Fresh appeal in Dando murder case
Barry George, the man serving a life sentence for the murder of TV presenter Jill Dando, has won the right to a fresh appeal.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission said it would refer the case back to the Court of Appeal.

Extended article in Sunday Times Magazine, 29 October 2006

Appeal failure lacks conviction
Even though the appeal court has upheld Barry George's murder conviction, questions remain over the police investigation into Jill Dando's murder, writes Charles Shoebridge, Guardian, Monday July 29, 2002

See also:
The Case of Barry George by Scott Lomax
and review of Scott's book, Who Killed Jill Dando?

Justice for Barry George Campaign website

Appeal Court Judgement

Prisoner FF5227 shuffles into the crowded visiting room at Whitemoor Prison dressed in a white T-shirt, blue jeans and trainers.

He seems confused, and it takes two prison warders to usher him to the red plastic seat opposite me. All the time we talk his eyes are transfixed by the security cameras constantly scanning the room.

Leaning forward he whispers: "They're watching me, they're always watching me."

He's sweating profusely, nervous and clearly angry.

But it is still hard to believe that this is the man who forced Jill Dando to her knees then shot her in the head with a modified 9mm handgun.

Yet Barry George was found guilty of the murder of Jill on the doorstep of her London home in Gowan Avenue, Fulham, three years ago - a conviction that was upheld by the Appeal Court in July.

Now in his first prison interview since he was jailed for life George, 42, shows worrying symptoms of a man on the verge of a mental breakdown. He consistently repeats that he is innocent - but is also convinced he will die in prison at the hands of an assassin.

"It is just a matter of time before I am killed," he says. "I think somebody in the underworld killed Jill and now they want to silence me. I think I will die in prison. Somebody will have me done away.

"I never shot Jill, never did it, but I don't think people in authority want to know. They would rather I die and the whole thing go away.

"I keep telling them that I didn't do it and that somebody in the underworld was responsible, but they just don't want to know or help me.

"They want to keep me quiet. Someone wants to do me in. They don't want the case reopened. I've been told to watch my back in here."

George is now rocking back and forth in his seat muttering "my papers, my papers". I am told he is upset because he wanted to bring a bundle of legal papers to our meeting, but was advised it was against the rules. It might seem trivial, but it is a subject he keeps returning to for the next 15 minutes.

For eight years I campaigned to free Stephen Downing, wrongly jailed for the Bakewell Tart murder in 1974 and finally freed last year.

And as I talk to this shambling figure, I keep asking myself the same question: Is this man a killer?

George is now clean shaven and he admits to putting on two stone since his arrest two years ago. His face is fleshy and he often pats his bulging stomach. He also complains of a sharp pain in his side and blames prison doctors for what he claims was a botched hernia operation last year.

But George cannot focus on any subject for more than a minute. He constantly looks over his shoulder as if expecting a warder to call his name.

It is easy to understand why the police said he was evasive and unsure of his answers when they questioned him.

George is depressed after his failed appeal and cannot believe he is still in jail. Naively, he thinks that by simply repeating he is innocent the prison doors will open up for him.

But more than anything, George is obsessed by the belief that he will die violently. "I don't like to let the warders out of my sight because somebody might do me," he says. "I feel there is a contract out on my head and one of the prisoners is just waiting for the right time to strike.

"A few come up to me in the dinner queue and say 'watch your back mate, they are after you'. Lots of the prisoners liked Jill and blamed me for murdering her."

George says he has received fewer threats since his appeal, and other prisoners have told him that Jill was the victim of a professional hit.

"Lots have come up to me and said 'we know you didn't do it, murder Jill'. They believe me now. Before, I was always getting threatened. They used to call me scum and spit in my tea. Now the other prisoners have been better with me. I've got some credibility.

"A few have said it was definitely someone from the underworld. But nobody listens at all. They don't want to know."

The worst time for George was the 12 months he spent in Belmarsh Prison, South East London, while he was waiting for his appeal and before his transfer to Whitemoor in March, Cambridgeshire,

"That was hell," he says. "I was terrified. I really thought I was dead. I kept my head down, never spoke to anybody.

"I used to see the big guys staring at me, trying to get my attention. I never looked, not once.

"Some of them used to spit in my food and call me names. I just left the food and went back to my cell. I was so frightened, I tried to be by the warders all the time."

At Belmarsh, George saw Lord Archer, who was convicted of perjury last year. In his controversial diaries, Archer writes that a fellow inmate called Gordon told him: "That's Barry George, who's just been done for killing Jill Dando."

Archer adds:"I don't tell him that Jill was an old friend - we both hail from Weston-super-Mare. For the first time in my life, I keep my own counsel."

George remembers seeing Archer during a 45-minute exercise break at the jail. "I saw him across the exercise yard during one of our rest periods when we are allowed out," he says.

"He just stared at me for a bit. I didn't say anything, but I was quite glad he was in Belmarsh. The fact he was there took some of the heat off me. The others were nudging each other and saying 'that's Archer'. I didn't care - at least they weren't hassling me."

At Whitemoor, George is allowed few visitors because of his high security status. Even his elderly mother Margaret is searched when she makes the long journey from her home in Acton, West London.

"But I don't like my family seeing me here," he says. "It is too much for them."

