Compelling evidence in Dando case, court told

THE case against Barry George for the murder of TV presenter Jill Dando remains compelling, the prosecution told three appeal judges in England yesterday.

The submission was made by Orlando Pownall QC, for the crown, on the second day of George’s challenge to his 2001 murder conviction at the Court of Appeal.

It is being argued on George’s behalf that the conviction has been rendered unsafe in the light of new scientific evidence relating to a single speck of firearm discharge residue found in his coat pocket after his arrest a year after Ms Dando’s death.

But Mr Pownall told the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips, Lord Justice Leveson and Mr Justice Simon, that the Crown “contends that the new evidence referred to does not render the conviction of the appellant unsafe”.

He added: “Although inevitably the merits of the appeal will concentrate on the FDR (firearm discharge residue evidence), it was but one component of what was a compelling circumstantial case.”

George, now 47, is back in the dock of the London courtroom today for the proceedings, which are expected to finish tomorrow.

It is his second appeal over a jury’s verdict that he shot the 37-year-old BBC News, Crimewatch presenter on the steps of her home in Fulham, south-west London, in April 1999.

At the start of the appeal on Monday William Clegg QC, for George, told the packed court that the firearm evidence was neutral and of no assistance to a jury in assessing guilt.

He said: “Although there was clearly other important evidence in addition to the FDR, the effect of neutralising the FDR evidence must be to render the conviction unsafe.”

Mr Pownall told the court: “The crown were, and remain, entitled to argue that looking at the evidence as a whole, the presence of the residue was not as a result of some unfortunate coincidence, as with the many other coincidences in the case, which taken together proved that appellant’s guilt.’

Mr Pownall said the prosecution were entitled to ask jurors to consider a number of propositions.

One of those propositions was that they were “entitled to take account of all of the other circumstantial strands and conclude that they point irresistibly to guilt as opposed to innocent coincidence”.

The appeal proceedings follow a decision by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, an independent body which investigates possible miscarriages of justice, to refer George’s case back to the Court of Appeal after a “thorough and intensive review”.

George, who lived about half-a-mile from Ms Dando’s home in Gowan Avenue, has always denied being her murderer.