or the right time and Hugh MacPherson is
 9       like, "Ahah, could you check this for me", and I did.
10       So that's why I remember that.
11   Q.  Coming back to QI2 and the envelope coming to you, would
12       the process that you described as to your checking of Y7
13       be the same process or would it be different in some way
14       when you are dealing with a packet of marks for
15       preparation for court?
16   A.  No, it's the same.  I would pick it up, have, a look at
17       it.  I would know that -- it would say which digit on it
18       I was to check it against but if there was anything that
19       I thought, oh, I have to understand why this is the
20       case, I would look to see if I could understand why it
21       was the case that this particular mark, whichever mark
22       it was, had a ridge flow a particular way or was it
23       twisted or was it -- and I had to understand that and
24       then I would check the mark and see if it was an
25       identification.
page 154
 1   Q.  When it comes to the joint report and the enlargements
 2       for a case, again assuming a case where you yourself are
 3       not the drafter of the report or the person who prepares
 4       the enlargements, how does that come to you?
 5   A.  You mean the actual -- for signing, you mean?
 6   Q.  Yes.  Yes, indeed.
 7   A.  It would depend.  Obviously, I'd need all the
 8       information in front of me so I could check the joint
 9       report was accurate.  If it wasn't, there could be typos
10       or something not included or whatever or I thought
11       should be included or I thought shouldn't be included.
12       I would double-check all that.  If there was anything
13       different it would go back to the person who had created
14       it, who would then pass it back to the typist and I
15       might have kept -- we would keep a copy with the changes
16       on it.  So it might come back.  After I've checked
17       everything in the case to make sure that it's correctly
18       noted in the joint report.  If there were any changes
19       and it had to go back, the changes would have been noted
20       in the joint report so when the joint report came back
21       from the typists for the signatures, I wouldn't have to
22       go through the case again.  I would be sure of the
23       fingerprint work in it.  It would just be a case of
24       changing the typing.  So it would be the full case
25       unless it had gone back for alteration, in which case I
page 155
 1       would have the full case but I certainly wouldn't go
 2       through it again.
 3   Q.  So far as the preparation of enlargements is concerned,
 4       how does the agreement among, at the time, four experts
 5       who will all have viewed the mark separately come about?
 6   A.  What would happen would be -- do you want the charting
 7       PC particularly or would you like to know about
 8       photographic enlargements because they are slightly
 9       different?
10   Q.  I wonder if you can tell us about the charting machine
11       because we know that was what was used in the cases we
12       are concerned with.
13   A.  With the charting machine, someone would sit at the
14       charting machine and chart the mark -- generally not me
15       because I was useless with it.  I wasn't very good at
16       working it.  So if there were four signatories, I would
17       prefer that someone else charted the mark.  There are
18       people who were more skilled at using the machine than I
19       was, so it was better that they did it, although if I
20       had to I would.
21           Because it was a machine, you couldn't transport it
22       from desk to desk like you would have done with a
23       photograph.  If there was a particular characteristic
24       but the person who was making up the enlargement thought
25       will I put in or I see a couple of characteristics, they
page 156
 1       are the good ones, but here are a couple of
 2       characteristics.  It's six and half a dozen which of the
 3       two which is the better one for demonstrating the
 4       process.  They might come to your desk and ask you to
 5       come and have a look before they print it off.
 6           Having said that, we weren't always there at the
 7       same time, in which case they would print it off and
 8       give it to us to have a look at and see if we agreed
 9       with it and of course if we couldn't agree with it, we
10       would have to go back and change it.  So it was easier
11       to take people to the machine to have an opinion on the
12       characteristics that were marked prior to printing it
13       out because when you went back into the machine, it lost
14       some of the information, particularly the cropped part,
15       the image that showed up, the square, the dimensions of
16       the square.  So you would have to redo that.
17           I notice there's a difference in the charting images
18       that were shown to the Inquiry.  The difference is only,
19       as far as I can see, the square round about it and the
20       second time it looks nice, it looks better to me because
21       it's the same dimensions as the -- although the scene of
22       crime mark square or rectangle, or whatever it is, is
23       the same size almost probably to the one in the inked
24       impression; whereas the other one has a big space at the
25       bottom, which is of no use anyway and it's a different
page 157
 1       size from the one on the right-hand side which doesn't
 2       look as nice.
 3   Q.  If I can just stop you there so that we can all just be
 4       absolutely clear what you are talking about there, I
 5       might be able to --
 6   THE CHAIRMAN:  Just give me one moment if you would. (Pause)
 7           I think I should say that I am planning to stop at a
 8       3.45 so I think there is no point in stopping for ten
 9       minutes now and disrupting things.  So we will continue
10       unless you find it difficult.
11   A.  Not at all.  Thank you.
12   MISS CARMICHAEL:  Thank you, sir.
13           I was going to suggest that we perhaps, just as
14       Ms McBride has touched on this matter, put up an image
15       of ST0006.7 and also an image of DB0011.06.  I wonder if
16       Ms McBride could perhaps be shown the originals of
17       these.  They were production 180 and 152 from the case
18       against Ms McKie.  They should be in the box on the
19       floor in the accordion-type folder marked SCRO.  A lot
20       of people have found it of assistance to look at the
21       originals and I want to be quite clear what you are
22       referring to.  If you will just bear with me for a
23       moment, Ms McBride, I should be able to get this to you.
