Jodi Jones murder: Luke Mitchell to make new bid for freedom

CONVICTED killer Luke Mitchell is to make a new bid for freedom - blaming the killing of schoolgirl Jodi Jones on a convicted rapist, it was reported today.

Mitchell’s defence team are putting together a dossier suggesting Da Vinci Code rapist Robert Greens could instead be behind the killing, the Mail on Sunday said.

Author Sandra McClean who has written about the Mitchell case told the newspaper she is helping Mitchell’s defence team put together a dossier to present to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission.

The body considers possible miscarriages of justice.

Robert Greens was jailed for 10 years in 2006 for a brutal sex attack on a Dutch student.

The attack took place near Rosslyn Chapel, the setting for Dan Brown’s novel and the movie starring Tom Hanks.

His victim was so badly injured that a motorist who saw her standing by the side of the road thought she had been hit by a car.

Ms McClean told the Scottish Mail on Sunday Greens’ “modus operandi” was similar to the person who killed Jodi Jones - and at the time of her death, Greens visited a relative close to where Jodi’s body was found in Midlothian.

She said: “When I realised Greens had apparently been regularly in the vicinity at the time it sent a shiver through me.

“Its hard to believe no one has joined the dots since he became so notorious.

“The modus operandi of Greens strikes me as similar. We have to ask if Greens crossed the police radar at the time Jodi was killed”.

Mitchell, who was 14 at the time of the murder, has always protested his innocence but his original appeal against conviction was rejected by senior judges in Scotland in 2008.

In November last year, Mitchell saw a bid for a fresh appeal before the Supreme Court rejected.

Jodi was murdered on June 30 2003. She had been stripped, tied up and stabbed to death and her mutilated body dumped in woods near her home.

Mitchell was locked up for life in 2005. He was convicted of the killing following what was at the time the longest single-accused murder trial in Scottish legal history.

Since his conviction appeal failed, his subsequent attempts to have additional grounds of appeal heard by judges in Scotland have been refused and his attempt to have his minimum jail term cut also failed.

At the various stages of the case, Mitchell’s legal team have raised questions about the way police interviewed the then 15-year-old boy and about the Crown’s use of identification evidence during his high-profile trial at the High Court in Edinburgh.

They have also previously argued a “Cadder point”, namely that Mitchell was interviewed as a suspect but was not given access to legal advice before being questioned.

A Crown Office spokesman told the newspaper: “The only appropriate forum for the determination of guilt or innocence is the criminal court. Luke Mitchell was convicted by a jury following trial and his conviction has been upheld at a number of appeals”.