[This Morning theme music playing]
We all heard the shocking news that Jill Dando had been murdered
on her own doorstep.
Do you think you can look forward to another phase in your life?
Jill was a very positive person
and she would want us to do something positive.
[woman] It had been a whole year since Jill had been shot
and they hadn't found someone for it.
How are you now? Time does heal. Are you on the road?
A lot of people have given me enormous support.
[woman] She was the darling of Britain.
And that just, it beggared belief that they couldn't find
the person who killed Jill Dando.
[tense music playing]
And I was busy getting ready to go to a prayer meeting.
[reporter] Good morning, the headlines.
[male reporter] The man held by Scotland Yard on suspicion of murdering
the BBC TV presenter Jill Dando…
[woman] I heard on the news that somebody had been arrested.
[male reporter] …who lives half a mile from Ms. Dando's former home.
And I thought that was wonderful, at long last,
someone was going to be brought up for Jill's killing.
[male reporter] The police have removed items from his home for examination.
[woman] And then the newscaster said his name is…
[male reporter] …Barry Bulsara.
[woman] I just went numb.
I just thought, no, it can't be the same Barry Bulsara.
This is utter madness.
That was my brother.
Could he have done it?
[siren wailing]
[sirens wailing]
[male reporter] Today, Scotland Yard issued a statement
to say a man was arrested
on suspicion of murdering Jill Dando.
[female reporter] Scotland Yard has not confirmed
the identity of the man they're questioning.
[gripping music playing]
[Hamish] It was a big step to arrest the man
suspected or accused of killing Jill Dando.
[indistinct chatter]
[male police officer] It is, uh, 27.
[Hamish] I wrote in my logs, "I fear it was the ill man, the loner,
the infatuated, the psychopath,
the disturbed or the obsessed who was responsible."
Barry George fit that category.
[clears throat]
[inhales sharply]
[breathing heavily]
[Hamish] The Jill Dando murder was considered
as one of the biggest homicide investigations
conducted by the Metropolitan Police.
Four thousand people had been spoken to or interviewed in one way or another.
So, I was just focused on getting it right.
[male interrogator] Do you agree that you possessed a gun?
Replica.
So we accept that you possessed the replica gun?
Yes, sir.
[Hamish] What was interesting was he answered the questions
during the interview.
Not a gun. A replica gun.
Most people being interviewed for a murder would not answer any questions.
[breathing heavily]
[female interviewer] I'm going to ask you a few questions.
I just want you to try and remember
what it was like when you were detained and arrested.
The police wanted to speak to me,
what for, I don't know, you know,
because I haven't committed any crime.
So did you know who Jill Dando was?
I've never met her in my life. Didn't know who she was.
The police, over and over grilled me about it.
And I really did not know who she was.
[male interrogator] Did you ever buy
a G145, 8mm, blank-firing government automatic?
[Barry] No, sir.
-Have you ever possessed one of those? -No, sir.
-Have you ever handled one of those? -No, sir.
-Have you ever fired one of those? -No, sir.
We knew that he was lying.
[suspenseful music playing]
We had a photograph of George holding this pistol,
which was one of the types of firearms that it was reported killed Jill Dando.
[male interrogator] Do you recognize the person in the picture?
The picture that was taken, it's not me in that picture.
[male interrogator] Who do you think it is?
Could be anyone.
That's a picture of you, Mr. George.
[BBC News theme music playing]
Good evening. Police hunting the killer
of the television presenter Jill Dando have been holding a man all day…
On suspicion of murder in connection with last year's killing
of popular BBC television personality Jill Dando.
The story of Barry George's arrest was probably almost as big
as the story of Jill Dando's murder in the first place.
The people I worked for, they just wanted to know everything,
who is this guy, from cradle to grave? You know, every cough and splutter.
I started working my contacts.
I eventually got through to somebody
and my source was higher up the chain of command.
He said to me that, you know, he's a guy called Barry Bulsara.
Barry Bulsara? I said, you know, is he related to Freddie Mercury?
