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Jill Dando's Murder: Barry George Accused, Convicted & Acquitted

BlackRiverFalls said:
Nothing like persecuting the local nutter to bring out the best in people. Did I say best? I meant worst.
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my point was that as far as we know, these days he isn't even the local nutter and hasn't been for a long time, but he's been played up to be by the media.

we're told of all these crazy things he's done, but none of them seem to postdate 1981, when he'd have been 21.
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Maybe some people have long memories?
 
BlackRiverFalls said:
we're told of all these crazy things he's done, but none of them seem to postdate 1981, when he'd have been 21.
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That's not so. Mr George was presented with evidence from a string of women at his trial, all of whom testified that he had terrified them in the street in the 1990s, and was observed by police harrassing 38 different women in the weeks before his arrest.
And, according to today's Press he says he couldn't have killed Dando because he was "stalking another woman at the time" :(
 
long memory or not you cant rosecute someone on the basis of their past can you???

and if these women wre so scared of him why did they not press charges and have him done for it? i mean stalking trying to take photos is that not the same thing that papparazi do? trying to get the best pic,

if i recall rightly one of the women didnt he know he ws taking photosso he could not of been causing that much of a commotion

there must have been some proof he didnt do it other wise he would still be locked up
 
Yup. It seems to me that women have been safer on the streets these last few years while George has been locked up. I bet the woman he seriously assaulted a while back was relieved when he was sent down for Dando's murder.

George is giving an interview on Sky News just now - interrupted by a very important sport story :roll: - in which he again stresses his innocence. He's apparently offering to take lie-detector test.
As he's been legally cleared, one wonders why, unless it's in aid of more viewers for Sky. :?
 
dont get me wrong if he is guilty then he deserves to be prosecuted but you cant say that just because of some assualt charges that he deserved to be locked up for a murder we are not sure he he commited or not
 
I understand what you're saying - that being a dangerous nutter doesn't make him a murderer. ;)

However, he's now been cleared of the murder and is free to wander the streets again, doing whatever floats his boat.

Let's hope he takes up a more salubrious hobby in future. Say, something other than stalking women.
 
That's not so. Mr George was presented with evidence from a string of women at his trial, all of whom testified that he had terrified them in the street in the 1990s, and was observed by police harrassing 38 different women in the weeks before his arrest.
And, according to today's Press he says he couldn't have killed Dando because he was "stalking another woman at the time" Sad
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just plain criminal rather than nutty i think.

i agree he does seem like a dangerous and more than slightly psycho guy, and i wouldn't want to like in the same street as him, but the really bizarre stuff that's been reported, like the freddie mercury thing, was presented as though it was recent history, when it was not.
 
the women he harrassed was for taking their pics, he never assualted any of these women and dont get me wrong i dont agree with women being stalked but this still dont make him a murderer.

there was no proof of any violent history in his past, yes he got photographed with a gun but that was taken away from him years ago he gave to his family, people are just putting 2+2 together and getting 5

he must have been assesed at some point and you cant believe everything you read can you? all the papers and the reports on the net claimed different things between what was said and hs state of mind
 
I hope he moves into your street rather than mine then.
 
to me, barry george has always just come across as something with a severe personality disorder, but as there is, apparently, no history of violence - i say apparently as i have not seen any indication, but i may be wrong so i'm gonna cover my arse - it is slightly incredulous that he would then go out, modify a gun, shot her, get rid of said gun - to all intents and purposes very well - and then be caught out by the "evidence" that is against him[/quote]




the quote above is from a post by my boyfriend in response to this topic, people are too quick to judge bsed on what they are told by someone who was told by someone, i dont believe he poses any threat to the public and i know people with personality disorders and they have never caused meor anyone i know any problems.

i guess what im trying to say is that we should mot be too quick to judge is all.
 
Yeah, but you can see why he was judged more of a threat than the average eccentric, you know how stalkers can be, creepily following their victim's every move, obsessing over them to the point of distraction. A lot like a big fan of a celebrity, in fact.

However, he's not exactly the only disturbed individual who developed a fixation, and it looks to me he happened to be the right man for the police out of too many suspects. They made a mistake.

Back to conspiracy, now Radovan Karadzic has been caught, will the East European theories re-emerge in the Dando killing?
 
"George’s criminal record was, if not petty, undramatic and evenmore importantly, very short and far in the past by the time thatMiss Dando was killed. It consisted of convictions for inde-cent assault in 1982 and an attempted rape in 1983 for whichhe was sentenced to 30 months imprisonment. He has neverbeen charged with attacking a woman (or a man for that mat-ter) with a weapon or causing serious physical injury."

