Jodi Jones killer says parole ruling was unlawful

Luke Mitchell, pictured here in 2008, was sentenced to life in prison for murder

Convicted murderer Luke Mitchell has gone to the Court of Session in Edinburgh to argue that a parole board acted unlawfully in deciding to keep him in prison.

Mitchell stabbed 14-year-old Jodi Jones to death in the woods near her home in Dalkeith, Midlothian, in 2003. They had been dating for four months.

He was convicted at the High Court in Edinburgh in 2005 and sentenced to a minimum of 20 years in prison.

Mitchell, now aged 36, said a hearing in April last year was procedurally unfair and failed to consider all the evidence. The parole board was his first opportunity to be considered for release.

During that hearing, a report was presented which Mitchell had not been given the chance to read in full.

When he requested an adjournment, this was denied and instead the report was set aside. The board concluded he should not get parole.

His lawyer Shaun Macphee: "The petitioner clearly feels a severe sense of injustice.

"He feels that the panel had predetermined the outcome against him."

Mitchell's lawyers said that all the evidence was not considered.

They have requested that Lady Haldane overturn that decision to not allow him out of prison and tell the board to reconsider his request.

'Fundamentally flawed report'

Mark Lindsay KC, the parole board's lawyer, said that other evidence had been used to reach the conclusion that Mitchell should not have be released.

He told the judge that his clients acted lawfully and the report played no part in the board's eventual decision.

Mr Lindsay said that the author of the report was a doctor who Mitchell believed to be so "biased" that he was making a report to the General Medical Council about his alleged failures.

He added: "The petitioner believes this to be a fundamentally flawed report and yet considers it to be procedurally unfair for the respondents not to have considered it.

"I ask that the petition to be refused."

He told the court that the parole board was obliged to hold another hearing before April this year, and that panel would consider all evidence about Mitchell's suitability for release afresh.

Lady Haldane will issue a written decision in due course.

Jodi Jones who was found murdered in June 2003 near her home in Dalkeith

Mitchell was just was 14 when he stabbed Jodi to death in woods near her home in what judge Lord Nimmo Smith later described as "a truly evil murder".

The schoolgirl had failed to return home on the evening of 30 June, and Mitchell claimed to have been alerted to her body by his dog while out looking for her.

She was discovered with her hands tied behind her back, her throat cut and her body repeatedly slashed.

Following a 10-month police inquiry, Mitchell was accused of her murder.

He has lost four appeals but has attracted a significant following of online supporters convinced of his innocence since a TV documentary was aired in 2021.