A London burglar became the first criminal to be caught and convicted on the basis of fingerprint evidence a hundred years ago. Since then courts throughout the world have come to accept identification as infallible. For a century, fingerprint identification has been a trump card for prosecutors. Juries accept it as conclusive proof. Defence barristers rarely challenge it.
Panorama reported on a series of disturbing cases north and south of the border [with Scotland], that have revealed serious flaws in the British fingerprint system. Identifications which experts had assured the courts were cast iron have been shown to be false, reporter Shelley Jofre asks whether fingerprint analysis is a matter of fact or just opinion in Britain.
Finger of Suspicion was broadcast on Sunday 8 July 2001 at 2215 BST on BBC1
http://www.bbc.co.uk/panorama
The transcript that became available after the broadcast.
NB: THIS TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A TRANSCRIPTION UNIT RECORDING AND NOT COPIED
FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT: BECAUSE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY,
IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE BBC CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS ACCURACY
PANORAMA
"Finger of Suspicion"
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC-1 DATE: 8.07.01
SHELLEY JOFRE:
Branded in the womb for life. At 12 weeks our unique fingerprint pattern begins to
develop, a pattern that's become an invaluable tool for solving crimes. For a century
prints have been regarded as indisputable evidence.
MICHAEL MANSFIELD: The most compelling
scientific evidence has always been regarded as fingerprints.
JOFRE: Scientific but
not black and white, even the police admit fingerprint experts are fallible.
BENN
GUNN: It may be an identification but it isn't fact, it is opinion.
SHIRLEY: There
was fingerprint evidence and I know how strong that can be, so I can see why so many
people chose to think that I was mad.
JOFRE: Three people each facing the finger of
suspicion. We expose the flaws in the evidence against them.
ALAN McNAMARA: My name
is Alan Richard McNamara. On the 5th October 1999 I was arrested and charged with
a burglary in Rochdale.
JOFRE: This morning Alan McNamara prepares to stand trial
for a crime he says he did not commit. The only evidence against him is a single
thumb print, but that alone could see him sent to gaol for four years.
ALAN McNAMARA:
It's not every day you get a thumb trial for a 35,000 burglary you haven't done.
So yes, I'm humiliated, you know.. beyond belief. Not looking forward to 12 people
judging my fate, 12 people deciding that they might just take me away from my little
girl, take me away from my wife and people I love. It's not very nice.
JOFRE: He has
good reason to be concerned. Alan's legal team will argue in court that the fingerprint
evidence in his case is flawed, but it will come down to one expert's opinion against
another.Tell me what happened in October '99 when the police came to the door.
ALAN:
Well it was an October morning. I was probably just half and half asleep. I heard
a knock at the door and within a minute or so Lisa shouts...
LISA: Alan, it's the
police.
ALAN: And I think my word, what's happened? Has something happened to my vehicles,
my business? So I get up very quickly and I just threw some clothes on, just anything.
Go into the kitchen and I'm confronted by two detectives.
DETECTIVE: Are you Alan
Richard McNamara?
ALAN: Yes I am.
DETECTIVE: What's your date of birth?
ALAN: 22/12/61.
And
immediately they say...
DETECTIVE: We're arresting you on suspicion of burglary.
ALAN:
"Anything you say may be taken down in evidence." And we just absolutely roared laughing,
Lisa and I. I mean it was such an absolutely ridiculous thing to say to us.
DETECTIVE:
You won't be laughing when you get down the station.
ALAN: And I think this guy isn't
kidding.
DETECTIVE: Can we have a look around?
ALAN: They did the most pathetic search
of the house you could ever imagine, and before I knew it, I was in the car and being
taken down to Rochdale.
[Reconstruction]
ALAN: Are you sure you guys have got the right person? I'm Alan Richard McNamara.
DETECTIVE:
Yes, it's you alright.
ALAN: On the way there they pulled in to this cul-de-sac and
one of the detectives said. Have you ever entered those premises?
ALAN: I've never
been to Rochdale. And the detective then gets irritated with me and repeats his question.
DETECTIVE:
Have you ever entered those premises?
ALAN: And I just say "No". So we then go off
to the police station. Initially I'm put into a cell for an hour and a half, and
then taken over to the fingerprint room where they fingerprint me. I'm then classed
as a criminal.
