Revealed: detective in charge of murder case wanted Shirley McKie 'gagged' by Executive
DETECTIVE Superintendent Stephen Heath was in no doubt about what to do in the earliest days of a murder case that has now engulfed the Scottish Criminal Record Office (SCRO), the Scottish Executive and, indeed, the whole of the Scottish justice system.
He was the senior investigating officer in the hunt for the killer of Marion Ross, found stabbed to death in her Kilmarnock home in January 1997. On the back of forensic evidence from the SCRO, he was responsible for building the case that convicted the 20-year-old joiner David Asbury for the murder. It was also the case in which former police detective Shirley McKie was said to have left her fingerprint at the scene.
But now, with the forensic case against Asbury and McKie now in tatters and the spotlight shifting to the police investigation of the murder, the Scottish Sunday can reveal that Heath wanted to have Shirley McKie "gagged" and the Scottish Executive to pay her off to stop her case from coming to court.
Controversy Surrounding the Murder Case
Heath made the remarks to McKie's lawyers during a precognition in January this year, just days before McKie's court case at Edinburgh's court of session was due to begin. He told lawyers that he could see no reason why the former detective could not be given "sufficient compensation" and have a "gagging order" placed on her.
In another extraordinary statement, Heath revealed that he and other senior figures within the police were "very concerned" and "stressed" about the hearing being allowed to take place. The revelations also come as Scottish Sunday investigations over the last two weeks have revealed mounting evidence of alleged "criminality and cover-up" on the part of the SCRO experts in the case.
The controversy began on January 8, 1997, when 51-year-old Ross was found murdered on her bathroom floor as a result of a savage attack. The woman, who lived alone in Kilmarnock, had been stabbed to death with a pair of scissors, in the eye and throat. Under pressure for a result, police had a major breakthrough later that January when SCRO analysts identified the fingerprint of the victim on a tin filled with money in the house of 20-year-old joiner David Asbury. Asbury was known to have done building work in the Ross house two years previously.
On the strength of the forensic evidence against him, Asbury was found guilty of Ross's killing and jailed for life. Another print found at the murder scene near to the body was identified as McKie's – at that time a police detective constable attached to the investigation. However, controversy over the case started when McKie insisted that she had never been in the house.
Even at Asbury's trial, in the face of continued SCRO claims that she had been in the victim's home, McKie denied having been there. The case led to her being charged with perjury and ostracized from the police.
In 1999, she was placed on trial for perjury but found not guilty by a unanimous decision. On the back of the uncertainty over the reliability of fingerprint evidence in the case, Asbury was freed. The Crown Office commissioned two Danish experts to examine both the McKie and Marion Ross prints and found that both had been misidentified. Asbury's conviction was quashed on appeal in 2002.
Despite the SCRO experts' assertion that no mistakes had been made in the case, McKie sued for damages, claiming that the prosecution for perjury was the result of malicious conduct by the fingerprint analysts.
With just minutes to go before her legal case began at the court of session earlier this month, the Scottish Executive agreed to a £750,000 out-of-court settlement. Although agreeing to the payout, ministers maintained that it was an "honest mistake" by the SCRO experts.
Experts Call for Investigation
This assertion has outraged both the SCRO experts who still maintain they did not make any mistakes in the case and McKie and her father Iain, who accuse the experts of conspiring against her.
Investigations by this newspaper have revealed that James Mackay, the former deputy chief constable of Tayside Police, who was asked to examine the conduct of the SCRO in the case, found that the analysts had been involved in "criminality and cover-up" and recommended that they be prosecuted.
Last week, the Scottish Sunday also revealed that a host of international fingerprint experts who have examined the SCRO evidence believe that the analysts were engaged in "collective manipulation of evidence" and "fabrication" in both prints. The new revelations that Heath, the senior investigating officer in the murder case, wanted the case buried and McKie silenced, come as it emerged that secret police documents revealed that police believed that another man, Patrick Docherty, was a possible suspect for the killing.
According to police logs, Docherty – who was jailed last year for suffocating 91-year-old Margaret Irvine in Galston, Ayrshire, in 2003 – was under suspicion because he had claimed responsibility.
The entry states: "Patrick Docherty: local criminal wanted on warrant alleged to have made remarks to previously reliable informant that he was involved in the crime."
It adds that senior officers in the case wanted "specialized surveillance assistance to house and arrest Docherty..."
However, in Heath's precognition, he reveals that Asbury was placed under surveillance and that – while on his day off – the police received a call from SCRO saying that they had found the victim's print on the tin in Asbury's house. He also says that just before this took place, on January 31, 1997, the procurator fiscal's office had telephoned the police and told them that the case was not strong against Asbury.
Last night, Iain McKie, Shirley's father, and a former police officer, said: "It seems now that the behavior of the officers in this investigation, led by Mr. Heath, must be opened up and examined as a matter of urgency."
He called for an "outside police force" to re-investigate the Marion Ross murder.
Iain McKie added: "We need a judicial inquiry into this entire affair." He has also pledged to pursue a private prosecution against the SCRO officers involved in his daughter's case. Fiona McBride, one of the SCRO experts, has publicly welcomed the prospect of a private prosecution. She and another three experts have claimed that the allegations made by the McKies against them are "malicious and unfounded".
Strathclyde Police said that Heath was unavailable for comment.
A Scottish Executive spokesman again ruled out a public inquiry, saying that it was "difficult to understand" what granting one would achieve.
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