This is the full text of an editorial on the Rebecca Middleton case that appeared in Canada's national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, yesterday.

Rebecca Middleton had just celebrated her 17th birthday when she was kidnapped, brutally raped, tortured, and killed in the early hours of July 3, 1996, while on vacation in Bermuda. A botched prosecution and errors by the trial judge led to the acquittal of the only person charged with her murder. But a contributing factor was a culture in which sex crimes have not been typically regarded as the heinous acts they are.

The parents of the slain girl from Belleville, Ontario, have waged a long fight for justice, and now there is a glimmer of hope thanks to a judicial review by Bermuda's Supreme Court. It's a final chance for the British territory to remove this stain on its reputation and to send a clear message that the days when sex assaults were treated lightly are over.

The Middleton case was not a complicated one for police to solve. The teenager and a friend had been at a tavern until closing time. When they were unable to summon a taxi, they accepted motorcycle rides with three locals. Witnesses watched Rebecca get between two men on one bike. After she was found dying in the middle of an isolated road, it didn't take police long to arrest the two men.

Before assessing all the available evidence, the Crown made a deal with one of the suspects, Kirk Mundy. In exchange for testifying against the other accused, Justis Smith, Mr. Mundy would be charged only as an accessory after the fact.

The murder case fell apart when the prosecution decided that Mr. Mundy would not prove a credible witness. By then, forensic evidence had linked him directly to the sex assault, but there was no such evidence to implicate Mr. Smith. The court also inexplicably accepted testimony that Ms Middleton had had consensual sex with one of the accused even though she had met him just 30 minutes earlier and was a virgin. Mr. Mundy ended up serving five years for his part in a crime in which no one was convicted of the actual killing.

To compound this travesty of justice, Mr. Smith was subsequently convicted in 2002 of attacking two other women. He was originally sentenced only to time served for the non-fatal assaults, although a successful Crown appeal tacked on several months. He is currently a free man, while Mr. Mundy is serving a 15-year stretch for other crimes.

While acknowledging the mistakes in the Middleton case, the Director of Public Prosecutions declined to refile charges because of Bermuda's double jeopardy rule and closed the case last year with no further action. It was this decision that prompted the unusual judicial review by the Chief Justice.

Double jeopardy means only that the accused cannot be tried twice for the same crime based on the same evidence. There was nothing to prevent authorities from pursuing other charges. The family's lawyer, Cherie Booth, a noted human-rights advocate and the wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, argued forcefully that Bermuda has a "culture of impunity" when dealing with sex assaults. Until this is changed "it is actually repugnant to justice".

The Bermuda case calls to mind that of another teenager, Natalee Holloway, who disappeared while on holiday in Aruba in 2005. Her parents ended up filing a civil suit in the United States against the two brothers the police believe were involved in her death. They have been charged but not brought to trial in Aruba.

Bermuda can and should do better than that. It's time to correct past wrongs and finally bring some justice to the victim and her family.