Inquiry The father of murdered Canadian teenager Rebecca Middleton opened his heart yesterday to talk about the devastating loss his family has suffered -- and urged the authorities in Bermuda never to make the same mistakes again.

With a framed school photograph of his beloved 17-year-old daughter next to him on the stand, Dave Middleton told the hushed court room at the inquiry into serious crimes that nothing could bring Rebecca back, but the judicial system needed to be improved.

Composed, clear and without bitterness, the father-of-three said losing Rebecca, his only daughter, had been like losing a limb.

And he said in his most desperate moments, the only thing that got him through was the memory of Rebecca's smile and her vibrancy and love of life.

But he said the travesty of justice that saw neither one of the two people suspected of her death convicted of murder should never have happened.

And he said unless improvements were made now, another family would be made to endure the same torture.

He said: "They say if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Well something needs fixing here.

"We had a situation here where we knew what happened to Becky and we knew who had done it.'' But he said the judicial system had failed his daughter, the family and the people of Bermuda by bungling the investigation and the prosecution.

"At the very least, the system is in need of an overhaul,'' he added.

Rebecca was raped, tortured and stabbed to death in Ferry Reach on July 3, 1996, while on holiday in Bermuda with her friend Jasmine Meens.

Two people, Kirk Mundy and Justis Smith, were suspected of being involved in her death.

However, for reasons yet to be fully explained, Mundy was allowed to plead guilty to accessory after the fact, after claiming he had had consensual sex with Rebecca. Instead, he pointed the finger of responsibility for her death at his friend Mr. Smith.

Mundy received just five years for his alleged part. DNA results later showed he had probably played a major role in the slaying, and experts said two people were likely to be responsible, one to hold her down while the other inflicted the torture wounds. Rebecca had no defence wounds whatsoever.

Mr. Smith was acquitted of Rebecca's murder after Puisne Judge Vincent Meerabux deemed there to be insufficient evidence for the jury to decide a verdict.

The Privy Council later described Mr. Meerabux's decision as "astonishing'', but prosecutors were unable to re-try him under the present law.

Yesterday, Mr. Middleton, who has travelled from Belleville, Ontario, to speak at the hearing, said he believed Mr. Smith would not be free today if the jury had been allowed to make up their own minds.

He said: "My feeling would be that the jury would have found him guilty.

"They (the jury) obviously took this as a very serious matter. My impression would be that if Judge Meerabux had allowed it to go to the jury, he would have been found guilty.'' But he said he was also unhappy with the lesser charge put to Mundy.

He added: "I was assured that this would mean the conviction of Smith, based on his statement.

"I was not happy about the way this had happened. I thought there were two people involved in this murder and they should be charged jointly.

"I don't differentiate between the person who held Becky down and the person who murdered Becky.

"The information I got on Smith was that he was younger and more likely to be a follower. Although, that doesn't matter.

"The feeling was that he probably was not the instigator, but as far as I was concerned, he was as guilty.'' And he said he had never changed his view that capital punishment should never have been abolished in Bermuda or anywhere else.

He added: "Capital punishment was the way to go.'' Mr. Middleton disclosed to the hearing that he was not aware that Mundy was going to be allowed to plead guilty to the lesser charge of accessory after the fact until after he had been sentenced to five years in prison.

Role of Mottley, Tokunbo questioned But he said that was just one in a number of instances where Police and prosecutors had failed to keep the family abreast of what was happening or what to expect as the case proceeded.

He even went so far as to say that he felt the prosecution and defence barristers were working things out together, with the defence counsel hearing before the family knew what was going on.

But Mr. Middleton also raised questions about the role of Director of Public Prosecutions Khamisi Tokunbo, who prosecuted Mundy and was in court during some of Mr. Smith's trial.

Mr. Middleton said he wanted to know why prosecutor Mr. Tokunbo had only asked the judge to pass a three-year jail sentence on Mundy, when the maximum was seven and the judge himself decided that his involvement warranted a five-year term.

And he told the hearing that he had been very upset during Mr. Smith's trial to see Mr. Tokunbo come into the court and talk closely into the ear of the defendant's father in a friendly way.

Mr. Middleton said: "When you are sitting in this court room there are these people coming and going all the time.

"You don't know what their interest is in all this. This one chap came in and I could tell he was a lawyer. He talked to the counsel and defence. He spoke to Mr. Smith senior and was very friendly with him.'' He said they were speaking closely into each other's ears and Mr. Tokunbo even went so far as to "pat him on the shoulder'' a couple of times.

Mr. Middleton added: "A couple of days later I was sat in court and this chap came back in. I asked Rick Meens who it was. That was the first I knew it was Khamisi Tokunbo.

