Death of a Television Star

The brutal murder of Jill Dando shocked a nation

By David Cocksedge

JILL DANDO was one of Britain 's most well known and loved television personalities. Extremely telegenic and likeable, she was like a friend that viewers invited into their homes as they watched her on programmes like ‘Breakfast Time', ‘Holiday', ‘Crimewatch', ‘Songs of Praise' and the ‘Six O'Clock News'. It was therefore a major news story when she was gunned down outside her home in Fulham, West London on 26 April 1999.

Jill was born in Weston-Super-Mare, Devon in 1961. She began her career as a trainee reporter on the ‘Weston Mercury' newspaper but soon became interested in broadcasting. She moved to Radio Devon where she presented ‘Breakfast News' and went on to work on South West regional news programmes. When she later moved to London to present BBC's ‘Breakfast Time' she quickly became a household name. Whilst presenting the ‘ Holiday ' programme series she was catapulted to peak time television and became one of the corporation's major stars.

Ms. Dando was known as ‘The Golden Girl of BBC Television' due to her blonde hair, good looks and easygoing charm. She had a natural but rare talent for broadcasting, and she was popular with both men and women alike. When she was killed, many Britons went into mourning, just as they had done over the death of Diana, Princess of Wales who died in a road accident in Paris on 31 August 1997.

Jill was just about to start a new series and had recently altered her ‘girl next door' image by posing in leather to promote the series ‘Antiques Inspectors'. But she was also scaling down her TV work as she had recently become engaged – she was planning to marry Alan Farthing, a gynaecologist, in the autumn of 1999.

The murder occurred in broad daylight in front of her home in Cowan Road , Fulham. She had just returned from a morning's shopping trip in the Kings Mall at Hammersmith. As she got out of her car just before mid-day, a waiting gunman stepped up and shot her in the head at almost point blank range. Emergency treatment both at the scene and at Charing Cross Hospital could not save her and Jill Dando was pronounced dead at 1.03pm (13.03 hrs) that day.

Police pathologists determined that she had been shot with a 9mm semi-automatic pistol. There were unusual crimping marks on the cartridge case, and the weapon used had a smooth bore – which is very rare for handguns, which usually have rifled barrels. Also powder had been removed from the bullet, probably in order to make the explosion quieter. This killer had not used a silencer.

For the police, there were several initial leads from sightings made by the public. A man was seen scurrying away from the scene clutching a mobile telephone. It was thought that he used heavy black-framed spectacles in order to disguise himself. On 30 April the police released an E-fit of the prime suspect and CCTV footage showing a metallic blue Range Rover being driven fast on Fulham Road shortly after the murder. But these were false trails: on 5 May the police disclosed that the killer had made his getaway on a number 74 London bus.

In a cruel twist of irony, Jill's own murder was reconstructed on ‘Crimewatch', one of the programmes she used to present. The showing of this programme on 18 May was a sad and emotional occasion, but received a great response, fielding over 500 telephone calls from the public.

The massive police manhunt was named Operation Oxborough under Superintendent Hamish Campbell. During an extensive search of the surrounding area for clues, a gun was found on the banks of the River Thames at Fulham, but ballistics experts quickly determined that it was not the murder weapon – it was not even the same calibre as the 9mm bullet which had been removed from Ms Dando's brain.

The execution-style killing led to the belief that it may have been a contract job – a ‘hit' in criminal parlance. There was never any doubt about the public's desire to help catch the killer. Criminals contacted detectives on the taskforce to say that they were sure that the murder was not the work of a hit man. The other theory was that Jill may have been killed by an obsessive fan. Ms Dando received a large amount of unwelcome attention during her professional career and by hosting ‘Crimewatch' she had further exposed herself to cranks and even to some hate-mail. The fact that she had recently become engaged may have caused some obsessive fan to go over the edge and kill her.

On the 100 th day of the investigation, The ‘Sun' and the ‘Daily Mail' newspapers put up 250,000 pounds sterling as a reward for any information that would lead to a successful conviction. But for over a year, Operation Oxborough proceeded without any significant leads or a breakthrough.

In any murder investigation, the police look first at those close to the victim. But in the case of Jill Dando, the possibility that it could be a crime of passion was quickly ruled out. Clairvoyants and psychics offered advice to Campbell 's taskforce, but by May 2000, the police appeared no closer to catching Jill's murderer.

The taskforce focused on stalkers and identified people who had an “unhealthy interest” in the popular TV presenter. A criminal psychologist helped to draw up a profile of the likely killer, and as Campbell 's officers narrowed down their list of suspects, they became increasingly interested in Barry George, aged 41, who lived in Crookham Road , just half a mile from Jill Dando's home.

