A human rights lawyer urged fresh charges against men suspected in the rape and murder of Rebecca Middleton, for the sake of her family and Bermuda’s reputation.

Cherie Booth QC said it is unacceptable the only conviction stemming from the death of the Canadian teenager 11 years ago is of Kirk Mundy being an accessory to the crime.

She argued that both Mundy and co-accused Justis Smith should be charged with sexual assault, abduction and torture since earlier attempts to try them both for murder were bungled.

The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Vinette Graham-Allen has said fresh charges are impossible — a decision Ms Booth challenged yesterday in Supreme Court on behalf of the 17-year-old victim’s family.

“We say the issue at the heart of this case is whether the court can put right a grave wrong in this case and ensure that finally justice is done, not just for Rebecca and her family but also for the integrity of the judicial process here in Bermuda, or whether as the DPP argues, the system is powerless to correct that,” she told Chief Justice Richard Ground.

Ms Booth - a top UK barrister married to British Prime Minister Tony Blair — outlined a string of errors in the past handling of the case. She argued Mrs. Graham-Allen was wrong and acting as “a counsel of hopelessness” in rejecting a call by Rebecca’s father for Mundy and Smith to face fresh charges.

Acknowledging the pair had not had chance to defend these, she said nonetheless: “The consequence is we have here two individuals that on the balance of evidence available here...are responsible for a heinous sexual assault on a girl who had just turned 17, and they have never effectively been punished for these crimes, and they are still at large in society.

“It is clear this is causing a huge amount of concern not only here in Bermuda but in other parts of the world, not just Canada.”

Ms Booth questioned why when Mundy “implausibly” admitted to consensual sex with the teenager and implicated Smith in the murder, this was accepted. It led to him being allowed to plead guilty to being an accessory which landed him five years behind bars.

Later attempts by prosecutors to charge Mundy with murder were blocked by the Privy Council appeal court and Smith’s murder trial was thrown out by a judge, with attempts to re-try him also blocked by the Privy Council.

“Astonishingly, this is the only sentence either man has served for this hideous crime. They’ve expressed no remorse for the fact Rebecca was abused, dehumanised and killed,” said Ms Booth.

She claimed forensic evidence pointed to two people being involved in the attack on Rebecca, and enough of a case against Smith and Mundy for them to have been originally charged with sexual assault on the teen who was raped and sodomized before being left for dead on a road in Ferry Reach.

“The idea that a 17-year-old virgin consented to some of the things that happened to her flies in the face of belief,” she added.

Ms Booth further argued that Mrs. Graham-Allen had not fulfilled her duties to Rebecca as a victim under Bermuda’s constitution and the European Convention of Human Rights, and got the law wrong when she ruled it was not possible to bring a repeat prosecution. She rejected Mrs. Graham-Allen’s arguments that too much time has elapsed to re-prosecute and media coverage would rule out a fair trial.

James Guthrie QC, for the DPP, said the Middleton family “suffered great injustice” which the DPP sincerely regretted, but her decision not to re-open the case was sound. The Crown, he said, pursued the legal process as far as it could in trying to prosecute Smith and Mundy for murder, and while the DPP accepted there was strong circumstantial evidence against the pair she was right to rule out fresh charges. “Unfortunately sometimes these things happen, but they don’t provide a carte blanche for a prosecutor to say ‘well, I don’t like the way things have turned out, I’m going to start again,” he said.

The hearing is set to continue today with submissions by Charles Richardson, lawyer for Mundy.