JOFRE: This is the house he's accused of burgling. Over 30,000 pounds
worth of goods were stolen, including the car from the driveway, the hi-fi and even
the iron. In the police station what did they tell you about the evidence they had
against you?
ALAN: They said that they had thumb prints.
[Reconstruction]
DETECTIVE: Have you any explanation as to why your print was on the jewellery case?
ALAN:
The entire arrest and charge has always been based on a single thumb print supposedly
found on a jewellery case at the scene of the burglary in Rochdale.
JOFRE: There's
absolutely nothing else to link you to this crime?
ALAN: Absolutely nothing.
JOFRE:
But a single print can be all the police need. At a crime scene powder is used to
develop prints. Then they're lifted with tape, mounted on card and taken away in
the hope of finding a match. If there's already a suspect, the lift is compared with
their inked prints, otherwise it's fed into the computer which hunts for a possible
match. That's how the police found Alan McNamara. He has one previous conviction,
a minor offence from 15 years ago, so the police already had his prints on file.
Today he owns and runs a discount store in Bolton town centre. In the year of the
burglary it made a profit of 100,000.
ALAN: I do not need to rob a house of its contents
and the car to make a living. I have a very, very strong business. I don't need to
do things like that. I don't want to do things like that.
JOFRE: Convinced Greater
Manchester Police must have made a mistake, Alan employed an independent expert to
check the identification. He hoped his report would be the first step in clearing
his name.
ALAN: I opened up the letter and there it was, staring me in my face, that
quite categorically there was no mistake whatsoever, this was my print and there
was no doubt whatsoever. It was just confirmation of my worst nightmare. You know..
just despair, absolute despair. What the hell is going on? Why is my print there?
JOFRE:
The print was his and he had no explanation for it being on the box. What was your
lawyer's reaction?
ALAN: "You must have touched it."
JOFRE: So really it was looking
bad at that stage.
ALAN: It was looking extremely bad, and I remember meeting my barrister
for the very first time, and him reading the information and then turning to me and
saying "Well I'm struggling." And that's not what I wanted to hear at all.
[Film Footage]
The use of fingerprints as a system of identification is of very ancient origin.
JOFRE:
Fingerprints have gained a reputation as infallible evidence ever since the Met first
began using them a century ago to solve crimes. A house burglary brought them their
first conviction in 1902. After comparing 5000 prints on record to a thumb print
found in the house the burglar was caught and sent to gaol.
[Film Footage]
The moral is, never let your fingers know what you're up to.
SHELLEY JOFRE Sixteen
is the magic number when it comes to identifying fingerprints. If an examiner finds
that many points in the crime scene mark to match the inked print, it can be presented
in court as evidence. Other countries have a lower threshold but the standard was
set deliberately high here 50 years ago to put identifications beyond question in
court. Over the last 2 years I've been examining the system of fingerprinting for
the BBC. My investigations began in Scotland with a policewoman who was accused of
lying by her own colleagues after she dared to challenge fingerprint evidence. What
her case shows is just how much weight prints carry as evidence. Everyone around
her preferred to believe that she was mad rather than contemplate the prospect that
the experts had got it wrong.
[News]
Detectives in Kilmarnock have admitted they're baffled by the brutal murder of a
middle-aged woman.
JOFRE: Fingerprint evidence was crucial in solving the murder of
Marion Ross 4 years ago. It's what linked the murder suspect, David Asbury, to her.
Detective Constable Shirley McKie was assigned to the case. Among the prints lifted
from the victim's house was one the experts identified as hers. The only problem,
she said she'd never been inside the house.
SHIRLEY McKIE: Nobody believed me. Everybody
said your fingerprints there, Scottish Criminal Records Office are telling me it's
there so you must have been there.
JOFRE: The Scottish Criminal Record Office in Glasgow
stores and analyses fingerprints for all of Scotland's police forces. An examiner
matched 16 points from the crime scene mark with Shirley's left thumb print. The
other experts verified the identification. Even Shirley's dad, himself a former policeman,
at first doubted his own daughter.
IAIN McKIE: When Shirley said to me what happened,
I believed SCRO were right in the first few days because fingerprints are always
right.
