Campaigners for justice in the Rebecca Middleton case have asked the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to find Bermuda and the UK guilty of failing in their obligations to respect the murdered teenager's human rights.

Rick Meens, who was hosting the 17-year-old Canadian when she was raped and murdered during a vacation on the Island in 1996, applied to the court for a review of the case on January 6.

In the application, he noted that he has repeatedly asked Britain for: "A full judicial inquiry presided over by a United Kingdom High Court judge with appropriate advisors to examine the entire management of the Rebecca Middleton murder, subsequent failed investigation, and the botched judicial handling of the prosecution and trials."

However, three Ministers for the Overseas Territories have refused the requests.

Mr. Meens, a Canadian-Bermudian residing in Southampton, therefore asked the court to find that the case should be reviewed and fresh forensic examination should take place. He said if that is not done, it will mean that the human rights of Rebecca, her family, and himself as loco-parentis at the time of her death, have not been respected.

The court takes up to a year to decide whether to take up a case or not, and is yet to make a decision on the application.–The news comes four months after former Police Commissioner Colin Coxall urged detectives to revisit the murder file now they have a specialist cold case team and national DNA database in place.

Mr. Coxall, who headed the Police at the time of Rebecca's death, told The Royal Gazette the case should have been continuously reviewed rather than "shamefully abandoned" after the botched prosecution of two suspects.

He pointed to recent successes in the UK where cold case teams have cracked long-unsolved murders and rapes.

The Police responded that they would not review the case because the prime suspects have already been through the judicial process. A spokesman pointed out that Bermuda, unlike England, has a "double jeopardy" rule in place preventing someone being tried twice for the same crime.

Rebecca was found dying at a remote spot in Ferry Reach, St. George's on July 3, 1996, having been raped and stabbed while on vacation from her home in Canada. The fact that no-one has been brought to justice for the slaying sparked negative publicity about Bermuda's judicial system both at home and abroad.

Kirk Mundy — a Jamaican then aged 21 — and Justis Smith — a Bermudian then aged 19 — were arrested days later. Mundy was allowed to plead guilty to a lesser charge of accessory after the fact before forensic tests were complete, and was jailed for five years. When new evidence later came in allegedly linking him to the killing, the Privy Council rejected a bid by prosecutors to have him face a fresh charge of murder.

Meanwhile, the murder case against Smith was thrown out before a jury had chance to consider it by Judge Vincent Meerabux, who said there was no case to answer.

The Privy Council later criticised him for this "surprising" and "perhaps astonishing" decision, saying there was strong circumstantial evidence.

Nonetheless, it ruled the decision could not be overturned and a retrial ordered because in Bermuda there is no right of appeal by the prosecution following a finding by a judge of 'no case to answer' on the facts. An appeal can only be heard on a matter of law alone.

Chief Justice Richard Ground conducted a judicial review of the Middleton case in 2007. During the review, Middleton family lawyer Cherie Booth QC called for Mundy and Smith to be retried on new charges of rape and torture. But Chief Justice Richard Ground said the case could not be reopened before the courts due to the double jeopardy rule.

According to family friend Carol Shuman, it was too expensive for Rebecca's parents, Dave Middleton and Cindy Bennett, to fight the Chief Justice's decision through the Bermuda Court of Appeal and potentially the Privy Council in London.

"There was no prayer of coming up with the hundreds of thousands of dollars that were needed, " she told The Royal Gazette this week. Instead, Mr. Meens opted to go down the route of the European Court of Human Rights on their behalf.

"It's free to apply to the court and the application can be made by any individual. Costs would only be incurred if the case was accepted," she explained.

In his application, Mr. Meens pointed out that protests to various Foreign Secretaries and Overseas Territories Ministers in London over the years have failed to get the case reopened.

Dr. Shuman hopes the ECHR will find that Britain failed in its responsibilities to Bermuda as an overseas territory over the case.

"We're saying Britain had no right to turn around and say there is nothing it could do," she said.