THE reliability of fingerprint evidence has been questioned by a leading North-East expert.

Geoffrey Sheppard, who works from the National Training Centre for Scientific Support, in Durham City, said the fingerprint system was not infallible.

The national head of police fingerprint training said mistakes were made in the process "because we are all human beings".

He feared that prints were not being thoroughly and independently checked before being sent to court.

Home Office guidelines state that fingerprint evidence must be based on the assessments of at least three people, two of them fingerprint experts.

Mr Sheppard said: "I think corners have been cut for many reasons - time, peer pressure, all sorts of things.

"That is where mistakes have been made. It's like most things. Where rules are imposed, some people have the attitude that they are there to be bent. I think that's what is happening.

"I don't think rules are being broken, but I think they are being bent almost to the point of breaking."

Detective Constable Shirley McKie, 37, was charged with perjury after experts claimed a thumbprint found at the scene of a murder in Kilmarnock, Scotland, in 1997, belonged to her. She denied being there.

Four senior fingerprint experts from the Scottish Criminal Records Office, who gave evidence that her thumbprint was found at the scene, are suspended pending the outcome of an investigation into the case.

In May, a sacked County Durham fingerprint expert won her job back after claiming her colleagues routinely mishandled police evidence.

Gail Hunter, of Leadgate, near Consett, was dismissed from her job as a team leader at the fingerprint bureau in Durham City after being accused of falsifying records.

But she won her job back, and received an undisclosed sum from the police, after a Police Authority Civilian Appeals Committee heard her appeal that the practices for which she was sacked were widespread