Nothing would be gained from re-opening the Shirley McKie case, and doing so could result in a long-running and costly echo of the Bloody Sunday inquiry, according to Scottish Police Services Authority chief David Mulhern.
The SPSA is responsible for the new Scottish Forensic
Service, successor to the Scottish Criminal Records Office (SCRO), which was at
the centre of the long-running and politically damaging McKie case.
McKie was accused by SCRO of leaving a thumbprint at
a murder scene in Kilmarnock in 1997. She
subsequently challenged this ruling, leading to a perjury trial and
compensation case against the previous Executive.
In 2006, the Parliament’s then Justice 1 Committee
held an inquiry into the affair, making a number of recommendations regarding
the undertaking of fingerprinting services in Scotland.
The new Scottish Government has a manifesto
commitment to launching a new inquiry into the McKie affair, and a spokesperson
for the Government confirmed this inquiry would go ahead.
Mulhern says these recommendations have been taken on
board by the SPSA and that the Justice 1 inquiry should stand as the final word
on the matter.
“I think the parliament report did allow the boil to
be lanced and allowed people the opportunity to say what they wanted to say and
there was a sense, I think, from the people involved directly that somebody
external had listened to the issues, and I think, allowed them impartially.
“We now have resolution, so I’m not sure that any
inquiry that sought to re-open that would give us anything further but I know
there is the intention to have something and personally, I am interested to see
what that is intended to do,” he said.
Asked if he felt another McKie inquiry could become
like the Bloody Sunday inquiry, where parties with fixed positions argued for
years at great public cost, Mulhern said: “Yes, I think that’s a very good
analogy.”
Elsewhere, Mulhern describes how he sees the SPSA
expanding over the next five years, and explains how his organisation will
deliver efficiency savings across Scotland’s eight police forces.
