Friday, March 31, 2006

Top QC calls for review of fingerprint cases

This would be Michael Mansfield QC. When you see him popping up on provincial TV, stroking his mane, you know that some serious shit is going down. This has to do with the Shirley McKie fingerprint case. The Scotsman has this:
"A LEADING QC is to write to the Attorney-General in the wake of the Shirley McKie controversy, requesting him to order a review of court cases in England and Wales which relied on fingerprint evidence.

Michael Mansfield - who specialises in high-profile miscarriage of justice cases, including Angela Cannings, the Guildford Four, and Danny McNamee, the so-called Hyde Park bomber - said the McKie case had profound implications for the reliability of fingerprint evidence north and south of the Border.

He added that all Scottish cases involving the four experts at the Scottish Criminal Record Office's fingerprint bureau involved in the McKie case should also be reviewed.

Mr Mansfield said last night his request to Lord Goldsmith, the government's senior law officer, would be the "logical outcome" of the "discreditation" of fingerprint evidence which emerged during the McKie case."
The shadow of ambiguity this case has cast reaches further than this country. We've got FBI agents leaning on SCRO officials. These FBI agents are now being investigated but here, still, not a damn thing. Reports have come from various countries of trials where this case has been cited by wise-ass lawyers in a sort of creationism versus evolution kind of way.

Can we get this sorted please? I'm worried about the fingerprint expert who keeps popping up on Newsnight Scotland; he looks like he's going to have an aneurysm. I don't feel quite as strongly as he does - I doubt many people do - but it is fucking embarrassing, to be perfectly frank. Surely Brave New smoke-free Scotland is capable of putting its own criminal justice system in order? Or do we need the British Attorney General to do it for us? Not that he'll necessarily do anything, mind you - but why wait to see if he does? The brighter nationalists have taken this point and are pressing the case accordingly. Would be nice to see the Executive show some initiative over something more important than the weighty issue of making people smoke outside...

Michael Mansfield QC: "You want to shag me, don't you? I don't blame you - I'd shag me too."

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