I knew that his real name was Bulsara, very unusual surname.
And I thought, that can't be a coincidence.
[gripping music playing]
[male reporter] The forensic examination of the suspect's home and its contents
is likely to continue throughout the day.
[Jon] It was in all the newspapers, on all the news channels.
Police over here are saying that this is a very significant development
in what's been a 13-month-long investigation.
My phone rang off the hook with every journalist in the universe
trying to find, you know, get a quote.
Police are still questioning a man in London tonight.
And it was obvious to me that this was the biggest event of the year.
After 24 hours, they could apply for an extension
to hold him for further questioning.
[Jeff] The answer coming back from Freddie Mercury's representatives
was he doesn't have a cousin called Barry
and hasn't a clue who this bloke is.
[male reporter] The singer's family denied any connection.
[Jeff] So I said, "So what are we saying?"
"Is this guy some sort of fantasist?" And he said, "Well, put it this way,
he doesn't appear to be the full ticket."
[solemn music playing]
I took great heart from the fact that
nobody knew that his surname was George.
We're just an ordinary family.
These things don't happen to ordinary people.
I thought that the whole thing was going to fall apart
and we'd never have to tell people that this happened to us.
I believed it was a mistake.
They would soon realize, "No, we've got the wrong guy," and they would let him go.
It is important to give everybody the chance to be innocent
and let them demonstrate that
because they will soon unravel if they're not.
-[male interrogator] Do you tell lies? -No, sir.
-Are you Freddie Mercury's cousin? -No, sir.
Have you told people you're Freddie Mercury's cousin?
I have done, sir.
-Is that a lie, Mr. George? -Yes, sir.
Things just turned from bad to worse.
[tense music playing]
I'm thinking, now you're trying to put me in a frame,
use me as a, you know, scapegoat. That's as simple as that.
[male interrogator] What's your interest in Jill Dando?
I don't have an interest in Jill Dando, sir.
I would have had no knowledge of who she was.
[male interrogator] Do you know who Jill Dando was?
Until after her, um, death, I had no idea.
The position that Barry George maintained that he didn't know Jill Dando,
he'd never heard of her, that was a lie.
We found photographs of television presenters from his flat, always female.
Many people are interested in celebrities.
They're autograph hunters or they go to locations.
But Barry George's interest appeared to be private and almost secret.
Barry George knew of Jill Dando.
It was frustrating and difficult.
I mean, despite all the information we'd found in the intelligence,
there was nothing there at that time
where we could charge George with murdering Jill Dando.
We had the maximum of 96 hours in custody.
He either had to be charged or released at that stage.
[Charlie] The public, watching programs like Crime Scene Investigator, CSI,
they want the smoking gun. They want the hard, firm evidence
that in reality just doesn't always exist in investigations.
[gripping music playing]
Investigation is about methodology, uh, and process.
I went back to the forensic exhibits.
I searched his home address. We found a coat.
The three-quarter length coat which was very similar
to the one that witnesses had described as being worn by the shooter.
It had been photographed at the laboratory and sent for forensic analysis.
[Barry] Allegedly, the coat that they recovered for evidence,
it was a black cashmere coat, just like this one.
And if I had been the perpetrator, there'd be cashmere and wool evidence.
Thousands of fibers.
[Hamish] Forensic material erodes very quickly.
So the idea there would be blood,
fibers or gunshot residue would be minimal
because we were a year behind.
If we couldn't find any direct evidence
which could link George to that crime scene,
he would need to be released.
And then we received the report.
The laboratory had found a single particle of gunshot residue
in the inside coat pocket of the three-quarter length coat.
George had been in the presence of discharged gunshot residue.
And of all the types it could have been,
that particle was the same type as found at the crime scene.
This changed the investigation dramatically.
[male interrogator] How do you explain the firearms residue
in your coat pocket, Mr. George?
The coat pocket of the coat that you may have been wearing
on the day that Jill Dando was killed. How do you explain that?
I can't explain.
I have no knowledge.
[Hamish] That's when his solicitor advised him to make no further comment.
