Now the Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd, has appointed Paisley Procurator Fiscal Bill Gilchrist to investigate the allegations of perjury and conspiracy against Ms McKie.

Colin Boyd: Perjury investigation

Last month, Justice Minister Jim Wallace gave the Scottish Parliament details of an inspectors' report which vindicated Ms McKie.

It recommended comprehensive changes at the Scottish Criminal Records Office, the body responsible for examining fingerprints.

Future cases relying on fingerprint evidence will now be double-checked and a review has been ordered into fingerprint evidence in the trial of David Asbury in 1997.

An inquiry into Scotland's fingerprint service was launched after an investigation by BBC Scotland discredited fingerprint evidence in Shirley McKie's trial for perjury.

Ms McKie was acquitted last summer and a report by Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Constabulary confirmed that fingerprint evidence against her was wrong.

Evidence doubt

SCRO experts testified that a print left at a murder scene matched Ms McKie's, a claim she strenuously denied.

The Lord Advocate has also ordered that fingerprint evidence in the trial of David Asbury, the case which Ms McKie was investigating when she was accused of perjury, is to be reviewed by an independent expert.

Asbury, from Kilbirnie in Ayrshire, was jailed in 1997 for the murder of Kilmarnock woman Marion Ross.

He denied the killing and fingerprint experts have since cast doubt over evidence presented in the case.