Dando 'killer' Barry George to face retrial after winning appeal

The man convicted of murdering Jill Dando had his conviction quashed yesterday.

Barry George will face a retrial next year after three Appeal Court judges questioned the value of forensic evidence which helped convict him.

George, 47, smiled at his sister Michelle Diskin as he left the dock to return to custody.

He had been given the verdict privately a few minutes in advance and showed no emotion as it was announced.

Mrs Diskin, who has tirelessly insisted her brother is the victim of a miscarriage of justice, thanked the judges after the hearing and said: "This is just one step along the way.

"We do not really feel that we have a victory - we do not have Barry.

"He has not got his freedom yet and it has been an absolute nightmare journey so far."

Friends and relatives of Miss Dando, the former Crimewatch presenter, were bitterly disappointed.

Her former fiance, gynaecologist Alan Farthing, said reliving the tragedy would be an "emotional step back in time" for all those involved.

Mr Farthing, who has found new love with a fellow doctor, said in a statement: "We all cope in our various ways and have had to move on with our lives, therefore I have great sympathy for those who will now have to take emotional steps back in time to recall again, in detail, their involvement in this tragic case."

Miss Dando, 37, was gunned down outside her home in Fulham, West London, in 1999. George was convicted in 2001 and his first appeal failed the following year.

But yesterday the three judges, led by Lord Phillips, said the jury might have reached a different verdict had they known of doubts about crucial gunshot evidence. The Old Bailey had been told that a microscopic speck of firearms discharge residue, found in a pocket of George's coat, was linked to particles found in Miss Dando's hair and clothes.

But scientists now say the particle was worthless as evidence. It was just as likely it came from innocent contamination in a police lab or from the general "environment" as that it came from the murder weapon.

Robin Keeley, the scientist who gave evidence to the 2001 trial about the residue, told the Appeal Court he did not think he had misled the jury but was repeatedly questioned by the judges on the point.

George's QC, William Clegg, said the firearms residue had been a central plank of the case against George, and the judge and jury at his trial had therefore been misled.

The appeal judges agreed, saying: "If this evidence had been given to the jury at the trial, there is no certainty that they would have found Barry George guilty. For this reason his conviction has to be quashed."

George's case had been referred back to the Appeal Court by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which investigates possible miscarriages of justice.

The Crown Prosecution Service fought the appeal by saying there was still "irresistibly" compelling evidence of his guilt.

George had been flanked in the dock by three security guards and a £500-a-day state-funded psychologist, Dr Susan Young, who specialises in stress-reducing head massages.

Even before yesterday's ruling, a new team of detectives had begun preparing for a retrial. They will be supervised by Detective Chief Superintendent Hamish Campbell, who led the original murder probe.

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George's lawyers will argue that the scientific evidence is weak and other evidence - witnesses who placed him in the vicinity, lies he told police in interviews and an alleged attempt to create a false alibi - is all circumstantial.

Miss Dando's brother Nigel, a BBC journalist from Portishead, North Somerset, said last night: "A retrial with evidence from Mr George might hopefully enable a jury to reach the correct verdict."

PANORAMA CONTROVERSY

Two recent BBC programmes have probed concerns about the forensic evidence.

One was an edition of Panorama, controversially screened on the eve of the appeal hearing.

The BBC sanctioned what it termed the "bold and unusual step" of interviewing two members of the jury.

Panorama reporter Raphael Rowe spoke to the foreman, who remained anonymous but claimed that without the firearms evidence George would have been acquitted.

He told Rowe, himself a victim of a miscarriage of justice: "If the trial were to go ahead again tomorrow then the verdict would be very different."

The BBC could find itself in hot water because the appeal judges ordered an inquiry into whether the programmes were "appropriate".