 Former police officer Shirley McKie's case caused concern |
Scotland's justice minister has defended the country's fingerprinting service amid calls for an inquiry into its reliability. The Scottish National Party's Alex Neil has written to Holyrood's Justice Committee urging it to investigate several issues, including the introduction of a new standard of fingerprint evidence.
The reliability of work by the Scottish Criminal Records Office (SCRO) has been called into question in recent years, following the case of police officer Shirley McKie.
She was cleared of lying in court, when independent experts successfully challenged the SCRO's fingerprint evidence against her.
Identification techniques
Mr Neil has written to the Justice Committee to enquire if recommendations arising from the case have been implemented.
He is also concerned about the introduction of identification techniques which no longer require at least 16 points of similarity.
Mr Neil believes there will be a growing legal aid bill as accused people challenge fingerprint evidence against them.
However Cathy Jamieson told BBC Scotland that she is satisfied with the system.
She said: "Fingerprinting has never been an exact science but the important thing here is that we have a service that people in Scotland are confident in.
"The Lord Advocate did undertake a study of a number of cases to ensure he was confident that SCRO were actually producing the goods and he was confident in that."
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