24       (Pause)
25           (Handed)  I think if you go to the final page of
page 158
 1       each of these, you should be looking at the same thing
 2       that we're looking at on the screen there.  If you just
 3       want to take a moment to satisfy yourself as to what you
 4       are looking at there, Ms McBride.
 5   A.  Thank you.
 6   Q.  I think what you were talking about was the image
 7       showing up depending on the dimensions of a square that
 8       was put round it on the charting machine; would that be
 9       right?
10   A.  Yes, that's right.
11   Q.  What we can observe when we look at the image of Y7 in
12       152, as you will have it numbered I think, which should
13       be the uppermost ST0006 on our screens, with what we see
14       on the lower image DB0011 on our screens, is that the
15       mark appears to be positioned lower down in the square,
16       although the points charted are identical?
17   A.  Actually I don't think that's the case.
18   Q.  Ah.
19   A.  Of course, I could be wrong, but in fact it looks
20       identical.  It's not positioned lower down.  I think the
21       mark itself -- the actual print Y7 is in the same --
22       it's exactly -- it's at the top and, in fact, if you
23       look at the ridges, it's very close.  The ridges at the
24       very top of it are very close to identical from the top
25       and of course they can only extend so far down.  So the
page 159
 1       actual difference isn't the positioning of the mark,
 2       it's just that the lower part of the image has been
 3       removed and has not been captured -- not the mark, but
 4       the space at the bottom.
 5   Q.  So the space at the bottom that we see in 152 has been
 6       removed by the positioning of a different rectangle?
 7   A.  Precisely.
 8   Q.  By whoever has been using the charting machine?
 9   A.  Yes, because if you look at the top of the two marks in
10       both cases, they are practically identical.  So whoever
11       chopped it or cropped it did quite a good job, I
12       think -- at the top, I mean, in capturing the same area.
13       I think that is -- I mean, it looks very, very, very
14       close.
15   Q.  I really just wanted to be sure that when you were
16       talking about this in something we had seen that this is
17       what you were referring to.
18   A.  So all they've done really is they removed the bottom
19       part, which is superfluous in any case, and it does make
20       it -- it looks better to the eye because the sizes are
21       practically identical on both sides in the lower images
22       than in the top one where there's an extra area which is
23       superfluous to the identification anyway and it just
24       doesn't look as neat.
25   Q.  What you have helpfully told us is that this is
page 160
 1       something that was achieved by the placing of a
 2       rectangular shape by the operator of the machine?
 3   A.  Yes, that's true.
 4   Q.  Should we also understand then that this machine had
 5       some kind of saving facility?
 6   A.  I think it saved the actual characteristics.  This is
 7       from memory.  However, I don't think it was possible to
 8       save the area because if you came out of the manoeuvring
 9       part of it and you looked at the image and you
10       thought -- for example, if it were me, I might think I
11       don't like that space at the bottom, I'm going to go
12       back in and change it, when you went back in you
13       couldn't just -- from memory, you couldn't just lift the
14       bottom part of the ... how do I describe it?
15           On the left-hand side of the image, you couldn't
16       just go in, as I would have done in this case, and moved
17       the line up.  The whole rectangle would be lost and
18       you'd have to start again.  That's from memory.
19   Q.  So you couldn't just chop a bit off; you would need a
20       new rectangle?
21   A.  Precisely.  But it was more difficult than it sounds
22       because it was quite difficult to work with and because
23       of the magnification and all the rest of it and it sort
24       of jumped sometimes when you touched the mouse,
25       et cetera.  So it was quite difficult to get it to be
page 161
 1       the same as before.
 2   Q.  I am grateful for your explanation on that, Ms McBride.
 3       We can perhaps taken that down.
 4           You described, I think, a process where people might
 5       be brought to the desk if they are available.  If they
 6       weren't available, would we take it that the book would
 7       be passed along to them for their consideration?
 8   A.  Yes, that's true.
 9   Q.  Thinking about the two marks that we have been most
10       concerned with here in turn, first in relation to QI2,
11       do you remember the process for agreeing the points that
12       came to be charted?
13   A.  I don't remember specifically at all.  However, I do
14       know what the process would have been.  I don't know if
15       that's useful, but if you're asking me to remember
16       particularly that enlargement or whatever, I wouldn't
17       remember it.
18   Q.  Thinking about Y7, I suppose that's perhaps a
19       slightly different mark, even in the context of
20       preparing Mr Asbury's case, because it had become known
21       presumably that Ms McKie was disputing that the mark was
22       hers.
