People have gotten away with "unspeakable crimes" because key facts failed to come to light during trials, Minister Michael Scott told the House of Assembly last night.

But Mr. Scott defended the decision not to allow a new law abolishing double jeopardy to be used to reopen murder cases from the past where justice has not been served. The Minister said it would have gone against Bermuda's constitution to make the Court of Appeal Amendment Act retroactive. Campaigners have been pushing for years for the Island to drop the double jeopardy principle which prevents people being tried twice for the same offence.

The most high-profile case was the botched trial over the 1996 Becky Middleton murder, for which nobody has been brought to justice despite evidence later emerging linking one of the defendants to the killing.

Opening the debate over the bill in the House yesterday, Mr. Scott said: "The violence presently plaguing Bermuda's shores is reflective of criminal offences spanning over a decade and which will see no person face conviction.

"There have been cases of unspeakable crimes where, had certain facts been adduced at trial, convictions may have been forthcoming. There have also been cases in which errors have occurred during proceedings and despite facts to the contrary such cases have been barred from retrial — even though the evidence of guilt is overwhelming.

"Where a crime has been committed but no person has been prosecuted due to a technical defence, the public perception of justice and how it is administered can be damning.

"Where there are crimes involving an element of violence in which no one is penalised and criminals are permitted to walk freely in and about the community, a profound sense of insecurity and injustice inevitably develops within the community.

"The bill proposed today aims to address this injustice. It will ensure that in cases where the technology for investigating crime becomes more precise and available, prosecutions can still be made despite the fact that the evidence was not able to be uncovered at the time of the original trial."

Mr. Scott described the law, which allows the prosecution to appeal based on fresh evidence such as DNA, as: "an effective tool to counteract the injustice of guilty persons remaining free on the basis of a legal technicality."

Becky Middleton was found dying at a remote spot in Ferry Reach, St. George's, 14 years ago, having been raped and stabbed while on vacation from her home in Canada.

Jamaican Kirk Mundy and Bermudian Justis Smith 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 emerged, allegedly linking Mundy to the killing, the Privy Council rejected a bid by prosecutors to have him face a fresh charge of murder. 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 the judge for his "perhaps astonishing" decision, saying there was strong circumstantial evidence. However, the double jeopardy rule meant the prosecution had no right to appeal the decision and the trial reopened.

But Mr. Scott said yesterday: "The extended right of appeal will not apply to offences taking place prior to these provisions coming into force as to do so would infringe the constitutional prohibition against criminal laws being made retrospectively.

"Moreover, the Bermuda legislature does not have the lawful authority to make such retrospective changes to the Bermuda Constitution Order as the Order is a creature of the Westminster Parliament. "The challenge of righting the wrongs of the past is always with us, as is the necessity of contending with the present. It is proposed that this challenge is best overcome by doing all that is feasible to ensure that these wrongs are not repeated."