JOFRE: Pressure grew on Shirley to say she'd been in the house. A colleague
came to visit her with gifts and some advice.
SHIRLEY: She was there 3 hours trying
to... not tell me to lie but to say look Shirley, this is serious and if you're not
happy working where you are, where would you like to work? And this'll get this to
go away and there's nothing to worry about, and just say you were basically off your
head. And that, if anything, made me even more determined because somebody's trying
to make out that you're not only a liar but you're a crazy person.
JOFRE: Initially
Shirley's dad couldn't understand the fuss about the disputed print until he realised
it was fingerprints that linked the murder suspect to the crime.
IAIN McKIE: And you
start to say well wait a minute, this is all about fingerprint evidence. Shirley,
in a way, is challenging that evidence, and then it becomes very clear what's happening,
that come hell and high water we will protect this hope for a conviction.
JOFRE: When
David Asbury stood trial for murder, Shirley McKie was called to give evidence. She
said repeatedly in court she didn't leave her prints in the house.
SHIRLEY: I was
so, so scared because I thought if David Asbury gets found not guilty then everybody
is going to blame me. So that was terrifying giving evidence that day.
JOFRE: In the
end the controversy over the fingerprint made no difference. David Asbury was convicted
of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. But Shirley's nightmare was only just
beginning. Months after the trial her own police force arrested her and charged her
with perjury. It was claimed she'd lied about the fingerprint.
[Reconstruction]
SHIRLEY: I'd actually thought about what I would do if I get found guilty. What would
be the easiest way to make it go away.
JOFRE: And what did you think that would be?
SHIRLEY:
Well it was really deciding what was the quickest way to kill myself really. I'm
not a brave person at all and I couldn't have coped. If I'd done something wrong
that would be different. But if I'd been found guilty for something I hadn't done
- no. I couldn't have lived with that.
JOFRE: Following her arrest Shirley was suspended
from her job. She used the time to do her own investigation at the local library.
Shirley believed her print must have been planted somehow, so she searched on the
internet for an expert in fingerprint fabrication. Up came the name Pat Wertheim.
MAN:
He's the guy.
WERTHEIM: Where do you have ethical responsibility?
DIANA CASTRO: He
has the highest of integrity.
MAN: What can we say?
WERTHEIM: If you make a mistake...
MAN:
He's the man, he's the guru.
WERTHEIM: Stand up...
DIANA CASTRO: He is in very high
demand.
WERTHEIM: ... and say - I made a mistake...
DIANA CASTRO: He has very high
moral standards.
WERTHEIM: .... and let the whole world know.
2nd MAN: He's a well
respected authority in our field.
WERTHEIM: Because you don't know what the repercussions
are going to be.
JOFRE: Pat Wertheim has helped 20 US police forces as well as many
of our own police fingerprint experts here in Britain.
DIANA CASTRO: Head, Fingerprint
Bureau Los Angeles Police Dept. He teaches the advanced course. Even people as myself,
I just took his course about three years ago. It's an outstanding course in dealing
with fingerprint comparisons and the ethical moral values involved with doing fingerprint
work.
JOFRE: So he's held in high regard here.
CASTRO: Very high.
JOFRE: Pat Wertheim
came to Scotland to examine the fingerprint in Shirley McKie's case. He saw no sign
that it had been planted or forged. What he found was that it wasn't her print at
all.
PAT WERTHEIM: I've never been put in the position of calling another fingerprint
expert wrong, and to see a print so obviously not the same, charted as if it were
an identification, quite frankly my stomach just knotted up. This was a... I wasn't
prepared for that. Because here is a mark that was not only identified but had been
verified by three other experts in the SCRO, and allegedly verified by their experts
outside the SCRO. And to look at this and think that all of those people were wrong
left me extremely disoriented.
SHIRLEY: It was like just all your prayers and hopes
had been answered. It was like going "I'm not crazy after all." It was the one thing
I hadn't considered, that the Criminal Records Office had got it wrong.
JOFRE: At
her trial the experts from the Criminal Record Office maintained the print was hers.
The high court jury took less than an hour to reach its verdict. Shirley McKie was
not guilty of perjury. Never in almost a hundred years of fingerprint evidence had
an identification been overturned in court.
