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[admin]

I went to go through some of the comments on the DR again today but as I moved between the many pages, for some reason it seemed to get confused and sent me to the comments of a completely different article all together related to football or something. So, I've decided to do them a favour and make sure the comments are available all the time here. It's a sort of you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours sort of thing, because many of the people commenting have quoted vast chunks of Luke's website, or the comments from this forum. I don't mind if they don't 

The following artcile was published on the 4th April 2011 - permalink included.

Four appeals by Jodi Jones killer Luke Mitchell cost £112,000 in legal aid

Apr 4 2011 Christine Lavelle

KILLER Luke Mitchell has cost taxpayers more than £112,000 in legal aid bills since his conviction.

One of his court appeals cost almost £80,000, an incredible 40 times the average for such cases in Scotland, according to a freedom of information request.

Mitchell, who murdered girlfriend Jodi Jones, 14, in Dalkeith, Midlothian, in 2003, has received public funds for four unsuccessful appeals - and a fifth is reportedly under way.

Last night, campaigners demanded an end to "ridiculous" legal aid spending on the case.

His victim was just 14 when her naked and mutilated body was discovered behind a wall in a wooded area near her home.

Mitchell was 15 when he was sentenced to a minimum of 20 years in jail but has fought his conviction ever since.

A spokeswoman for Mothers Against Murder and Aggression, a charity who help the families of crime victims in Scotland, said: "It is absolutely ridiculous that he has appealed four times.

"If you're convicted of a crime you should not be able to appeal unless new evidence comes to light.

"The family of the victim have all this to go through again. It's just not on."

A spokesman for Petal, who help the families of murder victims, said: "There must be millions spent on playing the system. It continues to re-traumatise the families of victims."

But a spokesman for the Scottish Legal Aid Board said: "The Luke Mitchell case is a complex one and will be at the higher end of the range of costs.

"The board grants legal aid after applying the tests set out in legislation and only pays for work that is required."

Comments follow :

[admin]

These parasites ! and they have it stitched up !......a constant dripping roast . I saw some figures for these outfits that claim no win-no fee . Apparently the NHS paid out something like £325 million to claimants last year ..............and £ 450million to these con men ie the Law firms who took on the cases ................they get more than the people who actually claim as i said talk about feeding off the needy

Comment 1

[admin]

Donald Findlay needs to be told enough is enough here.

I'm all for the appeals system, but FOUR appeals, all on the tax payers tab ? No thanks.

1 appeal then any more should be self financed.

Comment 2

[admin]

Luke Mitchell was a child of fourteen when he was convicted of a horrific murder, in spite of there being no proper evidence of his guilt. Although the victim was larger than he, and was known to have fought for her life, Luke was strip-searched at the police station and not a mark was found on him. There was no DNA evidence to link him to the crime, yet DNA or semen of other men were found at the scene. The judge on his recent appeal described the police behaviour during his questioning as "deplorable". He was bullied and subjected to police aggression during hours of questioning during which he was denied access to a solicitor. In my view he is entitled to having as many appeals as are necessary in order to highlight the full facts of the case. A policeman who was involved in the investigation has said that he was convinced of Luke's guilt from an early stage. It is clear that the police placed an unfair emphasis on looking for signs of guilt by Luke (unsuccessfully) rather than keeping an impartial stance and conducting a full investigation of all possible guilty parties. His 2008 appeal failed because the appeal judge upheld as evidence a sighting of a young man who had been described as being in his late teens or early twenties with long hair as a sighting of Luke - who was a smallish, thin 14 year old boy with shortish hair which did not reach his shoulders at the time. In my view, Luke Mitchell looked young for his age, and could not pass for someone in their late teens/early twenties. I cannot be alone in having serious doubts about the way that this conviction was secured and I feel gravely disappointed by our legal system, in which the tenet "innocent until proven guilty" has clearly been discarded in this case.

Comment 3

[admin]

Mate who the Hell are you? you havent got the slightest clue what you are talking about do you? Blood, Semen and dna of other people found on Jodis Body? you are nuts. State your god dam source or shut the hell up. i weas at court everyday and i know there was no such evidence nor has any of that nature came to light you idiot. If there had been dont you think this would be investigated. You are obviuosly related to the little scum bag cos your the only person talkin him up on this

Comment 4

[admin]

I am not nuts and I am not related to Luke Mitchell - I don't know him or anyone involved in the case. I am merely a person who has grave doubts, and I am not alone. The police records and their forensic tests showed up blood, semen and DNA from other people on Jodi's body and none of those were Luke's. You presumably don't realise how the legal system works, but the police decided to charge Luke Mitchell based on the fact that his dog (who was training to be a tracker) alerted the search party to the whereabouts of the body when they were out looking for her. If the police are charging one person then at court they only present evidence which is beneficial to their aim of convicting that person. They don't present evidence which will disprove their theories. It is the responsibility of the accused person to instruct their legal counsel to conduct independent forensic tests of their own, and to conduct their own investigation in order to disprove the theory of the police. Unfortunately, this is not generally known, and so it is easy for people who are accused of a crime to be found guilty because the case for the defence is not robustly constructed.