We had sufficient evidence now.
And he was charged with the murder of Jill Dando.
[male reporter] After four days of questioning at Hammersmith police station
in West London, the self-styled Barry Bulsara was charged with murder
under his original name of Barry Michael George.
The detective leading the inquiry, Hamish Campbell,
left the police station without comment.
Mr. Bulsara was driven away to a jail in South London.
[female reporter] Tonight, Barry Bulsara
is spending his first night in prison after being charged
with the murder of Jill Dando.
[Michelle] I was in a department store in Cork
and I got a phone call from Barry's solicitor.
I thought that she was ringing me to say, "Okay, they're going to let him go."
But that wasn't what she said.
She said, "I'm really sorry."
"I have to tell you that they're going to charge him."
And she said, "They found this particle of gunshot residue on his coat."
At that moment I had to ask, "Could he have done it?"
[suspenseful music playing]
I spent 32 years in prison and I was serving a sentence in Belmarsh.
I knew a journalist who worked for Punch magazine.
He phoned me up one day and said, "Barry George was arrested
and on remand for high-profile execution-style murder with a firearm."
"Is there any chance you can get a personal interview?"
So I said, "Well, yeah."
I put the phone down, sidled up to a friendly screw.
I said, "I hear Barry George is in here." He said, "Yeah, he's in the hospital."
Okay. I went back to my cell. Half hour later, I faked a heart attack.
Uh, so the screws come rushing in, took me over to Belmarsh hospital,
and I spotted him from the newspaper pictures.
Tried to start a conversation with him.
Obviously, I couldn't write anything down
because, you know, I'm over there for a suspected heart attack,
and if I had a notebook and a pen, they'd get suspicious.
First question I asked him, "All right, mate. What's your name?"
And he went, "Barry."
I went, "Okay." I said, uh, "Do you like guns?"
He looked at me for a minute and he said, "I like Guns N' Roses."
And I remember thinking, he's got to be drugged out of it
because he was so slow in his speech.
And obviously I wanted the juicy story, didn't I?
"Yes, I killed Jill Dando." That's going to be my journalistic coup.
Uh, "Did you do the murder?"
And he went, "No."
And I went, "You know who was murdered?" And he went, "Yeah, it was Jill Dando."
[imperceptible]
I looked at him and I thought,
"There's something not quite right about this guy."
[intriguing music playing]
I sent the interview and I said, "I've spoken to him."
"He's not capable of committing a cold-blooded execution in broad daylight
and then not speaking about it for a year."
"No way," I said, "there's no way he could keep that secret."
Seeing Barry behind the horrible Perspex screen,
it was the most awful thing.
He looked so vulnerable and we couldn't touch,
but he put his hand up against the glass like that. And I put mine.
He just looked straight in my eyes and he said, "I didn't do it."
And I thought, "Right. That's enough for me."
I just said, "We will fight this."
We needed to get the best legal representation we could.
[man] Michael Mansfield, slate nine.
[male interviewer] It would be helpful if you could list
some of the major cases that you've worked on.
How long have you got?
[male reporter 1] There were serious acts of violence
by senior and junior police officers…
[male reporter 2] Michael Mansfield is a high-profile barrister.
He's represented the likes of the Birmingham Six.
Guildford Four, Tottenham Three, Cardiff Five.
Bloody Sunday in the north of Ireland. Hillsborough.
A full examination of the issues and the truth of what went on
hasn't even been fully explored yet.
Mohamed Al-Fayed and Diana, that's pretty big.
A whole series of cases involving the Black community,
and then that culminated with the Lawrence inquiry.
[pensive music playing]
When I first met Barry, it took a little while to create,
as it sometimes does, a relationship.
I didn't recognize just how serious
the workings of his mind were.
He didn't respond in the way that people usually did.
My concern then was the police allowed the case to be infused with this theory
that it was this loner man.
What is the case against him?
That he's an oddball character, he has an obsession with women,
but not particularly with Jill Dando.
He had an interest in guns.
And all of that produces an incontrovertible case
that he's the man who did it.
