X-Nico

3 unusual facts about Shirley McKie


Michael Marra

In April 2006, having his fingerprints routinely taken by Customs in Washington D.C. – where he was performing as part of Tartan Week – Marra was inspired to write a protest song about Scottish police detective Shirley McKie, who had been wrongly accused of leaving her thumbprint at a murder scene in 1997.

Shirley McKie

However in May 1999, the Scottish jury at the High Court of Justiciary rejected the SCRO's fingerprint evidence and McKie was unanimously found not guilty of perjury.

In March 2006, Shirley McKie's father, Iain, and Dr Jim Swire, father of Lockerbie bombing victim Flora, met to launch a campaign for a judicial inquiry which they hoped would investigate recent revelations of a link between the McKie case and the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial.


Fingerprint Inquiry

The Fingerprint Inquiry was a public inquiry set up by Scottish Government ministers under the Inquiries Act 2005 to look at the steps which were taken to identify and verify the fingerprints associated with the case of HM Advocate v McKie in 1999.


see also

Fingerprint Inquiry

In 2009 it was reported that Gerry Moynihan QC, Senior Counsel to the Inquiry, has a potential conflict of interest relating to the Shirley McKie case.