SHIRLEY: I stupidly thought that when
I came out of the High Court in Glasgow totally vindicated, unanimous, not guilty,
and commended by the judge, I thought that the Chief Constable would be at my door
the next day saying Shirley, so sorry what we've put you through.
JOFRE: But afterwards
the Scottish Criminal Record Office dug its heels in further, maintaining in a memo
that their experts were right, and in the papers unnamed police sources tried to
undermine the credibility of both Shirley McKie and Pat Wertheim. We decided to settle
the matter once and for all by asking five independent experts to check the identification
for BBC Scotland. One by one they all came to the same conclusion. The print was
not Shirley McKie's. The SCRO was wrong. So where did that leave David Asbury, the
man convicted of murder on the basis of fingerprint evidence? The most damning evidence
linking him to the murder was a biscuit tin containing 1800 pounds found during a
police search of his house. A print on the tin was later identified as Marion Ross',
the murder victim. Yet David Asbury maintained both the money and the tin belonged
to him.
AMELIA CRISP: (David Asbury's Mother). We knew he wouldn't be believed when
we told people about the tin, when we told the lawyer. So the four of us, myself,
my husband David and my son Stephen who was only 6 at the time, had to give evidence
and say this is our tin, therefore it can't possibly be Marion Ross' print on it.
But it sure to go up against a fingerprint expert, so who's the jury going to believe?
JOFRE:
It was the same four experts who'd misidentified Shirley McKie's print. We flew Pat
Wertheim to Scotland to examine their evidence. We asked New Scotland Yard expert,
Allan Bayle, to look at it with him.
WERTHEIM: This is the sweets tin that was found
in David Asbury's apartment, the so-called 16 points that were found by the SCRO
in this are pure fiction. If we look at the ink print we see 16 numbers and 16 little
red lines coming into the photograph. However, if we come to the mark itself, we
find that while it does in fact have 16 numbers, many of these lines end out in the
middle of nowhere. Point number 6, for example, goes basically nowhere. Now interestingly
here, point number 7 ends at a horizontal line, and yet in the ink print of Marion
Ross, point 7 is a vertical line. How do you get that?
BAYLE: This is incompetent
marking up.
BEAL: Well, or worse, it's not Marion Ross' print.
ALLAN BAYLE: (Fingerprint
Expert Metropolitan Police, 1975-2001). It is definitely not hers.
JOFRE: You can
say that with absolute certainty?
BAYLE: With absolute certainty.
JOFRE: How do you
feel about the outcome of their analysis?
AMELIA CRISP: Very good. Relieved but not
surprised. We knew it couldn't possibly be Marion Ross' print and now Pat Wertheim
has verified that, and that's good.
JOFRE: So could it have been a simple mistake?
WERTHEIM:
If an examiner did a very careless examination and called it an identification and
later came back and looked at it carefully, he would realise his mistake.
AMELIA CRISP:
I think they had to get a conviction. A terrible crime had been committed, they would
be under pressure. I think there's more than one mistake going on here.
JOFRE: Just
months after we broke the news in Scotland, the Crown Office granted David Asbury
an appeal and took the unusual step of releasing him from prison. 22 August 2000
DAVID
ASBURY: Just getting home and seeing my family, that's been the best thing. I've
missed them.
AMELIA CRISP: I think I just said something like - brilliant! (laughs).
I feel relieved.
JOFRE: David Asbury may still face a retrial, but the revelation
about the print in his case has answered some questions for Shirley McKie.
SHIRLEY
McKIE: It explains why I was treated so badly. Because I was questioning the fingerprint
system which would obviously open up the book for people to look at the rest of the
fingerprint evidence, and obviously now there's another fingerprint that's wrong,
then that explains why they treated me the way they did.
JOFRE: After our findings
were broadcast, a government inquiry into the SCRO was set up. It completely vindicated
Shirley McKie and called for a total overhaul of the Fingerprint Bureau. The four
experts involved have been suspended from work and may face criminal charges. News
of what happened soon spread. Last May a friend of Alan McNamara was on business
in Scotland. By chance he saw our previous investigation on fingerprints.
