A FORMER soldier convicted of murdering his nine year-old step-daughter and burying her body in a badger's sett has failed in the Appeal Court bid to clear his name.

Miles Evans, then 27, was found guilty in January 1998 at Bristol Crown Court of the motiveless killing of Zoe Evans a year earlier. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.

His barrister, William Clegg QC, told three Appeal Court judges there was a lurking doubt in the case, and argued the conviction was unsafe.

The barrister said the jury should have heard vital evidence about another suspect after Zoe disappeared from her home in Warminster on January 10, 1997.

"We say there was an alternative suspect," said Mr Clegg, adding that the man's name was not put before the jury because of lack of evidence.

"The jury should have been told he had an unreliable alibi on the night of the murder, that there was a rape allegation against him and that he had a history of drug abuse," said Mr Clegg.

Zoe's body was found badly decomposed in a badger's sett less than a mile from her home six weeks after her disappearance.

She had been punched in the face and suffocated before being buried.

Mr Clegg added that it was only circumstantial evidence that had convicted Evans, the major piece of which was a T-shirt belonging to him found at the scene.

Evans has always protested his innocence, and even made a tearful TV appeal with Zoe's mother, Paula Hamilton, for her safe return days after she disappeared. But Lord Justice May dismissed the arguments put by Mr Clegg.

He accepted that the evidence given was circumstantial but that it had been fairly and completely explained to the jury.

He added that there was no evidence that the other suspect could have broken into Zoe's home or snatched her off the street.

Evans was refused permission to appeal against his conviction and returned to jail to complete his sentence.