23   A.  I don't know about Mr Asbury's case.  Yes, I would have
24       known there was a dispute but it only became -- I
25       remember it from preparing the work for Shirley McKie's
page 162
 1       trial, but prior to that she was still just an elim,
 2       so -- and of course we must have made up a chart of
 3       Shirley McKie's mark for Asbury but I don't particularly
 4       remember it because it wasn't -- well, I don't know.  I
 5       don't particularly remember it but I imagine it was
 6       because it wasn't of any import really because we had no
 7       idea she was going to end up in the situation that she
 8       did.
 9   Q.  So we take it from that there was nothing in your mind
10       that sticks particularly about agreeing the
11       characteristics by whatever means?
12   A.  No, but I know the process that we would have followed
13       but I'm not sure if that's what you're interested in.
14       You're interested in that particular --
15   Q.  I think you have told us about the process more
16       generally.
17   A.  That's fine.
18   Q.  What I was trying to ask is whether there was anything
19       you could remember particularly in the run-up to the
20       Asbury case about the enlargement, but if the answer is
21       no, that's the answer.
22   A.  No, I don't remember.
23   Q.  Thinking about the time when you came to be preparing
24       the case against Shirley McKie, I think we have heard
25       that by that time there was of course an arrest form?
page 163
 1   A.  Yes.
 2   Q.  And a fresh production was prepared to be added to the
 3       original productions from Asbury in the case against
 4       Ms McKie?
 5   A.  I presume so, yes.
 6   Q.  Sorry?
 7   A.  I don't know what you mean by a fresh production.  What
 8       do you mean?
 9   Q.  A joint report --
10   A.  Of course, yes.
11   Q.  -- and enlargements were specifically prepared for
12       Ms McKie's trial?
13   A.  Yes, that's true.
14   Q.  The Crown didn't simply rely on the productions that had
15       been available for Mr Asbury's case.  There was another
16       one as well.
17   A.  Yes, we would have to use the current form.
18   Q.  Do you remember being involved in the preparation of the
19       report for that case?
20   A.  It would have been as before, just -- I don't remember
21       it actually.  I don't remember it at all specifically,
22       I'm afraid.  I know what -- I mean, I've already
23       described how you go about checking such things.  So
24       that would have been done but I can't remember.
25   Q.  Just to be quite clear, would you have viewed the new
page 164
 1       form and an image or images of Y7 afresh?
 2   A.  Of course, because I would need to know if it was
 3       possible to reach the required standard for that case
 4       against the current form.
 5   Q.  Thinking on to the preparation of the charted
 6       enlargement for that case, given that we are now dealing
 7       with a case against Ms McKie and the situation has
 8       perhaps changed rather since the case against Mr Asbury,
 9       I am assuming that this might be a process that had
10       perhaps stuck in your mind rather more than the earlier
11       one.  Would that be a fair assumption?
12   A.  I don't know.  I think if you ask me questions, it might
13       spark my memory but I'll have to just tell from the
14       questions whether I remember or not.  I can't ...
15   Q.  Do you remember any process or discussion or agreement
16       between yourself and your colleagues about the points
17       that you were all agreed on for the production for
18       Ms McKie's trial?
19   A.  I'm not sure if I'm remembering remembering or whether
20       I'm actually remembering the original time and it was a
21       different characteristic.  I know that Hugh would have
22       asked me to check the enlargement again.  However, I'm
23       not sure how that memory's there, whether it was a
24       genuine memory or whether it's something that's become
25       incorporated because I know so much now.
page 165
 1   THE CHAIRMAN:  There has been so much talk about it, it must
 2       be very difficult to separate out what you knew at the
 3       time and what you did at the time and what you have
 4       heard since.
 5   A.  Exactly, yes.
 6   MISS CARMICHAEL:  If you have no recollection that you are
 7       sure is a clear recollection, please do let us know
 8       that, Ms McBride.
 9           Should I take it from what you have said that you
10       don't have a clear recollection of --
11   A.  Sorry.  I have a recollection but I can't be sure if
12       it's from that time or if it's something that I'm aware
13       I must have done; therefore, that's what I'm
14       remembering.  That is the case.  It's facts I'm
15       remembering rather than the actual going to the
16       comparator or going to the charting PC and checking it.
17       So I think it's -- I can't be sure.
18   Q.  Can you remember if there was any additional discussion
19       amongst you and your colleagues because of the
20       particular context that you were working in here, a lady
21       who was saying that her fingerprint -- that there was
22       certainly some problem of some nature with her
23       fingerprint?
24   A.  So what kind of discussion are you looking for?  I'm
25       just wondering.
page 166
 1   Q.  I just wondered if perhaps you had a more extensive
 2       discussion than you would normally have when you were
 3       trying to agree your characteristics for the charting?
 4   A.  To do with the charting, there wouldn't have been a
 5       change.  There wouldn't have been a discussion
 6       particularly round that.  We would have checked the mark
 7       again against the current form and at that point, if
 8       there was anything worth discussing, if we had thought
 9       something different, then clearly we would have
10       discussed it.
11           I do remember being surprised that a police officer
12       was being taken to court and I felt quite sorry for her
13       at that point, so ... but that's the sort of discussion.
14       It wasn't a discussion around the mark, because I had
15       verified it again.
