The 330,000-plus readers of the Globe and Mail newspaper in Canada have been told of a "dark day for Bermudian justice" by the newspaper's editorial pages.

The daily publication closely followed the Rebecca Middleton case and the recent judicial review in which new charges could have been filed against the Canadian girl's alleged killers.

However, in a decision revealed last week, Chief Justice Richard Ground decided he could not violate the letter of the law, even though the law gave him the discretion to do so if the case was exceptional.

In the end, Mr. Justice Ground rejected the claim made by the Middleton legal team which included British Prime Minister Tony Blair's wife Cherie Booth, QC.

There will be no new investigation, no new criminal case.

The editorial writer said of the Chief Justice: "The door was open. Chief Justice Ground chose not to walk through it.

"And so a family is left at a dead end on a long, agonising road to find justice for their murdered child. And a judicial system is left so tied in knots by legal technicalities that it can't reverse what it clearly recognises as its own grave errors, even in the face of public outcry both within and without its borders. It's a dark day for Bermudian justice."

No one has ever been convicted in connection with Rebecca Middleton's 1996 murder while she summered in Bermuda.