Two-way SSL from an AIR iPad app

I have been developing an app that uses a web service created by another party. Currently that service sits on a VPN but they now want to move it to an external server and use two-way SSL for security instead. They have set up the service on the new server and set up the SSL authentication. We have tested over https but without the need for a client certificate and it all works fine. But now they have activated the need for the client cert and I am unable to work out how to connect.

I have been provided with a client certificate but it is self-signed where the one on the server is signed by Symantic - this seems odd to me but I have been assured that the certificates are correct.

I have installed the certificate on my PC, onto Flash builder using the Java keytool to install to certca and I have installed onto the iPad - in none of these places am I able to access the service.asmx file from a browser (I was able to before the client requirement was activated), is that a sign that something is wrong? Or just normal?

So now I am trying to get the app to connect. I have tried just connecting normally (from all locations) but it fails. I have also tried using the SecureSocket class in my code to set up a connection but it always fails with an IO Error (I am using AIR 21 so should be fine on iOS - isSupported returns true).

I have been told that C# has a method for finding a certificate from the local store and adding it to an HTTPrequest and that I need to find out how to do the equivalent for AS3/AIR/Flex. Is this possible? I have not been able to find a way.

Any thoughts/input would be hugely appreciated. Thank you.

Jamie