The Commissioner of Police when Rebecca Middleton was murdered has described her death as the worst miscarriage of justice of his 40-year career.

But Colin Coxall said he remained confident the ten-year-old case could still be cracked ? if the Middleton file was re-opened and investigated again by overseas experts.

Speaking in detail publicly for the first time about the Canadian teenager?s death, Mr. Coxall said he found it ?outrageous? that nobody has been convicted for the savage killing.

Bermuda should be ?ashamed? of the way its judicial system handled the case, he stated.

Responding to critics who say the case was botched from the start, he maintained that officers did the best job they could given resources available on the Island in 1996.

Ground-breaking advances in forensic techniques meant the investigation could still be ?rescued?, he believes. And he said he was confident there was ?masses? of DNA in the case that could be probed by experts as part of a new review by senior Police from Britain or America.

Mr. Coxall told : ?I believe it?s still not too late. Cases of rape and serious sex assault are now regularly being solved in the UK many years later as a result of developments in DNA testing.

?I believe that a sufficiently skilled investigation team of international standing ? either from the FBI in the US or from British Police service ? could re-investigate that case in its entirety and even now bring it to a successful conclusion.?

Mr Coxall arrived in Bermuda in 1995, aged 55, charged with the task of overhauling the Bermuda Police Service amid spiralling crime.

Never accepted in some circles because he was non-Bermudian and occupying one of the Island?s most important posts, he did not complete his three-year tenure.

Despite almost slashing crime in half and serving time on dealers before training his sights on major suppliers, he quit in 1997 ? five months before his contract was up ? amid a blaze of controversy triggered by the major drugs clampdown, Operation Cleansweep. Already unpopular with the PLP, he ruffled feathers with the ruling UBP when a Cabinet Minister?s name emerged during Cleansweep investigations, although no action was taken through lack of evidence.

Criticised by some for not getting on with senior officers and for failing to promote enough black officers, he has never returned to the Island.

When contacted by for his comments on the Middleton case a decade after a murder that stunned the Island, the former Commissioner stressed he did not want to get involved in Bermuda affairs.

In an interview marking the tenth anniversary of Rebecca?s death, however, the UK-based former top cop briefly touched on some issues surrounding the saga ? and spoke of his ?terrible sadness? for the Middleton family.

?Within a few days of arriving in Bermuda, Rebecca was forcibly kidnapped, terribly sexually assaulted ? her underwear was cut from her body ? violently raped and sodomised and clearly tortured before being stabbed to death,? said Mr. Coxall. ?She was stabbed nearly 40 times.

?I find it outrageous that nobody has been held to account for those most serious offences.?

Asked about the severity of the murder, one source told : ?On a scale of one to ten this is about as bad as you can get.?

Mr. Coxall, meanwhile, said the chain of events ? spanning from Rebecca?s death to the murder case collapsing against one suspect, after another got five years for an accessory role ? was the biggest injustice he had witnessed in a policing career covering four decades.

?I can?t recall a worse miscarriage of justice in my 40-year policing career, most of which was spent as a chief officer in London and elsewhere in the UK.

?I truly believe, and I?m saddened to come to the conclusion, that this child and her parents have been poorly served by Bermuda?s Government, judicial and prosecution systems and Police service.

?They have all failed this family and this child.?

Mr. Coxall, said he was disappointed to hear that it appeared that Police had not reviewed the case on a regular basis ? and claimed this amounted to ?neglect?.

?In line with British and international best practice, cases of this seriousness that are outstanding are normally re-investigated on a regular basis, in line with developments in DNA testing and other improvements in forensic science.

?I?m disappointed to hear from that this appeared not to have taken place.

?I believe this is a neglect.?

And he added: ?The way the entire judicial system of Bermuda dealt with the murder of that poor child was a travesty and Bermuda should be ashamed?.

Asked if he would have done anything differently, knowing what happened in the weeks after Rebecca?s death when one suspect was charged with being an accessory before the murder case against another defendant spectacularly collapsed, he replied: ?Definitely. I would have grabbed hold of the case from the start.

?That?s with hindsight. I could never have guessed it went that way.

?Truly, I think we did the best we could. We threw all our resources at it and the highest-ranking officers. Then it went wrong after the arrest.?