"He had accepted a guilty plea from Mr. Mundy and there he was patting Mr.

Smith.

"From a family point of view, I found that very upsetting. From a victim's point of view it would be better if the lawyers in the court realised that what the family sees them doing is a very important thing. I still find that upsetting.'' He said he thought Mr. Justice Meerabux summed up the prosecution's case in the Smith trial very well and was stunned to hear him rule there was no case to answer. But he also said he had always felt throughout the trial that Mr.

Justice Meerabux had "no presence'' in the court room, saying instead that defence barrister John Perry QC seemed to have control.

And he said when he saw Mr. Smith in court, he could not believe how "pint-sized'' and "weasel-like'' he was.

He said he was totally surprised Rebecca had not been able to fight Mr. Smith off.

Mr. Middleton also told the hearing how himself, one of his sons, Mark, Jasmine and her father Rick Meens had visited former Attorney General Elliott Mottley in the early stages of the investigation to talk about the case and to make him fully aware of the family and friends Becky had left behind.

But he said he never really felt comfortable or welcome in the chambers. He said the feeling he got was that "people don't want to deal with you.'' He added: "Mr. Mottley assured us he would handle this case himself. I remember being in his office.

"We let him know that this was a family and something both needed to be done and it needed to be handled as well as it possibly could be. I am sure he took it to heart. When we left we were very assured that things were going to go well. We were talking to the Attorney General of the country and my understanding was that he had never lost a case in years. We felt very comfortable.'' But he said everything seemed to fall apart. Mr. Mottley did not handle the case himself, instead passing it off to Solicitor General Bill Pearce.

And, for a number of reasons, nobody was made to pay for the death of Rebecca.

Mr. Middleton, a water plant superintendent who is divorced from Rebecca's mother Cindy, battled to re-try Mr. Smith, and when that failed he called for an inquiry into what went wrong.

During the controversy surrounding the case, many things were said by many people.

But yesterday, Mr. Middleton questioned something that Attorney General Dame Lois Browne-Evans had publicly said.

He said he had received a recording of the Attorney General saying: "Why do we need an inquiry? What do we owe the Middleton family?''.

He said he totally disagreed with the comment and presumed it was a personal opinion, but he said an inquiry was needed to find out what went wrong so it would not be repeated.

"Really this is a people issue,'' he said. "It seems like a bunch of technicalities, but it's very much about people.

"It has to do with our family, our friend, our community. It has to do with the country of Canada and very much the country of Bermuda. There is a lot to be considered in this, other than the technicalities.'' He said the inquiry was not for Rebecca, it was to ensure that the same mistakes did not happen again. Mr. Middleton said he was not surprised the commission of inquiry was not being held solely to investigate the handling of his daughter's case because Governor Thorold Masefield had personally told him it would have a wider remit. However, he did criticise the terms of reference given to the commissioners, saying he would have liked it to include specifically Rebecca's case.

"I thought the terms of reference were pretty broad and it was difficult to focus on it,'' he said.

"I found it difficult to see where I would fit into this. I would have liked a bit more focus on Becky's case.'' And he criticised the organisers of the inquiry for failing to allow him to bring his own lawyer from Canada to represent him at the hearing and offer him guidance on procedural matters.

The commissioners had told him only a barrister permitted to work on the Bermuda bar could represent him. However, they said they would pay any costs if he wished to hire a local lawyer.

But he accused the Commission of only confirming that detail last Friday and he said by then it was too late for him to get to Bermuda and properly instruct an attorney in time for yesterday.

Chairman of the Commission Justice Stanley Moore, in a heated outburst, contradicted Mr. Middleton, claiming his lawyer in Canada had been well aware of the situation for weeks.

And he said: "From the earliest outset I'm satisfied that the administrator had made it quite clear to him (Middleton lawyer) at an early stage that Mr.

Middleton was free, at our expense, to have a lawyer permitted to work in Bermuda.'' Mr. Middleton said more attention should be paid to victims of crime, and a Victims Bill of Rights introduced to safeguard their needs.

Among his complaints was the difficulty in receiving information about Rebecca's death before he arrived in Bermuda. He said the local radio station in Canada had called him to ask him about it, but the reporter ended up telling him what had happened.

He also said after the Smith trial he had asked for a transcript of the hearing, only to be told that he could not have a copy on disk, as it was not recorded, and a hard copy would cost him $2,000. However, that said, he praised the people of Bermuda, including then-Tourism Minister David Dodwell, church ministers and well-wishers, who offered him and his family support and thousands of dollars in donations, which resulted in the Rebecca Middleton scholarship at Bermuda College.