He spends his days in his tiny single cell on C-Wing reading and re-reading his case papers or watching TV. His favourite programme is Top of the Pops.

George suffers from learning difficulties which means it is hard for him to understand his legal papers. Nevertheless, he shows amazing dedication and now has a detailed understanding of the prosecution case against him. As I listen to him I find myself thinking: "This man is innocent. He didn't kill Jill."

I am more convinced than ever that the evidence against him is circumstantial and he, like Stephen Downing, was the wrong person in the wrong place.

There are three key areas of doubt in the prosecution case that George highlighted.

The prosecution says eyewitnesses put him in Gowan Avenue; an alibi that he was at a disabled charity at the time of Jill's murder is false; and a speck of gunpowder found in his coat ties him to a possible murder weapon.

Despite the eyewitness evidence George insists they got the wrong man. "The only witness said she saw me at 7am," he says. "I was still in bed. I don't get up until about 9am. It wasn't me. People know me in that area, but it wasn't me."

George is angry that the judge allowed 12 other people who were not 100 per cent sure they had identified him to give evidence putting him at the scene.

He also believes that police ID parades were unreliable because they took place a year after the murder.

"I was clean shaven at the time Jill was killed," he says. "By the time I went on parade I had longer hair and a goatee beard. I looked completely different and I was told to wear a coat. That was ridiculous.

"On the day Jill was murdered I was wearing a yellow fluorescent T-shirt. It was very bright. How could they miss me if I was there? And there were so many different descriptions. There was one of a man of Mediterranean appearance (shown in a police e-fit). He has never been traced. They got it wrong."

George claims it was impossible for him to have killed Jill because he had an alibi. The Crimewatch presenter was shot at about 11.32am. And if George's version is true, he couldn't have been at the scene.

George says that at the time he was at a charity office, the Hammersmith and Fulham Action For Disability, which is a mile from Jill's home.

"The place was still locked at 10am and I had to knock on the door so they could let me in," he says. "I had to see someone, and they only see people by appointment. They let me in and I spoke with about four people there. I remember one of the staff eating a sandwich, and being passed from person to person.

"They considered me a nuisance, but finally I saw someone. I told them my problem. I had to talk to someone. I was there for about two hours."

George says on the day of the murder he also crossed a busy road in front of a speed camera.

"It went off six or seven times taking pictures of speeding cars. Surely it photographed me?

However, the Old Bailey jury was told that staff at the disability centre could not agree on what time George had been there. And it was decided that George had the "window of opportunity" to shoot Jill and escape. The forensic evidence - a tiny speck of gunpowder found in George's coat pocket - played a damning part in his conviction. But he is adamant it was contaminated at a police lab or came from an armed officer he says raided his flat in Crookham Road, Fulham.

The Metropolitan Police have always insisted armed officers were NEVER at his flat. But the Sunday Mirror has revealed how two eyewitnesses - one a vicar - have now come forward and told how they saw armed officers the day he was arrested. But police say they are wrong.

"I saw the armed officers with my own eyes," says George. "They were there. There were a couple of them. One had a big gun, a sort of sten gun. They hit me over the head with it."

George leans forward and shows me an 8in scar under his cropped hair. He says it is evidence his story is true and his sister Michelle Diskin wants an inquiry to prove it.

The Metropolitan Police claim that video footage of George being interviewed prove he was unhurt.

Interviewing George is a frustrating task. He is like a caged animal constantly fidgeting and demanding attention.

George has at least six personality disorders and is an epileptic. He claims his defence team feared the stress of giving evidence at the Old Bailey would bring on a seizure.

"That's why I didn't give evidence," he says."My lawyers thought I would be sectioned if I had an epileptic fit in the dock. I really regret not saying anything now. If I'd spoken, I think the jury would have known I was telling the truth."

George admits that he took some flowers to Gowan Avenue after hearing about the murder. And he says he told police at the scene he had seen a suspicious man.

"They took down my name and address," he says. "But is my action that of a guilty man?"

He admits that he expected to be questioned by police because of a conviction for attempted rape in 1982 when he was jailed for 33 months.

"They knew about that. It was on their records. I would be an obvious person to pick up. I expected to be seen. That's why I went back to the disability centre the day after to check they knew me as I didn't want anybody setting me up because of the other stuff."

George is also frank about his unusual habit of roaming the streets from dawn to dusk. "People knew me on the streets, I talked to loads of people. I used to walk all the time, everywhere. I was familiar and I would have been picked out."

He finishes his sentence and tucks into two Mars Bars bought from the nearby canteen. Nearby, young children shriek in a family area of the visiting room.

At our grey plastic table, George is unaware of the uphill fight he faces to overturn his conviction.

At his appeal the judges concluded: "Looking at the evidence as a whole we have no doubt as to the correctness of the conviction."

But in a week the Criminal Cases Review Commission will be asked to reconsider the evidence and the case could be referred back to the Appeal Court.

I visited George with Paddy Hill, one of the Birmingham Six freed after being wrongly jailed in 1976 for two IRA pub bombings.

He set up the Miscarriage of Justice Organisation to fight for people like George who believe they have been wrongly jailed.

As George returned to our table after wandering off for the umpteenth time Paddy asks: "Is this man capable of planning and killing Jill Dando in cold blood?"

Then he answers his own question: "You wouldn't send him to Tesco," he said.

I have to agree.