16   Q.  You started to tell us a bit about some difficulties, if
17       I can put it that way, with the charting machine and you
18       described the difficulty of not being able to alter the
19       scope of the image without starting again, effectively.
20   A.  From memory, yes.
21   Q.  Can you tell us if there were any other difficulties
22       with the use of the machine?
23   A.  I wasn't very good at operating the machine so I had
24       less experience of working with it; therefore, I've got
25       not such a good memory as other people of exactly how
page 167
 1       you went about using it because it was anathema to me.
 2       It was extra work that took me a long time to chart an
 3       enlargement.  So I do know there were various
 4       difficulties with it because I found it difficult to
 5       work with but what specifically, I don't know.
 6   Q.  I will ask you some specific questions and see if that
 7       helps, Ms McBride.
 8           As regards the quality of the image, was that
 9       something that was better or worse than you would have
10       got from the process of using photographic enlargements?
11   A.  I preferred photographic enlargements of wet photography
12       in those days because the digital -- when the image was
13       enlarged, it would pixillate.  So obviously I'm trying
14       to remember what the characteristic looks like before
15       its enlarged before you can put a point on it and then
16       you would go down to a normal size and you think, "Oh
17       that's not in the correct area" and I would have a few
18       goes to get it as close to the characteristic as
19       possible and that's what held me up.  That's what I
20       found annoying.
21   Q.  So you found it difficult to plot the characteristic
22       using the machine?
23   A.  Yes.  There were people that were very good at it but I
24       just wasn't one of them, unfortunately.
25   Q.  We have heard one of your colleagues describing the
page 168
 1       difficulty caused by thinking that he had got to just
 2       the right point with his mouse and then something
 3       jumping and the line ending up perhaps just not exactly
 4       where he wanted it to go.  Is that something that you
 5       would recognise?
 6   A.  Well, not exactly where you wanted it.  If it had been
 7       in a photographic enlargement, we would have plotted
 8       where we wanted it specifically to be.  On the charting
 9       PC, it was as close as you could get it.
10           Having said that, there was no doubt when we charted
11       it that that was the characteristic we were indicating.
12       However, it was much more difficult to use and it might
13       be slightly -- and of course we are working exact or
14       being as exact as we can.  So there was a difference for
15       me, because I wasn't very good at using it, between the
16       two.  If it had been someone else, they might have been
17       able to put it in a far better position.  I wasn't any
18       good at it and there were times that were particularly
19       frustrating was I thought I got to the end or close to
20       the end when I lost everything and I don't know what
21       button I'd pressed and I would lose the whole thing and
22       have to start again.  So I didn't practice long enough
23       to get to become skilled because I'm afraid I didn't
24       have the patience for it and other people were better.
25   Q.  If I could refer you to paragraph 62 of your statement
page 169
 1       FI0039, in paragraph 62 you tell us there that the
 2       enlargement had to be accurate.  In relation to Y7 and
 3       the two chartings that you were involved in agreeing,
 4       bearing in mind the difficulties with plotting things on
 5       this particular machine, were you satisfied that they
 6       were accurate?
 7   A.  When I checked it, obviously I was satisfied that the
 8       characteristics that we intended to mark had been
 9       marked.  I'm not one to criticise anyone else's mark-up
10       because, if it had been me, it would have been miles
11       out.  So I thought it was sufficient for the purpose and
12       that was to illustrate the identification process to a
13       jury.
14           Possibly if people had spent hours upon hours upon
15       hours on it, they might have got it slightly closer but
16       at the time that I checked the enlargement, I thought
17       that will do the trick, that will do the job.  Of
18       course, had it been a photograph it would have been
19       easier and I certainly wasn't going to criticise someone
20       else's efforts when I couldn't do it.
21   Q.  Should we understand when you refer to checking that
22       this might be something where you actually examine the
23       production itself rather than the process where you are
24       called to the machine?
25   A.  Yes.
page 170
 1   Q.  Still on the theme of enlargements -- and we can take
 2       that down and look instead, please, at page 14 -- what
 3       you tell us at paragraph 58 is that enlargements were
 4       prepared as part of the productions and an enlargement
 5       comprised an enlarged image of the mark and an enlarged
 6       image of the relevant fingerprint.  You explain that:
 7           "The enlargement was shown to the jury as a means of
 8       explaining, in a generic way, how fingerprint experts go
 9       about the task of comparing marks to prints."
10           You say:
11           "It was a way of showing how fingerprint experts did
12       their work."
13   A.  Yes.
14   Q.  If I can take that down and put up paragraphs 59 and 60,
15       what you tell us there is that:
16           "It was also a way of illustrating the process that
17       resulted in a conclusion being reached as to an
18       identification in the case in question.  The enlargement
19       would show 16 characteristics in sequence and agreement
20       in respect of a specific mark and print.
21           "The enlargement was not a substitute for the
22       identification itself.  It was not designed to enable
23       the jury to make an identification.  Juries are not
24       qualified to decide on fingerprint identifications.  It
25       is a professional task."
page 171
 1           Bearing in mind what you tell us there, should we
 2       take it that your view of the enlargements was
 3       principally that they were to demonstrate a process?