No, it doesn't.
Now, if I were a police officer, I'd approach it a different way.
Nearly every crime scene has the answer within the scene.
I went on a bicycle to have a look at it.
The front garden's tiny.
It'd take you four or five paces from the gate. It's nothing.
Between the time she clicks her driver's door closed,
walks to the front door, it's a matter of yards only.
It cannot have been a lone gunman. [chuckles]
[intriguing music playing]
It has to have been somebody with inside information.
Every time you put Barry George into the role of the executioner,
it doesn't work.
He'd had to have had the loaded gun on him ready to fire
and be crouched in the front garden so that she didn't see that he was there.
Well, he'd have to be there for hours.
Doesn't add up.
I realized that this was an injustice in the making.
So then, what kicks in is the feeling of, sadness is the wrong word, anger.
I want to do something about it.
[gripping music playing]
[metal door slams]
I had to ask myself, "Well, is it right?"
"Is it fair? Is he fit to stand trial, understand the proceedings?"
And so I'd asked him to be examined by the psychologists,
in order to make some kind of assessment.
[professor] I learned that the legal team
were having huge difficulties with Barry George.
Michael Mansfield said, "I think there's something not right here
and he needs to be tested."
I sat on the train thinking, what's this person going to be like
'cause you know it had been in all the press,
this monster who'd "killed" Jill Dando.
[pensive music playing]
But when I arrived, he was just so distressed
and so all over the place.
It was extreme. It was all coming one way.
I felt like it was an avalanche of words hitting at me.
"They've done this and they've done that."
For his intellect, I found that he fell in the borderline range,
so that's extremely low.
With his working memory, his processing speed,
actually, everything else was at the first percentile.
So 99% of people would perform better than him.
[intriguing music playing]
[Jane] All newspapers were put on to what we call,
getting the background on that person.
And of course, what we found was very colorful indeed.
It rapidly became clear that Barry George had built up
a sort of a very fantasy life for himself.
In the '80s, he had been fined for impersonating a police officer.
He told women he was in the RAF, then it became the SAS, uh,
whereas in reality he'd just been rejected from the Territorial Army.
[male reporter] Aren't you a nutter?
No.
[Jane] And then this footage emerged.
And now he was called Steve Majors all of a sudden
and he was doing this stunt which involved going over the top
of four double-decker buses whilst wearing roller skates.
So you've never actually done anything like this before?
Never in the world. It's never been done.
Haven't you had a go on a mini-ramp just to have a practice?
-No, not at all. -[chuckles softly]
[gripping music playing]
[Barry screams]
[Jane] I think he dislocated his spine, he fractured his femur
and you think, fantasist of the first order.
But could you make the leap from that to this is the man
that walked up to Jill Dando and shot her in cold blood in the head?
[birds screeching]
[pensive music playing]
[Michael] The essence of the case has two dimensions. One is a culprit,
and the other thing you need to grasp is the evidence.
The ballistics, namely the cartridge case left behind from the bullet.
It had been adapted.
The crimping of the cartridge case, that's rare.
Somebody had written in to the police, trying to help,
saying, "I'm very familiar with this kind of ammunition."
"I served in Eastern Europe in the Balkans,
and crimping is a characteristic."
So then you have to say to yourself, where does that take you? To Serbia.
[loud explosion]
[gripping music playing]
[distant explosion]
[distant siren wailing]
There was a Serbian connection.
Right there on the doorstep.
And it had happened before.
Earlier in April, the month in which Jill Dando was murdered,
another journalist was also murdered
outside his home in Belgrade, I think about 11 days before.
[reporter] Talk of Serbian involvement in the murder was all but discarded.
There is no link whatsoever between any of those more speculative theories
that we've been…
[Michael] I don't want to be facetious,
but I think the police didn't take it seriously
because there'd been no real investigation of the Serbian connection.
It has all the hallmarks of an organized, orchestrated execution,
which in my view, point heavily away from Barry George.
Am I getting carried away?