Comment 5

[admin]

I surfed on the internet for you and I found an article in the Guardian on the 2nd of August 2009 which refers to DNA findings. QUOTE FROM GUARDIAN ARTICLE:

"Now Mitchell's new defence team is preparing to apply for a fresh appeal based partly on the original forensics investigation, the details of which have never before been made public. The new defence team say the original police forensic service laboratory report and biology report contradict the prosecution case that the murder did not have a sexual motive, as semen was found on Jodi's body.

The reports also show, the new defence team says, that a blood sample found on her produced a full DNA match with a named individual and a second full DNA profile, for an unknown male, was retrieved from a condom found near the body.

The latter individual was identified three years later when he committed a crime and provided a match on the DNA database."

The article is called "DNA doubts over Jodi Jones murder verdict" and can be read on the Guardian Newspaper website. Unfortunately, this site does now allow me to write a web address, but if you do a web search on the internet then you will find the link

Comment 6

[admin]

man its 2011 you idiot, Tell me if its so breath-takingly groundbreaking why is luke still in the Jail and why has thi not caused a re-open or re-think to the case??. ill tell you why. The new defence team looked at evidence that findlay had access to and did see aswell. The Semen was not found on Jodis Body! it was found on her T-Shirt and a little had transfered to her underwear, this was from her sisters Finace. Jodi had borrowed Her T-Shirt and was wearing it that night. Before you start accusing him of the crime, He was with Jodis sister all day and there is absoloutly no way on this planet Her sister was in on it. The condom was found quite a bit away in those woods, and was found to have dna both male and female, the condom was intact. guess what. Oh no shucks to you the female DNA is unknown and the male was traced not too long ago. if the condom was not burst it could not have been used in the murder, use a jonny twice and it'll burt up on ya, also if Jodis DNA is not there then it also has no bearing on the case.
As for the ''Tracker dog'' I can 100% guaruntee you one thing. Lukes dog DID NOT take them to the wall. he went to V in the wall himself and insinuated the dog had took him. Listen tell me one thing. If that dogs such a great tracker why did it not smell the body and alert him on the way up?? it wouldnt need a scent of jodi to smell the blood, in any case the dog would smell a cadavar over any scent that would be long or overcome by then. The police did not seek to prove Luke guilty they fought for a long time with help from the family to find him innocent, they worked hard to exclude him from the enquires but his constant lies, lack of emotion and smart comments. to the police made him even more of a subject. Did you know after being questioned by the police Luke whilst still under caution said to the investigator ''why dont you go listen to Kim by Eminem'' So the guy does. Have you heard that song? you know, the one about Marshal killing his girlfriend Kim? that was all used in court btw, why dont you check that out. Would you say that? given the fact you are being questioned about your girlfiends murder? Along with the knife pouch with the writting and missing knife? all of the witness statements. One seeing luke with jodi at the top of the path. The guy with the ginger hair that was ''meant'' to have followed Jodi onto the path? was actually traced a week later. He did not walk onto the path he walked past it. Thats just a small fraction. In any circumstantial case there will always be debate on whether the appellant is the right person, but at the end of the day he was sent down because there was a huge amount of that evidence against him. Luke is as guilty as sin. Maybe you should check out scotcourts.uk.gov and search his name. You can read all about the case and appeals from there. Let me guess i suppose you would have Nat fraser releassed aswell yeah?

Comment 7

[admin]

I am wondering how you know who was "in on it" or not? How do you know how Jodi's fiance's semen got onto her underwear from a borrowed T-shirt? How do you know that Luke Mitchell committed this crime? How do you know that the guy with the ginger hair you mentioned was not in the murder area? Unless you were there watching the murderer yourself you don't know and neither do the jury. If someone whose DNA was found at the scene of the crime was only traced a few years later, then it proves the importance of the appeal system, which allows any fresh evidence to be submitted, and the case looked at again. I wonder why you think that the police did everything they could to try to eliminate Luke Mitchell from their enquiries? As far as I am aware, they did all that they could to try to convict Luke, but were unable to do so based on any DNA, although, as you have agreed, they did find DNA of other people, and they also found saliva, blood and hair on the body. One of the policemen who was leading the case was quoted as saying that he was convinced of Luke Mitchell's guilt from the start. When their extensive testing failed to throw up any hard evidence for Luke Mitchell's involvement, they then had to mount a circumstantial case against him, giving ludicrous "evidence" and citing his "arrogance" and "contempt" as "proof". Just from my own point of view, if someone had accused me of a horrendous crime against someone I loved, I'd have been equally contemptuous. Quoting that song is just an example of his contempt, not a sign of his guilt. I will follow the link you gave me and read everything I can find very thoroughly. If I change my mind, I will definitely come back here and tell you.

