Recommendation FP63: Recommendation 63
From The Fingerprint Inquiry Report, published 14 December 2011.
Recommendation
In the event of a challenge to an identification the defence should disclose the full reasons why it believes that the SPSA examiners’ opinions are incorrect. This may require the disclosure of marked up images of mark and print with a legend specifying the type of characteristic and associated ridge counts. Such disclosure should take place at a reasonable time before the trial in question. It should take place where appropriate in the context of the provision of defence statements in accordance with section 124 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010.
Government response
No government response to this recommendation is on the record yet.
Blanket government agreement does not establish acceptance or delivery by each addressee. Some response passages cover groups of recommendations.
Scope of the government response
The Scottish Government's news release of 14 December 2011, the day the report was published, is its only published statement on the recommendations. Its one sentence about them is given for all of them together and states no position. The Scottish Police Services Authority's release of the same day accepts "all of the recommendations made of it by the Inquiry" without listing them; the site records that on the recommendations addressed to its forensic service. The Authority no longer exists, and the site files its words under the Scottish Police Authority, which took over its forensic services in 2013.
Delivery
No statement on delivery from the addressee has been found in the sources searched (last checked 18 June 2026). This is separate from the response above.