James Mackay (policeman)
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James Mackay QPM retired as Deputy Chief Constable of Tayside Police in 2001. He has had considerable experience of criminal investigation and major inquiries. He is especially interested in forensic science and has served on national committees particularly in the field of DNA in police investigation.
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[edit] SCRO report
In June 2000, James Mackay was appointed by the Crown Office to investigate a false accusation made in 1997 by four fingerprint experts from the Scottish Criminal Record Office (SCRO) against PC Shirley McKie leading to her arrest in 1998 on a charge of perjury. At McKie's trial in 1999, the SCRO fingerprint evidence was rejected and she was acquitted.
Mackay's interim report on the matter, which was submitted to the Crown Office on August 3, 2000, suggested that the four SCRO personnel had given evidence in court that was:
- "so significantly distorted that without further explanation, the SCRO identification likely amounts to collective manipulation and collective collusion."
On the strength of the interim report, the four SCRO fingerprint experts were suspended and Scottish ministers were informed.
In October 2000, Mackay submitted his final report marked 'confidential'. It took more than five years for details of this report to emerge, but the Scotsman newspaper published extracts from it in February 2006. Mackay's final report concluded that SCRO had made a mistake yet had not owned up to it.
- "It is my view and that of the enquiry team that there was criminality involved in the actings of the SCRO experts and that that criminality first reared its head in February 1997. This was after the blind testing was carried out when it should have been patently obvious to those involved that a mistake had been made and there were opportunities then for the mistake to be acknowledged and dealt with. The fact that it was not so dealt with led to 'cover-up' and criminality."
The Crown Office sat on the report for eleven months before informing James Mackay in September 2001 that the Lord Advocate Colin Boyd would be taking no action against the four fingerprint personnel, who had been reinstated in the SCRO.
Full versions of James Mackay's confidential report and his precognition were leaked in May 2006 to the BBC, who placed them into the public domain (see External links below).
[edit] Possible link with Lockerbie
Mackay's interim and final reports came just a few months after the start of the nine-month Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial, at which Lord Advocate Colin Boyd was leading for the prosecution. With the eyes of the world focused upon the Scottish judicial system, it could have undermined the Crown's case to have the SCRO scrutinized and its fingerprint experts prosecuted for covering up acts of criminality. Also, the then director of SCRO, Harry Bell, had been a central figure in the Malta part of the investigation into the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 and had actually given evidence at the trial. Furthermore two American fingerprint experts, David Grieve and Pat Wertheim – who gave evidence for McKie at her perjury trial – were reportedly warned by the FBI to back off, lest they jeopardise the trial of the "Lockerbie bombers".
Because of this possible link with Lockerbie, Colin Boyd has been asked by veteran campaigner Tam Dalyell to 'consider his position', while former MSP Mike Russell maintained that Boyd cannot continue as Lord Advocate.
[edit] SCCRC
James Mackay is one of seven Board Members of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC). The SCCRC is currently conducting a review of the conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial. The Commission is expected to complete the review and announce its conclusions in the first half of 2007.
