A BUSINESSMAN convicted of burglary on the strength of a single thumb print has launched an appeal to clear his name.

Alan McNamara, aged 42, of Highland Road, Bromley Cross, was jailed for two-and-a-half years in July, 2001, after being found guilty at Manchester Crown Court of a £33,000 robbery at a house in Rochdale.

His thumb print was found on a jewellery box at the burgled property.

But in a case which puts the spotlight on the reliability of fingerprint evidence, his lawyers now argue he was the victim of a miscarriage of justice.

Mr McNamara claims he did not commit the burglary and his fight to overturn his conviction has already been featured on the BBC's Panorama programme.

It presented new evidence to support his claims that he was never in the house and that the fingerprint evidence was flawed.

He has already been released from his sentence after serving 30 months, but his legal team - led by celebrated barrister Michael Mansfield - is now battling to remove the black mark from his reputation.

The QC yesterday told the Court of Appeal in London it was now accepted that the thumb print which led to Mr McNamara's conviction had come from the burgled home - but he said it could not have come, as the prosecution claimed, from the surface of a wooden jewellery box.

Mr McNamara runs a successful business selling household goods. He made a profit of £100,000 in the year before his convicition.

Mr Mansfield argued he could very easily have innocently handled a domestic item later found in the house during the course of his trade.

The QC said the Crown's failure to prove the "integrity and continuity" of the crucial thumb print "lift" meant Mr McNamara's conviction had to be declared "unsafe". He told the judges the "lift", taken by a Manchester Police scene of crime officer, was inconsistent with the findings of other experts who had since examined the jewellery box in detail.

Defence expert Alan Bayle, and American fingerprints authority Pat Wertheim, had said the print was "indicative" of having been taken from a curved, rather than a flat, surface, like the jewellery box. Since the trial, further analysis had also cast doubt on prosecution claims that the absence of wood grain on the critical print could be explained by cleaning products used on the jewellery box.

During the appeal, Lord Justice Latham, Mr Justice Roderick Evans and Mr Justice Fulford, will hear fresh expert evidence from experts in the fingerprinting field.

Terence Birchall, the scene of crime officer who took the print, was expected to testify today.

Proceeding