Lawyers representing Luke Mitchell yesterday admitted the teenager's appeal against his murder conviction has faced difficulties and is still a "work in progress" despite there being just 10 days before it is heard by judges.

Lawyers representing Luke Mitchell yesterday admitted the teenager's appeal against his murder conviction has faced difficulties and is still a "work in progress" despite there being just 10 days before it is heard by judges.

Mitchell, now 19, was sentenced to serve a minimum of 20 years in prison after he was found guilty in 2005 of killing his 14-year-old girlfriend Jodi Jones. He is appealing against that conviction and at a hearing last month his legal team said they hoped to bring forward new evidence.

However, at a procedural hearing in Edinburgh yesterday Mitchell's lawyer said the appeal team was facing difficulties in putting its case together.

Last month, Mitchell's lawyers said they had "compelling circumstantial evidence" that someone other than Mitchell killed Jodi Jones.

Defence advocate Jane Farquharson said they had uncovered fresh evidence relating to a drug addict said to have a fascination with the same sort of mutilations as those found on the body of Jodi Jones.

She said there was also DNA evidence linking a different man to the murder scene. He is said to have left a used condom only 50 metres from where the schoolgirl's body was found and later lied to the police. However, yesterday Ms Farquharson told the court: "At this stage we are still trying to gather various information and witnesses.

"We have approached some individuals who have refused to co-operate and there has been the other difficulty of trying to track down the relevant parties.

"We want to be able to present the best fresh evidence and at the moment I don't believe we have got the best available evidence to present to your lordships."

The admission does not bode well for Mitchell's appeal, which will be heard by three judges at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh on February 5 - less than two weeks away.

Mitchell was in court yesterday dressed in a dark suit and blue shirt with his long hair tied back in a ponytail.

His mother, Corinne, was present and sat in the court on the public benches. Mitchell was just 14 years old when he murdered Jodi Jones in June 2003.

He horribly mutilated his girlfriend then led the search party that later found her body in woodland beside Roan's Dyke path, which led from her home in Easthouses, Dalkeith, to the Newbattle area of the Midlothian town.

Lord Nimmo Smith, the trial judge, said photographs of the girl's horrific injuries were the worst he had ever seen.

The three appeal judges - Lords Hamilton, Osborne and Kingarth - still must decide whether the defence claims regarding the new evidence are strong enough to be considered in court. Ms Farquharson urged the judges yesterday not to make any decisions while defence QC Donald Findlay was out of the country.

Mr Findlay conducted Mitchell's defence at his trial in 2005, which was the longest single accused murder trial in Scots legal history.

The defence team hopes to convince the appeal judges that the new evidence they say they have unearthed could have swayed a jury in Mitchell's favour. In order to have the evidence deemed admissible the onus is on the defence to show why it was not led during the original trial.

However, John Beckett QC, for the Crown, told the judges yesterday that even if everything said on behalf of Mitchell regarding the other two "suspects" were true it would not be enough to overturn the guilty verdict.

Mr Beckett said: "There are profound difficulties with the quality of the evidence. We are getting into a bit of a mess with this."

He said the drug addict had become "very problematic" for the defence, while the other man had been ruled out after speaking to police.

Mr Beckett added: "DNA profiles have been obtained which were compared with crime scene samples and there is no match whatsoever."