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'Dando killer obsessed with top TV women'
Paul Cheston, Courts Correspondent09.06.08
The man accused of killing Jill Dando kept photos of other TV presenters including Anthea Turner and Caron Keating at his home, the Old Bailey heard today.
Barry George, 48, had 4,000 undeveloped pictures of women. Also among them were former Radio 1 DJ Emma Freud and BBC Breakfast News presenter Fiona Foster. In George's second trial for the murder of the BBC TV presenter, the jury was shown an album of 150 of the pictures he had taken. They also heard he spent his days following women, many of whom knew nothing of his obsessive behaviour.
Miss Dando was shot in the head on the doorstep of her home in Gowan Avenue, Fulham, in April 1999. All the pictures were found in a search of his flat after his arrest a year later.
The jury heard how George would stalk unsuspecting women then confront them with the words: "I know where you live."
His obsession led him to trace the cars they drove and covertly wait outside their homes, the court heard.
George was also interested in weaponry and military tactics and techniques. The jury was told today:
•He took photographs of female news presenters on his television.
• George had a close interest in the BBC, hanging around the White City offices and keeping business cards and copies of the in-house magazine Ariel.
• He changed his name by deed poll to Paul Gadd - the real name of Gary Glitter - and Steve Majors, after the actor and character in the Six Million Dollar Man TV series.
The evidence proved it was George - a loner "with no rational motive to kill" - who murdered the BBC TV star and not a professional hitman, said Jonathan Laidlaw QC, prosecuting.
George sat in the dock wearing a light blue shirt and dark trousers and clutching a pile of books.
Next to him was Dr Susan Young, a clinical psychologist who, the court heard, was helping him deal with his psychological problems.
George allegedly killed the TV presenter with a single shot to the head. Mr Laidlaw told the eight women and four men of the jury that Miss Dando had been shot at point-blank range behind the top of her left ear with a modified or adapted gun. An impression of the muzzle and sight of the gun was found on her skin and there was no sign of a struggle, indicating she was taken by surprise as she unlocked her front door.
The gun was either a blank-firing pistol converted for using live ammunition or a deactivated weapon which had been illegally reactivated, he said.
"This was not the sort of weapon which one might normally associate with professional crimes of this type and the gunman did not wear a disguise and he had no car parked close by to drive him away," said Mr Laidlaw.
"Miss Dando's murder was not the result of a well-planned organised assassination by a criminal or a criminal organisation. The murder was the work of a single individual, a loner, a man acting alone with no rational motive to kill."
Mr Laidlaw went on: "Over the course of many years George, particularly but not exclusively in Fulham, would approach women, engage them in conversation and then seek to discover where they lived and the vehicles they drove. He also took many hundreds of photographs of women.
"Some of the witnesses provide evidence that George, having discovered where they live, also spent time waiting in the area and observing their addresses.
"On occasion he was present outside, watching when they arrived back at their homes. One in particular was entirely unaware of his interest in her until a document which contained directions to her home was recovered at the defendant's address after his arrest."
The court heard that George had "a complex medical history" of obsessions, particularly his fixation with celebrities and would live out fantasies.
George also spoke once of hating the BBC because they had ill-treated his "cousin", the lead singer of Queen.
George was first interviewed by police as a witness in April 2000. At that time he claimed he had been at home when Miss Dando was shot and had then walked to Hafad, a disability support centre in the Fulham Palace Road.
In a search of his home in Crookham Road, Fulham, police found an old photo of him holding the type of blank-firing weapon which could have been converted to kill Miss Dando.
The trial continues.
