After 20 years, bid to clear Jodi’s murderer heads for Holyrood
A CAMPAIGN to prove the innocence of convicted murderer Luke Mitchell – backed by more than 25,000 people – will this week head to the Scottish parliament.
Lawyers for the 34-year-old, who insist he is the victim of a miscarriage of justice, are taking their challenge to Holyrood over decisions taken at the time of the investigation.
Mitchell has spent 17 years behind bars after being found guilty of murdering his girlfriend Jodi Jones, whose body was found in woodland near Dalkeith, Midlothian, in 2003.
Campaigners are calling for an independent inquiry into the investigation and subsequent trial.
His legal team have said they are in talks with MSPs who will raise a parliamentary question on their behalf ‘regarding serious doubts about the investigation, safety of the conviction and the way justice was pursued’.
They are also encouraging people who believe Mitchell was wrongly convicted to take part in a silent vigil on Wednesday, when the petition will be handed to MSPs, with placards, banners and candles but no shouting or chanting.
‘Symbolically, we’re saying, the more you tried to silence us, the stronger we became,’ said criminologist Sandra Lean, who has been working on Mitchell’s case.
She added: ‘Almost 20 years on from the murder of Jodi Jones, a large number of people now have serious concerns that her murder was not properly investigated and her killer may never have been brought to justice. It is time for all of the doubts and unanswered questions to be addressed, in the name of true justice.’
Mitchell, who was 16 in 2005 when he was convicted of murdering 14-year-old Jodi with a knife, was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 20 years.
Judge Lord Nimmo Smith told him: ‘It was a truly evil murder.’
Last month this newspaper reported claims by his legal team that 122 items gathered as evidence after Jodi’s mutilated body was found were never subjected to forensic testing.
Insisting that Mitchell is the victim of a ‘mind-boggling’ miscarriage of justice, they claim, for example, that a hooded top discovered yards from the murder scene was bagged by police but never swabbed for DNA.
His legal team have re-examined all the evidence logs, police and scientific reports and highlighted what they believe to be significant errors. Crucially, they have established that a number of swabs were taken from the crime scene but never tested.
Other items – such as the bag used to remove her body – were also not tested.
They believe that testing these items now could prove Mitchell – who has always protested his innocence – did not commit the shocking murder.
In the coming months, a plea will be made to the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission to allow the case to return to the High Court so that access can be granted to the evidence.