George obsessed with female TV stars, hears Dando trial

A MAN obsessed with celebrities and female television personalities murdered the popular BBC presenter Jill Dando in an unprovoked killing almost a decade ago, a court was told yesterday.

Barry George, 48, had a hatred for the public broadcaster, was fascinated with weapons and frequently stalked women near Dando’s Fulham home, the Old Bailey was told. The 37-year-old Crimewatch presenter was gunned down in her doorway in April 1999.

Prosecutors told the jury there was direct evidence linking George — who has a personality disorder — to the crime, while various additional strands of circumstantial evidence “provide a compelling case”.

Dressed in a blue shirt, matching tie and navy trousers, George sat impassively in the dock alongside a clinical psychologist to help him as the case against him was outlined.

He was tried for Dando’s killing in 2001 and is facing a retrial. George, who lived nearby, denies murdering Dando with a single gunshot to the head, five months before she was due to be married.

Opening the retrial, prosecutor Jonathan Laidlaw said Dando’s murder was not a well-planned execution. “On the contrary the murder was the work of a single individual, a loner, a man acting alone, with no rational motive to kill.”

The trial, before Mr Justice Griffith Williams, continues.