The man heading the Police at the time of Becky Middleton's murder has urged current officers never to let the unsolved case go cold.

Colin Coxall feels so strongly about the miscarriage of justice suffered by the teenager's family that he gave evidence to a judicial review last year.

The court action aimed to get the case against two suspects re-opened by the Department of Public Prosecutions, but it failed. Written testimony from Mr. Coxall, urging Police to keep investigating with help from overseas experts, was considered by the judge but never made public.

Today, his evidence can be reported for the first time as a result of the Middleton family's legal team agreeing to share the case file with this newspaper.

Mr. Coxall has also renewed his plea for the case, which he describes as "a moral and spiritual challenge to all of Bermuda", to be kept under continuous review. "It is by far the worst miscarriage of justice of my whole 40-year career. It is a case that cries out for justice.

"Those who contemplate the Rebecca Middleton murder need to remember that this child was abducted, her clothing was cut from her, she was raped, sodomized and seriously sexually assaulted, she was tortured, stabbed nearly 40 times and then brutally thrown into the road and left to die," he said.

"There is overwhelming forensic evidence that at least two men carried out this utterly barbaric murder and nobody has been held to account. That is a vast miscarriage of justice. The entire Bermuda criminal justice system has failed that child Rebecca and her family and continues to fail them."

Becky's father Dave Middleton hired top British human rights lawyer Cherie Booth QC to conduct the judicial review. She asked Chief Justice Richard Ground to consider re-opening the case against suspects Kirk Mundy and Justis Smith.

Becky, a tourist from Belleville, Ontario, accepted a lift on a bike from strangers after a night out in St. George's in July 1996. Mundy, a Jamaican then aged 21, and Smith, a Bermudian then aged 19, were arrested days after she was found dying in the road at Ferry Reach.

Smith was charged with premeditated murder but — according to Mr. Coxall's testimony to the judicial review — the decision was made by the Attorney General's chambers to accept a plea from Mundy to a lesser charge of being an accessory to the murder.

"I was not made aware of that decision and disagreed with the decision as in my opinion the investigation was far from complete. The Bermuda Police were still awaiting the DNA results from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Laboratory in Canada amongst other outstanding matters," he told the court.

Mundy was jailed for five years for the accessory charge. When new evidence came in allegedly linking him to the killing, the Privy Council — Bermuda's highest court of appeal — rejected a bid by prosecutors to have him face a fresh charge of murder.

Mr. Coxall told the judicial review: "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.

"The evidence clearly showed that she had been murdered by more than one person. The lack of defence wounds during a most savage attack involving over 30 stab wounds clearly showed that somebody had held her to prevent her from struggling."

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 that a re-trial could not be ordered because Bermuda has no right of appeal by the prosecution in such circumstances.

Ms Booth, the wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, argued during the judicial review that although Bermuda's laws also ban someone from being tried twice for murder, fresh charges of serious sexual assault, torture or kidnap could be considered against Mundy and Smith.

In his testimony, Mr. Coxall stated: "In my experience, it is proper practice to continue to keep unresolved cases such as Rebecca Middleton's murder under regular review. It is standard practice in the UK and in other advanced countries to review unresolved murder cases on a regular basis.

"In the UK, all such cases are reviewed every two to three years and potential forensic evidence is re-examined using the most advanced DNA and forensic examination techniques available at the time of the review. Many unresolved murder cases have been successfully resolved following this review process."

Mr. Coxall, who served as Commissioner from 1995 to 1997, believes such analysis "could well result in findings that will assist in the prosecution of those who committed many serious crimes in the Middleton case".

However, he told the Chief Justice he was informed by a senior officer responsible for such cases in the UK that "the most common reason for jurisdiction failure to conduct regular reviews of unresolved cases is the fear that the review process will show that errors were made in the initial investigation and prosecution.

"I believe from my experience that this likely to be the factor that has prevented Bermuda from following best practice and allowing an external review of the Middleton case."

The Chief Justice rejected the bid to get the case re-opened. He cited Bermuda's double-jeopardy rule which prevents a defendant being tried twice for the same crime, not a lack of evidence. Double jeopardy has been scrapped in England and Wales, where fresh trials can now be ordered if fresh and compelling evidence emerges.

Mr. Coxall told The Royal Gazette he believes the Chief Justice "was pushing for someone really to appeal him to a higher court". He believes taking "a more powerful" Middleton case to the European Court of Human Rights, citing fresh evidence, could well prove successful.

This newspaper reported last month how Mr. Middleton cannot continue to fund the battle for fresh charges against the suspects. He had originally planned to appeal the Chief Justice's ruling in Bermuda then potentially go on to the Privy Council and European Court.

However, Mr. Middleton said with a legal bill already amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars, it would cost at least $300,000 to go to the Court of Appeal — a figure that is "out of reach" despite fundraising in Bermuda, Canada and around the world.

Mr. Coxall said the issue of spiralling legal fees would not have to put a stop to the campaign for justice. He pointed to a notorious unsolved murder case in Britain — that of black 18-year-old Stephen Lawrence who was stabbed to death by a gang of white youths in a race-hate killing in 1993.

Police are conducting fresh forensic tests on the evidence, with lawyers aiding the Lawrence family by donating their skills for free. Mr. Coxall suggested the Bermuda Bar Association could help the Middleton family in a similar way.

Middleton family supporter Carol Shuman, who is writing a book about the case, backed Mr. Coxall's views but expressed doubt that they would be heeded.

"Hoping for action at this point would be simplistic for me because I would be ignoring all the evidence of the complacency in Bermuda regarding Rebecca's murder. The slammed doors still threaten to break my ear drums," she said.

Kelvin Hastings-Smith from Appleby, the Bermuda law firm which hired Ms Booth to conduct the judicial review, said: "The team at Appleby really think so much of this case. They've done everything they can to point it in the right direction and we still remain very concerned at the miscarriage of justice."

The Royal Gazette asked the Bermuda Police Service to state whether the Middleton case is still considered open, whether the evidence is kept under regular review, and whether it has ever invited an external review or plans to do so.

A spokesperson declined to answer.

Mr. Middleton could not be reached for comment.