Link*

firstly, let me state that stalking is a crime, though in Mr george's time it was not, and as such, if he were to go back to such habits, then he would deserved to be locked up for that crime.

i am not, have not, nor will i ever dispute that stalking is victimless, even if the victim is not aware of the stalker.

my point of defending mr george has always been that he does not have the neccessary mental abilities to pre-plan such an event, and let us be clear that this was a pre-planned attack on jill dando. even the rape case shows that this was not pre-planned, but that he took an opportunity afforded him by the fact that this person went a way that allowed him a chance to rape her. i'm not saying this is her fault, just that she unwittingly led him to a place that was concealed and allowed for ease of escape.

to escargot1, the above quote and link is for you, as i feel you have been very misleading in your last posted comment. in this day and age, i defy anyone to see the word molestation, and not think "kiddie-fiddler". fact is he molested two grown women, and even that is just the word that modern reports have taken. the actual conviction was for indecent assault, which can mean anything that does not involve physically touching the victim, which then becomes either full assault, attempted rape or rape. so he could have been playing with himself, or just flashed. yes, these are crimes and will ellicit a mode of fear to the person they are being done to, but they are not molestation.

you also seem to be ready to gloss over the fact that the conviction was in 1983, with the indecent assault charges made in 1982, he received a 20month sentence, which he did not serve all of, and yet he has not appeared before a court from 1984 until the trail for jill dando's murder in 2001.

so he's a danger to women, but he took a fifteen year break, then decided that he wanted to do something again, and kill someone?

even the link you give in your post does not say anything about the rape or molestation charges that you levy against him, only show that this man does not have a mental capacity that fits with a killer who eluded justice for over a year. he states that the photograph of him holding a gun is not him, yet it clearly is. these are not the actions of a balanced mind, and in my opinion, he does need to be looked after, as current laws would mean what he has done before would get him locked up again.

in any case, i find something about the attempted rape conviction fishy. i can understand the evidence being off for forensics as this was the early 80s and the police weren't best suited to holding that kind of evidence, but his own conviction seems a bit too eloquent for a man who appears to really stumble over his words, even with knowing what he wants to say.

*EDIT: Link shortened by WJ
 
I'm not 'judging', attacking or defending George, just stating the facts. He was a danger to women before Dando's death and no matter how long the interval between his last conviction and Dando's murder he admits to have been stalking women right up to that time.

Of course this does not make him a murderer, and I personally never believed that he was one. I agree that he was framed by the police when they couldn't find the real killer. But being unjustly imprisoned for murder doesn't make him a saint, either.

Maybe now he'll get the treatment he needs to help him have more normal relationships. One would hope so.

I'm not holding my breath though. He seems to be relishing the attention he's getting now. Seems ill-advised to me.
 
the fact that he has not done anything physical to either himself or to a woman since the early 80s kinda shows that he had either; a) undergone some form of rehabilitation and it succeeded in him controlling the urges to live ou his fantasies physically, or b) that someone was keeping an eye on him to make sure he didn't perform such acts again.

b) is highly unlikely given that anyone minding him would freely let him follow women in case it was a slippery road to another attempted rape or indecent assault so we can assume that he did receive some form of help that cured him of living out those fantasies.

the thing you say about him relishing the attention, i again refer to the fact that he does not seem to have the mental capacity to realise that while he is not guilty of murder, his habits of following, photographing and generally stalking women would now land him in court. i am surprised that his family stated they wanted to help him return to a normal life, yet have let him ramble in these interviews in a way that makes him look like someone making excuses.
 
ihatethatmonkee3 said:
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the thing you say about him relishing the attention, i again refer to the fact that he does not seem to have the mental capacity to realise that while he is not guilty of murder, his habits of following, photographing and generally stalking women would now land him in court. i am surprised that his family stated they wanted to help him return to a normal life, yet have let him ramble in these interviews in a way that makes him look like someone making excuses.
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I'm not quite sure why everybody reads so much into the state of George's mental capacity, enough to make excuses on his behalf.

He may not be too bright, he may not even realise that stalking women is a bad thing, but, he was a fantasist, who appears to have imagined himself to be all sorts of famous celebrities, as well as a sex offender with a history of stalking and violence against women. Not to mention his attempt to break into Kensington Palace, or being caught there, wandering around the grounds, wearing a balaclava and armed with a knife. Apparently, also a habitual liar.

Now, he is famous, a celebrity in his own right. I don't think that it's too much of a stretch to suggest that he may relish the attention.

I'm with Escargot on this one. Not someone I'd want living in my street.

If his mind really is as 'unbalanced,' as people seem to believe, perhaps the outside World is not the place for him?
 
what annoys me about this whole thing is that his family have not been about as far as i can remember saying he needs help and to be cared for as he cannot be relied upon to care for himself, they just seemed to show up at the end of the trial, saying they hoped he could now get on with his life as normal.

but he has never lived a normal life, and, as his family, they have a duty of care, to him as well as to the public at large, to make sure he cannot get into any more troubles like those he had done.

i don't believe he killed jill dando, but i do believe that he is so deluded and retarded (i cannot think of a better word for it, so i apologise if it offends anyone) that he cannot reasonably be able to live in his own place. i think he should be in some kind of housing, where his movements are monitored.

after all, stalking is now a crime, so if his family care for him as they apparently do - infront of the cameras after he has been cleared of the crime, but seemingly at no point beforehand - then they will do whatever they can to make sure he is medicated if it will help, placed in a proper place to live and regularly check up on him.
 
