Sloppy prosecutors help Bermuda thugs to get away with killing Canadian girl

In a case handled "astonishingly" by the Crown, Bermuda's Chief Justice decided no new charges will be laid in the brutal 1996 rape, torture and stabbing death of Belleville teenager Rebecca Middleton. Middleton's father, David, described by one of the family's lawyers as deeply "disappointed" in yesterday's decision, will continue his determined fight to see justice served. "The appeal will be David Middleton saying, through his lawyers, `the Chief Justice got it wrong'," said John Riihiluoma, one of the lawyers representing the family in Bermuda. They will start filing an appeal that probably won't be heard until November.

Riihiluoma is joined by Cherie Booth, a well-known human-rights lawyer and wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has argued for new prosecution, using a different charge against the suspects in the slaying. The original prosecution and investigation has been widely considered a gross miscarriage of justice against the victim and her family.

Despite substantial evidence against Kirk Mundy and Justis Smith, identified as the men who gave Rebecca a ride home early in the morning on July 3, 1996, murder charges were dismissed against both in 1998. While visiting a friend in Bermuda, Middleton had accepted a lift back to the home from the two men. An hour later, she was found on a remote road with her clothes torn off, numerous stab wounds and near death. She died before an ambulance arrived. Both men were arrested a week later and Mundy admitted he had sex with Middleton but said it was consensual.

Mundy claimed that Smith committed the murder and offered to plead guilty to a lesser charge of being an accessory after the murder in exchange for turning witness against Smith. "Astonishingly, given the circumstances," this offer was accepted by the Crown, wrote Chief Justice Richard Ground in yesterday's decision. After Mundy was hastily charged with the lesser crime and sentenced to five years in jail, forensics reports showed Mundy was at the crime scene and two men had carried out the violent assault and murder. But since he had already been charged and sentenced for a lesser crime, the prosecution's eventual murder charge against Mundy was dismissed.

Then, during Smith's murder trial, because the Crown refused to call Mundy to testify, Smith's lawyers argued the Crown's case was too weak and they were denied the chance to cross-examine their client's primary accuser. They asked for a mistrial and the judge decided in favour. "Anybody looking at the case now, with the evidence, would say `the sex clearly wasn't consensual'," Riihiluoma said. "A jury should have decided whether the sex was consensual."

After an appeal was granted in the Smith case, it was later dismissed by the Privy Council on the grounds of double jeopardy. Smith could not be tried for a crime for which he had already been acquitted. "Everyone was incredulous," Riihiluoma said. "You have to pinch yourself to make sure you are not dreaming."

Smith was later charged and sentenced for stabbing another girl and Mundy was charged and sentenced for robbery. Attempts to have them charged and prosecuted for sexual assault, instead of murder, in the Middleton case were dismissed by yesterday's decision, on the grounds the lesser charges weren't laid originally and cannot now be laid because the original murder charges have been dismissed. Riihiluoma said the Middleton family is "cautiously optimistic" the appeal will be successful.

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