a deal or not in the Rebecca Middleton case comes down to semantics.

There has been a good deal of evidence before the Commission of Inquiry into Serious Crimes on whether or not a deal was made with Mundy or not.

It seems to be clear that Mundy was not given formal immunity from prosecution in return for giving evidence against Justis Smith, who was later acquitted of the charge of murdering Rebecca.

But it is just as clear that the prosecution expected Mundy to give evidence against Mr. Smith having pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact.

Based on the evidence given by then-Crown counsel Khamisi Tokunbo, who is now the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Crown would have supported the five year sentence Mundy received being reduced on appeal, had his evidence led to the conviction of Mr. Smith.

That never came to pass because subsequent DNA evidence demonstrated that Mundy's witness statement could not be true.

But by then, it was too late. Mundy had been dealt with and sentenced and no appeals court would accept that he could subsequently be charged with murder.

Call it a deal, call it an understanding, call it a nod and a wink. Call it what you want. The prosecution accepted Mundy's confession and he was convicted on the expectation that he would give evidence against Mr. Smith and would later have his sentence reduced.

Those are the facts behind the subsequent collapse of the Middleton prosecution, which left no-one convicted of her murder.

In spite of any restrictions that it feels its terms of reference may contain, the duty of the Commission is now to determine what went wrong and who was responsible.

There seems to be no shortage of candidates. There is no excuse for DNA tests to take nine months. There has been evidence that the Police Service was stretched by other incidents which occurred at around the same time, including a second murder.

There has also been evidence given that the Police are prepared to accept confessions on lesser charges before cases have been fully investigated.

That of course, was the case in the Middleton case. The Crown accepted Mundy's version of events with little or no supporting evidence.

In hindsight, they made a terrible error. Mundy's statement was proved to be wrong by the forensic evidence which was only produced months later.

It may be that there was pressure to name the suspects in the case quickly and to charge them before they had to be released from questioning.

But in rushing to judgment, fatal flaws were shown in the investigation and detection of the crime, and it is those that the Commission must remedy.