ALAN McNAMARA:
He rang me up and told me that he'd just seen this programme and that a lady from
that area had been charged with something to do with fingerprint evidence, and that
this chap from America had been brought over to try and help her.
JOFRE: Alan tracked
down Pat Wertheim. He agreed to look at the jewellery box and fingerprint lift, the
key evidence in Alan's case.
WERTHEIM: The identification is correct. The fingerprint
in that lift is Alan McNamara's fingerprint. There can be no question of that. The
issue is where did that mark come from?
JOFRE: Now this is an exact replica of the
jewellery box. If I put my thumb print where Greater Manchester police say it was
lifted can you demonstrate a lift from the box for me.
WERTHEIM: Well sure. The fingertip
will have a residue of sweat or other foreign material on it, and it will stick to
the powder. That is, the powder will adhere to the fingerprint residue.
JOFRE: Yes,
you can see it there quite clearly.
WERTHEIM: Now we'll take a piece of tape and put
it on the surface and smooth it across the fingerprint, rubbing it to get rid of
all the air bubbles. Now if you peel the fingerprint off of the surface and put it
on a lift card and preserve the fingerprint then as evidence in the case. Because
the surface we've lifted the print from is wood, the grain of the wood necessarily
has to show up in the print.
JOFRE: So how important is the wood grain in this case?
WERTHEIM:
Well in this case it's the most significant thing of all because there's no wood
grain whatsoever in the lift that the police have represented as coming from the
jewellery box.
JOFRE: Because of this issue about the wood grain, you're absolutely
sure that the print could not have come off this jewellery box?
WERTHEIM: I can say
conclusively that the lift used in court against Alan McNamara could not have come
from the jewellery box as represented by the police.
ALAN: When Pat Wertheim came
up with quite logical reasons why, although the thumb print was very definitely mine,
it could not possibly have come off the surface of the jewellery case. It was fantastic,
absolutely fantastic. That was the light at the end of the tunnel.
[Scene from Film]
OFFICER: Rather good specimen here sir, not repeated elsewhere in the vehicle as
far as I can tell at the moment. It's a bit blurred but quite fresh.
JOFRE: Prints
left at crime scenes are rarely in pristine condition. More often they're smudged
and incomplete. Matching a crime scene marked to an inked fingerprint can be difficult,
and experts don't always agree. Yet defence lawyers have tended to accept identifications
as scientific fact.
MICHAEL MANSFIELD QC (Defence Barrister). Whenever I've had a
case in which I've been told or I've seen that the evidence suggests that the client's
fingerprints are on an item which puts him or her right at the centre of the crime
alleged, then I think we have a major problem. It was always a question well if that's
his print, I hope he's got an explanation.
[Scene from Film]
FINGERPRINT SPECIALIST: Some prints are like the face of someone you haven't seen
for quite a few years. Now you see these whirls? They're quite characteristic. Yes,
they're Joe Shelton's alright.
INSPECTOR: That's good enough for me. He was released
from Dartmoor just six weeks ago.
OFFICER: Sounds like an open and shut case sir.
JOFRE: But the police were not prepared to let the case against Alan McNamara drop.
They accepted Pat Wertheim's point that wood grain would normally appear on a lift
from the jewellery box, but the lack of it in this case, they argued, was down to
the examiner's lifting technique.
WERTHEIM: No fingerprint expert that I have talked
to anywhere in the world is aware of any technique for lifting from a textured surface
and dispensing with the texturing showing up in the lift. It's impossible under any
known technique anywhere else in the world. If Greater Manchester Police have developed
such a technique they failed to publish it and get it peer reviewed, have it examined
by any other expert outside of their agency.
JOFRE: Alan McNamara has asked for a
second opinion from former Metropolitan Police expert, Allan Bayle. Like Pat Wertheim
he's trained to work out where the print was lifted from.
ALAN: Today is a very big
day. It could be make or break time for me.
LAWYER: (greeting Bayle as he arrives
at court) Allan Bayle, how are you doing?
ALLAN BAYLE: (a good head taller than others)
Alright thanks.
LAWYER: I was told I wouldn't miss you and now I know why.
JOFRE: The
trial is coming soon. How are you feeling about that now because this has been hanging
over you for more than a year and a half?
