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Ayrshire policewoman Shirley McKie suffered the loss of her job, a trial for perjury, a breakdown in her health and had to undertake a nine-year campaign before she cleared her name and triumphed over a supposedly infallible science. Her crime - to speak the truth and refuse to accept the mis-identification of her fingerprint, allegedly found at a murder scene she should not have entered. During those nine years, her case became an international cause celebre during which she gained the support of the world fingerprint experts community and much of the world's press whilst at home being persecuted by government ministers, smeared by senior police officers and having her integrity traduced by Scottish forensic experts and Scottish politicians. Now, for the first time the true and authorized story of the Shirley McKie case is told by her father Iain - her strongest champion - and former MSP Michael Russell who has worked alongside the McKie family for over seven years.
Bestselling author of Broken Ground “offers fascinating glimpses” into the real world of criminal forensics from its beginnings to the modern day (The Boston Globe). The dead can tell us all about themselves: where they came from, how they lived, how they died, and, of course, who killed them. Using the messages left by a corpse, a crime scene, or the faintest of human traces, forensic scientists unlock the mysteries of the past and serve justice. In Forensics, international bestselling crime author Val McDermid guides readers through this field, drawing on interviews with top-level professionals, ground-breaking research, and her own experiences on the scene. Along the way, McDermid dis...
We must make judgments all the time when we can't be certain of the risks. Should we have that elective surgery? Trust the advice of our financial adviser? Take that new job we've been offered? How worried should we be about terrorist attacks? In this lively and groundbreaking book, pioneering researcher Dylan Evans introduces a newly discovered kind of intelligence for assessing risks, demonstrating how vital this risk intelligence is in our lives and how we can all raise our RQs in order to make better decisions every day. Evans has spearheaded the study of risk intelligence, devising a simple test to measure a person's RQ which when posted online sparked a storm of interest and was taken ...
Television shows like CSI, Forensic Files, and The New Detectives make it look so easy. A crime-scene photographer snaps photographs, a fingerprint technician examines a gun, uniformed officers seal off a house while detectives gather hair and blood samples, placing them carefully into separate evidence containers. In a crime laboratory, a suspect's hands are meticulously examined for gunshot residue. An autopsy is performed in order to determine range and angle of the gunshot and time-of-death evidence. Dozens of tests and analyses are performed and cross-referenced. A conviction is made. Another crime is solved. The credits roll. The American public has become captivated by success stories...
The bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over the small Scottish town of Lockerbie in December 1988 was one of the most notorious acts of terrorism in recent history. Its political and foreign policy repercussions have been enormous, and twenty-five years after the atrocity in which 270 lost their lives, debate still rages over the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, as well as his controversial release on compassionate grounds by Scotland's SNP government in 2009. John Ashton argues that the guilty verdict, delivered by some of Scotland's most senior judges, was perverse and irrational, and details how prosecutors withheld numerous items of evidence that were favourable to Megrahi. It accuses successive Scottish governments of turning their back on the scandal and pretending that the country's treasured independent criminal justice system remains untainted. With numerous observers believing the Crown Office is out of control and the judiciary stuck in the last century, politicians must address these problems or their aspirations for Scotland to become a modern European social democracy are bound to fail.
This book daringly challenges one of the most controversial murder cases in recent South African history. In 2007 Fred van der Vyver was acquitted of the 2005 murder of his girlfriend Inge Lotz. He then sued the police to the highest court for malicious prosecution - and failed. In spite of the defence's trashing of the prosecution's case at the trial, brothers Thomas and Calvin Mollett provide a compelling argument of how every key element of the prosecuting evidence withstands the closest scrutiny. They use models, measurements, forensic tests, mathematical formulae and the views of experts both here and overseas. The authors show how an ornamental hammer found in Van der Vyver's vehicle, ...
Since the mid 1990s, when the general public began using the Internet, governments and commerce have made vast investments in digital communications technology. There has been confusion and sometimes controversy over these, for example the proposed UK identity card system. The far-reaching commercial and social implications of decisions made in invisible or opaque specialist fields should concern every citizen. This book argues that decisions should be based on an understanding of the systems, technology and environment within which they operate; that experts and ordinary people should work together; and that technology and law are evolving in restrictive rather than enabling ways.
A father details his loss, grief, and fight for the truth following his daughter’s death in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. The destruction of Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in December 1988 was the largest attack on Britain since World War II. 259 passengers and 11 townsfolk of Lockerbie were murdered. Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted of the crime. He maintained his innocence until his death in 2012. Among the passengers was Flora, beloved daughter of Dr Jim Swire. Jim accepted American claims that Libya was responsible, but during the Lockerbie Trial he began to distrust key witnesses and supposed firm evidence. Since then, it has been revealed tha...
If you are accused of a crime you did not commit, do you believe that justice will prevail in a court of law? Perhaps you should think again... An innocent woman is almost sent to prison for eight years because of a mistaken fingerprint identification by so-called forensic experts; a chicken farmer is hanged for a brutal murder he did not commit due to incorrect analysis of post-mortem bruising; and a mother is sent to prison for murdering her baby daughter when a substance is falsely identified as blood ... These are just some of the major forensic disasters that have occurred over the past 100 years, and which are exposed in Justice Denied. Contrary to what television series like CSI and N...
Written by Kevin Dunion, the first Scottish Information Commissioner, this uniquely informed text provides detailed commentary on the provisions of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004. Fully referenced to the Commissioner's own decisions and court judgements, it also considers in detail key issues of interpretation since the law came into effect. It is an essential handbook for anyone working with, or using, freedom of information law in Scotland.