Killer Luke Mitchell fails to get sentence reduced

Published on Tuesday 1 February 2011 13:10

KILLER Luke Mitchell has failed in a bid to have his minimum jail term reduced.

Mitchell was locked up for life in 2005 and ordered to serve at least 20 years for the "truly evil" murder of his 14-year-old girlfriend, Jodi Jones.

Jodi was stripped, tied up and stabbed to death, before her mutilated body was dumped in woods near her home in Dalkeith, Midlothian, in June 2003.

Mitchell, 22, who was 14 at the time of the murder, has consistently claimed his innocence but his appeal against conviction was rejected in 2008.

Last year his legal team launched a challenge against the length of his sentence on the grounds that he was a child at the time of the crime.

But senior judges at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh today ruled that the 20-year punishment part of Mitchell's sentence should stand.

The Lord Justice Clerk Lord Gill, who heard the case with Lord Hardie and Lady Cosgrove, told a brief hearing: "The order of the court is that this appeal is refused."

He said it was a majority decision.

Pony-tailed Mitchell, who wore a white shirt, remained impassive as the judgment was delivered.

His mother, Corinne Mitchell, was present in court to hear the decision.

Leaving court, she told reporters: "The fight goes on. We're not finished yet."

Also in court was Jodi's mother, Judith Jones, who was joined by several members of her family.

Today's decision marked the latest stage in a chain of events that began more than seven years ago.

Jodi was murdered on June 30 2003, and her body lay behind a wall running alongside a walkway known as the Rowan's Dyke path.

Her windpipe had been cut and the main artery in her neck was severed virtually all the way through.

The schoolgirl had multiple injuries to her head and wounds to her face, breast and arms.

The police investigation was one of the biggest carried out by the Lothian and Borders force.

More than 200 police staff were involved in the inquiry, taking 3,150 statements from more than 200 people.

The conviction of Mitchell, from Dalkeith, followed the longest single-accused murder trial in Scottish legal history.

The Crown's case against him was based entirely on circumstantial evidence.

Prosecutors at the High Court in Edinburgh branded the murder "the most gruesome killing of recent years".