ALAN: Yes, well the stress kind of levels
increase the nearer it gets, you know.. it puts added pressure on my marital life,
it puts added pressure on me. I'm really not working an awful lot at the moment because
I just can't cope.
JOFRE: Allan Bayle and Alan McNamara's lawyer head to Greater Manchester
Police's fingerprint bureau to examine the actual jewellery box and fingerprint lift.
You've had a chance to look at all the evidence now. What's your conclusion?
ALLAN
BAYLE (Fingerprint Expert Metropolitan Police, 1975-2001). My conclusion is that
I think that the finger mark did not come from that jewellery box.
ALAN: (to wife,
Lisa) He has specifically said categorically that that lift has not come off that
jewellery case. (Lisa and Alan hug)
JOFRE: The trial is now a fortnight away. In court
both defence experts will challenge the police's fingerprint evidence, a rare occurrence
in British courtrooms. How often has fingerprint evidence actually been challenged
in court?
Chief Constable BENN GUNN (Association of Chief Police Officers). Well in
the past, if 16 points have been identified, I suspect not very often. That's one
of the problems because juries and even some lawyers have come to the conclusion
that if you reach 16 points in a fingerprint identification it's almost fact. It
is not evidence of fact. It is evidence of opinion, and human beings see different
things, experts see different things.
JOFRE: That's quite an admission because lawyers
that we've spoken to don't see it as that at all. They see if an expert stands up
in court and says 'I find 16 points that match and none in disagreement' that that
is an identification.
GUNN: Well it may be an identification but it isn't fact, it
is opinion.
JOFRE: But that's a bit worrying because that's been in place for quite
a number of years in this country. That's been a mainstay of the criminal justice
system.
GUNN: Well I think one of the problems we've had with some of the forensic
evidence is that forensic evidence is regarded as fact in some senses by some juries
and, as you've just said, maybe by some lawyers. It isn't true.
JOFRE: So really it
ought to be much more rigorously challenged.
GUNN: Yes.
20 July 1982 [News footage]
The blast started a day of carnage and confusion in London.
JOFRE: The case of the Hyde Park bomber illustrated for the first time just how widely
fingerprint experts can vary in their opinion. When Danny McNamee was convicted of
making the IRA bomb, the jury was told his thumb print matched a partial print found
on a battery. But at his appeal, opinion among the 14 experts who testified were
sharply divided between those who said it was his print and those who said it wasn't.
MICHAEL
MANSFIELD QC (Counsel for Danny McNamee). The Court of Appeal itself said they found
it quite remarkable and worrying that there should be such a range of opinion between
all these experts, and they all came from experienced backgrounds, all from different..
seven different police fingerprint bureaux in this country, including supposedly
the best, the Metropolitan Police who kicked the whole matter off.
JOFRE: Danny McNamee
was freed on appeal in 1997 after serving 11 years behind bars. Across the country
we found more cases where the experts have got it wrong. Andrew Chiory spent two
months on remand accused of burgling Miriam Stoppard's house. He was freed when it
was found a print had been misidentified as his. Neville Lee also served time on
remand accused of rape because of a misidentified print.
28 April 1992 [Film footage of Lee]
NEVILLE LEE: They'd said that there was fingerprint evidence and therefore I must
have done it.
JOFRE: The mistake was only uncovered when someone else confessed to the crime. And last year three men who spent five years in gaol for armed robbery had their convictions overturned after doubt was cast on a palm print matched with one of the men.
12 July 2000 [Film footage outside Court of Appeal]
JOFRE: These errors all happened within the last decade. Yet as long ago as 1988
the Home Office was made aware of serious problems with fingerprinting. In a review
of the 16 point standard, every fingerprint bureau in England and Wales was sent
sample prints to analyse. So many different opinions were returned, the results were
sat on for six years before being released to the world of fingerprinting.
MANSFIELD:
The variation was huge between the different bureaux. Basically there was no consensus
and I think they were so shaken by these results that they realised that before anybody
else twigged it they'd better do away with the standard.
JOFRE: The 16 point standard
which had been at the heart of fingerprint identification for 50 years was finally
abolished last month. Now that there's no magic number of points to be matched, identifications
must be triple checked before they can be presented in court, a safeguard the police
say will prevent any mistakes.
