The Crown Office have invited "interpretation" on the circumstances of the “missing” Shirley Mckie indictment papers, and continue to refuse to confirm or deny that they may have been actively destroyed.

In an extraordinary admission, the Crown Office have now modified their original position and claimed that the fact that vital papers relating to the indictment of Shirley Mckie are now missing was “erroneous”.

Despite repeated requests and opportunities to do so, they did not deny the file papers were actively destroyed, and have not claimed the papers were lost through mishandling.

An earlier statement issued by the Crown Office stated only that the papers were “missing”. The organisation refused to address a series of requests for further information about their loss.

However, a Crown Office spokeswoman now insists that the earlier statements did in fact address the specific query as to whether the papers were actively destroyed.

“We thought our statement conveyed our position that the loss was erroneous, but for the avoidance of doubt that is our position,” she said.

The spokeswoman added that the public could then “make their own analysis/interpretation” of their persistent refusal to elaborate further.

“Erroneous”, derives from the latin, meaning wrong, mistaken or to stray from what is right, according to Chambers.