Barry George
Encyclopedia
Barry Michael George is a British
British people
The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...

 man who was wrongly convicted
Miscarriage of justice
A miscarriage of justice primarily is the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. The term can also apply to errors in the other direction—"errors of impunity", and to civil cases. Most criminal justice systems have some means to overturn, or "quash", a wrongful...

 on 2 July 2001 of the murder
Murder in English law
Murder is an offence under the common law of England and Wales. It is considered the most serious form of homicide, in which one person kills another either intending to cause death or intending to cause serious injury .-Actus reus:The definition of the actus reus Murder is an offence under the...

 of British television presenter Jill Dando
Jill Dando
Jill Wendy Dando was an English journalist, television presenter and newsreader who worked for the BBC for 14 years. She was murdered by gunshot outside her home in Fulham, West London; her killer has never been identified....

. His murder conviction was judged unsafe by the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) and was quashed on 15 November 2007. His retrial began on 9 June 2008; he was acquitted on 1 August 2008.

Early life

Barry George was born in Hammersmith Hospital
Hammersmith Hospital
Hammersmith Hospital is a major teaching hospital in West London. It is part of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, and is associated with the Imperial College Faculty of Medicine...

, London, to Alfred (born early 1930s) and Margaret (née Burke, born mid 1930s), who is Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...

. The couple had married in July 1954. He was the youngest of three children; they grew up in a high-rise flat in White City, London
White City, London
White City is a district in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, to the north of Shepherd's Bush. Today, White City is home to the BBC Television Centre and BBC White City, and Loftus Road stadium, the home of football club Queens Park Rangers FC....

. His sister Michelle Diskin, who lives in the Republic of Ireland
Republic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...

, is five years older than he is; his sister Susan, three years older than he is, died of epilepsy
Epilepsy
Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder characterized by seizures. These seizures are transient signs and/or symptoms of abnormal, excessive or hypersynchronous neuronal activity in the brain.About 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy, and nearly two out of every three new cases...

 aged 28 in 1986. George suffers from epilepsy. He attended Wormholt Park Primary School in White City, but was soon transferred to Northcroft School, for children with educational and behavioural disorders, in Hammersmith. His parents split when he was seven, and divorced in December 1973. At 14, he attended the publicly-funded Heathermount boarding school in Sunningdale
Sunningdale
Sunningdale is a large village and civil parish in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in Berkshire, England.-Location:Sunningdale is located close to the present border with Surrey, and is not far from Ascot, Sunninghill and Virginia Water. It is situated 24 miles west of London and 7...

, Berkshire, for children with emotional and behavioural difficulties. After leaving school without qualifications, his only employment was as a messenger at BBC Television Centre
BBC Television Centre
BBC Television Centre at White City in West London is the headquarters of BBC Television. Officially opened on 29 June 1960, it remains one of the largest to this day; having featured over the years as backdrop to many BBC programmes, it is one of the most readily recognisable such facilities...

 for four months in 1977. His interest in the BBC endured until his arrest; he was a regular reader of the in-house magazine Ariel
Ariel (newspaper)
Ariel is the in-house magazine/newspaper of the BBC, published weekly on Tuesdays, and named after the statue of Shakespeare's Prospero and Ariel by Eric Gill on the facade of the BBC's Broadcasting House, London....

, and had reportedly kept four copies of the memorial issue which featured Jill Dando's murder. George has exhibited an interest in celebrities, including Diana, Princess of Wales
Diana, Princess of Wales
Diana, Princess of Wales was the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales, whom she married on 29 July 1981, and an international charity and fundraising figure, as well as a preeminent celebrity of the late 20th century...

; and Prince Charles
Charles, Prince of Wales
Prince Charles, Prince of Wales is the heir apparent and eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Since 1958 his major title has been His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales. In Scotland he is additionally known as The Duke of Rothesay...

. He adopted several pseudonyms, starting at school, where he used the name Paul Gadd, the real name of singer Gary Glitter
Gary Glitter
Gary Glitter is an English former glam rock singer-songwriter and musician.Glitter first came to prominence in the glam rock era of the early 1970s...

. In 1980, George joined the Territorial Army, but was discharged the following year. He claimed to be SAS
Special Air Service
Special Air Service or SAS is a corps of the British Army constituted on 31 May 1950. They are part of the United Kingdom Special Forces and have served as a model for the special forces of many other countries all over the world...

 member Tom Palmer, one of the soldiers who ended the 1980 Iranian Embassy Siege
Iranian Embassy Siege
The Iranian Embassy siege took place from 30 April to 5 May 1980, after a group of six armed men stormed the Iranian embassy in South Kensington, London. The gunmen took 26 people hostage—mostly embassy staff, but several visitors and a police officer, who had been guarding the embassy, were also...

. George's father remarried and emigrated to Australia. The couple subsequently moved to Wales, where they still live. George's mother reverted to using her maiden name; she died in Ireland in September 2011.