GUNN: Under the new regime any fingerprint identification
will have to be verified by two experts and the third expert will have to be the
senior fingerprint expert in the bureau.
MANSFIELD: I think the idea that a department,
whether it's fingerprints or anything else, is going to provide within itself internally
independent verification is a joke. They're all working as a team and they're all
working towards one objective, and on the whole most of them know what it is that
is being required of them by the police.
JOFRE: What are the chances - in a department
where people work together, they're all friends, they all go for a drink together
- that they're seriously not going to discuss with one another the identifications
they've made?
GUNN: Yes, but the honesty and integrity of those fingerprint experts
is sacrosanct. Of course they may discuss how they've come to that conclusion, but
you need each fingerprint expert to give their objective view, their opinion of that
identification, and you trust that fingerprint expert because your system of quality
assurance and integrity and underpinning of the system is such that it reduces the
opportunity for any corrupt practice.
JOFRE: Yet in the case of Shirley McKie the
identification made by the first expert was said to have been independently verified
by three other examiners.
SHIRLEY McKIE According to evidence that was given at my
trial, that's what happened, that one examiner looked at it, identified it, and then
thereafter past it on to the next examiner who hadn't seen it, who they didn't speak
about it with, and they came up with the same conclusion and thereafter on and on.
So that obviously doesn't work because it didn't in my case.
MANSFIELD: Well clearly
when you begin to unravel it, you have to ask yourself the question how many cases
have slipped through this net? How many people have pleaded guilty because they've
been advised there's no hope because the prints are the same? How many people have
been wrongly convicted by juries who believe that when they're told one print matches
another that there's no way out?
JOFRE: Today is the first day of Alan McNamara's
trial.Are you contemplating the prospect that you could go to prison?
ALAN MCNAMARA
know it's a possibility. I think I get by, by denial of that possibility.
JOFRE: But
it could happen.
ALAN: It could indeed. It could.
JOFRE: Could you handle it?
ALAN:
Oh no, not at all, no. (to little girl) Your daddy's not going to prison.
JOFRE: In
court both Pat Wertheim and Allan Bayle explain why the print could not have come
from the box. The creases on the tape and the shape of the print, both suggest it
came from a curved, not a flat surface they argue. But the main issue is the lack
of wood grain on the lift. The police experts say the box was dirty when the lift
was taken. But they admit none of them have been able to take a lift from the box
without getting wood grain on the tape.
ALAN: They've got absolutely no explanation
properly as to why there's no grain on the lift. I think it's coming my way but I
think tomorrow will be the good day.
LISA: Tomorrow will be the better day.
JOFRE:
End of day two and all the evidence has now been heard. The prosecution barrister
put it to Alan that he was a liar.
ALAN: I just feel like saying to the jury, you
know.. for god's sake, you know.. I've not done this. And you feel like that should
be enough, and it's fine when you've seen things on television and seen other people
in predicaments. When it happens to yourself it's like having cancer. What's going
to happen? I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen.
JOFRE: After an anxious
wait over the weekend, judgment day has finally arrived. In a few hours you'll know
what's going to happen. How are you?
ALAN: Absolutely terrible. I've had the worst
weekend I've ever had. One would think that.. it's been nice weather, you'd think
that we would be able to relax and take it easy but we haven't. You know, as normal
the phone's never stopped ringing. We've never stopped talking about it. There's
no escape. There has been no escape from this.. you know.. ever since it happened,
19-20 months ago, whatever it is. It's just been a permanent worry permanently on
my mind since from when I get up to when I go to bed. Today is no different except
it's more intense I suppose.
JOFRE: This morning they hear the judge sum up the case.
In court he reminds the jury that Alan McNamara is a man of good character. The judge
points out that no one disputes the print is his. The examiner who took the lift
told the court under oath that he lifted it from the jewellery box, yet the defence
experts say it could not have come from that surface. The jury must now decide who
is right.
25 June 2001 [Outside Court House]
ALAN: I'm confident, absolutely confident, I really am, yes.
JOFRE: Are you feeling
anxious at all though as you wait with the jury have your fate in their hands?
