SPSA-Criminal Justice

Criminal Justice Information Services is a department of the Scottish Police Services Authority. Previously called the Scottish Criminal Record Office (SCRO), it established in 1960 with a mission statement "To manage information for the Scottish Police Service, wider Criminal Justice Community and the public to assist in the prevention and detection of crime and enhance public safety." The organisation is based at Pacific Quay in Glasgow, under current Director John McLean.

The high-profile Shirley McKie case has embroiled the SCRO in controversy surrounding its provision of fingerprint identification and verification services. This controversy lead to the separation in 2001 of these services from local control by each of the eight Scottish police forces (Central Scotland Police; Dumfries & Galloway Constabulary; Fife Constabulary; Grampian Police; Lothian & Borders Police; Northern Constabulary; Strathclyde Police; and, Tayside Police) and to the establishment of the Scottish Fingerprint Service.

In January 1997 an expert from the SCRO identified the left thumb print of DC Shirley McKie, a murder squad detective with Strathclyde Police, as coming from the bathroom door frame inside the house in Kilmarnock of murder victim, Marion Ross. Three other SCRO experts confirmed this thumb print identification but another five SCRO experts, who were asked to do so, refused. Nonetheless DC McKie, who denied ever having been inside the house, was charged with perjury. In May 1999 the Scottish High Court of Justiciary rejected the SCRO fingerprint evidence, and Shirley McKie was unanimously found not guilty of perjury.

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