George was a convicted rapist who had an obsessional interest in public personalities and a history of sexual abuse. He claimed to be related to Farouk Bulsara, better known as rock singer Freddie Mercury of ‘Queen' and he often called himself ‘Barry Bulsara' after the homosexual rock star who was born in Zanzibar in 1943 and died from an AIDS-related illness in November 1991.

When detectives obtained a warrant and searched George's flat they found it strewn with papers and magazines which indicated that he had a fascination with guns, celebrities and the BBC. There were also copies of the BBC's in-house newspaper, published after Jill's murder, featuring her picture on the front page. George had been trained in the use of weapons, including handguns, whilst in the Territorial Army (TA) and had spent many hours at a local gun club, where he became a crack shot in the indoor range. Ms Dando's execution did not require a crack shot, however: just someone cold-blooded and callous enough to approach an attractive woman and shoot her in the head at almost point blank range.

But the real breakthrough was some damning forensic evidence. It was so small that it was invisible to the naked eye. A single speck of residue from the gun used to kill Ms Dando was found in the pocket of a coat worn by Barry George on the day of the murder. The particle was a perfect match with others found in Jill's hair and on the powder burns surrounding her fatal head wound. But the murder weapon was never found. If Barry George was indeed the killer, only he knew where the gun was located.

At the crime scene, forensic scientists also found a single strand of fibre that matched perfectly with trousers worn by Barry George. And eye witnesses saw George close to Jill's home in Fulham in the hours before she was brutally slain. Taken together, the police felt that these strands of evidence showed that Barry George must have been the killer.

After nearly four days of questioning, he was charged with the murder of Jill Dando. According to the prosecution during the subsequent trial, he told “a pack of lies” in his efforts to establish an alibi. The trial lasted just under eight weeks at the Old Bailey in London , where George's defence lawyers tried to discredit the scientific evidence, and stated (perfectly reasonably) that the Crown had failed to establish a motive for the crime. They also pointed to a police intelligence report that suggested that the murder could have been the work of Serbian hit man.

But counsel for the Crown, Orlando Pownall, told the jury that there was no hard evidence to support this “headline grabbing” claim, and that some murders are often quite senseless and motiveless.

The trial finally drew to a close in late June and the jury of six women and five men brought in a verdict of Guilty on 1 July 2001. (The eleven jurors had been split 10-1 on this decision). George was subsequently given a life sentence with no parole possibility before 15 years. He went to prison still protesting his innocence and his family launched a campaign for his release on the grounds of an unsafe verdict. His appeal in January 2003 was rejected but his family claim that it will continue the fight to clear his name.

The conviction of Barry George for the murder of the enormously popular Jill Dando brought a conclusion to a long and perplexing case. The public's desire for the killer to be brought to justice had placed great pressure on the Metropolitan Police and particularly on the officers working on Operation Oxborough. Hamish Campbell stated, “I am satisfied that a difficult two-year investigation has finally ended. Over 5,000 people were interviewed during this operation, and I have nothing but admiration for my team who worked hundreds of man-hours each on this case.”

Given the importance of scientific evidence in convicting Barry George, it was fitting that the Jill Dando Institute for Crime Science was opened in London in November 2001. The search for new ways to detect and perhaps prevent crime will hopefully be her lasting memorial.

(Research, ‘The World's Worst Murders', Chancellor Press, 1999, and ‘news.bbc.co.uk')

IF YOU need a check on my True Crime series of stories, published in the Hua Hin Observer, here is a complete list to date:
April 2002 -The Green Bicycle case, 1921. May 2002 - The Craig/Bentley Case, 1952. June 2002 - The A6 Murder Case, 1961. July 2002 - Murder of the Earl of Errol, 1941. August 2002 - The O J Simpson murder trial, 1995. September 2002 - The Aileen Wuornos case, 1989. October 2002 - The Ronald Opus case, 1993. November 2002 - Madame X, 1929. December 2002 - The Spree Killer, 1984. January 2003 - Shootout at Smiths' Club, 1966. February 2003 - The Christine Dryland case, 1991. March 2003 - Poisoned Pie in Essex, 1982. April 2003 - The Heydrich assassination, 1943. May 2003 - The Diana Davidson Murder case, 1969. June 2003 - The death of Alkibiades, 404 BC. July 2003 - The headsman of Colmar, 1780. August 2003 - The Ruth Ellis case, 1955. September 2003 - The Mel Jones Murder case, 1975. October 2003 - The Bluebeard of the bath, 1915. November 2003 - Murder in a combat zone, 1966. December 2003 - The Barn Restaurant murder case, 1972. January 2004 - The assassination of JFK, 1963. February 2004 - Judge Falcone and the Mafia, 1992. March 2004 - Gilles de Rais/Bluebeard, 1404-1440. April 2004 - The hand in the sand case, 1885. May 2004 - The body in the bag, 1979.

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