[laughs]
[gripping music playing]
[Hamish] A major part of the inquiry was to try to follow up
on some of the women who were in the photographs.
[Barry] The undeveloped film.
If they were for myself, why didn't I develop them?
Because there were masses of them.
They said that I'd been…
What is it, their words? Stalking people.
But where I was talking with people, right,
and if at any time they didn't feel comfortable in my presence,
I would have walked away.
As time went on and we got closer to the trial,
other details started to emerge.
There was a real escalation in the level of disturbing behavior.
We'd gone from what looked like a sort of a harmless, quirky fantasist
towards something much more sinister.
There was the arrest for attempted rape, sexual offences.
Then, of course, this other piece of evidence came up.
[people cheering]
He had an obsession with Princess Diana
and he had been caught in the grounds of Kensington Palace
with a coil of rope, wearing combat gear, carrying a 12-inch hunting knife.
And at the time, the police had just thought it was harmless,
which I have to say, I find astonishing.
That was not normal behavior.
[imperceptible]
So this became another part of the puzzle that, for the media,
pointed towards the possibility of him being involved.
[intriguing music playing]
[female reporter] In May last year, detectives arrested Barry Michael George.
His trial, which begins at the Old Bailey today,
is expected to last at least six weeks. He denies murder.
[man] I was the courts correspondent of the London Evening Standard.
There was a thirst, a desperation for information
which had to emerge from the trial.
[people clamoring]
The road outside the Old Bailey was packed with television crews.
It stopped the traffic. It was a massive media occasion.
[male reporter 1] Two years and eight days after Jill Dando's murder,
her fiancé Alan Farthing arrived at the Old Bailey.
With him was Jill's brother Nigel and other members of the Dando family.
[male reporter 2] From the defendant's family,
Michelle Diskin, Barry George's sister.
[female reporter] George is being defended by Michael Mansfield QC.
It was the first sighting in public of Barry George since his arrest,
which was big in itself because everybody wanted to see
the man who was accused of killing Jill Dando.
[tense music playing]
[Michelle] I was allowed to be quite close to Barry.
He looked totally lost.
[breathing heavily]
[Nigel] When the prosecution started to outline the case,
uh, we were able to hear more details
of exactly what the police case was against Barry George.
The first few weeks of the trial, we had learned
that a witness on Gowan Avenue had potentially placed Barry George
on that road at 7:30 in the morning.
[male reporter] Susan Mayes, who told the court
she was very sure she had seen the defendant
near Jill Dando's house.
Ms. Mayes told the court that the man
seemed nervous and tried to shield his face.
We also heard that Barry George had attempted
to retrace his own steps that morning.
[female reporter] On the same day, George had visited
a local advice center known as HAFAD
Two days later, he went back trying to establish what time he'd been there.
[Jane] And in the prosecution's view, he was trying to create a false alibi.
And then, of course, the particle of gun residue
that was found in the coat pocket,
which then the prosecution claimed put him in the presence of a fired gun.
In police interviews, George couldn't explain
how the particle had come to be in his coat,
and the jury were told it was compelling evidence of his guilt.
The prosecution made the allegation that I forced her to the ground
and then put a gun to her head.
But if I had pushed her down, if you think, if you just--
-Do you mind, come, being a guinea pig? -[female interviewer] Yeah.
If I had pushed you down,
-you're facing your door… -Yeah.
-Putting the keys in your door. -Yeah.
If I had pushed you down, and it was alleged
-I pushed you down with my left hand… -Yeah.
There'd be masses of blood or gunshot residue over the perpetrator.
They found one particle, right?
I rest my case.
[Jane] We sort of got to the closing of the prosecution
and we realized that, hang on, that is… that is all there is.
[indistinct chatter]
The particle of gun residue was dynamite piece of evidence,
but actually all of the other stuff,
unpleasant though some of it was, was very circumstantial.
[intriguing music playing]
When the prosecution case wound up, the question was, is it enough?
[camera shutters clicking]
It's a long-standing maxim around Scotland Yard
is that until you've actually been cross-examined by Michael Mansfield
on the contents of your notebook,
then as a police officer, you haven't earned your stripes.