I don't think anyone's making excuses for Barry George's behaviour, just for the crime he was wrongly convicted and jailed for. The thing that is at the heart of it all, is not whether he was capable of committing the offence (which it could be argued is possible), but that he then covered his tracks so meticulously that, in light of the dismissal of the residue evidence, he managed to be squeaky clean.

Barry George denied that he killed Jill Dando, and has continued to deny it for all these years with no deviation. Even with the passage of time and the possibility of embellishing the story to make him seem like, say for example, a secret agent, he has never changed his tune. Even when "evidence" was put to him, still the firm denial. In contrast, with the attempted rape he was convicted of, he confessed all when arrested.

Will he relish his "celebrity"? Will he go off on flights of fancy? Maybe, but I'm sure when he lies down every night and turns the light out, he will be glad of the silence and not to hear a key in the door. The 9 years inside are going to have a weighty presence on his mind, that's not something he will be able to just cast off and forget about. Wasn't he attacked by other prisoners and kept in segregation?
One thing I feel quite sure about is that if he was getting a little "strange" and someone whispered in his shell-like that he was heading back to the Big House if he didn't watch his step, and maybe on a "righteous" charge, he'd be as good as gold.

As far as the Dando charge is concerned, the man wrongly convicted for it could live in my street, no problem for me, he has been wronged by the State, and should be compensated and be free to walk unmolested. However, with his previous history, and whether he is a nutter or not, that could possibly be a problem, though I am pretty certain there are plenty of other equally strange characters wandering around my town who should probably be under lock and key.
"Maybe" , "possibly" and "probably", I'm not a specialist in mental health, so I shouldn't really judge. I bet I do things that some people would think odd, as do we all. There are people on this very message board who actually believe in ghosts and that UFOs are alien craft! Maybe they are "unbalanced" enough to be a danger too?

Don't blame Barry George, or the people who have successfully redressed a miscarriage of justice. Blame the idiots who thought it would be a great idea to close the huge asylums and let them lay derelict for 15 years before turning them into luxury housing developments. Blame the ones who decided that treating "hidden" disorders like mental illness could be pruned of manpower and resources. They are the real dangers to society.
Maybe without convenient oddballs like Barry George walking the streets to pin things on, the real killer of Jill Dando would be sewing mailbags right now, bang to rights.
 
hear hear!

i hope someday i have the capacity of language to be able to put my point in such a way rather than just trying to see if i can fit my whole foot in my very big mouth. :D
 
ihatethatmonkee3 said:
what annoys me about this whole thing is that his family have not been about as far as i can remember saying he needs help and to be cared for as he cannot be relied upon to care for himself, they just seemed to show up at the end of the trial, saying they hoped he could now get on with his life as normal.

but he has never lived a normal life, and, as his family, they have a duty of care, to him as well as to the public at large, to make sure he cannot get into any more troubles like those he had done.

i don't believe he killed jill dando, but i do believe that he is so deluded and retarded (i cannot think of a better word for it, so i apologise if it offends anyone) that he cannot reasonably be able to live in his own place. i think he should be in some kind of housing, where his movements are monitored.

after all, stalking is now a crime, so if his family care for him as they apparently do - infront of the cameras after he has been cleared of the crime, but seemingly at no point beforehand - then they will do whatever they can to make sure he is medicated if it will help, placed in a proper place to live and regularly check up on him.
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Barry George's sister Michelle Diskin has consistently fought for justice and backed him up all the way. She stood behind him and kept his appeal going even when he sacked his original lawyer (Edward Fitzgerald QC), considered to be one of his best chances of success. Apart from doing Fathers4Justice-style stunts, I think she did all that a 51 yr old widow and mother could do for her little brother.

I don't think that Barry George's family didn't care for him before his successful appeal, he was a grown man, an adult. What Barry George did with his life was his business, and nothing to do with the rest of his family, in the same way as yours is. If you want to dress as an SAS man and knock one out over secretly taken pictures of women walking down the street, well, that is your business, however bloody strange it may be to the rest of us!

Barry George is of low IQ and poorly educated. He is a fantasist and a liar. He has obviously limited social skills, judging by his track record with women, and is pretty much "weird" in anyone's book. That, however, is a long way from being mentally incapable of making his own decisions. I said in my post earlier that I am no expert in mental health matters, but I am pretty sure that just being of lesser intelligence is not grounds to have someone put in a home. I believe they have to suffer from some sort of diagnosed mental illness or physical impairment that prevents them from developing normally.

My friend's brother was starved of oxygen at birth 45 years ago and has the mental age of a 13 yr old. He is a nightmare, like any 13yr old lad, constantly getting into scrapes because physically he looks normal, yet can't be trusted to keep away from "interesting things" - like gangs of lads outside the corner shop. How many times has he had to be rescued after telling them to shut up? You guess......
Thing is, even though he is not able to make decisions legally as an adult (he gets signed up to Sky TV, double glazing etc etc every time they call despite being told he cannot legally be held to any contracts), they can't force him to live anywhere in particular. His family have tricked him into living in a semi-sheltered flat, but if he thought they were making decisions for him, or running his life, he would be off like a flash. (To Blackpool, like last time, where he ended up married to a Russian stranger, telling all and sundry his family were trying to kill him. He mysteriously ran up considerable debts with an unknown "friend" who then turned nasty. He had been boasting his Mum's house was worth loads and it was going to be his any day. He was so scared by the man's threats he went to the police in Blackpool for protection. All this in just one week! Rescued, again, by the brother he is convinced wants to kill him.)

