Dando killer wins right to appeal - report

Barry George, the man convicted for killing Jill Dando, has reportedly been granted leave to appeal against his conviction.

He has got the go-ahead for a full Appeal Court hearing less than six months after he was jailed for shooting the TV presenter on the doorstep of her home in Fulham, West London.

Three senior judges, who will scrutinise evidence in the case, have the power to overturn the guilty verdict, order a retrial or keep the 41-year-old in jail.

His solicitor Marilyn Etienne issued a statement within days which said he would submit an appeal against his conviction, largely based on identification evidence.

During his trial, George's legal team argued that the evidence of a number of witnesses who picked him out at identity parades was unreliable. They also claimed that a speck of gunpowder found in George's overcoat could have got there through contamination.

Now, it has been reported, a judge has spent weeks going through the papers and concluded there are grounds to grant George leave to appeal against his conviction.

Ms Etienne had said that the appeal would concentrate on "the attendant risks of mistaken identification resulting in wrongful convictions unless stringent protections are enforced".

"In this case the prosecution rested primarily and fundamentally upon identification evidence.

"The judge directed the jury in terms that they could not convict unless they accepted the identification evidence as reliable. There was no other evidence which could found a conviction."

George denied killing Miss Dando, telling police he had never met her.