 4   A.  Yes.
 5   Q.  With that in mind, might that purpose not equally well
 6       have been served by having simply a generic
 7       demonstration involving a fingerprint that might be
 8       completely unconnected with the case in question?
 9   A.  Yes, it could have been.  Having said that, I liked
10       having case-specific enlargements.  I thought it was
11       useful and it did perhaps help the jury see some of the
12       characteristics that were in the identification.
13           The reason it's the process and not the
14       identification is, of course, because you cannot
15       replicate four people's conclusions on one enlargement
16       without it -- you had to come to a consensus and really
17       the consensus wasn't yes, it was that you agreed with
18       those characteristics but it was also is this the best
19       or are these the best characteristics to show to a jury,
20       because we're not there to confuse them, we're there to
21       help them.  So we're not going to mark something that
22       was the least obvious characteristic.  We would choose
23       what we could to help the jury understand the process.
24           Having said that, dependent on the quality of the
25       mark and the fact that we had to produce 16 for the jury
page 172
 1       on a range of qualities of marks for different cases,
 2       some were easier to help the jury with than others.  But
 3       I still thought it was a useful process and I thought it
 4       was useful for the jury to at least see some of the
 5       case-specific identification.
 6           However, to have noted every characteristic or Third
 7       Level Detail or all the information that you use to come
 8       to your conclusion, for a start it's not possible for an
 9       expert to do because it would be a huge task and it
10       would be mentally exhausting to go to that effort and it
11       wouldn't serve the jury in any case because it would be
12       too information.
13   Q.  If I can stop you there, I am not suggesting --
14   A.  I know.  I just thought I would put that in.
15   Q.  -- that an infinite number of items should be plotted on
16       an item that's for jury consumption.
17           You say obviously that it may not, assuming that
18       people have seen different things in a mark and a print
19       be possible to put every one of the four's conclusions
20       on one image?
21   A.  The reason I said about an infinite number.  It may be
22       the case though that you have looked at so much that's
23       only a representation of the most obvious for the jury.
24       It's not the identification process -- it's not the
25       identification, it's the identification process.  Not
page 173
 1       only could you not put everybody's work on it, to put
 2       your own work on it is absolutely -- it would be a
 3       mammoth task if you were to include every little piece
 4       of detail that you've taken into consideration.  Of
 5       course, to even write that down as you're doing it,
 6       again it would be a mammoth task, never mind
 7       representing it on a piece of paper.
 8           That's why it's only a representation of the process
 9       because it's an impossibility to show what an expert --
10       the visual images, the images in your mind.  Basically,
11       you're asked -- to have produced an identification, the
12       actual identification in that form, we're being asked
13       then to produce what's in our mind's eye at a specific
14       time and that's not possible.  I don't know if that
15       helps.
16   Q.  Understanding, what you are saying there, as I say that
17       noting perhaps in some cases all the information you say
18       is not practicable and you, therefore, say that it is
19       more a matter of illustrating a process.  It's
20       nonetheless the case, is it not, that those must be
21       16 points that each one of the four experts would be
22       happy to stand up in court and explain if asked?
23   A.  Yes, that's true.
24   Q.  So to that extent, that is, I suppose, the case that you
25       and your colleagues make when you pass that information
page 174
 1       out of the Bureau.  Those are the 16 points by the
 2       standards of the time by which you are going to stand or
 3       fall and by which you are going to be judged?
 4   A.  I don't think that's the case at all.  My evidence,
 5       because summary cases didn't require enlargements, my
 6       evidence is my comparison work in the office and the
 7       productions would contain the fingerprint form and the
 8       photograph and that's my evidence and my opinion that
 9       was formed in the office and not at a later stage of
10       consensus and, basically, a removal of a lot of the
11       detail of the enlargement, of the identification,
12       because we've gone into a great detail of detail, we've
13       come to a conclusion and then we're only transmitting a
14       consensus.  We're taking away a consensus.  Were not
15       putting in the Third Level Detail.  We're not putting in
16       arrows or whatever to show a twist or that ridge could
17       be slightly pulled out.  We don't go into it in that
18       detail.  We don't go into the process that went through
19       our minds and the images that we saw, it's impossible to
20       replicate.  So, yes, there are 16 characteristics marked
21       and, yes, we will see that those 16 characteristics
22       exist but we don't stand or fall or at least I didn't
23       think we should stand or fall by 16 characteristics
24       which, if you like, is in a simplified notion of the
25       identification.  That's what all it is and it is to aid
page 175
 1       the jury.
 2           It so happens that we use 16 because it was the
 3       number arrived at to prove beyond reasonable doubt,
 4       et cetera.  That's fine, but certainly that's not the
 5       information that's in the mind or the picture that's in
 6       the head of the Fingerprint Officer when they are
 7       carrying at a comparison and when they made their
 8       identification.  So it's not my identification.  It's
 9       something that doesn't overload a jury and helps them
10       because we pick the best characteristics but in reality
11       we would look at the horrible -- the not so nice
12       characteristics, the not so clear characteristics.  But
13       we don't present that to the jury because it's
14       unhelpful.