ALAN:
Oh yes, absolutely, yes. I mean at the end of the day their understanding of the
case could not be what I think it is. My interpretation is that they have a good
idea of what's going on but it's quite complicated and they may not, you know.. and
they may just think - thumb print, it's definitely thumb print.
Guilty!
JOFRE: Two hours later and the jurors have delivered their unanimous verdict.
ALAN:
I've just right now got to think about how I'm going to break this to my family because
they're going to fall to pieces, absolutely fall to pieces. My whole life is going
to fall to pieces.
JOFRE: What are you going to tell your little girl?
ALAN: I don't
think I'm going to tell her. I just don't know how I can tell her.
JOFRE: Guilty as
charged he now faces up to four years in gaol. He'll be sentenced in nine days.
PAT
WERTHEIM: I'm shocked because never in my wildest imagination did I think that a
jury could convict with no evidence whatsoever except one single fingerprint which
in itself was flawed. Look, I know I'll be criticised for speaking out against the
system like this, but I'm staking my reputation on this case and I know I'm right.
I invite fingerprint experts from all over the world to look at the case, look at
the information, look at the lift if they can and form their own opinions.
JOFRE:
When Pat Wertheim uncovered the error in Shirley McKie's case he was backed by international
experts. Yet those who misidentified her print have still to admit it. The verdict
in Alan McNamara's case has compounded her sense of injustice.When you heard the
verdict what was your reaction?
SHIRLEY: I was absolutely shattered by it. I think,
like everyone else, you just think it's going to be okay. If someone is innocent
it'll be okay and justice will come through. But I mean I was just initially absolutely
shattered.
JOFRE: Even where fingerprint evidence has been proved to be flawed, 'sorry'
seems to be the hardest word. In all the other cases we've identified across the
country, not a single expert has owned up to getting it wrong.Are you worried that
none of the bureaux that have made mistakes so far have actually come out and put
their hands up and said we're sorry, we got it wrong?
GUNN: Well it's always worrying
if a police officer or an expert refuses for whatever reason to admit a mistake.
Yes of course it's worrying.
JOFRE: The response so far seems to have been it's much
more important to protect us as experts, to protect fingerprinting, that to actually
come out and say what's right.
GUNN: Well I think there may be some element of that
in any expert opinion. Experts are jealous of that opinion and nobody likes to think
they've made a mistake.
JOFRE: We've got some very clear examples of the experts getting
it wrong. How can the public have confidence in the system when that happens?
WERTHEIM:
By the police themselves establishing a strong commitment to ethics, by the police
and the fingerprint profession cleansing itself of those found to be incompetent
or lacking in integrity.
JOFRE: Have you seen evidence of that though? So far nobody
has admitted to any of the mistakes that you've uncovered.
WERTHEIM: No, and that's
frightening isn't it.
_______________________________________
www.bbc.co.uk/panorama
CREDITS: Reporter Shelley
Jofre. Cameramen: Andrew Ford, Jim Galbreath, Martin Lightening, Chris Morphet, Chris
Sugden-Smith. Sound Recordists: Stuart Gillan, Simon Reynell, Mike Turner, Allan
Young, Dubbing Mixer: Chris Sinclair. Rostrum Camera: Malcolm Paris. 3D Graphics:
John Butler. VT Editor: Folko Boermans. Film Research: Eamonn Walsh. Film Archive:
British Pathe plc, Canal Plus Image UK. Oxford Scientific Films Ltd. Production Team:
Fiona Clark, Gill Forbes. Assistant Producer: Andrew Martin. Frontline Producer:
Dorothy Parker. Producer David Peat. Executive Producer for BBC Scotland: Neil McDonald.
Deputy Editor: Andrew Bell. Editor: Mike Robinson. Transcribed by 1-Stop Express
Services, London W2 1JG Tel: 020 7724 7953 E-mail 1-stop@msn.com 2
ISN'T BRITISH JUSTICE ABSOLUTELY PATHETIC? So why oh why did the jury find Alan guilty?
(He got 30 months). The jury should do the job as individuals and in writing - then
we might know! The overriding desire to get a result is all that matters, SOMEONE
MUST PAY. How many people are in prison because of the incompetence of so-called
experts and the inadequacy of jurors? - Ed.
www.slimeylimeyjustice.org