[Hamish] Yes, there was a level of nervousness, of course,
because Mr. Mansfield is not someone you can ever [chuckles] fool
or seek to evade answers from.
[Paul] Michael Mansfield once said that he took the view
that whenever he's cross-examining a policeman in court,
his thoughts are, "This man is lying."
So, the great moment arrived
when Michael Mansfield came to cross-examine Hamish Campbell.
It was a battle of wills across the courtroom.
[Michael] You found a particle of firearms residue,
but, well, it works the other way, doesn't it?
The absence of particles anywhere else at all
in his flat, that's important.
[Hamish] George had been in the presence of discharged gunshot residue, primer,
but he denied firing any gun of any sort for many, many years.
There was no evidence indicating that he'd ever owned a weapon
that could have been the gun in this case.
The possession of the firearm, armorer's gun cards,
the magazines, the holster.
If there'd been a real investigation of the Serbian connection…
[Hamish] We did explore this Serbian issue by asking the security services,
and there is no evidence at all which suggests
that the Serbians or the NATO conflict was responsible.
[Michael] Where was the evidence of an obsession with Jill Dando?
He might go up to women and talk to them
and pretend to be the cousin of Freddie Mercury,
but that doesn't make him a murderer.
Barry George was perfectly capable of committing that crime.
Barry George did not murder Jill Dando.
[female reporter] Defense barrister Michael Mansfield QC
has suggested the Crimewatch presenter
may have been assassinated by an underworld hitman
or a Serbian gunman in retaliation…
Mr. Mansfield told the jury that there's no evidence since the mid-1980s
that his client has owned, possessed,
carried or bought any weapon or ammunition…
Mr. Mansfield also pointed out that police had been able to find
no forensic evidence of any firearms, fired or otherwise, at Mr. George's flat.
[gripping music playing]
[Michelle] I was really quite confident that, um, it would not be a conviction
because it was quite obvious
from the evidence that Barry hadn't done it.
The judge took nearly three days to sum up all the evidence.
And then the jury was sent out for their deliberations.
Mr. Justice Gage told them to take their time in considering their verdict
and asked that they try to come to a unanimous decision.
[Hamish] Each day we were just waiting at court for the verdict.
We were all called back into court.
We were told, um, "Oh, there's a decision, there's a decision."
[suspenseful music playing]
[Michael] One member of the jury sat on the front row, she was in tears,
and that could have meant a number of things.
[Michelle] The foreman was asked to rise.
In fact, I even caught his eye.
He was then asked, "Do you find Barry George
guilty or not guilty of murder?"
And the answer was…
[suspenseful music intensifies]
[music fades]
They found me guilty.
How could they have convicted me?
[Michelle] I looked at Barry.
And the look on his face.
It was the most desolate look.
And then all hell broke loose.
[clamoring]
Late this afternoon at the Old Bailey, Barry George was found guilty…
…of the murder of Jill Dando.
The judge told Barry George his actions have deprived Ms. Dando's fiancé, family,
friends and the wider public of a much-loved and popular personality.
A woman-hating loner has been sentenced to life in jail…
Ending a case that shocked the country in 1999.
You are unpredictable and dangerous, and are likely to remain so for some time.
There can be only one sentence, imprisonment for life.
[male reporter] As Barry George begins his life sentence for the murder,
people are contemplating what turned him from a relatively harmless eccentric
into an astonishingly cold-blooded assassin.
[Jane] Barry George, who all his life had sought fame,
suddenly the most famous man in Britain,
a fame that he probably didn't want, but he certainly got.
[gripping music playing]
[Michael] It affected me very badly
because I felt we pulled out all the stops.
We had really demonstrated an extremely weak-to-non-existent case.
I thought, "What on earth have I done? Have I got it right or wrong?"
I have no doubts, and if people were to read the information
and understand the full facts, I think, like the jury,
they would equally be assured that Barry George murdered Ms. Dando.
That verdict of guilty was viewed as a success.