15   Q.  If I can perhaps make some suggestions to you,
16       Ms McBride, and you can see what you make of them and
17       whether you have any comment in particular to make on
18       them.  When a case goes to court and it may be a very
19       rare case where there's a hotly disputed fingerprint,
20       but when a case like that goes to court the Fiscal or
21       the Advocate Depute is going to have to ask you
22       questions about your identification.
23           You would accept that?
24   A.  Of course.
25   Q.  He or she is going to have to have some guide in the
page 176
 1       first instance as to just what to ask you about.  You
 2       would accept that as well?
 3   A.  That is if they are going to ask us questions on the
 4       enlargement.  It wasn't always the case that we were led
 5       in that way.  Quite often we would go in and speak to
 6       the joint report and we would --
 7   Q.  But the situation where you simply speak to a joint
 8       report would presumably be in a less contentious sort of
 9       case where there may be some reason for leading you but
10       presumably there isn't a hot dispute about whether your
11       identification is right?
12   A.  I would imagine so.
13   Q.  Sticking if we can with what may be the very rare case
14       where there is the disputed fingerprint, the Advocate
15       Depute is going to have to know how to ask you about
16       your identification and in a situation where there is
17       the 16-point standard at the time, he is going to have
18       to lead your evidence from you and probably one or more
19       other colleagues about what the 16 points were that you
20       found.  You would accept that?
21   A.  Firstly, I can't quite hear but it's all right I can
22       hear, it's just I can hear a wee noise in my ear that's
23       putting me off because I can't help listening at the
24       same time but if you wouldn't mind repeating the
25       question.
page 177
 1   Q.  Is there anything that the Inquiry can assist with --
 2   A.  No, no.  I'm sure -- they have stopped talking now
 3       anyway.  Thank you.
 4   Q.  I will perhaps try and stop my machine here and see if I
 5       can give you the same question?
 6   A.  I'm sorry, it's just attention moved there.
 7   Q.  We're sticking with this unusual case where the
 8       fingerprint evidence is disputed for the moment and the
 9       Advocate Depute is going to have to establish an
10       identification to 16 points to prove his case and he's
11       going to have to lead evidence from you and one or more
12       others about the 16 points that you identified?
13   A.  Yes.
14   Q.  He is going to need to have something to tell him what
15       the 16 points are.  You would accept that?
16   A.  I'm not sure, because it doesn't have something to say
17       what the 16 points are in a summary case so I don't know
18       is the answer to that.
19           He may -- I wouldn't say -- I'm understanding what
20       you're saying but I'm not going to agree to what the
21       Fiscal requires or doesn't require or whatever because
22       I'm a Fingerprint Officer.  I have gone to court and
23       people have led evidence on 16 characteristics without
24       any enlargement.  In fact, it happens today.  So it's
25       just the way the question is put I wouldn't agree with
page 178
 1       "going to have to".  I wouldn't agree with that.
 2   Q.  Can you think of a case involving a disputed fingerprint
 3       other than the one that we are dealing with here that
 4       went to court?
 5   A.  I know there have been disputed fingerprints.  I know
 6       that the Fiscal, I think, accepted a case in the, the
 7       Sinclair case and I know that Allan Bayle disputed it,
 8       although he wasn't clear in his dispute.  I'm not sure
 9       what happened to that mark, whether it made it to court
10       or not.  I'm guessing it didn't --
11   Q.  Do you know -- just leaving aside the cases that you
12       don't know about or that you might be unsure about --
13   A.  Just when you're saying do I know of one, I'm trying to
14       think do I know of one.
15   Q.  Yes, that is all I am asking you, your own knowledge,
16       not to speculate about what might have happened in some
17       cases.
18   A.  Well, I am aware of that case and it is within my own
19       knowledge but, again, I don't know what the Fiscals'
20       Office does, that's the difficulty.  I can answer from
21       fingerprints but I can't answer on what the Fiscal might
22       or might not require.
23   THE CHAIRMAN:  But if the Fiscal asks to be shown the
24       16 points so that he or she can deal with it in court, I
25       think if you look at it in that way --
page 179
 1   A.  Yes.
 2   THE CHAIRMAN:  -- should you be able to demonstrate those
 3       16 points to the Fiscal?
 4   A.  To the best of my ability.  However, I believe it was a
 5       perfect example was Pat Wertheim's evidence on image
 6       blindness.  I don't know if the Fiscal suffers from
 7       image blindness.  I don't know other people -- he
 8       probably doesn't.  I don't know what the jury can see.
 9       I don't even know what my colleagues are seeing when
10       they are looking at a mark.  So I cannot -- I'll do it
11       to the best of my ability and I'll try and explain and
12       answer any questions that he or she may have.  However,
13       I cannot, since I cannot get into somebody's else's head
14       and know what they are seeing and everyone's unique, I
15       couldn't say that's definitely the case.
16   THE CHAIRMAN:  I think that as far as you can go because you
17       can't say what somebody else can see.  You can only do
18       your best to demonstrate to them what the points are.
