Rick Meens life changed forever ten years ago when his young houseguest was abducted and brutally murdered on a lonely beach far from home.

While he feels partly responsible for what happened to Becky Middleton and thinks about it every day, no one can deny he had done the best he could to keep his daughter Jasmine and her friend Becky out of trouble during her six-week stay.

A non-drinker Mr. Means ?read the riot act? when the pair got off the plane about staying away from alcohol, staying out of dangerous areas and not going on bikes or cars with strangers.

So when Becky and Jasmine said they had plans to meet some new male friends in a bar on that fateful night the ever-cautious Mr. Meens insisted on meeting them. ?I wanted to approve of them, know who they were and what the programme was for that night.?

The plan involved listening to music at one of the boys? houses before heading to Heritage night in St. George?s and then being picked up by Mr. Meens at one a.m.

He sat up waiting for that call at his home in Town Hill Road, Smith?s. It never came. ?I pretty much knew where they were but what I didn?t know was what they were doing ? drinking.

?Had both of them made it home okay, I can tell you without question it would have meant they would have been grounded for the rest of the vacation. It?s not something I tolerate.

?Anyone who was 17 ? we have all done something stupid. But Becky paid a pretty nasty price.?

After indulging in the White Horse the pair tried to sneak home by getting a taxi. After waiting for more than an hour for a cab that never came, Jasmine got a lift home from a passing biker while Becky got on another bike with two men.

Jasmine was soon home and waited at the bottom of her road for nearly an hour hoping her friend would join her on the other bike.

Finally she gave in and told her father there was a problem. The pair set off and combed St. George?s in her car.

Concerned, Mr. Meens still felt he would find her talking to someone somewhere. As time went on he worried something worse had happened. ?We stopped everywhere.?

At around 3 a.m. they were close to Coney Island when they pulled over to let an ambulance pass. ?I know now that was the ambulance going to Becky.?

But at that moment he had no inkling of the worst. ?It gave me a false sense of security. I thought I had never heard of tourists getting murdered or little girls getting murdered. Those things didn?t happen.?

As time dragged on an increasingly concerned Mr. Meens began to fear she might have been raped.

After fruitlessly searching for nearly two hours he gave up, went home and called the Police who had no news of Becky.

They told him they couldn?t file a missing person?s complaint until 24 hours had passed.

At six a.m. he roused his daughter and 16-year-old son Jordan and hit the road after again asking Police about any report of a young 17-year-old blonde girl being found.

Again given the brush off by Police the pair headed east with the radio on. Then the awful news came through.

?I heard the broadcast that a young blonde-haired female had been found at Ferry Reach. We went straight there.

?Jasmine was crying uncontrollably, Jordan was weeping also. I was horrified.?

Logic said the girl had to be Becky, emotion kept them hoping it was some mistake, it was someone else.

?But two and two is four. You hope for the best but the way that broadcast came across the radio I don?t think there was much of a doubt.?

At Ferry Reach they were diverted by Police at a road block and Mr. Meens headed towards the hive of activity at the end of the road.

After asking if it was Becky, Police asked him to identify the body. ?I did. I tried to hug her and I remember being pulled back by the Police officers because I wasn?t allowed to touch her because of the forensic evidence.?

The site of the battered dead girl hit a nerve.

?I was very angry. I turned around and tried to tip over another van. I punched a few things. I know I went into shock at that point. I didn?t believe what I was seeing. ?It wasn?t the little girl I had dropped off the night before.?

Only able to see her face as she lay lifeless in the van Mr. Meens said: ?She was in pretty rough shape. She had been beat up.

?I never want to be put in that position again. That?s the reason why I have never had any house guests.?

After being comforted by Police officers he headed back to his car to break the news.

But no explanation were needed as his children saw the look on his face as he approached. ?They knew.?

After trying to console his distraught children he drove to St. George?s Police station, escorted by Police.

?I think I must have puked ten times before I got to the end of Ferry Reach. I couldn?t hold anything in my stomach.?

Traumatised by what he had seen his mind was racing with countless thoughts. ?Why? Who did it? How the hell am I going to tell these parents what happened to their child??

After hours at the Police station he got through to Cindy?s fianc?, Wayne Bennett, to break the news. Eventually Mr. Meens went home and took calls from family and friends and then spent a sleepless night mulling the traumatic events.

?I was angry ? who could have done this? I just hoped they would get caught.

?I remember talking to Dave and Cindy and saying if it?s any reassurance, hanging is still on the books because, although I didn?t know the specifics, the way the talk was in the Police station it was a pretty horrific murder. ?From what I saw she had obviously been brutalised.?

Understandably some of his recollections are a little hazy from that day.

?It was ten years ago and it was a pretty traumatic day. There are certain things you don?t remember and certain things you try to forget.?

Meeting the parents and launching a public appeal for information followed the next day.

?I was horrified of having to face two parents who had just lost their child in a brutal murder and I was the one who was their guardian at the time.

?Imagine yourself being in that situation. It?s a situation I would never wish on everybody. But my concern was with them. You do as much as you humanely can to console them.?

Lurid tales, often false, circulated the island about how Becky?s body had been butchered. ?It made it worse. I had no idea.?

After a week two suspects were hauled in ? based on a tip off from Dean Lottimore ? who had driven Jasmine safely home that night.

?Unless he had come forward what would we know today??

Asked about the delay in naming the suspects Mr. Meens said Mr. Lottimore must have been frightened for his life. ?If they killed her, then his life doesn?t mean much to them.?

For the last decade Mr. Meens has been an ardent campaigner for justice for Becky. He became the eyes and ears for the Middletons and kept a close eye on the suspects after they were arrested. ?Wherever they went, I went. If they went for a leak, I went for a leak.?

But Police gave him very little to report back to Canada. ?It gave me a false sense of security. You had hoped they were doing what they were supposed to be doing.?

However he soon saw the ham-fisted way Police were going about the investigation as his traumatised daughter was forced to stand in front of a lineup, just four feet away from her, and pick out the two men she thought had been on the bike which had whisked Becky away to her death.

Then he got a disturbing phone call from Superintendent Vic Richmond telling him to go to court in 20 minutes where Kirk Mundy would be charged with accessory after the fact.

Even at that stage Mr. Meens said he knew they had no forensic evidence.

He was told Mundy would testify against Smith. ?What we know now is they cut that deal shortly after they caught him.

?They got conned by a good conman. He conned his way out of a murder charge.?

He still can?t understand why Attorney General Elliott Mottley had broken a constant pledge to ?prosecute them together? and get the pair to incriminate each other in court and both go down. Instead the Crown opted to split the charge. Ten years later he is still waiting for an explanation from Mr. Mottley and his lieutenant Khamisi Tokunbo.

While Bermuda may have given up on the case, Mr. Meens never has.

He would never give up on Becky, who he had known since she was a baby when he was friends with Dave and Cindy back home in Belleville, Ontario. Recalling her, he and described her as ?wonderful cheerful young girl, feisty but sweet and humble?.

But he knows there are plenty of people in Bermuda who wish he would shut up and go away.

No chance says Mr. Meens. ?We are not giving up. For all those people saying ?let it go, move on with your life? ? take a look at your child. Look your child in the eyes and imagine it being brutally murdered. I hope to God it doesn?t happen to you one day and then someone walk up to you and say ?Get over it. Move on with your life?.

?It?s a pretty tough situation. I have been told that by quite a few people. Why don?t you just move on? I might be 70 when I move on but I will be satisfied if the killers are behind bars.?