Man jailed for Dando murder to appeal
THE sister of a man serving a life sentence for the murder of British television presenter Jill Dando has asked for help from the public in a fresh attempt to prove his innocence.
Michelle Diskin, who has lived in Ireland for 33 years, says her brother, Barry George, was wrongly convicted.
The case has been taken up by the Miscarriage of Justice Organisation (MOJO) in Britain and is currently with the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) which has the power to refer it back to the Court of Criminal Appeal.
George lost his first appeal in 2002 but his supporters are hopeful the commission will rule there were flaws in the prosecution and sufficient fresh evidence to warrant a second appeal.
Ms Diskin, a mother-of-three from Ballincollig, Co Cork, will speak about the campaign and the ordeal she describes as a “nightmare” on RTÉ’s afternoon chat show The Big Bite today.
“I saw Barry a few weeks ago and he asked me ‘please will you be my face in public and will you ask people who know something about the case to please come forward’,” she said.
“It’s not too late. The CCRC will still take submissions. Even a snippet of information could be very important.”
Jill Dando, 37, who presented popular BBC programmes Holiday and Crimewatch, was shot dead in broad daylight outside her London home on April 26, 1999.
Barry George, now 46, was arrested a year later and was presented in court as a jobless misfit who had an obsession with celebrities, had once been a gun owner and was convicted of attempted rape at the age of 22.
His sister, however, says he has had a lifelong battle with disabilities which were never fully understood by the court or explained to the jury. He has temporal lobe epilepsy which she says causes seizures that are imperceptible to most people but cause momentary absences and confusion. He also has attention deficit disorder (ADD) and a degree of autism.
Ms Diskin says all of these problems mean her brother has difficulty carrying out activities in a planned way and this made police think he was refusing to answer questions and failing to co-operate.
“Every time there is a seizure, there is brain damage,” said Ms Diskin, whose sister, Susan, died from an epileptic seizure in her 20s.
“Barry is not quite with it before a seizure, he’s absent during it and afterwards he struggles to try and pick up strands of conversation. It’s the reason he couldn’t work, why he was characterised as strange and why he’s had problems socially.”
MOJO is also asking why witnesses in a nearby nursery were never questioned about a man who was seen acting oddly in the area shortly before Ms Dando was attacked, and is challenging the forensic evidence used to convict George.
The prosecution relied on a fibre found on him which matched an item of Ms Dando’s clothing but it is argued the fibre was a common fabric which could have been picked up in many ways.
The prosecution also relied on a minute trace of firearms residue found in George’s home but it is argued they failed to disclose that police who searched his home were armed and could have left the residue behind.
Former Metropolitan Police commander John O’Connor, who has examined the case, is also convinced of George’s innocence. He says the gun used to kill Ms Dando had been modified to smooth the interior of the barrel, the bullet had been drilled and half the gunpowder removed to muffle the sound of the shot and reduce the likelihood of the modified weapon blowing up in the killer’s hand.
“This was extraordinarily well planned. She was killed by a lone assassin in a very professional way. That is military/terrorist in style. I know Barry George is incapable of doing this.”
Ms Diskin does not blame the jury who convicted her brother as she says they were overloaded with information that was impossible to process.
“I think they thought ‘let’s just convict him to be on the safe side and let the Court of Criminal Appeal deal with it after that’.
“Where is the justice for Jill in all this? Her family were so pleased when Barry was convicted. They needed to believe that he was guilty. This is another betrayal of them...
“They have been lied to and that is not the right way to honour a woman who was an icon.”
* Ms Diskin, John O’Connor and MOJO representative Hazel Keirle discuss the case with presenter David McWilliams on The Big Bite on RTÉ 1 at 2.30pm today.
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