Department of Public Prosecutions Director Vinette Graham-Allen will begin her review of the case of murdered Canadian teen Rebecca Middleton within days to decide if new charges are warranted.

It was reported by the Canadian press last night that she will decide by the end of March whether to reopen a case that critics and family members have long said was botched from the beginning.

"The family has asked me to look at the file. I will give a legal opinion as to whether . . .that request (for further charges) can be granted," Mrs. Graham-Allen was reported to have said.

Seventeen-year-old Rebecca was on holiday in Bermuda in July 1996 when she and a friend accepted motorcycle rides home one evening from three men after waiting in vain for a taxi.

She was found hours later, barely alive, bruised and almost naked in the middle of a dark road. She'd been raped, sodomized and stabbed and cut 35 times and was dead by the time paramedics arrived.

David Middleton, Rebecca's father, told the Canadian press he was pleased to hear that the DPP Director had finally acceded to the family's request.

"This is what we've been looking for for some time," he said from the family's home in Belleville, Ontario.

Two men were arrested over Rebecca's killing within a week. One of them, Kirk Mundy, then 21, claimed to have had consensual sex with her and blamed co-accused Justis Smith, then 17, for the killing.

Before Police had completed forensic tests, prosecutors accepted Mundy's guilty plea to a charge of accessory after the fact. He was sentenced to five years behind bars.

Smith was tried in 1998 for premeditated murder, but halfway through the trial, Supreme Court Judge Vincent Meerabux ordered jurors to acquit him, saying there was no forensic evidence such as blood or semen tying Smith to the scene. On appeal, the Privy Council in Britain expressed astonishment at the outcome of the trial, said there was strong circumstantial evidence to implicate both men in the killing, but ruled against retrying the pair on murder charges.

Bermuda-based Rick Meens, a friend of the Middleton family, said Mrs. Graham-Allen's review was long overdue.

Carol Shuman, a Canadian-born American who has taken up the Middleton cause in Bermuda, said if Mrs. Graham-Allen's review is unsatisfactory, supporters might launch a private prosecution or take the case to the European human rights commission.

Mundy remains in jail. He was on bail for armed robbery at the time of Rebecca Middleton's death, and was sentenced to 16 years in prison. Smith is free after he was sentenced to 12 months behind bars for stabbing another girl.