LONDON (Canadian Press) -- A Bermuda judge has been rapped over his handling of the initial Rebecca Middleton murder trial.

Judge Vincent Meerabux was criticised by Senior Privy Council member Lord Steyn.

His comments came as lawyers sought to retry Justis Smith, the man alleged to have killed the Ontario teenager.

But the "moral victory'' may be all the comfort the family of Rebecca Middleton gets, admitted Peter Eccles, Bermuda's senior Crown counsel, who noted that the Crown could still lose the case on points of law.

Lord Steyn, head of the five-judge panel that will determine whether Bermuda can retry Justis Smith for the murder of the Belleville, Ontario, teenager, said Judge Vincent Meerabux was wrong to throw out the case before it went to the jury and was wrong in describing it as an abuse of power by the Crown.

"The judge should never have discharged him,'' Steyn said of Meerabux's December 1998 decision to dismiss the case against Smith, now 20.

Earlier, Steyn commented that the case "was not within 1,000 miles of abuse''.

But Steyn's comments don't mean that Britain's Privy Council, which serves as Bermuda's highest court, will allow the retrial to go ahead. It will be some weeks before a judgment is rendered.

"They are convinced that there was a miscarriage of justice and the judge should have put the case to the jury,'' said one person who sat through the entire two-day hearing.

"But it's a jurisdictional question.'' "We may get a moral victory but that's not much consolation for the family of Rebecca Middleton,'' agreed Mr. Eccles, who also attended the session.

"That's not much consolation if the state of the Crown's power to appeal does not allow them to do anything about it.'' Still, David Middleton, the dead girl's father, found Steyn's remarks heartening.

"It makes me think that I'm not totally nuts, that I'm not the only guy in the world who thinks this way,'' said Middleton, who travelled to London for the hearing.

"It gives me hope for their decision being the way I'd like it to be.'' Bermuda judge criticised Miss Middleton was raped, stabbed and left to die on July 3, 1996, while on vacation in Bermuda with a friend. The 17-year-old died a short while later.

Smith and a second man, Kirk Mundy, were arrested for the crime. Mundy agreed to testify against Smith and pleaded guilty to a charge of accessory after the fact. He was sentenced to five years in prison. After that deal was struck, DNA tests revealed that Mundy had raped Miss Middleton during the fatal attack. The Crown attempted to arraign him a second time for murder, but lost in appeals that went all the way to the Privy Council.

There was no forensic evidence tying Smith to the crime scene, but experts said two men had to have been involved in the attack. Smith was seen with Middleton and Mundy shortly before she died and admitted to being with Mundy minutes after the teen's death. But the circumstantial nature of the case against Smith is not what the Privy Council must rule on.

Smith's defence team is arguing that Bermudian law doesn't allow the Crown to appeal an acquittal. "It may turn out that he's (Meerabux's) wrong,'' defence lawyer John Perry argued. "But it's not appealable.'' Allowing a Crown appeal of an acquittal would invoke double jeopardy, he insisted, referring to the basic legal tenet that a person, once acquitted, cannot be tried again for the same crime.

Sir Godfrey LeQuesne, arguing the case for the Bermudian Crown, noted several legal jurisdictions, including Canada, allowed the Crown to appeal acquittals.

In Britain, however, the Crown has no right to appeal.

MURDER MUR