Jodi murderer loses appeal bid

6:11pm Friday 16th May 2008

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Teenage killer Luke Mitchell has failed in a bid to have his conviction for murdering his girlfriend Jodi Jones overturned.

Mitchell, 19, was found guilty in 2005 of killing the schoolgirl, whose mutilated body was found near her home in Dalkeith, Midlothian. Jodi, 14, had gone missing after going to meet her boyfriend in June 2003.

Lawyers for Mitchell argued he did not get a fair trial and was the victim of a miscarriage of justice. But three senior judges at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh ruled that his appeal against conviction should be refused.

Mitchell, wearing a black suit and blue shirt, remained impassive as the judgment was delivered. His mother, Corinne Mitchell, stared straight ahead as her son was led away to continue his life sentence.

Jodi's mother, Judith Jones, who was surrounded by members of her family, covered her mouth with her hands and stared ahead as the judges' ruling came to an end.

Scotland's top judge, the Lord Justice General Lord Hamilton, ruled that the appeal against conviction must be refused.

Sitting alongside Lords Osborne and Kingarth, he said: "The court is satisfied that there was sufficient evidence in law upon which a verdict of guilty could be returned."

He pointed to the evidence of Andrina Bryson, a witness in the prosecution case, who testified to seeing a male and a female at a crucial time on the day of Jodi's death.

Lord Hamilton said: "Taken at its highest Mrs Bryson's evidence amounted to an identification of the appellant (Mitchell) as that male and of Jodi Jones as possibly that female. Taken along with other evidence, it would have been open to the jury to conclude that it was indeed her.

"If that evidence was accepted, it not only destroyed the appellant's alibi that he was in his home during that period, but also put him in the company of Jodi Jones at a point of time which on other evidence may well have been shortly before she met her death."

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