Family and friends of murdered Canadian teen Rebecca Middleton have hired a Canadian QC to help launch a private prosecution after no one was convicted for her 1996 killing.

Campaigner Rick Meens said money was not an issue despite fears the action could cost up to half a million dollars.

Mr. Meens said: ?This is about justice. You have to do what you have to do. If it means selling the farm it means selling the farm.

?You have to put your heart where your faith is if you believe it will come through. We have the faith to continue.?

Rebecca Middleton, 17, was raped, tortured and killed on Ferry Reach beach while on holiday in Bermuda.

Two men later appeared in court over the case. Kirk 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 which revealed Mundy?s semen was inside Rebecca?s body.

Justis Smith had also been charged with the murder but London?s Privy Council ruled he could not be re-tried after Puisne Judge Vincent Meerabux found there was no case to answer ? a decision the Privy Council branded ?astonishing?.

Mr. Meens and Rebecca?s father David Middleton have been badgering the Director of Public Prosecutions to reopen the case by filing a new charge of aggravated sexual assault but have heard nothing and are now prepared to push ahead on their own.

Mr. Meens said: ?We have been in contact with the Department of Public Prosecutions and Governor and recently sent them both a final letter following a number of letters.

?We have had promises the case would be reviewed but to date there has been nothing.

He said DPP Vinette Graham Allen had again told him yesterday she was prepared to review the case ? but only if Government provided her with more staff.

?This has gone on for two years ? it will be the same story year after year.

?I think they just want it all to go away. But unfortunately it won?t.

?We have hired a QC from Canada,? said Mr. Meens, who declined to name him.

?It could cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars ? anywhere upwards of half a million. But what is half a million to put her murderers in jail??

Previously Mr. Meens, who said he also spoke for Mr. Middleton on the matter, has previously threatened to take the case to the European Court.

But now he says it can be heard in a Bermuda court as the new charge will avoid the bar on charging people twice on the same indictment. Aggravated sexual assault carries a life sentence.

Mr. Means believes recent breakthroughs in DNA technology could help nail the killers and he chided both prosecutors and Police for giving up on such a serious case.

He said: ?In the States detectives go over cold cases. When it comes to children, and Rebecca was a child, they are even more serious.

?They go through thick and thin. I don?t know anyone doing that here.

?It is nine years this child has been dead but they don?t give a crap. It?s pathetic.?

Mr. Meens also expressed his disgust that Elliott Mottley was being lauded in the Caymans after his recent appointment to that island?s Appeal Court after botching Middleton trial when he was Bermuda?s Attorney General.

Mr. Mottley will join the Caymans Appeal Court in April, 2006 according to a story on Caymanian Compass website this week.