Summary of Inspector Glass’s Evidence;

Inspector Glass had testified that a considerable portion of the jar’s exterior had been haphazardly wrapped in cellotape. He led Mr McCrudden, on behalf of the Crown, to believe that cellotape does not pick up or retain fingerprint evidence. Mr McCrudden in turn persuaded the trial judge not to give much consideration to the absence of my fingerprints and to presume that I would have known to have held the cellotaped surface rather than the jar’s exposed glass surface. This, he reasoned, would account for the absence of any fingerprints being found. By all accounts it was a reasonable assertion to make if Inspector Glass’s testimony was true but it was not. The trial judge was clearly influenced by Mr McCrudden’s misguided reasoning and if one presumes that I had held the cellotaped portion as suggested then the adhesive surface had both pulling and retaining properties making for excellent conditions for fingerprint discovery. This is the complete opposite to what the trial judge had been led to believe. 

Since my trial it has been learned that another fingerprint analyst had examined the jar and not Inspector Glass. I have never been given access to this man or his fingerprint report. Mr Logan, Head of the PSNI fingerprint bureu has confirmed that fingerprints can be recovered from the sticky side of adhesive tape and that the use of venitian blue was standard practice at the time of my arrest.