Barry George

Barry George (born 15 April 1960) was convicted on 2 July 2001 of the murder of television presenter Jill Dando. His conviction was judged unsafe by the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) and was quashed on 15 November 2007. His retrial began on 9 June 2008.

Early life

Barry George was born in Hammersmith, London. His parents divorced when he was 13. At 14, he attended the publicly funded Heathermount boarding school for children with emotional or behavioural difficulties. After leaving school without qualifications his only employment was as a messenger with the BBC for four months in 1977. He was for a time married to a Japanese woman with whom he lived in London. His interest in the BBC endured until his arrest; he was a regular reader of the in-house magazine Ariel, and had reportedly kept four copies of the memorial issue which featured Jill Dando's murder.

Pseudonyms

Throughout much of his life Barry George has exhibited an interest in celebrities, including Fred Feast; Diana, Princess of Wales; and Prince Charles. He adopted several pseudonyms, starting at school, where he used the name Paul Gadd, the real name of singer Gary Glitter.

Most famously, George called himself Barry Bulsara, after the Queen singer Freddie Mercury's original surname, presenting himself as the singer's cousin. He made and distributed a doctored photo showing him with Mercury, and wore a Queen tour jacket with "Barry Bulsara, cousin of Freddie Mercury" stitched on it.

He pretended to be a professional stuntman, using the pseudonym Steve Majors, taken from the names of the television character Steve Austin and the actor Lee Majors who played him in The Six Million Dollar Man. Adding to his Action Man self-image, he posed for private photographs as an SAS soldier.

Previous eccentric behaviour

It was revealed after his arrest for the Dando murder that he had been found attempting to break into Kensington Palace while it was the home of Diana, Princess of Wales. He had been discovered on one occasion hiding in the grounds wearing a balaclava and carrying a knife, and in possession of a poem he had written to Prince Charles.

Police also discovered he had compiled lists with the addresses, descriptions, photographs and car registration numbers of almost one hundred women. Diana, Princess of Wales's was among them, but Jill Dando's was not.

In another incident, he posed as a policeman and had obtained false warrant cards. For this, he was arrested and taken to court, where he appeared in glam rock clothing and stated his name for the record to be Paul Gadd, the real name of Gary Glitter.

In 1981 in Derby he organised a stunt in which he was to jump over a row of double decker buses on his rollerskates. Hundreds of tickets were sold for the event. Reportedly at the last moment, having seen the platform and ramp which had been constructed, he tried to back down but in the end managed to complete the leap.

Between 1981 and 1989, Barry George had also developed a fascination with weapons and had for a brief period been a member of the Territorial Army before failing his basic training. He applied to join a gun club, but was refused for lack of a suitable referee. There is no evidence that Barry ever owned a gun actually capable of firing bullets. A psychologist studying Barry George since his arrest for the Dando murder concluded that he was suffering from several different personality disorders. He has an IQ of 76 and suffers from epilepsy.

Overturned conviction for murder of Jill Dando

Main article: Jill Dando

Jill Dando was shot dead outside her home on 26 April 1999. Barry George was convicted of her murder on 2 July 2001. This verdict was overturned on appeal in November 2007. He is presently on remand in Whitemoor prison, pending re-trial in June 2008.

Controversy and appeals

Many have raised questions regarding the safety of his conviction. In particular there has been concern about the scientific and eyewitness evidence and the apparent absence of motive. In the week immediately following the jury's verdict, there were several newspaper articles expressing amazement at the verdict. Just before the original appeal in 2002, the Independent had a long article questioning the strength of the identification evidence and mentioning previous cases where wrong convictions had been obtained because of over-reliance on doubtful identity evidence.

In 2002, the Court of Appeal's judgment on the appeal, having addressed a number of grounds including eyewitness testimony, scientific evidence and the role of the trial judge, concluded that the verdict of the jury was not unsafe and the appeal was dismissed.

No weapon has been found, no motive has been established and George has not confessed to the crime.

In March 2006, Barry George's lawyers sought an appeal on fresh evidence based on medical examinations suggesting he was not capable of committing the crime because of his mental disabilities. A second defence argument is that two new witnesses say they saw armed police at the scene when George was arrested, contrary to official reports about the circumstances of his arrest - the Metropolitan Police maintain there were no armed officers present during the arrest of George. There was scientific evidence linking Barry George to the murder in the form of a single microscopic particle of what was said to have been gunshot residue, together with evidence as to the character of a fibre found on his clothing. It is argued by the defence that the presence of armed officers and their involvement in his arrest might have been responsible for the gunshot residue.

In September 2006, following investigations by George's campaigners and a Panorama documentary about the conviction, first broadcast in the UK on 5 September 2006 and which included an interview with the foreman of the jury at the original trial, fresh evidence was submitted to the Criminal Cases Review Commission by the programme-makers and by Barry George's solicitor. The evidence concerns scientific analysis of the alleged gunshot residue, eyewitness evidence, and psychiatric reports.

On 20 June 2007, the Criminal Cases Review Commission announced that it would refer George's case to the Court of Appeal. On 22 August 2007, George was refused bail prior to the hearing, which subsequently began on 5 November 2007. One of the defence team's main grounds of appeal was that the single particle of gunshot residue in the coat pocket was not evidence which conclusively linked George to the crime scene; it could have appeared as a result of contamination of the coat when it was placed on a mannequin to be photographed as police evidence.

On 7 November 2007 the Court of Appeal reserved judgement in the case and on 15 November 2007 it was announced that the appeal was allowed and the conviction quashed.

In summary, the reasoning of the Court was that at the trial the prosecution had relied primarily on four categories of evidence:

1. witnesses who had seen a man who looked like George near the scene of the murder when it occurred and one witness who had identified him as being there four hours earlier;
2. repeated lies told by George in interview;
3. an alleged attempt to create a false alibi;
4. the single particle of firearm discharge residue (FDR) found, about a year after the murder, in George's overcoat.

The prosecution had called expert witnesses at the trial whose evidence suggested that it was likely that the particle of FDR came from a gun fired by Barry George rather than from some other source.

Those witnesses and other witnesses from the Forensic Science Service told the Court of Appeal that this was not the right conclusion to draw from the discovery of the particle of FDR. It was, in fact, no more likely that the particle had come from a gun fired by Barry George than that it had come from some other source. The Court of Appeal concluded that, if this evidence had been given to the jury at the trial, there was no certainty that the jury would have found George guilty. For this reason his conviction had to be quashed.

A retrial was ordered and George was remanded in custody, making no application for bail.

Retrial

George appeared before the Old Bailey on 14 December 2007 and again pleaded not guilty to the murder. His retrial began on 9 June 2008. He returned to the scene of the crime and spent 18 minutes there, where he wore a flourescent jacket, and apparently crouched beneath a tree "as he covered his face in the bright sunshine".

References

• Cathcart, Brian - Jill Dando - Her Life and Death ISBN 9 780140 294682
• Lomax, Scott - Who Killed Jill Dando? ISBN 0755205006
• Lomax, Scott - Justice for Jill ISBN 9 781844 544042

External links

• BBC News Jill Dando Trial in Depth
• innocent.org - First Interview with Barry George in prison
• Recent Sunday Times interview
• Article by Scott Lomax questioning Barry George's conviction
• Justice for Barry