Alas, he is perfectly entitled to do that, just up and leave - his family just pick up the pieces when a frustrated policeman calls and says "we've got a Mr XXX here, he's got into a spot of bother...."

He doesn't commit crimes, he just gets himself into situations where people take exception to him. It's a terrible thing to see how people can sense someone "isn't all there" and then turn nasty. The bloke in question is absolutely harmless, but always gets beaten up if he goes to any pub, has gangs of kids follow him taunting in the street (which turns readily into a pack of adults hunting "the paedo" when he turns round and tells them he's going to "have them")

It's a minefield, whether someone is "normal" or just, well, "thick" for want of a better word. (I'm relying on readers not jumping on me for that phrase, but being intelligent enough to understand the context)
Hopefully George's family can take him under their wing and let him be looked after by them. It has to be his decision to let that happen though.

Such is the state of Britain today. :cry:

(Not saying that chucking anyone different into an asylum was any better, but that at least the issues of mental health and the effects of an individual's behaviour and capacity upon the rest of society was being addressed,however crudely, before they started being accused of capping TV presenters )
 
Cracking piece from the Grauniad on why the ballistics evidence should have ruled George out from the beginning.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/05/jilldando.serbia


When a conspiracy is the simple solution

Lone assassin explanations are seen as the rational alternative to conspiracies. But in the case of Jill Dando, the normal pattern is turned upside down

guardian.co.uk, Comment is Free. Frank Fisher. August 05 2008

Barry George is a weirdo – that's okay, I can say it, as it formed a key part of the successful defence in his retrial for the murder of Jill Dando. Unintelligent, a fantasist, a braggart, something of a sex pest too and not subtle about it – no one seems to have ever denied this. Yet apparently, for eight years, the Metropolitan Police also believed he was something of a criminal mastermind.

Charlie Brooker gleefully and confidently assaults 9/11 "troofers" in his record-breaking Cif thread, but the core arguments against conspiracies in most high-profile cases – 9/11, JFK, Oklahoma City - work against a lone nut theory in the Jill Dando killing, and always did.

The police are playing their usual game right now – hinting they're not considering any other suspects, revealing convictions and suspicions that were not put in front of the jury – suggesting with nods and winks that, regardless of the verdict, they know who did the deed.

Their misplaced confidence was absurd from day one. There is not one chance in a billion that Barry George killed Jill Dando, and the Met must always have known this. I'll focus on just one aspect of the crime, but it's enough to prove the fragility of the overall police case.

From the moment a brass cartridge case that once held the bullet that killed Dando was found, it was certain that whoever killed her was either a gunsmith himself, or had access to specialist weapons-making facilities – and it was a strong possibility that the killer hailed from Eastern Europe. The cartridge, a Remmington .380 casing, had been opened, and propellant removed to reduce the crack of a gunshot – then crimped back onto the slug, a 9mm round, creating a custom-built, low-powered, composite round. An old NKVD trick apparently, dating from Stalin's days. This simple fact instantly ruled out someone like George acting alone. He could not have prepared the ammunition himself, at no stage were the police able to link him to any facilities where he may have been able to do it, they were never able to connect him to a illegal firearms trader and were unable to turn up the weapon – or even suggest what kind of weapon it was, with any plausibility.

Based purely on the ammunition, and the fact that the bullet bore no rifling marks, the police announced that a modified automatic, or reactivated inert automatic, drilled through, must have fired the round. Yet the case carried no extractor marks – the indentations, fairly distinctive for each type of gun, left on the case by the ejector mechanism of an automatic pistol or rifle. That means that it hadn't been ejected, which means it was not fired from an automatic pistol, which means the weapon used cannot have been of the type claimed by police. Rather, this was a custom device, possibly handmade. And this weapon, the police theory had it, would have been built by a man with no access to the necessary machinery, no history of engineering at all, who couldn't even drive and apparently has trouble doing up his buttons.

There are two kinds of weapon that could have fired the shot that killed Jill Dando – both specialist devices, neither of them ever mentioned by the police. The first, a zip gun, is the most basic firearm in current use. A street gang or prison weapon, it's essentially two tubes sliding over each other, with a nail or steel rod welded to the base of one, to strike a cartridge held in place at the bottom of the other. Sometimes spring-loaded and sometimes purely manual, it's a clumsy and awkward weapon, and most street-built examples can only be operated with two hands.

Witnesses described a tall man dressed in dark clothing, perhaps a black suit, carrying a large mobile phone. He, or someone very like him, was placed outside Dando's home, in her street, walking away from her garden immediately after the shooting, along with several other men and the famous blue Range Rover that was once a key target for the police investigation, and was then rapidly forgotten when it didn't fit their theory.

