Solemn journey for Jodi trial jury

IT WAS the eeriest "short country walk" any of them is ever likely to take ... strolling down a path under police guard to see for themselves the area where a teenage girl’s naked and mutilated body had been found.

Rarely, if ever, can jury service have made such a demand on citizens plucked from their everyday lives, but the eight women and seven men hearing the Jodi Jones case had it thrust upon them yesterday.

With Luke Mitchell, the youth accused of the murder, following in their footsteps, the jurors walked Roan’s Dyke path, a countryside short-cut between the residential areas of Easthouses and Newbattle in Dalkeith, Midlothian.

In court, they had already seen video footage and photographs of Jodi’s body as it lay in the undergrowth behind an imposing stone wall which separates the dirt path from woods. They had also been shown a V-shaped break in the wall, created by missing stones, through which access could be gained to the woods. On their "locus inspection" to familiarise themselves with the area, the jurors took the opportunity to climb through the V and have a look in the woods.

Mitchell, 16, denies murdering Jodi, 14, his girlfriend, on 30 June last year by striking her repeatedly on the head and body with a knife at Roan’s Dyke path. The path has featured prominently in evidence led so far at the trial in the High Court in Edinburgh - Jodi’s home in Easthouses was only a couple of minutes’ walk from the entrance at one end of the path, and Mitchell’s home was near the other end in Newbattle.

Jodi’s mother said that, on 30 June, the teenager left their house at about 4:50pm, saying she was going to meet Mitchell. Another witness told of seeing a male and a female at the Easthouses entrance to the path.

Last week, the trial judge, Lord Nimmo Smith, announced to the jury that, in an unusual move, they would be taken to the area "to enable you the better to understand the evidence which we have heard and are going to hear about the path and the wall and the general lie of the land".

He advised them to wear "whatever you think suitable for a relatively short country walk" and said it would be undertaken as long as the weather was not too bad.

Lord Nimmo Smith emphasised that the court would be in session during the walk and, as representatives of the public, the media would be allowed to attend and report on the event. However, the judge said it would be subject to the normal rules which severely limited television filming and photography. A police operation would ensure that no members of the public encroached on to the path and that the visit took place without intervention or distraction.

"You will have to bear in mind that the vegetation is not the same as it was at 30 June, 2003," Lord Nimmo Smith reminded the jurors.

"You might want to decide among yourselves which places you are particularly interested in looking at. I am going to stay at a distance and everybody else will, too. I do not expect to need to communicate with you during this, unless something completely unexpected arises. Feel free to talk among yourselves. Take all the time you feel you need to take."

Yesterday, the court convened as usual at 10am, but the time was the only thing normal about the day’s proceedings.

For a start, the judge and the prosecution and defence lawyers had discarded their wigs and gowns for "civvies". Then, within minutes, the jurors were boarding a coach, while the judge, lawyers and media shared a second coach.

In convoy, the buses were led through city-centre traffic and red lights by police motorcycle outriders. Puzzled pedestrians strained to get a look through the windows, thinking perhaps that someone famous was on board.

On reaching Easthouses, where the road had been sealed off, the coaches slowed as they passed Jodi Jones’s home in Parkhead Place. Police stood guard at the entrance to the Roan’s Dyke path, where sunflowers, now becoming the worse for wear, and a small Winnie the Pooh and a teddy bear were tied to a lamppost, tributes to the dead schoolgirl.

As the jurors headed off down the path, Mitchell arrived in a car, and he and a couple of escorting security officers joined his team of lawyers, led by the QC, Donald Findlay.

Lord Nimmo Smith picked up the trail behind the jurors, followed by the advocate-depute, Alan Turnbull, QC, his assistant, the defence team and then Mitchell, with reporters at the rear. All were closely observed by police officers, including a dog-handler.

In beautiful sunshine, jurors stopped at a point where the path divides, one way leading to Newtongrange on what is known as the Lady Path, and the other continuing to Newbattle. A large gap in the wall gives access to woods at that spot, and the jury had heard that the initials LM and JJ had been carved on a tree.

The Roan’s Dyke path is a narrow track, people having to walk single file some of the way, and has open fields on one side and the wall with the woods behind it on the other. That it is a popular short-cut can be seen from the amount of litter strewn about the undergrowth.

Jurors spent time at the V in the wall, about halfway down the path, and the procession emerged at Newbattle Road, some 30 minutes after setting out at Easthouses.

Again, a sunflower tribute to Jodi could be seen tied to a tree. Here, however, a small toy rabbit had fallen to the ground and it lay in the mud, dirty and abandoned.

The coach trip back to Edinburgh passed near to Mitchell’s home in Newbattle Abbey Crescent.

Evidence in the trial is to resume today at a specially-built courtroom in Parliament House, Edinburgh, where a replica of a stretch of the wall at Roan’s Dyke has been erected.