At least 20 officers were assigned to the case, led by Senior Investigating Officer Vic Richmond. Head of Operations Harold Moniz oversaw resources, while Michael Mylod handled family liaisons.

Asked about the quality of the original Police investigation, Mr. Coxall stated: ?I believe that officers did their best in line with the level of experience and training that existed at that time.

?They did their best.?

The former Commissioner, whose appointment led to the then PLP Opposition launching a petition in a bid to block him getting the job, boasted an impressive CV on arrival in Bermuda.

The law graduate had been Acting Commissioner of City of London Police. Before then senior roles included Deputy Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police, former head of Scotland Yard drugs squad and advising the Home Secretary on drugs policy.

When he touched down in Bermuda, Mr. Coxall set about root and branch reform of what sources said was a service in an ?appalling state, from top to bottom?.

Manpower, training, forensics, intelligence gathering, promotions, complaint handling and press relations, the condition of buildings, and reservist training all came under the spotlight as crime and drug-related offences continued to rise.

He was appointed after a recommendation by Her Majesty?s Inspector of Dependent Territories Police Forces Lionel Grundy in 1994.

That report was never made public, but it is understood it contained damning criticism of the way the force was run.

Mr. Coxall?s urgent review of the force saw 120 changes highlighted. And the former Commissioner gave himself three years to carry them out.

One source compared the task of reforming and running the 500-man force at the same time as like operating a sea tanker ?while trying to mend the engine at same time.?

The Middleton murder, on July 3, 1996, happened slap bang in the middle of this period of upheaval.

Meanwhile, Mr. Coxall said that he hoped him speaking out on some aspects of the murder would help kick-start a debate about the case ? and lead to new serious sexual assault charges being laid.

?I hope this will stimulate a discussion to have this case thoroughly re-examined using the very best investigative skills off the Island,? added the ex-Commissioner, now an expert on terrorism in the UK and working for a firm helping London bolster security ahead of the forthcoming Olympics.

?The most modern methods of science are not there on the Island. Using them, I truly believe it (the Middleton investigation) could be rescued and new charges brought forward.?

He pointed to several long-standing rape cases in the UK ? just as old as the Middleton case ? that had been solved with minute DNA fragments thanks to technological advances.

And he said there should be ?masses of DNA? from the case still in cold storage at Police HQ that could be sent overseas for review.

Now a tiny flake of skin can trace a killer, and sources say Rebecca?s body would have been ?littered? with the DNA of her killers.

Sources contacted for the Middleton anniversary said the case started going downhill after the two suspects Justis Smith and Kirk Mundy were arrested. An accessory plea was accepted from Mundy, who claimed he had sex with Rebecca but later found Smith killing her, and the indictment was split.

They said this broke the ?golden rule? of charging two defendants accused of a violent offence together ? so they can blame each other in front of the jury. ?This was the fatal and fundamental error,? said one source.understands Mr. Coxall was not consulted on the Attorney General?s decision to accept what sources said was a ?totally flawed? consensual sex alibi from the suspect later convicted of the accessory charge. This came at a stage when the investigation was far from complete, sources indicated, with results on DNA removed from Ferry Reach crime scene still to be confirmedDNA evidence later showed only Mundy?s semen inside the victim?s body.

After finding out about the accessory charge, sources said Mr. Coxall and some senior officers held a series of heated meetings with the Attorney General Elliott Mottley where the Police team strenuously argued that, based on the evidence available, both suspects should be charged with murder. A forensic expert told one of the meetings that she was prepared to go on oath and say the murder was almost certainly a double-hander.understands that the former Commissioner left Bermuda at the end of 1997 having been told by the AG that both men would be charged with murder and tried together.

Both suspects were eventually charged with Rebecca?s murder, although in March, 1998 a higher court blocked attempts to prosecute Mundy and said the decision to charge him with accessory was too hasty.

The case against Smith was thrown out by a judge at his trial in November, 1998.

Meanwhile, Mr. Coxall said that his stance on the evidence being re-tested was backed by a recent review of the case by DPP director Vinette Graham Allen.

He said her report, outlining why fresh charges would not be filed, stated that the two suspects could have been prosecuted for murder in 1996 on the state of the evidence as it stood then.

She added that no new evidence had emerged, and Mr. Coxall said that this was a effectively an admission that if new evidence came forward then fresh charges may have followed.