Supreme Court will not hear Luke Mitchell appeal

Three Supreme Court Justices refused permission today for Mitchell, 23, to take his appeal to the London court.

Mitchell was ordered to serve at least 20 years for the 2003 murder of his 14-year-old girlfriend Jodi Jones in Dalkeith, Midlothian.

He applied directly to the court to hear his case after judges in Scotland did not grant him leave to take his case further.

But the Supreme Court justices have refused to hear the case, saying Mitchell’s appeal against conviction is “closed”.

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.

It is believed Mitchell had hoped a fresh appeal would be heard by the Supreme Court in light of a high-profile human rights decision it gave last year. The Cadder ruling put an end to police being able to question suspects without the option of legal representation.

However, it is understood that Mitchell’s Supreme Court bid was refused because his initial appeal against conviction had been dealt with before the Cadder ruling was issued and it could not therefore be reopened.

In some circumstances the Supreme Court can hear appeals in Scottish criminal cases which centre on human rights grounds, but the court made the decision not to hear the case earlier this week.

The judges said permission to appeal should be refused “because the appeal against conviction in this case is closed, for the reasons given by the High Court of Justiciary”.

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.

It is unclear whether Mitchell will have a chance to take his case any further to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.