He was carrying a large mobile phone. A gun, the police said – the witnesses must have been mistaken. But what if the witnesses weren't half-blind simpletons the police suggest? What if they saw exactly what they said they saw? What if they saw a man holding this?

Covert handguns disguised as mobile phones, generally firing a .22 or 9mm round, have been found all over Europe – but they all appear to be manufactured in the same place, the former Yugoslavia. You can tell where I'm going with this can't you?

The police theory – the "rational" theory – suggests a man with an IQ of 75 carried out such a killing, alone, and perfectly. It simply isn't credible, and it never was. The only credible theory is a that of a professional assassination, carried out on behalf of either a criminal organisation, angered by Dando's work on Crimewatch, or perhaps on behalf of someone else.

This is the conspiracy theory – and yet it is the simplest option. The only question is who ordered the hit? People point to Crimewatch, but like the rest of the British media, they don't really "do" organised crime. Did Crimewach ever take down a gangland boss? And is it credible to suggest some poor bugger swindling widows out of their savings took revenge from his prison cell? I don't think so. So we turn to the other option.

Chances are every state has people to deal with individuals they want removed. We don't know if our own country does, but with some nations, we know they have assassinated people in the recent past. Countries like, well, Serbia for instance.

Add the fact that callers to the BBC after the killing claimed it on behalf of Serbia, that presenters such as John Humphrys were also threatened because of their perceived support for the Kosovan cause, and the Serbian connection must look credible.

So why did the police focus on Barry George?

Who knows. But I can guess. The Serbian theory posits revenge as the motive. Revenge for Clinton and Blair's illegal Kosovo war, but specifically for the war crime perpetrated by British and US forces in the early hours of April 23 1999, when Nato missiles smashed into the headquarters of Radio and Television Serbia killing 16 broadcasting staff.

We bombed their state broadcaster – claiming it was a legitimate target as it propagandised for their side – and they struck back, so the theory goes. The BBC had presented hours of footage backing wholeheartedly the Nato line that Milosevic was a new Hitler, that "humanitarian intervention" was essential. Dando, no doubt in good faith, broadcast an appeal on behalf of the Kosovan refugees. That's more than enough motive.

More of a motive than police ever suggested for Barry George. But not really a motive anyone in the UK establishment would want to talk up.

Perhaps I'm being cynical – maybe the original police investigation really did think that the Serb theory, even though it fitted the facts, was not credible. But why might that be? Because it was a conspiracy theory? When even positing a conspiracy is enough to bring ridicule, might they actually have jettisoned the idea because of embarrassment?

While it makes sense, as Charlie Brooker suggests, to try to remain close to planet Earth at all times, and not to drift too wildly on the seas of invention, it also makes sense to evaluate fairly all possibilities, especially those that fit the known facts, regardless of how fantastic those possibilities then become.

As the greatest detective of them all once said:

' When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains – however improbable – must be the truth.'

Barry George was finally found not guilty of the murder of Jill Dando last week, but the police should have known, nine years ago, that the idea that this man could commit such a breathtaking crime was simply that: impossible.
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Serb 'admits killing Jill Dando' in revenge for Nato bombs
David Leppard

SCOTLAND YARD is studying new information which has revived the theory that the BBC television presenter Jill Dando was murdered by a Serbian hitman.

Detectives have been told a West Midlands petty criminal of Serbian descent boasted of Dando’s killing, which he claimed was an act of revenge for the bombing of Belgrade by Nato in 1999, during a drinking session at a bar in the Serbian capital.

The man is said to have stood up and taken a theatrical bow and been applauded for the killing during the session at the upmarket Portobello bar in central Belgrade in September 2001. His alleged confession is said to have taken place in front of more than 10 people.

Officers from the Metropolitan police homicide squad are examining the new evidence, which originated with a tip-off to the Crimestoppers hotline last month, as part of their review of the files of Operation Oxborough, which investigated Dando’s death. Two further witnesses said last week they were also present at the alleged confession.

The 37-year-old Crimewatch presenter was shot dead on the doorstep of her home in Fulham, west London, in April 1999. She was killed in broad daylight by a single bullet to the head. Experts said the “execution-style” killing had all the marks of a professional hitman.

Barry George, a local misfit with a history of sex offences and stalking attractive women, was convicted and given a life sentence for her murder in 2001.

However, evidence involving a speck of gunshot residue found inside George’s overcoat was later ruled unsafe by the Court of Appeal. Last August he was acquitted at a retrial.

This weekend, Commander Simon Foy, head of the Met’s homicide squad, said the force was examining new leads.

“Part of the review of the Dando inquiry has been to look at all new information that has come forward after the trial and to action and research that as best we can,” he said.

“But it wouldn’t be appropriate for us to comment on specific lines of inquiry.”

The theory of a Serbian link to Dando’s murder was initially examined by detectives but had been ruled out by the time George was arrested in 2000. Since then it has been played down by senior prosecutors and law enforcement officers with knowledge of the case. However, senior officers disclosed last week that it is now being reexamined.

The Serbian connection was first formally aired by Michael Mansfield QC, George’s barrister, at his first trial in 2001. Mansfield made no mention of the man now being investigated or his alleged claims.

