**** updated Wednesday 13th May 2010****

SF, who is referred to in the following information, has asked this site to state publicly on his behalf, that he is willing to take a lie-detector test to confirm what he has said regarding these matters.

Photographs highlighting the similarity in appearance between two youths are in the possession of the site’s administrators. Had this line of enquiry been properly followed up, it is possible that it would have eliminated both Luke Mitchell and the other youth, at the very least, on the basis of timing, as discussed elsewhere on this forum.

MK was a student living in Newbattle Abbey College at the time of the murder. At the time, he bore an absolutely striking resemblance to Luke Mitchell, although he was a few years older, and the two were not related, and had never met.

After the college term ended, MK and a few others were allowed to remain in residence at the college, some had nowhere else to go at the time– some were “recovering” drug addicts.

On the morning after the murder, MK is claimed to have arrived at the home of a male (SF) and female who noted that his face was scratched, had a blood shot eye, and was behaving in a very agitated manner.  SF says MK told three different stories about what had happened to his face. He had no recollection of his movements the previous evening, having been high on a combination of drugs and alcohol, according to a sworn affidavit signed by SF. 

SF contacted the incident room, and gave MK’s name. He tried to persuade MK to go to the police, going as far as to drive him to the police station. Some weeks later, he was shocked to discover that police had still not contacted MK.

According to the affidavit, MK was known to look at violent and graphic images in the internet, was suspected of carving graffiti into door frames in the college, and was claimed to have written an essay entitled “Killing a girl in the Woods” just weeks before the murder. He was also extremely interested in Marilyn Manson’s paintings of the Black Dahlia murder (see “Manson“

It was to take three years before the existence of MK was even acknowledged by police. Almost overnight, all the claims made about MK were rubbished. SF, it was claimed, had convinced  MK that he had  come up with a plan that they should make up a story and sell it to the papers for £50,000.

The truth is somewhat different. Police logs show that MK was, indeed, made known to them, very early in the investigation, but they failed to trace him, and his details were passed from officer to officer, with no-one actually following up anything more than the most cursory initial “investigation.” Part of the confusion seems to have been introduced by the suggestion that MK may also have been known as MT and MG.

It was claimed that the essay did not exist, and that the tutor involved did not have such an essay. What was never made clear is that the essay would have been returned to the student after marking – the tutor was not lying when saying that she “did not have the essay.” It is not clear whether she was ever even asked if any student had handed in such an essay – the statement says only that she had “no recollection” of having seen such an essay.

When the police finally acknowledged that MK had been “in the system” but not followed up, there was suddenly produced cctv footage from a store in nearby Dalkeith which, they claimed, showed MK there at just before closing time (10pm), thereby disproving the claims that he may have been Jodi Jones’ murderer. There are three problems with this. Firstly, according to the SF affidavit, MK himself said he thought he had been at a different store in Newtongrange (a route which would have taken him past the Newbattle end of the path) at between 5 and  5.30pm.  He did not claim to have been at the Dalkeith store at any time that evening. Secondly, how did police come into possession of CCTV footage from that store three years later? There would have been no reason to seize cctv footage at the time of the murder – the store did not even feature in the original enquiry. Thirdly, how does cctv footage at almost 10pm prove where MK was at 5.15pm?

Given that all of the witness sightings of “a youth” at the Newbattle end of the path were fleeting glimpses from people in cars, and given the striking resemblance between Luke and MK, and given MK’s own original claim to have been on that road at the same time, it is entirely possible that at least some of these people were, in fact, seeing MK, and not Luke Mitchell waiting for Jodi to appear. It would go some way to explaining the different clothing described by these witnesses, and could have eliminated both from the enquiry, on the basis that none of these “sightings” could be considered positive identifications, and between 5.30 and 6pm, there would not have been enough time for either youth to have carried out the murder at 5.15pm, and be seen without any trace of blood, etc, at the Newbattle end of the path during that time period.

Finally the claim that SF had convinced MK to concoct a story to sell to the papers is preposterous. MK is to tell the police that he had written a story about killing a girl in the woods, that he had no recollection of where he’d been that night,  he’d acquired fresh scratches to his face and been acting in an agitated manner, and thought he might have had something to do with the murder………… and when the police cleared him (?) he would collect his £25,000 from the sale of the story. And if the police believed him?