19   A.  Yes, that's right.
20   MISS CARMICHAEL:  Thank you, sir.
21           Can you explain how, in a case where there was a
22       disputed fingerprint and the case did end up going to
23       court, you as an expert would explain the 16 points that
24       the Crown were relying on without using an enlargement
25       with the 16 points on of the type that we have seen.
page 180
 1   A.  How I would explain it?
 2   Q.  Yes.
 3   A.  I'm not sure I've ever been asked to do that and I don't
 4       know -- I think it would be rather difficult.
 5   Q.  So to that extent, seeing 16 points charted is a useful
 6       way of helping to explain to the jury and, of course, in
 7       the first instance, to the lawyers who have to ask you
 8       questions what you are relying on?
 9   A.  Yes.  I do like case-specific enlargements.  I think
10       they are very useful.
11   Q.  When you say juries are not qualified to decide on
12       fingerprint identifications and bearing in mind all
13       the caveats you have very carefully given us, including
14       the one in answer to the Chairman's question that you
15       can't see inside other people's heads, generally
16       speaking, would you expect that if you have seen
17       something in a mark you should be able to make someone,
18       a lawyer, a juror, somebody who does not have your
19       training, in the first instance, see what it is that you
20       are seeing?
21   A.  Absolutely not and for that answer there's a very easy
22       example and that is when I first started as a
23       fingerprint trainee and I was given fingerprint forms,
24       they all looked the same to me and it was a morass of
25       ... my goodness, and then I was shown what to look for
page 181
 1       and worked my way through it and then I became more
 2       confident on ten-print to ten-print, that is inked to
 3       inked marks.  But even that took a bit of work and
 4       experience and study to be able to even make the
 5       simplest identification.  So I wouldn't expect a juror
 6       to see a scene of crime mark against a fingerprint form.
 7       I can show them it but I know that I couldn't
 8       differentiate without training, et cetera, and I don't
 9       expect that they could either.
10   Q.  So, effectively, the jury is taking your word as an
11       expert and that is really the end of the matter.  You
12       are the person who can give them the interpretation, it
13       is not something they should expect to be able to see
14       for themselves?
15   A.  It's not really the end of the matter.  I will do my
16       best to show them and there might be someone who is
17       particularly gifted and particularly good at that sort
18       of thing on the jury and they will see it, some of it.
19       How do I know?  I don't know.  Again, I can't say what
20       other people see but, however, if there were any -- if
21       it was going to be contentious, I would imagine that an
22       independent would have been brought in.  Independents
23       have been brought in to review SCRO work and sometimes
24       they have something to say about it and other times they
25       are quite happy with the identification or, oh, they
page 182
 1       wouldn't have marked that point.  They would have marked
 2       another point.
 3           But again, I think the very fact that the Fiscal --
 4       not the Fiscal, the defence, brings in another expert is
 5       in itself evidence that you require an expert to review
 6       an expert's work and an expert to test whether it is
 7       true or not, the identification, and even the defence
 8       wouldn't imagine that if there was something that they
 9       thought was wrong with a mark that a jury could see that
10       on its own and they would require evidence from another
11       expert.
12   Q.  I think I may come back to that particular theme in a
13       slightly different context, Ms McBride, but for the
14       moment I would like to move on to asking you about the
15       trial of Ms McKie, in which of course you gave evidence.
16           Can you recall when you were cited for the trial?
17   A.  No, but it was close to the trial or it had started.  I
18       don't know which.  What I do particularly note about
19       timing is that Hugh and Charlie (Hugh MacPherson and
20       Charles Stewart) had a meeting with Mr Sean Murphy.  At
21       that point I wasn't invited by Mr Murphy to go to this
22       meeting, so something must have happened between the
23       time that the meeting transpired and the time that I was
24       cited, for him to cite me because I was on the joint
25       report as a substitute for Hugh MacPherson in the event
page 183
 1       that he was on annual leave.
 2           I did at one point think I was going to court
 3       instead of Hugh MacPherson.  I'm not sure why.  I'm not
 4       sure whether there was an earlier date or whether there
 5       was a change because our annual leave dates were put in
 6       a year in advance but sometimes people would take a day
 7       or two here and there.  So I don't know why I thought I
 8       was going to be going to the trial instead of Hugh
 9       MacPherson and then Hugh MacPherson was going to the
10       trial so I don't know why I thought that precisely.
11           However, it came as a surprise that I was cited to
12       appear along with Hugh MacPherson.  So something
13       happened between the meeting with Mr Sean Murphy and my
14       citation for him to believe, I would imagine, that it
15       was suddenly -- I don't know what the change would have
16       been but why I was required?  I wasn't required a short
17       time before and suddenly I was required and it had never
18       been the case that I would have appeared in the same
19       case as someone I was substituting for.
20   Q.  If I can just stop you there.  If I have understood
21       rightly you certainly hadn't been cited at the time that
22       your colleagues met with Mr Murphy?
