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Pat A. Wertheim · Joined: 23 Apr 2007 Posts: 73 Location: USA

When I first saw Y-7, I was on holiday with Dave Grieve and David Ashbaugh, two other well known fingerprint experts. We had just attended the annual Fingerprint Society Lectures in Liverpool, where we had all three delivered lectures to the Society. Dave Grieve and his wife were going to tour his ancestral homeland of Scotland and invited Ashbaugh and me along with our wives. Iain McKie had phoned me a couple of months earlier with a request to look at a fingerprint. His request coincided perfectly with our group holiday in Scotland, so I accepted Iain's request. You know the rest of the story.

You have to ask yourself, what are the chances that some tourist on holiday in Scotland would stop on a courtesy visit to look at a fingerprint, and catch the only two erroneous identifications (Y-7 and QI-2) made in the history of the SCRO? Some might say there were reasons unrelated to Y-7 why Harry Bell did not want any other foreign experts going through SCRO files.

Big Wullie · Joined: 25 Apr 2007 Posts: 1149 Location: Glasgow

Hi Pat

I think the word I was actually looking for was "Inhouse" and he certainly did that.

I heard the other day that Devon & Cornwall had asked to look at the disputed prints to no avail from Bell.

I also heard the other day that Bell was not a fingerprint expert but a Police, Yet he was head of SCRO.

There goes their claim to be Independent Experts.

Pat, Thank God for your Holiday or Shirley would never have been Acquitted.

Legal Aid would never have been granted because the Judiciary accepted that Fingerprint evidence was Infallible therefore it was very rare even for experts to be required to give evidence.

The SLAB would never have granted such request for Legal Aid which leaves the question:

If it was never questionable but with the knowledge now that two mistakes are made in one case, then how many Trials have went before Shirley where the defence teams hands have been tied with legal aid rules, where there might have been mistakes ?

Surely if someone goes to trial they are questioning every aspect of the case against them ?

Yet SCRO claim never to have been challenged, and Asbury's case is a classic example, His defence at the time of trial did not dispute QI2 yet we have learned it is a mistake.

What steps have been taken to check every trial which included fingerprint evidence ?

Perhaps they should be made to name such cases they claim to have tested.
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Watcher · Joined: 04 Jul 2009 Posts: 25

Big Wullie

Pat A. Wertheim · Joined: 23 Apr 2007 Posts: 73 Location: USA

Watcher · Joined: 04 Jul 2009 Posts: 25

Dear Pat,

Pat A. Wertheim · Joined: 23 Apr 2007 Posts: 73 Location: USA

I provided 18 or 20 copies of my charts, all complete with acetate overlays, to the court prior to my testimony. Each juror had a chart, the judge had a chart, all of the attorneys had charts. I would be surprised if the prosecution did not have the SCRO experts advise them prior to my testimony.

After the trial, I fully expected the SCRO to revisit their examination and discover their error. Instead, within days a massive disinformation campaign was begun to smear Shirley McKie and discredit me in the press. By the time 2000 rolled around, I was still hoping I could reason with Mr. Griffiths (sp?), but his attitude reflected the official position. The SCRO experts were right. Period. No further discussion was necessary.

I would have been glad to sit and visit with them, but once they began their smear campaigns against Shirley and me, a friendly visit was apparently out of the question. Would I have provided copies of my charts to them? Of course I would have. I am sure they had a copy or two anyway after the trial.
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Pat A. Wertheim · Joined: 23 Apr 2007 Posts: 73 Location: USA

Big Wullie · Joined: 25 Apr 2007 Posts: 1149 Location: Glasgow

Tuesday started off with Harry Bell still in the witness box from Friday.

He raised concerns over the substance of Pat Wertheim's evidence and particular as to how quick he could say Y7 was not Shirley McKie's, yet no concerns were raised over how quickly David Ashbaugh could eliminate Shirley.

I think his evidence in chief is:- he did this over a few beers and in poor lighting we heard, yet he is not challenged nor is his credibility challenged, Proof of a conflict between Bell and Pat which was probably because as he admitted he had a problem with Pat distributing Images on the internet when he (Bell) wanted to keep them “In-House” as he admitted earlier.

There was also no mention of Geddes being able to do it in 5 minutes which we heard earlier in the week he had done. Though Mr Geddes tried to retract this saying he was not trying to suggest he had did this but it was in one of his statements anyway.

I really have concerns over Bell being able to comment on Fingerprint experts when he is only A Cop after all.

He suggests that no American experts compare with SCRO, I sincerely hope he is correct in this assertion or we would have many more people locked up for crimes they were Innocent of.

He admitted other bureaux in Scotland wanted to remain Independent and saw SCRO as police orientated.

He also claimed he did not see the benefit in other experts viewing the disputed prints as their opinions would not be accepted, “What Cods Wallop” surely if other Scottish Bureaux backed SCRO this would have added more credence to their credibility.

Does he think the Scottish Public are daft and cannot see he was attempting to stop others seeing the original because he was afraid they would not back SCRO like others worldwide have done.

Quite clearly Bell knew nothing of Fingerprints.

Terence Kent took up most of the day after Bell and his evidence was very interesting:-

From memory he certainly colluded with a woman from SCRO, Iain Hogg, Strathclyde Police and was very Friendly with Peter Swann indeed he admitted two Police from Strathclyde worked alongside him at Home Office again evidence of Collusion and this lot would have us believe they are acting Independently.

