recommended that fingerprint evidence should from now on be regarded as ‘opinion evidence’ not fact, and thus should be treated by courts ‘on its merits’. But this message has not trickled down to all fingerprint officers, says Catherine Tweedy: ‘They are not being trained to think that an opinion is an opinion. Once you are trained to see things as facts it is extremely difficult to be pulled back to understand that there are shades of grey. You can’t be 100 per cent certain in a lot of cases because you only get a fraction of a fingerprint.’