23   A.  No.
24   Q.  So I think you said you weren't invited to the meeting
25       but as somebody who hadn't been cited for the trial it's
page 184
 1       perhaps not unnatural that you weren't called to come,
 2       perhaps, along with the colleagues who had been cited?
 3   A.  Well, if Hugh MacPherson had perhaps fallen sick I would
 4       still have been expected to have attended instead of
 5       Hugh MacPherson, if I was available.  So it would have
 6       been better if I had been called.  However, that's not
 7       the point I'm making.  The point I'm making is that I
 8       wasn't required because he didn't want to speak to me
 9       and then something in a very short period of time
10       transpired after the meeting with Charles Stewart and
11       Hugh MacPherson for Mr Murphy to want me to attend also.
12   Q.  Just on that theme, Ms McBride, when did you first
13       become aware that Shirley McKie was contesting the
14       identification of Y7 as hers?
15   A.  I'm not sure.  It would have been ... I'm not sure.  It
16       would have been early on, I would imagine.  I can't be
17       sure.
18   Q.  We have heard that Sheriff Murphy, as he is now, showed
19       a defence production to your colleagues at the meeting
20       that he had with them.
21   A.  That's slightly different.  I think you said when did I
22       know -- I thought you meant Shirley McKie
23       was contesting.  You're not, you're meaning Mr Wertheim
24       is contesting the identification, is that what you're
25       asking me?
page 185
 1   Q.  Any contention, I suppose, would be made on behalf of
 2       Shirley McKie, given that it was her trial.  I'm not
 3       trying to confuse you.
 4   A.  No, no, I just thought when you said was she contesting
 5       I was thinking way back to the beginning when she said,
 6       "That's not my mark".
 7   Q.  I am sorry if my question has confused you, Ms McBride.
 8   A.  That's quite all right.
 9   Q.  The question is when you became aware that there was
10       going to be a dispute at the trial about whether you and
11       your colleagues had got it right.
12   A.  I didn't know and the reason I didn't know and the first
13       time I knew was when Pat Wertheim gave evidence because
14       I was in the court at the time listening to his
15       evidence.  In fact, Mr Murphy had requested that we
16       listen to the evidence and give him an update on how the
17       evidence was going, was there anything obvious about the
18       evidence.  That was Charles Stewart and myself, we were
19       in court listening for that purpose.
20   Q.  I am becoming, perhaps, just a little bit confused
21       myself, about this here, Ms McBride.  We can perhaps
22       take this in stages.
23           There had been a meeting between Mr Murphy and your
24       colleagues and we understand that, at that meeting, your
25       colleagues, Mr Stewart and Mr MacPherson, became aware
page 186
 1       that there was a dispute about whether the
 2       identification was correct.
 3           Should we understand that that wasn't passed on to
 4       you at all?
 5   A.  What do you mean by the identification wasn't correct?
 6       I think it's a definition.  The identification not being
 7       correct could have meant it was insufficient.
 8   Q.  Well, if I can put it in perhaps broader terms if it is
 9       easier, Ms McBride: they became aware that Mr Wertheim
10       was going to be going head-to-head with them on their
11       conclusions.
12   A.  Head-to-head?
13   Q.  Disputing that the SCRO identification was a correct
14       identification?
15   A.  I don't think they knew that.  Perhaps they did.  If
16       they did, they certainly didn't tell me.
17   Q.  They became aware that there was going to be
18       defence evidence that differed from the evidence that
19       was going to be led from your colleagues.
20   A.  Defence evidence, of course, by its very nature if it's
21       being led must differ from our evidence and I'm quite
22       sure there have been defence experts before who have
23       given information to the Fiscal -- no, it wouldn't be,
24       to their employer, to say, "I don't like this about an
25       identification or that about a part of an
page 187
 1       identification".
 2           If you're asking about mis-identification -- which
 3       is precisely what I didn't know about and I'm not aware
 4       that my colleagues knew that either, and the reason for
 5       that is when I heard Pat Wertheim say it was a
 6       mis-identification, I nearly fell off my seat in shock.
 7       So ...
 8   MISS CARMICHAEL:  I fear we may have you stop there but I
 9       think we will have to return to this theme, Ms McBride.
10   THE CHAIRMAN:  Yes, unfortunately, I think cannot continue
11       much longer.
12   MISS CARMICHAEL:  I understand, sir, that we will have to
13       interpose a witness who has to be away on Tuesday
14       morning which would mean interrupting Ms McBride's
15       evidence.
16   A.  No, I don't mind at all.
17   THE CHAIRMAN:  That is very good of you because I know you
18       are a frequent attender, to say the least of it, but if
19       you wouldn't mind if we interpose a witness and then we
20       will complete --
21   MISS CARMICHAEL:  Sir, I understand that it is proposed that
22       we sit at 9.30 on Tuesday.  Would that be correct?
23   THE CHAIRMAN:  I am sure that will be popular.  If you don't
24       mind, 9.30.  It is just we are in the last phase and if
25       we can complete the witnesses that might help us to do
page 188
 1       so.  Thank you very much.
 2   (3.45 pm)
 3       (Adjourned until 9.30 am on Tuesday, 10th November)
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