An activist who fought unsuccessfully to get justice for murdered Canadian teen Rebecca Middleton has praised The Royal Gazette for its campaign to get public access to information legislation for Bermuda.

Author and psychologist Carol Shuman, a Canadian-born American who took up the Middleton family's cause on the Island, said she found it impossible to get basic documents from the Police on their investigation into the 1996 slaying and came up against a culture of secrecy at every turn.

Dr. Shuman believes Bermuda desperately needs freedom of information (FOI) and a more open system of government to ensure that officials know they will be held to account and that mistakes will not be able to be hidden. This newspaper's A Right to Know: Giving People Power campaign calls for just that.

"Without FOI there is a very serious lack of transparency, of accountability for behaviour," said Dr. Shuman. "It's the idea: 'why should I behave if no one knows?'."

The failure of the criminal justice system to secure a murder conviction has been branded a botched job by relatives of Rebecca, who was raped and stabbed to death after accepting a lift on a bike from two strangers while on holiday on the Island.

Dr. Shuman first began trying to get information about the way the 17-year-old's murder was handled by Police and prosecutors for an as-yet-to-be-published book she was writing on the case.

But she soon became involved in the fight for justice, eventually founding the Rebecca Middleton Foundation to raise money for a failed legal bid to have fresh charges brought against the two suspects in the case.

Dr. Shuman, who has lived in Bermuda for 18 years, used to be a journalist in the States where she found it easy to obtain details about Police investigations because of the country's FOI laws.

"It wasn't an issue," she said. She added that it contrasts hugely with Bermuda where, when she tried to get even basic information through official channels about the charges originally brought against suspects Justis Smith and Kirk Mundy, she was unsuccessful.

"It was terrible. I could never get the documents about the charges. The Police have been very silent. A few Police spoke to me off the record. I was asking specifically what happened and no one would release anything.

"Had there been freedom of information they would at least have to report what they were doing with regard to the investigation. I couldn't get anything from anybody really. I didn't even ask the Supreme Court as I knew there was no point. I got information through the back door. There were people who cared enough about Becky's case to make sure I got it."

Dr. Shuman praised former Attorney General Larry Mussenden, former Police Commissioner Colin Coxall and former Director of Public Prosecutions Vinette Graham-Allen for their openness — but claimed they were the exceptions.

She believes that mistakes made in the handling of the Middleton case may not have happened if FOI had been in place and those involved knew their actions could be made public.

She said people on the Island needed to "get aggressive" and demand their right to know. "I'm very proud of The Royal Gazette for taking the lead," she said. "It's the role of the media to educate the public and the public is not going to know about the obvious benefits of freedom of information unless they are educated."

Bermuda Police Service and the Ministry of Justice did not respond to a request for comment yesterday.