He has no experience of planted fingerprints and not an expert who would be able to give evidence in England Or Scotland, yet his opinion is being sought. Weird

He made reference to reading an article written by Pat Wertheim on planted prints and thought he was qualified because he had read about it and new what to look for.
You really couldn't make this lot up if you were trying to write a book.

He has severe concerns though that moving away from the Numeric standard of 16 points and not replacing it with anything of substance is not the way forward and confirmed that Fingerprints are not a science, they are an art and basically one experts opinion against another is what it comes down to at the end of the day.

Not replacing the numeric system with anything better and not to give guidelines was foolish and expecting too much.

Foreign experts would not accept some of our poorer images for comparison and on this issue he referred to MacNamee and said it was of poor quality and should never have been presented in court.

He was also under the impression that Y7 would not be contested in Court. Because before court someone told him this.

Y7 did not have clear continuity and was not typical, it certainly had something wrong with the middle section was how he put it.

Y 7 had no trace of Aluminium powder he said unlike the SOCO's who said they used aluminium before black powder surely someone in the field of planting prints would have been able to tell if there was traces of Aluminium Powder ?

Much todo has been made of a mark through the image Pat produced but nothing is said about the string placed around the post to hold the tag in place which was slack and in my view capable of moving, thus this might explain the mark on Pat's Image rather than a brush mark

The IAI meetings in the states were not helpful as they did not have the best Image he claims.

Despite knowing Peter Swann for many years and being friendly with him, he would have us believe someone within the Scottish Police asked him to write to the Procurator Fiscal's office to tell them Peter Swann had been asked by Shirley McKie's defence team to look at Y7

A Load of Cods Wallop again if you ask me and proof of collusion between the lot of them to conspire against Shirley.

Mr Kent did not agree with Pats presentation to the jury (Though the jury obviously did)only concentrating on two top marks, though he could not dispute Pat's conclusions as he is not an expert.

Make of that what you can people.

Jeffrey Shepard finished the day in the witness box.

He trains Fingerprint experts at Durham and claims Lakes or Islands only count as one point unless you were desperate to take your count up to 16 which is Called Teasing.

Mr Shepard claimed there was very Bad Practice going on within SCRO if Experts were first viewing a print on the comparator machine certainly nothing that would be taught as they would first have to view the Original material and come to their own conclusion.

It would only be OK if they were simply asking another expert to view the comparator and take no other part in the comparison other than to express their support or not,

He would not expect an expert to view only on a comparator then give evidence I think his evidence was today.

This would be unprofessional and very bad practice he said which was quite explosive considering the evidence we have heard so far.

Watch for the rest of his evidence today.

Teasing out described by Shepard:-

Q. Can you explain what "teasing out" actually means?

First of all, it's not something you approve of?

A. No, no. Characteristics or features are there or they are not there. It really is as simple as that.
It's a practice that goes way, way back in time (and it's a philosophy that is extremely dangerous) where if you can find 13 or 14 characteristics, then you can find your two by teasing things out and it was invariably by going into can I describe as the rather darker, murkier areas of a scene of crime mark. Having found 13/14, you know it's identical allegedly, you could display two others that might not be visible to a jury. But I have to say that it was a police practice that really shouldn't have happened.

Is this what Harry Bell did ? because after all he was head of SCRO and above all A Policeman

Can this explain what went wrong ?

Before the McKie case Comparators were used in a Nottingham Wrong Identification case and part of the problems identified in that case was also the failure to work Independently.

Five or seven years later a man walked into a police station and confessed to the crime otherwise the mistakes would have went unnoticed, but armed with this info one would have thought SCRO heads of office would have been aware of these facts and checked more thoroughly Y7 and QI2

What a coincidence eh ?

The collusion and Incompetence of SCRO and conspiracy to frame Shirley to maintain their stance that they were right at all costs is slowly but surely crumbling around their feet as we watch this Inquiry unfold.

One thing is for sure fingerprints will never be seen as a science ever again by the general public.

It will always be seen a someone's opinion against another's and for this we have the SCRO to thank.
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Big Wullie · Joined: 25 Apr 2007 Posts: 1149 Location: Glasgow

GEOFFREY ARTHUR SHEPPARD

Mr Sheppards evidence certainly opened my eyes today.

He claimed there must have been collussion between and collective manipulation and he had never in forty years experienced errors of this magnitude.

It was incompetence or deliberately trying to make the evidence fit.

They saw areas in Disagreement whereas Geddes saw none.

Gary Gray was not eliminated by Them.

Marion Roos was also misidentified by SCRO:-

Watcher · Joined: 04 Jul 2009 Posts: 25

Published on the Inquiry Website yesterday is a letter from Mr Bell to M J Mackay dated 20th December 1999. (CO_1023)

In that letter Mr Bell writes “The Deputy Head of the fingerprint bureau visited the USA where he met with and reviewed the fingerprint processes and court presentations adopted by the FBI at Washington.”

If the Deputy Head of the fingerprint bureau is going to the USA to learn about fingerprint procedures why on earth would the director of the SCRO not want to send the Shirley McKie prints over to the FBI for them to review in advance of this visit?

The director of the SCRO has had two American experts say that his staff got it wrong. What better way of resolving the whole matter than having the FBI give its opinion. The director is a Chief Superintendent of Police he is very intelligent and able man. Why on earth would he not have wanted the reassurance of an expert independent view on the fingerprint?