Mansfield contended that one possible motive for Dando’s killing was a Serbian death squad taking revenge for the bombing of a Belgrade television station days earlier, which left 16 dead.

After the murder the BBC received calls saying Dando had been killed in retaliation.

Mansfield said the bullet used to kill Dando bore crimping marks on it of a type often found in the former Soviet Union and eastern bloc countries. He said they were similar to markings on Yugoslav ammunition.

He produced a dossier compiled by the National Criminal Intelligence Service, which later merged into the Serious Organised Crime Agency. It said that after the bombing of the television station the Serbian warlord Arkan put out a contract on Sir John Birt, the BBC director-general, whose security was consequently stepped up.

The report continued: “As a result of this, the target was changed to Jill Dando. The hit was ordered by Arkan, the leader of the Tigers [a Serbian paramili-tary group]. The gunman was Yugoslavian and arrived in the UK from Germany via France.”

Orlando Pownall, the prosecution barrister at the 2001 trial, dismissed the claim as “headline-grabbing”. But that view is now being reconsidered after the tip-off to Crimestoppers last month.

As a result, Avon and Somerset police went to Leyhill prison in Gloucestershire to interview Christopher Barrett-Jolley, a former cargo aircraft captain jailed for importing cocaine into the UK.

Barrett-Jolley made a statement about the alleged confession, which is being reviewed by the Yard’s Dando inquiry team. A senior detective said the Met planned to interview him again shortly.

Two witnesses who were present with Barrett-Jolley in the Portobello bar have confirmed his account. They say the Serbian man told them that the Dando murder was “an eye for an eye” in revenge for the Nato bombing.

One said: “During the conversation with his friends it turned to what had happened in the UK with Jill Dando. The friends of his actually said, ‘Well, this was the man that was involved in that.’ He took a bow over that because he claimed he had something to do with it. He stood up and his friends applauded him strenuously.”

The witness, a British businessman, said initially it was not clear whether the man was claiming to have killed Dando or whether he was simply saying he knew who carried it out. He added: “When we asked him afterwards, ‘Surely you can’t be serious about this’, he claimed it was in retaliation over some Serbian TV-star singer that was killed in the bombings.”

A second witness, a member of Barrett-Jolley’s flight crew, said: “Everybody who was in the immediate vicinity seemed to think [he was claiming responsibility]. The glasses were all held up to him and he accepted the toast.”

“I was given the impression he had taken part in this [Dando’s murder] or had done it.”

The man alleged to have made the confession declined to comment when contacted at his home last week.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 780305.ece
 
Barry George in newspaper payout over Dando claims
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8415772.stm

Barry George was cleared of murdering Jill Dando
Barry George has accepted "substantial" damages over claims he was stalking women and articles suggesting he murdered Jill Dando.

He accepted the undisclosed amount at the High Court against News Group Newspapers - owner of The Sun and The News of the World.

Afterwards Mr George said he was "pleased" the matter had been settled.

Mr George was cleared in August 2008 of murdering the BBC TV presenter who was shot dead in south-west London in 1999.

Mr George, from London, spent seven years in jail for the murder before being acquitted after a retrial.

Following Wednesday's brief hearing, Mr George said: "I am pleased that the matter between myself and News Group Newspapers has been amicably settled following a successful mediation without the need for litigation."

He was at London's High Court with his sister, Michelle Diskin, who led the campaign to prove his innocence.

His counsel, Gordon Bishop, told the court he had brought the action over a number of articles in The Sun and the News of the World between August and November 2008.

He said News Group had withdrawn the "false allegations" and apologised for making them.

It had agreed to pay Mr George substantial damages and all his legal costs.

A spokesperson for News Group Newspapers said: "We are pleased this matter has been amicably resolved following successful mediation and without the need for litigation."
Click to expand...
 
Jill Dando 'murdered by Serbian hitman'
Jill Dando, the BBC presenter gunned down on the doorstep of her home, was assassinated by a Serbian hitman, it has been claimed.
By Patrick Sawer
8:58AM GMT 03 Mar 2012

The widow of a Serbian journalist, murdered in almost identical circumstances, has come forward to say she is convinced Miss Dando was shot by a hitman acting on orders from the Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic.
Branka Prpa, a historian, believes Miss Dando became a target after presenting a BBC appeal on behalf of Kosovan-Albanian refugees driven from their homes by militias backing Milosevic.

Mrs Prpa was with her husband, Slavko Curuvija when he was shot dead outside their home in Belgrade on April 11, 1999 – just 15 days before Miss Dando, 37, was killed in Fulham, west London.
She said: “I think there is a link between Dando and Curuvija. I think they were both executed.”

Speaking to the Daily Mirror newspaper, Mrs Prpa pointed to a number of striking similarities between the two murders.
Both victims were high profile journalists who had upset the Serbian regime. Both were returning home when they were approached from behind, forced to the ground and shot in the head at close range.
Furthermore, both killings bore the hallmark of professional assassinations, with both victims dying instantly and the shootings over in a matter of seconds.

