Sister backs man jailed for Dando murder

THE sister of Barry George, the man jailed for life for the murder of TV presenter Jill Dando, flew to London to be with him when he finds out today if his appeal against the conviction is successful.

The Court of Appeal in London will decide this morning if George, 42, will be allowed to appeal his conviction at the Old Bailey of murdering the popular BBC Crimewatch presenter on April 26, 1999.

George's sister, Michelle Diskin, who lives in Ballincollig, Co Cork, said she was praying that today's court appeal would at least grant him a retrial: "We were confident the first time that there was nothing there to convict him, so we can't get our hopes up now."

She visited Barry George in Whitemore prison in Peterborough last week and was back in London today to give him support: "It was really good to be able to see him. I think he is somewhat resigned to the fact that he has no control over what is going to happen."

She has always maintained her brother's innocence.

"He wasn't seen in the area at the time of the murder. He'd lived in that area for 20 years and, if he'd been there he would have been seen. The only other way it could have been done was if he had a car. But Barry doesn't have a car and he can't drive," she said.

The BBC star was returning home from a shopping trip when she was gunned down outside her house in Gowan Avenue, south-west London. Over £2 m was spent on the subsequent murder hunt by the Metropolitan Police, and it took a year before the list of possible suspects was whittled down to one George.

When police searched his flat, they found copies of Ariel, the BBC's in-house publication, that had been published after the Crimewatch presenter's death. He was convicted and jailed for life on the basis of a mixture of circumstantial, forensic and eyewitness evidence, although three times during the trial he was asked if he had killed Jill Dando and thrice he replied: "No sir."

Until George's arrest, over a year after the murder, there were several theories as to why Dando, who was planning her wedding to gynaecologist Alan Farthing, was murdered. These ranged from an obsessive fan who wanted to be close to her, to a disgruntled criminal who wanted to silence the television presenter, to a Serb hitman who wanted to avenge the NATO bombing of Serbian TV during the Balkan conflict.