A former Police Commissioner has urged detectives to revisit the Rebecca Middleton murder case now they have a specialist cold case team and national DNA database.

Colin Coxall, who headed the Police when the 17-year-old tourist was killed in 1996, feels the case should have been continuously reviewed rather than "shamefully abandoned" after the botched prosecution of two suspects.

He said: "What they are now starting in Bermuda is way behind the time. The whole idea of reviewing unsolved murders and unsolved rapes has now been in existence for a long time.

"Certainly murders have been revisited for the last ten years now (in the UK). The forensic science, particularly in relation to DNA, has made some huge strides. It's possible to review a case that was not capable of resolution five or ten years ago. It's possible to review all the exhibits and come up with fresh evidence to charge."

As The Royal Gazette has previously reported, Monday marked the launch of a similar cold case review team within the Bermuda Police Service, which will take a fresh look at unsolved cases with the help of advanced forensic techniques and a new national DNA database.

However, the Police will not be using this new team to review the Middleton case because the prime suspects have already been through the judicial process. They say the reason is that Bermuda, unlike England, has a "double jeopardy" rule in place preventing someone being tried twice for the same crime.

Mr. Coxall said this is not a good enough reason to waste new resources that could be used to finally crack the case which he believes has not been re-investigated or reviewed since he left Bermuda.

He cited as an example a recent case from the Thames Valley Police area of his home country of England. A man has recently appeared in court there charged with the murder of mother-of-two Vikki Thompson 14 years ago. Ms Thompson was attacked while she was out walking her dog. She was hit over the head with a rock, dragged across a field and dumped near a railway line, where she was attacked again. Mark Weston, a local gardener and maintenance man who was 20 at the time, was charged with murder but acquitted the following year after a trial.

The family of the victim have long campaigned for a retrial and last month Mr. Weston, now 34, was arrested by Thames Valley Police's major crime review team, which concentrates on unsolved cases. Because England and Wales abolished the double jeopardy rule in 2005, someone such as Mr. Weston can now be tried for a second time if fresh and compelling new evidence comes to light. He's now awaiting retrial.

Mr. Coxall, who used to be Deputy Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police, said the startling parallels between the Vikki Thompson and Rebecca Middleton cases demonstrate why local detectives should never stop reviewing the Middleton files regardless of the issue of double jeopardy.

Rebecca was found dying at a remote spot in Ferry Reach, St. George's on July 3, 1996, having been raped and stabbed while on vacation from her home in Canada. The fact that no-one has been brought to justice for the slaying sparked negative publicity about Bermuda's judicial system both at home and abroad.

Kirk Mundy — a Jamaican then aged 21 — and Justis Smith — a Bermudian then aged 19 — were arrested days later. Mundy was allowed to plead guilty to a lesser charge of accessory after the fact before forensic tests were complete, and was jailed for five years. When new evidence later came in allegedly linking him to the killing, the Privy Council rejected a bid by prosecutors to have him face a fresh charge of murder.

Meanwhile, the murder case against Smith was thrown out before a jury had chance to consider it by Judge Vincent Meerabux, who said there was no case to answer.

The Privy Council later criticised him for this "surprising" and "perhaps astonishing" decision, saying there was strong circumstantial evidence.

Nonetheless, it ruled the decision could not be overturned and a re-trial ordered because in Bermuda there is no right of appeal by the prosecution following a finding by a judge of 'no case to answer' on the facts. An appeal can only be heard on a matter of law alone.

Mr. Coxall told a judicial review of the Middleton case two years ago: "Notwithstanding the fact that the Bermuda Police were waiting for further forensic evidence, I believe that at the time Mundy's plea to a lesser offence was accepted, there was sufficient evidence to link both Mundy and Smith to the murder and rape of Rebecca Middleton."

During the judicial review, Middleton family lawyer Cherie Booth QC called for Mundy and Smith to be retried on new charges of rape and torture. But Chief Justice Richard Ground said the case could not be reopened before the courts due to the double jeopardy rule.

However, Mr. Coxall believes this should not prevent Bermuda's recently-launched cold case team and DNA database being used to seek justice, since the law could be changed one day. Law reform campaigners have long called for that to happen.

He also pointed out that UK Police now review all outstanding or unsolved murders going back 50 years on a regular basis as matter of best practice, and all rapes going back to 1980. And he commented: "The way she was treated was utterly barbaric and all the forensic evidence was that there was more than one person who committed that dreadful crime. I feel that case was just cast aside after those initial huge mistakes were made. I think they should have reviewed that case but no investigation has ever taken place after that. Who knows what they would find if they reviewed it and carried out a fresh forensic examination?"

Mr. Coxall, who is now retired but works as a Police consultant in the UK added: "It was the worst miscarriage of justice of my career because she was only a child, a totally innocent child just gratuitously tortured. Every Police force I have ever worked with would have bent over backwards to be able to say 'we've done everything we can, and we're now certain there were only these two, but the inquiry was never completed. They took the plea from Mundy before the forensics were back.

"I would love it if this team picked up this case, started afresh with it and put it through a fresh forensic review of the evidence and came to a conclusion. I guess they would be happy to do it but I think the people in authority might be trying to hide that case. I feel the people in Bermuda were trying to sweep that case under the carpet. They should not be doing that."

Asked about the issue, a Bermuda Police spokesman said: "This matter was subject to a review by a commission of inquiry whose findings were publicly released. The Bermuda Police Service has addressed the recommendations from the inquiry and has adopted a number of best practices including the use of (a) murder manual and policy files.

"The current law does not allow for re-prosecution of persons who were previously dealt with by the courts and the Bermuda Police Service is not in a position to conduct any further investigation unless new evidence relating to new suspects is identified. Should the law be changed, the Bermuda Police Service would work within the provisions of the law to address any evidence that is available."

However, Mr. Coxall responded: "To claim that it is not possible to conduct further investigations unless new evidence emerges is simply avoiding the fact that no new evidence will ever emerge unless those with responsibility undertake the appropriate inquiries using competent skills.

"The Bermuda Police Service have the sole responsibility to investigate unsolved murders and should simply get on with it and, using the most modern forensic and DNA technology, see where the evidence takes them. That is what Police officers are paid for."