Barry George is Innocent, OK?

[emad]

Barry George has been found not guilty of murdering BBC television presenter Jill Dando outside her London home.

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Mr George was arrested on 15 May 2000, a year after the shooting in Gowan Avenue.

His defence argued he was not capable of carrying out what could be seen as the "perfect crime" that required "meticulous" planning.


Forensic evidence about a tiny speck of gun residue found in Barry George's coat pocket after his arrest helped secure his original conviction.

The prosecution said this proved that he had fired the fatal shot and he was convicted by a majority of 10 to one.

But last year, the Court of Appeal ruled new scientific doubts over the evidence meant the conviction had to be quashed and ordered a retrial.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7536815.stm



FITTED up like Rachel Nickell 'murderer' Colin Stagg?

[emad]

1. Detective Superintendent Hamish Campbell hoodwinked?

The Met officer who led the Dando investigation once said he'd staked his very shirt on Barry George being the right man.

George got life in prison on the basis of the Campbell team's probe.

Maybe they'll demote him now that the hatchet job he did on George's somewhat pathetic past (he's a convicted sex offender and local 'nutter' who stalked women) has disintegrated.


Beeb profile:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1418927.stm

[vinylsolution]

2. Dando's murderer is still at large....

... Barry George has lost 8 years of his life, and whoever wanted this case closed and buried so quickly... has some explaining to do.

[emad]

3. 'whoever wanted this case closed and buried so quickly/ Best bet?

Tony Blair.

[vinylsolution]

4. But why?

Is it possible that Tony Bloody Liar knew who fired the fatal shot?

[LeftishBrit]

5. Very unlikely he knew anything about it - why would he?

High-profile murders in particular can lead to wrongful convictions, as public emotions run high and the police and often juries feel influenced by pressures to 'do something about it'. Sadly, people who are poor, have low IQs, have social or emotional difficulties, have police records for petty crime, belong to minority groups, and/or don't have access to a good lawyer are more likely to be wrongly convicted if they happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time (though anyone can be) - and a few of these applied to Barry George. It's quite scary really, how easily it can happen.

The problem of wrongful convictions is a longstanding one, and many people were wrongly convicted before Tony Blair was ever in office: e.g. the Guildford Four, the Birmingham Six, the Bridgewater Four, Judith Ward, and particularly tragically, those who were unjustly hanged before the abolition of the DP, e.g. Timothy Davies, James Hanratty and Derek Bentley.

[vinylsolution]

7. Sadly, Barry George was the perfect 'patsy'....

Low IQ, a social outsider, not able to recall situations or defend himself well in court.

It's quite possible he was set up to take this particular fall.

But a fall for who, we may never know.

[emad]

8. There's a personal conection that has been systematicalloy gagged.

Dando was a thorn in the flesh for Blair and his missus.

She was the co-executor of the will of a former heroin-addicted TV news colleague who had been Robert Maxwell's whore all her life.

When this woman died in 1996 there were numerous claims on her £2 million + estate all of which showed she'd been involved in a huge Maxwell-linked fraud and her estate was mostly stolen money linked to the Maxwell empire collapse.

The beneficiaries of the will got Peter Mandelson involved because he'd been a close colleague of the journalist while working for London Weekend Television and Weekend World.

Dando got to know rather too much for comfort I would guess.

I had some professional dealings regarding litigation of the estate in question.

I thought Dando was an extremely shrewd and ballsy operator whose BBC Golden Girl image was far removed from the Thatcheresque pirahna qualities that drove her.

[Mr Creosote]

6. Even now

ITV were going on this evening about George's suspicious behaviour in seeking to establish an alibi. Why did he think he might need one? Simple - he'd previously been pulled in for the murder of Rachel Nickell and was understandably terrified of it happening again.


Oh and fuck the cult of scientology.

[fedsron2us]

9. Time to round up the usual suspects

Piss poor plod, a hysterical media and a defective criminal justice system. Whatever his faults George seems to have been an individual who would have found it impossible to commit a crime and then dispose of the weapon so thoroughly that there would be no trace. The case against him was based on weak circumstantial evidence, character assassination and lousy forensics. Despite all those CSI dramas it seem we have gone nowhere in resolving such cases since the 1970s.

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. It's almost *because* of the CSI dramas (or, allowing for time, 'Silent Witness')

The main plank of the original case seems to have been a minute amount of gunpowder residue, that they swore blind meant he'd carried a fired gun in his pocket, and then it turned out it could have been contaminated etc. (from memory, without bothering to look anything up). I think there are heightened expectations now that scientists can pull evidence from anything.

Without that, they seem to have relied on "but he's a weirdo" in the retrial. Which may be true (he now says he was stalking another woman at the time, but hardly reaches "beyond a reasonable doubt" for strength of evidence.

[Mr Creosote]

11. The thing that stands out for me

is that she was shot on the doorstep of a house that she irregularly visited just to pick up post and phone messages. There was no evidence that she was followed there - and no evidence of a killer hanging round in the preceding days (one sighting of someone who looked like Bob Mills about 4 hours before the event I think). So either the killer got very lucky and was in the "right" place at the right time, or he knew she was going to be there. Which would rule out Barry George, and probably the Serbs and these shady underworld figures. If I were investigating it I'd concentrate on close family and friends and anyone else who might have known she'd be there that morning.

