Former Assistant Commissioner of Police Wayne Perinchief is hoping a change in the law could finally bring someone to justice for the murder of Canadian Rebecca Middleton.

The Pembroke West Central MP is urging Island legislators to follow Britain's lead as it prepares to end the double jeopardy rule which prevents accused people from being tried for the same offence twice.

Mr. Perinchief said that introducing the Serious Crimes Commission report - which probed the murder of Ms Middleton - to Parliament was his biggest disappointment and regret as a politician.

But he hopes that new legal precedents being set in the UK would lead to Bermuda re-opening the Middleton case.

The British Labour Party Government's agenda on crime in its current term of office includes ending the double jeopardy rule which prevents murder suspects from being tried twice for the same crime.

If adopted here, the new law would allow a second trial if compelling new evidence surfaces. It was recommended in the MacPherson Report into the murder of teenager Stephen Lawrence and many of its supporters want the changes to be retrospective.

Mr. Perinchief said the developments in the UK offers a "limited opportunity" to reopen the Rebecca Middleton case.

"There's going to be a change in legislation in Britain and when that happens we would be bound to follow precedent in England... I would think that would allow the opportunity to have a new trial," said Mr. Perinchief.

Ending double jeopardy in Bermuda would require legislative action locally. And while there were calls for it in the wake of the collapsed Middleton trial, there were few ardent supporters.

The trial ended without anyone being convicted for the murder of Ms Middleton after a ruling by trial judge Vincent Meerabux that murder accused Justis Smith had no case to answer.

Former co-defendant Kirk Mundy was allowed to plead guilty to a lesser charge of being an accessory after the fact, but central to the debacle was the fact that DNA evidence was not taken into account in the charging decisions. And expert evidence suggested that the murder had to have been committed by two people.

A Court of Appeal order to retry Mr. Smith was later quashed by the Privy Council in London, which said that the court could only hear an appeal based on law alone, not mixed fact and law.

Mr. Smith's lawyer Elizabeth Christopher has already gone on record to oppose changing the double jeopardy rule, saying that prosecutors should investigate their case properly in the first place, and she argued that any changes wouldn't apply to her client anyway because no new evidence had surfaced.

Richard Hector, who was until earlier this year the president of the Bar Association, expressed his personal view last March when he cautioned against a rush to change the double jeopardy rule in the wake of the botched trial.

But there might now be a renewed appetite for making changes to the rule - which has for centuries been considered one of the hallmarks of fairness in the British legal system - as a result of the British Government's plans.

During the July debate on the Inquiry report, Attorney General Dame Lois Browne Evans said : "I like the law the way it is right now."

Yesterday, however, while reminding The Royal Gazette that she spent her entire private practice career as a defence lawyer, Dame Lois said that the Government would consult "stakeholders" such as the Bar Association before coming to a position.

Bar Association president Trevor Moniz said that his personal position was that reforms in other jurisdictions should at least be considered in Bermuda.

"My personal position is bottom line justice. I think in a case where mistakes have been made you owe justice to the victim... I think we should stay in line with reforms in other jurisdictions where it is in the interest of justice," said Mr. Moniz.

"People are becoming concerned about the victim and the broader society. But there's competing interests and you have to strike a balance."

Lawyer Tim Marshall took the view that changing the rule would require changing Bermuda's Constitution, which he said explicitly protects people from being tried twice for the same offence.

He agreed that changes in other jurisdictions like Ontario and Britain often drive local changes. But that shouldn't be the case in this particular instance, he told The Royal Gazette.

"In terms of double jeopardy we have to be guided by what the Constitution says," said Mr. Marshall.

"What happened in the Rebecca Middleton case is a rare unfortunate circumstance that happens in all jurisdictions. It's very sad, very regrettable and for many people justice was not seen to be done in the case. But the fact of the matter is that this principle is enshrined in our constitution. It's a principle that is enshrined in many other jurisdictions so it's not just Bermuda. And when you think about it for the vast vast majority of cases it makes perfect sense - it would be wholly wrong to be acquitted of an offence and then two months later to be tried again for the offence. Or convicted for the offence only to be tried again for the identical offence. So there is good reason why we have this provision in our constitution."

Mr. Perinchief insisted: "A blight on our record should be removed... We should try to redeem ourselves."