Jodi killer Mitchell loses appeal

THE mother of murdered schoolgirl Jodi Jones has spoken of her relief after her daughter's killer failed in a bid to have his conviction overturned.

Luke Mitchell, 19, was ordered to serve at least 20 years in prison after being found guilty of murdering the 14-year-old in June 2003.

Appeal judges upheld the conviction yesterday but launched a withering attack on police. Detectives were fiercely criticised for an "overbearing and hostile interrogation" of Mitchell, then 15, as they tried to force him into a confession.

The judges branded the questioning as "outrageous" and said such conduct was to be deplored. However, they also noted that in spite of his youth, Mitchell had not been cowed and had not submitted to the pressure.

They rejected a claim that Mitchell, 19, had suffered a miscarriage of justice at his trial and sent him back to custody.

As he had done throughout the case, Mitchell exhibited not the slightest hint of emotion.

Judith Jones, Jodi's mother, left the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh, saying only that the rejection of Mitchell's appeal was "brilliant" and that she was "relieved it's all over".

Corinne Mitchell, the killer's mother, stated: "Luke is innocent. The fight goes on."

It took Lord Hamilton, the Lord Justice-General, more than 20 minutes to read a summary of the court's 114-page judgment, in which a number of grounds of appeal, such as staging the trial in Edinburgh and other alleged unfairness to Mitchell, were refused. The two mothers, as had become customary at earlier hearings, were seated as far apart as possible.

Throughout most of the proceedings, Mrs Jones held her hand over her mouth, in dread at what might be about to happen. She began to nod her head in relief as, one by one, the challenges were dismissed, and wiped a tear from her eye.

At the final announcement that the appeal was refused, there was another nod and a subdued smile.

It was late in the afternoon of 30 June, 2003, that Jodi left her home in the Easthouses area of Dalkeith, to meet Mitchell, her boyfriend, then also 14, who lived in the Newbattle area. Their homes were linked by Roan's Dyke path. The alarm was raised when Jodi failed to return home that night and her naked body was discovered in woods behind a wall that ran along the path. Her throat had been slit and her body mutilated.

Mitchell joined members of Jodi's family in the search, and it was his discovery of the body that was a major element in the Crown's case against him. The prosecution said he had known to go over the wall and "find" the body because he was the killer.

In August of that year, Mitchell was interviewed by Detective Sergeant David Gordon and Detective Constables George Thomson and Russell Tennant, and it was some of that questioning that the judges condemned.

Lord Hamilton said:

"One is driven to suppose… that the police officer was endeavouring to break the appellant down into giving some hoped-for confession by his overbearing and hostile interrogation. Such conduct, particularly where the interviewee was a 15-year-old youth, can only be deplored."

But it did not entail a miscarriage of justice.

What's next?

HAVING failed in his attempt to have his murder conviction quashed, Luke Mitchell's next move will be to persuade the appeal court that his sentence ought to be cut. And the signs are that he could have more success on that front.

The trial judge imposed the mandatory life term for murder, and set a minimum period of 20 years, then the longest sentence on a youth in Scotland.

It was equalled in a subsequent case, when Kenneth Fraser was convicted of the "dreadful" murder of a teenage girl in High Valleyfield, Fife. He was 16 at the time.

On appeal, Fraser's lawyers argued that it was excessive for someone of his age to be forced to wait 20 years before he could even discuss his release with the parole board. The court – headed by Lord Hamilton, the Lord Justice-General, who will hear Mitchell's sentence appeal – said it accepted the merit of the submission, and cut Fraser's minimum term to 15 years.

Unless grounds can be found for distinguishing Mitchell, he will entertain hopes of a reduction in his sentence.