Fuck the cult of scientology.

[LeftishBrit]

12. I hadn't thought of this before, but it makes sense.

People are far more often murdered by people who know them well than by strangers or casual acquaintances; and this does seem to have requiredknowledge of her movements - or very 'good' luck.

[moggie]

13. I think it was Frank Bough

He worked with Dando on the Holiday programme, so it was easy for him to get close to her. A number of the roving reporters on that show did covert work for MI6, because of their travel (it's great cover: who's going to suspect Sarah Kennedy when she photographs some apparently ordinary location?). Unfortunately, she stumbled on evidence of the Blairs' involvement in Serbian people-trafficking, so had to be taken out.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

14. There's evidence of that

Frank Bough a.k.a. Patrick Leary, former hardman of the old Official IRA who turned Crown evidence on his Marxist and Republican ex-friends in the 1960s. Bough was an identity that had been used by MI5 before, Leary was one of a long-line to take the mantel. He almost blew his cover due to his penchant for kinky BDSM style orgies.

So yes Leary would have the sufficient know-how to take out Dando cleanly and expose of the evidence. The Blairs are not going to let any of this be investigated, as their ex-KGB past will likely come to light, and even more prominently their links to Russian Mafia post-collapse of the USSR. The Blairs were discovered by the NSA/CIA in the 1980s when Aldrich Ames was compromised by KGB defectors and told all to MI6. The Blairs were taken into the UK/US intelligence apparatus and fed bad info back to Moscow before and after the break up of the Eastern Bloc. In return the Blairs were allowed to use intelligence sources to direct massive drug trafficking and prostitution rings in the Russian Federation.

[moggie]

15. Interesting you mention his BDSM

The full extent of his tastes never became public knowledge, but he was an enthusiastic participant in Max Mosley's "parties", going back many years, and supplied some of the more disturbing paraphernalia. Could this have been the real reason behind what the News of the Screws did: a warning to "Bough" to keep his mouth shut about the Dando case?

[Mr Creosote]

16. I've no idea who did it

but I think the Met should "fit up" Nick Ross anyway.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

17. He wasn't proved guilty beyond reasonable doubt.

The flip side of requiring such a high standard of proof for a conviction is that an acquittal is not good evidence of innocence.

I know almost nothing about the Dando murder, but the fact that there was enough evidence for one jury to convict makes me think that - even though releasing him may well have been the right decision - the balance of probabilities may well still be that he's guilty.

Certainly, the fact that his appeal was successful is not evidence that he was "fitted up".

[Mr Creosote]

18. Incorrect

"the fact that there was enough evidence for one jury to convict". The key evidence at the first trial was the speck of gunpowder - without it the first jury would not have convicted (that is not my opinion it is what has been stated publicly by at least two members of the first jury). That speck of gunpowder was subsequently ruled to be of no evidential value, and without it there was no prospect of a conviction. In this case there was:

no weapon
no confession
no evidence of an obsession with Dando
no motive
nothing placing George at the scene of the crime
nothing whatsoever to suggest that he has the mental ability to commit the crime

he MIGHT have done it, but then so MIGHT I.

[moggie]

19. Incidentally, isn't that contempt of court?

It's quite a few years since I did jury duty, but I recall the notes that the Old Bailey gave to us said that jurors must not divulge any information about what went on in the jury room. If the jurors in the first trial revealed what led them to convict... well, I'm not saying there was any harm, but, strictly speaking, I don't think they're supposed to.

[Mr Creosote]

20. I think you may well be right

certainly it's something that happens very rarely (in fact I can't think of it happening in any other case) which I suppose is an indication of the strength of the concerns that they had.

Someone who has been strangely silent in all this is Nick Ross.

[fedsron2us]

21. Well that could apply to every criminal trial

since the verdicts has to be either Guilty or Not Guilty based on the evidence presented. The prosecution failed to prove their case against George once the firearms forensics were discredited. The rest of their 'evidence' seemed to revolve largely around the fact that George lived in the area and was known to be a bit of a weirdo.

To me it looks like just another case of slack arsed coppers and crown prosecution agents looking for an easy conviction in a difficult and high profile case by going after a social inadequate who looked as though he could be squeezed into the frame. In those terms he certainly was 'fitted up' as he was just the kind of suspect that they could sell to a slavering press.

On edit - The Wikipedia article on George gives quite a good account of the case

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_George

George clearly suffers from emotional and behavioural disorders which have driven him into fantasy life that has made him a danger to women. However, his past 'form' and low IQ certainly did not fit the profile of the Dando killing that was carried out with something approaching clinical efficiency. There is almost no evidence to place him in the vicinity of the crime apart from contradictory eye witness statements. Crucially, the two neighbours who did see the killer failed to pick out George at the identification parade.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

22. Could and does, sadly.

The flip side of requiring a decent standard of proof is that most people accused of crimes are not cleared in any meaningful sense by being aquitted.

The only times someone is really "cleared" are when they succesfully win compensation or a mlicious prosecution suit or similar at a standard of proof higher than "there's reasonable doubt that you're guilty", or arguably when the court actively makes a statement to the effect that they are convinced of their innocence, rather than just not convinced of their guilt.

Which isn't great, because it means that someone charged with a crime is tarnished even if they're not convicted, but seems to be the least worst way of doing it.