The day after Miss Dando’s killing a man with a mid-European accent called BBC TV Centre in London to claim responsibility.

Mrs Prpa, currently a director of Belgrade's Historical Archives said: “There were a whole range of people defined by the regime as political enemies who were assassinated at the beginning of the war. They would simply kill you and walk away. When you look at this timeline of killing, then it is clear that it is part of the same context.”
Asked if she thought Miss Dando’s murder had been carried out by Milosevic’s henchmen, Mrs Prpa replied: “That theory is quite possible.”

At the time of her murder Miss Dando was one of the most recognisable faces on British television, having hosted programmes such as Holiday and Antiques Inspector and was lined up to host the BAFTAs.

She was shot in the back of the head as she arrived at her Victorian terraced home in Fulham on the morning of April 26, 1999. Her death came three weeks after she presented the refugee appeal and just three days after Nato bombed a state-owned TV station in Belgrade.
The strike claimed the lives of 16 innocent workers, including make-up artist Jelica Munitlak, a close friend of President Milosevic.

At the time it was Nato’s first offensive action against a sovereign nation in its 50 year history. Intelligence sources claimed Milosevic had vowed revenge and gave orders to “take out” people he classed as “political enemies”.

Miss Dando’s murder led to a massive investigation, with Scotland Yard detectives interviewing hundreds of people. Barry George, a loner who lived in the area, was convicted but later cleared of the killing – leaving police with an unsolved murder.

Mrs Prpa believes the Serbian regime would have taken pleasure from the “shock value” of murdering the BBC presenter on her own doorstep.
She said: “The question is why they chose her when they had so many foreign media journalists in the field? The only explanation would rely on a perverted nature of a mind based on destruction, evil and the idea of power.
“They are thinking, ‘I will kill you, but in your own country, look how powerful I am’. This is the only possible explanation. It is very possible and is not unrealistic.”

Recalling her husband’s death, she said: “Everything was over in a second. Holding me by the hand, Slavko started falling down. I turned over to see what was going on, and was hit on my head with a gun.

“While falling on the ground, I saw a faceless person – black jacket, black cap. It was only then that my consciousness registered that something awful was going on. While I was lying at Slavko’s side, the person approached us and shot him in his head.”

The man who called the BBC told the operator: “Yesterday I call you to tell you to add a few numbers to your list. Because your government, and in particular your Prime Minister Blair, murdered, butchered 17 innocent young people. He butchered, we butcher back.
“The first one you had yesterday, the next one will be Tony Hall.”

Mr Hall was chief executive for BBC news and the man ultimately responsible for coverage of the Kosovo conflict. Detectives took the threat so seriously they put Mr Hall, now Baron Hall of Birkenhead, under police ­protection for six weeks.

But officers working on Operation Oxborough, the code name for the investigation, eventually discounted a Serbian link. Det Chief Insp Hamish Campbell, who led the manhunt, said that theory was only considered “for a short while”.

Instead police focused their attention on George, who had a history of stalking women and sexual offending. He was convicted of Miss Dando’s murder in July 2001, but subsequently cleared on appeal in November 2007, after flaws in the prosecution case were exposed on appeal.

Apart from a microscopic speck of explosives residue found on his coat a year after the murder, the police found no evidence that he had possessed guns or ammunition in the previous 15 years.
Miss Dando’s neighbours, the only two witnesses to the killing, also failed to pick out George in an identity parade.

Conservative MP Patrick Mercer, who served with the British Army in Bosnia, also suspects a Serbian link to Miss Dando’s murder.
He said: “It had all the hallmarks of covert forces. The killer even used specially tailored ammunition, which was a Serbian assassination trademark and something I saw when I was over there.”

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: “Numerous lines of inquiry have been explored. No credible evidence or intelligence was ever found to support this theory.”
Cold case detectives are still working to solve the crime, with Detective Chief Supt Campbell still in charge of the operation.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... itman.html
 
The miscarriage of justice continues.

Barry George loses compensation case
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21195269

Mr George was first convicted in 2001 but an Old Bailey retrial took place in 2008

Barry George, wrongly convicted of the murder of BBC TV presenter Jill Dando, has lost a bid for compensation.

His case followed a Supreme Court ruling that widened the circumstances under which compensation could be paid.

But the High Court ruled he did not qualify because jurors could still reasonably have convicted him despite new evidence that led to his acquittal.

Three other men also failed in similar cases but a fifth was successful and will have his case reconsidered.

'Flawed' decision
In May 2011 the Supreme Court redefined the legal meaning of what amounted to a miscarriage of justice.

Continue reading the main story
Analysis

Danny Shaw
Home affairs correspondent, BBC News
Innocent until proven guilty, right? Not when it comes to compensation claims for people whose convictions have been quashed - the government sets a very high bar.

In essence, the wrongfully convicted have to show there's no existing evidence on which they could be found guilty - or that they are "clearly innocent". Unless all the key evidence in the case has been demolished at their appeal they're unlikely to succeed.

Those who have had a retrial, after their conviction was overturned, will also probably lose out. The grounds were widened a little by the Supreme Court in May 2011, which gave renewed hope to Barry George that his damages claim might succeed.

