It became the thorn in the side of the Scottish establishment. A single thumbprint labelled MarkY7 which has, for the past 10 years, rarely been out of the media spotlight.

Shirley McKie, from Troon, Ayrshire, was accused of leaving the print at the Kilmarnock home of murder victim Marion Ross when she was serving as a police officer 10 years ago. But she challenged the findings of the fingerprint experts working for the Scottish Criminal Record Office (SCRO) and was later cleared of perjury.

In February last year she received a £750,000 out-of-court settlement from the Scottish Executive.

The tenacity of Iain McKie, her father and former police officer, and other supporters, to clear her name has meant the family's views have become well known.

However, for the past 10 years the fingerprint experts involved have been forced to keep quiet.

Last month five of the six experts were told to sign gagging orders in return for redundancy payments. But now, for the first time, Fiona McBride can tell her side of the story.

"After 10 years I can finally tell the truth," she said. "We have been told to keep silent for all these years. It feels like such a relief to be able to talk openly."

Ms McBride was escorted from her office on Tuesday afternoon after more than 22 years as a fingerprint expert. She had been told in no uncertain terms to take a job which had nothing to do with fingerprints, or to walk away.

Having turned down a severance offer of £70,000 last month she feels sorely disappointed.

Last September Unison, who were acting on behalf of the experts, revealed that David Mulhern, acting head and now chief executive of the new Scottish Police Services Authority (SPSA) which oversees the fingerprint service, had made an offer of retirement, redundancy or redeployment.

The union said this amounted to harassment. Ms McBride says Mr Mulhern denied the union claims. As a result she filed an official complaint against him - a factor she believes may have played a part in her subsequent dismissal.

The subsequent report of the Justice 1 Committee found no wrongdoing nor malice on the part of the experts.

The Justice 1 inquiry found "fundamental weaknesses" in the service which had to be addressed. The management of the former SCRO, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, former Lord Advocate Lord Boyd and by implication successive justice ministers were all criticised.

What the report failed to resolve was what really happened. Ms McKie and a team of experts continued to claim the print was not hers, while experts at SCRO maintained they were telling the truth.

The fact that so many experts came to different conclusions about the print, undermined the science of the process itself. Ms McBride says the answer lies in the fact the SCRO experts were the only ones given access to the original print - a claim bound to be refuted by others.

"Strathclyde joint police board backed us and said we would be transferring across to the new SPSA, but apparently Mr Mulhern had already stated that his job was to remove six members of staff," she said.

"When he met with us he told us it did not matter whether we could prove that Shirley McKie had entered the house or not, and he said the conclusions of the Justice 1 Committee report would make no difference. He had clearly already made up his mind.

"Because he had not been able to bully me out of the job he terminated my contract."

Initially, Ms McBride says she felt pity for Ms McKie.

"I knew it was her print but I felt sorry for her for a long time because I thought perhaps some of the other officers were ganging up on her because she was a woman," she said.

"In every murder trial we are sent a list of officers' names and prints in order to eliminate them from the other prints found at the scene of the crime. It makes perfect sense and it happens all the time.

"For us at the time there was nothing unusual in identifying the print to be hers. It was later, when I saw her on Frontline Scotland saying that we should all be jailed, that I started feeling quite angry.

"I then worked on the case for Scottish ministers right up until the settlement was made. Scottish Executive solicitors were still telling me to confirm my accurate identification of the print when Jack McConnell stood up in public and said it had been an honest mistake'.

"We all came under so much pressure to acquiesce, but the more they piled on the pressure the more determined I felt to stand by the truth."

Following the perjury trial, Ms McBride and the five other experts were suspended for 18 months pending a criminal investigation. They were cleared of any wrongdoing and returned to work on the defence of Scottish ministers against the civil action of Ms McKie.

"The whole thing was about my return to court but the irony is that I gave evidence after the McKie trial and now that I have been exonerated by the Justice 1 report they say I cannot give evidence," she said. "I was even cited twice when I was suspended."

Les Brown, a former police detective, has been working with Ms McBride and the other experts to try to clear their names. He said: "To me this would appear to be unfair dismissal. I have been investigating this for the past year this is disgraceful. She has not done anything wrong.

"There was a peer review carried out on the work of SCRO both the year before and the year after the case of Marion Ross. It found no problems.

"Had this been a mistaken identification, prisoners across Scotland would be queuing up for retrials and they are not. There are several police officers still serving who know exactly what happened. They should search their conscience. This is not fair, it is not justice."