On behalf of Jill's family, I'd just like to say
that obviously I welcome today's verdict.
You'll appreciate that these past two years
have been a very difficult time for those closest to Jill.
But we've gained strength from the enormous amount of goodwill
from people all over the country for whom Jill meant so much.
[interviewer] Tell us how you felt in that moment.
No, I'm not going to answer that question.
Because of what happens next.
[birds squawking]
[pensive music playing]
[Barry] I live in Ireland now.
It's quiet here.
You're treated like a scab in London, but you're not here.
[birds chirping]
[breathing heavily]
[female interviewer sighs]
-Moment. -[female interviewer] Oh, yeah.
-Refreshment break. -Refreshments.
I was locked up for eight years.
I knew in my own conscious I hadn't done anything of what they said.
I was taking everything step-by-step.
I was just keeping my eyes and ears open
and hoping what I hear, you know, is good,
um, and it was.
[man] My name is Raphael Rowe.
I am an investigative journalist.
A few years after Barry George was convicted,
his sister reached out to me.
She was asking if I could help
highlight the fact that her brother was wrongly imprisoned.
I was at BBC Panorama at the time,
but when I was 20 years old,
I was wrongly convicted of murder and a series of robberies.
[people cheering]
I spent the next 12 years in maximum security prisons.
I've waited a long time for this.
The only reason I'm standing here now is because of my sister…
And Michelle was convincing.
You know, she sounded like my sister did
when my sister was saying, "Help my brother."
It resonated with me.
[Barry on phone] I haven't committed this crime, right?
I don't deserve to be here.
[Raphael] When I first spoke to Barry George,
he was able to tell me that he was innocent,
but he wasn't really able to tell me why he was innocent.
[Raphael on phone] So you didn't kill Jill Dando?
-[Barry] Of course not. -[phone beeps]
All right, I'll go and see if I can find out
whether he's telling the truth.
I did what I did best,
which is read every line of every statement,
looking for inconsistencies.
And I was really shocked by what I found.
The only piece of evidence that supposedly linked him
to the crime was the gunshot residue.
The link is there, the jury heard that, you're guilty.
Why would that be in there if you didn't?
So, I went to America, I ended up in Boston, speaking to the FBI,
who started to question the reliability of gunshot particles
because it was no longer being relied on
in cases in America, um, for contamination concerns.
So I spoke to this ballistic expert and said,
"Was it from the gun that killed Jill Dando? Was it even a gunshot?"
If this particle was found in a taxi,
uh, nobody would think about gunshot residue.
[Raphael] He completely undermined the science
that was relied on at Barry George's trial.
At the end of my investigation, the findings were then presented
to the Criminal Cases Review Commission
and it led to them commissioning a new report
that this ballistic evidence shouldn't be admissible as evidence
as to guilt or innocence and could no longer be relied on.
That's when the court said, "We dismiss the finding of guilt
on account of the new understanding and appreciation of gunshot residue."
"So there must be a retrial."
[pensive music playing]
It was like déjà vu.
[reporter] Michelle arrived from Ireland,
after years of waiting for the evidence in her brother's case to be reviewed again.
Today, we're hoping that we're going to get justice for Barry. Thank you.
The judge asked for their decision.
And he said, "Not guilty."
For the first time in all of those years,
I let emotion show on my face.
We stood up and just whooped. Joy.
[reporters clamoring]
Following the verdict, the Crown Prosecution Service said,
Mr. George now has the right to be regarded as an innocent man.
I was still trying to get my mind around it.
[male reporter] Barry George leaving the Old Bailey
a free man for the first time in eight years.
[Barry] I was glad to be out of there.
When you've got allegations coming at you 24/7,
you know, no let up.
How, I mean, how else would you feel?
Barry George left the court through the back.
He was bundled into a car, looking absolutely exhausted but very relieved.
[all clamoring]
[camera shutters clicking]
My sister is my rock.
Don't tell her I said that.
[solemn music playing]
First thing I want to say is that we're disappointed at today's verdict
but we're especially disappointed for Jill's family and friends.