Comment 8

[admin]

Correction: I made 2 errors in my post. In the second sentence, I meant to type "How do you know that Jodi's sister's fiance's semen got onto her underwear from a borrowed T-shirt?" Further down the passage, I said "they did find DNA of other people, and they also found saliva, blood and hair on the body" - I should have typed "at the scene", because some was on the body and some was on underwear.

Comment 9

[admin]

Listen i know,

I was very close to the investigation. You are only going by what you are reading in the press from equally Biast Sources on Mitchells side. Were you in court everyday? That blood Semen Etc was all eliminated even mitchels defence team didnt bother to try and include this original evidence. It wasnt held back you know. Also If this is such a ground breaking find tell me why all of Mitchells Lawyers are trying to appeal on the grounds of other lesser means, such as. The police interviewing him on his own and the media coverage?

Ill tell you now, he is guilty. He told Jodis mother two days after the murder that he didnt phone her back later because he Thought Jodi had been grounded? Come on this is just a blatant lie. He was told by Jodi and also by Her mothers Partner that she was on her way to MEET HIM. Why would he even say that??

There were reports that Luke was dirty and unwashed with greasy hair that night? This is also true. Memebers of the dearch party can recall looking at Luke that night and seeing he was extremely clean, infact so much so that he looked a little different. They actually stated that Luke was always very dirty, dirt under his nails and greasy hair but that night and there after he seemed to be extra clean. they along with most of his friends from school can recall the same jacket that look was seen with before the murder. he used to wear it all the time. Suddenly that vanished and he had to get a new one? Also tell me why he would have lied about being home between 17.00 and 17.45 hrs? his brother said They were not in the house at this time. I was in court pal i heard and saw him say it. Funny that him and his dad dont really have anything to do with him or his fight for justice eh? Infact funn that its just his evil mother leading the way eh? Open your eyes and stop getting on this miscarriage of justice band wagon, you seem smart enough to see the right path to the end.

Comment 10

[admin]

'' There were reports that Luke was dirty and unwashed with greasy hair that night? This is also NOT true. Memebers of the dearch party can recall looking at '' sorry my bad

Comment 11

[admin]

I had a look at that link you gave me, but I cannot find the details of the trial. If you could give me a link, I'd appreciate it please. With regard to the hair and nails, it was the police who inspected Luke that night whose report says that his hair was unwashed and nails dirty, so it is strange that the search party were so adamant in remembering such an insignificant detail, on a night when they witnessed such a horrifying crime, which would surely have driven any other memories out of their minds. Seemingly when there is a memory loss for any reason, the subconscious mind fills the gap with supposition, without realising that is what is happening - it's called confabulation. That would be perfectly understandable under the circumstances. That would account for the bizarre story that they all saw Luke going straight over to the wall... I find that impossible to believe because they were looking for Jodi, so that makes me think that either they weren't looking for Jodi because they knew she wasn't there, or their memories were playing tricks on them again, which can happen. I am not sure that a jacket did vanish. I think some witnesses described him in a jacket they had seen in photos, but that jacket was bought after the crime. In a case like this with a lot of publicity, there are always people who want attention or mistakenly imagine they saw something, which they didn't. If he had worn the jacket all the time, then someone would have had a photo of him wearing it before the crime, but no-one did. The police also searched the house, car and a barbecue in the garden but there was no sign of anything burned or any blood or DNA from Jodi, so it's pretty certain that these people were just mistaken. I am open to all information and am certainly of an open mind, but I'd just like to see some proper proof of guilt, rather than all this fairly insubstantial stuff. The boy has been imprisoned for 7 years, and his girlfriend was butchered. if he didn't do it, then someone else might get the same treatment, so it's better to be certain.

Comment 12

[admin]

JJ3 seems to know more about the murder of Jodie Jones than anyone else, including the jury at trial...why is this? Re the dog, finding the body: The whole search party, including Jodies sister confirmed the dog acted as Mitchell said, but all later cahnged their stories after the police had made them aware that Mitchell could be the killer. One cannt blame the family, but thei change in stories may have convicted the wrong man. What about the brother of Jodie? He had no alibi, was mentally ill and stabbed his mother weeks before.....how did he not give evidence in court?

Comment 13

[admin]

OMG! His mum, you sure? Thats not on his site, you should tell them caseblog.wronglyaccusedperson.org.uk/luke-mitchell-is-innocent/

Comment 14