But the High Court's decision has closed the door - unless the Supreme Court justices can be persuaded to reconsider the issues.

Previously, compensation was only awarded for a miscarriage of justice if a claimant could effectively prove they were innocent.

But the nine Supreme Court judges widened this by saying that if a person could prove that no set of circumstances could possibly lead to their conviction by a jury, they could get compensation.

Ian Glen QC, appearing for Mr George, 52, who spent eight years in prison before being cleared in 2008 after a retrial, had argued that the decision to refuse damages to a maximum of £500,000 was "defective and contrary to natural justice".

He said Mr George's unanimous acquittal by a jury at his retrial, the Ministry of Justice had unfairly and unlawfully decided he was "not innocent enough to be compensated".

But for more than 30 years those acquitted on retrials in similar circumstances had been compensated, said Mr Glen.

Not to treat Mr George's acquittal as a miscarriage of justice "went behind the decision of the jury that acquitted him" and failed to take account of the fact that no safe conviction could ever be based on the evidence against him, the QC said.

But the High Court judges Lord Justice Beatson and Mr Justice Irwin said: "There was indeed a case upon which a reasonable jury properly directed could have convicted the claimant of murder."

Unsafe conviction
Mr George's lawyers indicated they would seek to appeal to the Supreme Court - a so-called "leapfrog" appeal.

Nicholas Baird, said Mr George and his family were "terribly disappointed" and wanted to "reflect" on the judgment before making any comment.

Miss Dando, 37, was shot dead on her doorstep in Fulham, west London, in April 1999.

Mr George was convicted in 2001 but an Old Bailey retrial took place in 2008 after doubt was cast on the reliability of gunshot residue evidence.

But the case brought by Ian Lawless, jailed for eight years for murder before being freed by the Court of Appeal in 2009, was successful.

Mr Lawless was jailed for life in 2002 after confessing to the murder of retired sea captain Alf Wilkins on the Yarborough estate in Grimsby, Lincolnshire.

His trial heard he had made various "confessions" to third parties, including regulars in a pub and a taxi driver.

But in 2009, his conviction was ruled unsafe after fresh medical evidence revealed he had a "pathological need for attention".

The High Court judges ruled that in his case the decision to refuse compensation was legally flawed and must be reconsidered in the light of their judgement.

The other three cases which failed were:

Justin Tunbridge was sentenced to nine months in prison in 1995 for two counts of indecently assaulting a woman. His case was referred to the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, an independent body which investigates possible miscarriages of justice, which found fresh evidence relating to the credibility of the prosecution case. Conviction quashed in 2008

Kevin Dennis was convicted in 2000 of the murder of a man in an Ealing nightclub with his two brothers and another man. His appeal was granted on the basis the evidence of the expert witness on CCTV images could no longer be relied on. The murder conviction was quashed in March 2004 and a retrial held in 2005, but he was acquitted by direction of the judge
Ismail Ali was convicted of actual bodily harm (ABH) against his wife and sentenced to a year in prison in June 2007. His conviction quashed by the Court of Appeal in November 2008 based on new evidence from a series of recorded telephone conversations, which Mr Ali said were between the couple
Another 11 cases were awaiting today's landmark ruling.
Click to expand...
 
The Police and judiciary unfortunately have a real problem with admitting they were wrong. In cases where they initially fasten their suspicions on the wrong suspect, they almost never solve the crime.

They rely so strongly on alibi evidence - if you don't have a cast-iron alibi you must have done it or at least be in the frame - but in these days where so many people are loners (not necessarily through choice) then hundreds of thousands of people have no alibis. It's quite untrue to suggest there was an element of doubt - had the evidence been properly evaluated there was in reality nothing to connect him with the crime at all.

The chap in Bristol - Mr Jeffries I think - was fortunate in his case that the actual murderer was not good at covering his tracks. Otherwise he could have found himself in the same position.
 
I think with the Jill Dando murder, whoever did it was not witnessed and no police leads have ever led to them.

In such cases, I don't see how the police will ever solve it.

So they resort to picking on a local wierdo.
 
Cochise said:
The Police and judiciary unfortunately have a real problem with admitting they were wrong. In cases where they initially fasten their suspicions on the wrong suspect, they almost never solve the crime.

They rely so strongly on alibi evidence - if you don't have a cast-iron alibi you must have done it or at least be in the frame - but in these days where so many people are loners (not necessarily through choice) then hundreds of thousands of people have no alibis. It's quite untrue to suggest there was an element of doubt - had the evidence been properly evaluated there was in reality nothing to connect him with the crime at all.

The chap in Bristol - Mr Jeffries I think - was fortunate in his case that the actual murderer was not good at covering his tracks. Otherwise he could have found himself in the same position.
Click to expand...

Strangely enough, I watched a documentary on the Johanna yeates murder this weekend. It was strange how attention switched to tabak when he was unhappy to take a DNA test. Jeffries attracted attention first as he had a key and there was no break in. Examination of tabaks computer shows he was looking at the road where the body was found on google earth, but before she was found.
 
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