[Hamish] Do I think he should have been found not guilty?
We accept and respect the decision of the court this afternoon.
I thought the guilty verdict in 2001 was the correct verdict.
We will reflect upon today's verdict
and reconsider what the next steps will be.
Thank you very much.
[male reporter] A huge embarrassment for the police?
Thank you.
Barry George tonight walks free.
But the question remains,
if he did not kill Jill Dando, then who did?
[pensive music playing]
I think it's really interesting, after his acquittal
there has been no more serious investigation into,
into Jill Dando's death.
I think as far as the police were concerned, it was case closed.
It's been in the news or subject to comment and report
every year for 23 years.
I think people like a mystery.
But I don't think it's a mystery at all.
[female interviewer] If I was to say to you, did you kill Jill Dando?
-What would you say? -Simply no.
It makes me angry that they've taken eight years of my life… away.
They just basically persecuted me.
[pensive music playing]
[male interviewer] Do you think that Barry George killed Jill Dando?
I did, yes.
[male interviewer] But do you now?
I don't think I've changed my mind.
If anybody in this documentary who you interview,
uh, says that Barry George did it,
I think they need to see somebody, get help.
They wasted all those resources they had, uh, on this guy,
when the real perpetrator is free
and having dinner somewhere. You know, it's just ridiculous.
Barry George had been acquitted by a jury, which is the seal of innocence.
And the police say, "We're not looking for anybody else. We got it right."
Well, sorry, the file should still be open on this case.
They should be looking.
The public also know where there hasn't been any resolution.
So it makes sense they want to examine it themselves.
-[gripping music playing] -[keyboard clacking]
[mouse clicks]
What happened that morning remains a mystery, the crime unsolved,
her killer never held to justice.
[Nigel] There have been a number of stories
about perhaps this had something to do with Jill,
perhaps that had something to do with Jill.
Big story for one day and then it goes away.
And really, I just shrug my shoulders at them.
Uh, they don't have legs, they don't seem to travel.
Uh, they make a headline for 24 hours and then they're forgotten about.
[Raphael] The theories that have surfaced
over the years in this case, that Jill Dando was looking into something
that may have been, um, one of the reasons somebody wanted to silence her,
just doesn't wash with me.
She wouldn't have been doing it alone
and it would in fact make those who survived the assassination
be all the more determined to expose whatever that secret investigation was.
You hear of such terrible people in this world doing terrible things
and that's what worries me, is the mentality of some people
that can actually do those awful things.
[male interviewer] Have you got an inkling as to who… who was responsible?
I don't really want to talk about that for my own safety.
But there are rumors in the criminal world who done it,
let's put it that way.
And it's not who you'd think and it's not Barry George.
It was a professional hit.
[intriguing music paying]
Can you give any insight into why?
No. No, if I tell you why, you'd know who done it. So, no.
[woman] What advice you have for up-and-coming journalists?
When I was on the local paper, I'd go to council meetings,
interview the couple celebrating their golden wedding anniversary.
You learn what real people are really like.
I think being a good journalist is about getting under the skin of people.
As a journalist, unsolved crimes play on your mind.
For me to be sitting here 24 years on and saying
that we still do not know who killed Jill Dando
is just mind-boggling to me.
Crimewatch has results. You go on air and about ten minutes later,
the phones are ringing, people are ringing in with all sorts of suggestions.
I've had 20 years of people coming up to me
and asking me the questions that I'm answering now.
Uh, and I'm okay with that, I'm fine with that.
I also believe and hope that one day, uh, there will be an answer to it.
Whether any new evidence will come forward. I hope it will.
Uh, but we'll just have to wait and see,
until the day that the police come along and say,
"Right, okay, we've now got enough evidence to nail Jill's killer."
[girl] Do you ever get worried about things you see on Crimewatch?
[Jill] Oh, yes, you do.
But at the end of the day the crimes that we show are so rare.
It's not something that you walk out into the street
and think, "The same thing's going to happen to me."
[theme music playing]