Prosecutors have pledged to review the case of murdered Canadian teenager Rebecca Middleton, can reveal today.

Campaigner Rick Meens confirmed he had received assurances from the top of the Department of Public Prosecutions that the file would be reexamined within weeks.

Mr. Meens said DPP director Vinette Graham Allen had ?categorically stated? to him she would personally review the Middleton case ? and make it top priority once the high-profile Cooper twins murder trial (see story this page) had ended.

That is scheduled to finish in early February and, on the tenth anniversary of Rebecca?s death, Mr. Meens said friends and family were confident fresh charges would now be laid after years of tireless campaigning.

?The Director of Public Prosecutions has categorically stated that she is going to review this case in February,? said Mr. Meens. ?I have had that personally from her. She?s going to deal with the (Cooper) twins case and once that has been completed she is going to give the review her undivided attention.?

Mr. Meens and Rebecca?s father, David Middleton, have been lobbying the DPP for a review for the last year. But legal officials have blamed staff shortages for lack of action.

But Mr. Meens said he had been told staff numbers are no longer blocking the review, which is expected to take about four weeks and could lead to charges of aggravated sexual assault, which carry a life sentence, being pressed. Rebecca, 17, was raped, tortured and killed on Ferry Reach beach while on holiday in Bermuda in 1996.

Two men later appeared in court over the case, Justis Smith and Kirk Mundy.

Smith was charged with premeditated murder. But UK legal chiefs ruled he could not be retried after Puisne Judge Vincent Meerabux found there was no case to answer ? a decision London?s Privy Council branded ?astonishing?.

Mundy was jailed for five years in 1996 after pleading guilty to being an accessory after the fact. The Crown accepted a plea from Mundy before Police had completed forensic tests that revealed Mundy?s semen was inside Rebecca?s body.

It is not possible under Bermuda laws to retry somebody for murder. However, the new charge of aggravated sexual assault would sidestep the double jeopardy dilemma.

And Mr. Meens said campaigners will go to the ?end of the earth? to see Rebecca?s killers convicted and put behind bars.recently reported how relatives of the murdered teen grew increasingly angry at DPP inactivity, and hired a Canadian QC to help launch a private prosecution.

A fundraising drive was launched to support this, although Mr. Meens said money was not an issue.

?You have to do what you have to do,? he said. ?This is about justice. What is half a million to put her murderers in jail??

He said yesterday that he hoped the DPP pledge meant a private prosecution would not be needed. But he said their lawyer would watch the DPP ?every step of the way?.

He added: ?Last time we put our trust in Elliott Mottley (Bermuda?s Attorney General during the Middleton trial). Now there will be no more snowballing ? when the small print comes we will have someone to decipher it.?

Mr. Meens had previously threatened to take the case to the European Court on human rights grounds, and has said that breakthroughs in DNA technology could help nail the culprits.

Attempts to contact Mrs. Graham Allen at the DPP during the last two days for an update on the Middleton case proved unsuccessful.