ampaigners for justice for slain Canadian teenager Becky Middleton have renewed calls to change the law to stop people getting away with murder.

Rick Meens, who hosted the 17-year-old at his Smith?s home when she made her fateful 1996 trip to Bermuda, has called for the end to the double jeopardy rule which bars defendants from being tried twice for the same crime.

Still angry about the lack of justice for Becky ten years on, Mr. Meens said: ?It doesn?t seem that much has changed in the way things are done. The way the system sits this could very well happen again. Laws need to be changed.

?If you are guilty you are guilty. Let?s annihilate that saying ?got away with murder?.? It seemed the criminal has more rights than the victim, said Mr. Meens.

?Where are victim?s rights? Here?s a child of 17 who was brutally murdered but nobody wants to step up to the wicket here.?

Former Police Commissioner Colin Coxall and others have called for Police to use the latest forensic techniques to re-open the case of the Canadian teen who was raped, stabbed and left to die in Ferry Reach ten years ago.

But, as the Director of Public Prosecutions Vinette Graham-Allen recently pointed out in her review of the Middleton fiasco, under Bermuda law no one can be tried for the same offence twice.

Nor can they be tried for different offences arising out of the same set of facts.

In the Middleton case, Justis Smith was acquitted of a murder charge after Puisne Judge Vincent Meerabux (now deceased) ruled he had no case to answer. This decision was upheld by London?s Privy Council.

Kirk Mundy pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact but Prosecutors then tried to charge him for murder.

Again London?s Privy Council said the Crown could not have two bites at the cherry and threw out the case.

Ironically, Britain has now amended its law after suffering its equivalent of the Middleton case where a horrendous murder was compounded by a botched legal case in which none of the suspects were convicted, despite a great deal of evidence.

Stephen Lawrence, a black British teenager living in London, was stabbed to death in a racial attack in April, 1993 while waiting at a bus stop.

Prosecutors brought a case against two suspects but dropped it after deciding that there was insufficient evidence following a bungled Police inquiry which led to some of the officers being investigated for racism and incompetence.

Stephen?s family in April, 1996 initiated a private prosecutionagainst five suspects but again no one was convicted.

There was a national outcry and the Daily Mail labelled all five suspects ?murderers?, challenging them to sue the newspaper for libel. They never did.

In 2003 the British Parliament passed the Criminal Justice Bill abolishing a previously strict prohibition against double jeopardy. Retrials are now allowed if there is ?new and compelling evidence?.

In Bermuda in May, 2002 the United Bermuda Party tabled a motion calling for the Island to throw out its own double jeopardy law.

Opposition House Leader John Barritt said a re-trial could acquit people wrongly convicted and convict people wrongly acquitted and he questioned who gained by not allowing new forensic techniques to be used to ensure justice was upheld. The motion was lost despite some support from the Government benches.

And in late 2004, Mr. Barritt tabled the Court of Appeal Amendment Act 2004.

While not allowing retrials for people acquitted by jury it would allow prosecutors to appeal for a new trial if a judge had thrown out a case by ruling there was no case to answer ? as happened in the Justis Smith murder trial.

Currently the Crown don?t have the right to appeal on matters of mixed law and fact but only on matters of law.

The bill would have allowed the Director of Public Prosecutions to appeal on fact or mixed law and fact but Mr. Barritt dropped the bill after getting indications that the Government might table the bill itself.

But nothing has happened and now Mr. Barritt believes Government is even less interested in pursuing the matter.

In researching this series rang Attorney General Larry Mussenden for comment and e-mailed him questions about whether it was time to review the double jeopardy law but he failed to respond.

To have people getting away with murder, as could happen under the present system, made a mockery of the law, said Mr. Barritt, who said the Middleton debacle had been a huge blot on Bermuda?s reputation.

Meanwhile Becky?s father Dave Middleton is hoping to launch a civil suit on human rights grounds and is still in talks with English QC Cherie Booth, wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

?You cannot just grab somebody and hold them against their will without violating their human rights. We realise we are not going back for a murder trial but there are a bunch of other things.

?It is one step at a time. We will look to see if her human rights were violated and then go from there.

?We are still in talks with Ms Booth. But everybody is in a line-up. There?s a lot of information going back and forth. They have a lot of other cases. We felt we are very fortunate to get Ms Booth.?

He has ruled out having a private prosecution because it is too expensive but is angry people want to forget about it.

?They have had a murder in Bermuda but no one has been convicted. Is it still an open murder investigation? I would think that it should be.

?If you have had a murder and a trial that has ended this way do you just throw up your hands and walk away and say it didn?t happen??

The case was a problem for the Middletons but a bigger one for Bermuda, said Mr. Middleton, and ten years on the mild mannered man from Belleville, Ontario doesn?t intend to give up.

?To let it slip by without saying or doing anything, just turning your head to a terrible crime like this? It?s saying if you can get a lawyer who can talk pretty fast you can get off.

?All that does is leave the door open to it happening again.?