Previous criminal convictions and investigations

In 1980, George failed in his attempt to join the Metropolitan Police
Metropolitan police
Metropolitan Police is a generic title for the municipal police force for a major metropolitan area, and it may be part of the official title of the force...

. Shortly after, he posed as a policeman
Police impersonation
Police impersonation is an act of falsely portraying oneself as a member of the police, for the purpose of deception. In the vast majority of countries the practice is illegal and carries a custodial sentence....

, having obtained false warrant cards. For this he was arrested and prosecuted. In May 1980, he appeared in court clad in glam rock
Glam rock
Glam rock is a style of rock and pop music that developed in the UK in the early 1970s, which was performed by singers and musicians who wore outrageous clothes, makeup and hairstyles, particularly platform-soled boots and glitter...

 clothing and untruthfully stated his name to be Paul Gadd, a revival of his Gary Glitter fixation and the name under which he was charged. At Kingston Magistrates' Court he was fined £
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...

25. George was charged and in June 1981, acquitted of indecent assault
Indecent assault
Indecent assault is an offence of aggravated assault in many jurisdictions. It is characterised as a sex crime.Indecent assault was an offence in England and Wales under sections 14 and 15 the Sexual Offences Act 1956...

 against one woman, and convicted of indecent assault against another woman, for which he received a three-month sentence, suspended for two years.

In March 1983 George was convicted at the Old Bailey
Old Bailey
The Central Criminal Court in England and Wales, commonly known as the Old Bailey from the street in which it stands, is a court building in central London, one of a number of buildings housing the Crown Court...

 under the pseudonym of 'Steve Majors' for the February 1982 attempted rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...

 of a woman in Acton, for which he served 18 months of a 33-month sentence. On 10 January 1983, as was revealed after his arrest for the Dando murder, George had been found in the grounds of Kensington Palace
Kensington Palace
Kensington Palace is a royal residence set in Kensington Gardens in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London, England. It has been a residence of the British Royal Family since the 17th century and is the official London residence of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, the Duke and...

, at that time the home of Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales. He had been discovered hiding in the grounds wearing a balaclava and carrying 50 feet of rope, a 12 inch hunting knife, and in possession of a poem he had written to Prince Charles.

On 2 May 1989 at Fulham
Fulham
Fulham is an area of southwest London in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, SW6 located south west of Charing Cross. It lies on the left bank of the Thames, between Putney and Chelsea. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London...

 register office
Register office
A register office is a British term for a civil registry, a government office and depository where births, deaths and marriages are officially recorded and where you can get officially married, without a religious ceremony...

, George married a 35 year old Japanese
Japanese people
The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...

 student, Itsuko Toide, in what Toide described as a marriage "of convenience
Marriage of convenience
A marriage of convenience is a marriage contracted for reasons other than the reasons of relationship, family, or love. Instead, such a marriage is orchestrated for personal gain or some other sort of strategic purpose, such as political marriage. The phrase is a calque of - a marriage of...

 – but nonetheless violent and terrifying." After four months she reported to the police that he assaulted her. On 29 October 1989, George was arrested and charged, but the case was dropped and did not go to court; the marriage ended in April 1990. Toide moved back to Japan.

In April 1990, and again in January 1992, George was arrested and charged with indecent assault
Indecent assault
Indecent assault is an offence of aggravated assault in many jurisdictions. It is characterised as a sex crime.Indecent assault was an offence in England and Wales under sections 14 and 15 the Sexual Offences Act 1956...

. Neither case went to court.

A psychologist studying George since his arrest for the Dando murder concluded that he was suffering from several different personality disorders, stating that he has an IQ
Intelligence quotient
An intelligence quotient, or IQ, is a score derived from one of several different standardized tests designed to assess intelligence. When modern IQ tests are constructed, the mean score within an age group is set to 100 and the standard deviation to 15...

 of 75 and suffers from epilepsy
Epilepsy
Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder characterized by seizures. These seizures are transient signs and/or symptoms of abnormal, excessive or hypersynchronous neuronal activity in the brain.About 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy, and nearly two out of every three new cases...

.

Overturned conviction for murder of Jill Dando

Jill Dando was shot dead outside her home on 26 April 1999. George (who at the time of the murder lived in a ground floor flat in Crookham Road, Fulham) was arrested for her murder
Murder in English law
Murder is an offence under the common law of England and Wales. It is considered the most serious form of homicide, in which one person kills another either intending to cause death or intending to cause serious injury .-Actus reus:The definition of the actus reus Murder is an offence under the...

 on 25 May 2000, and charged for it on 29 May 2000. He was convicted of it by a majority of ten to one on 2 July 2001, a verdict considered unsafe by some observers at the time.

Appeals

In 2002, the Court of Appeal
Court of Appeal of England and Wales
The Court of Appeal of England and Wales is the second most senior court in the English legal system, with only the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom above it...

's judgment on the appeal, having addressed a number of grounds including eyewitness testimony, scientific evidence, and the role of the trial judge, concluded that the verdict of the jury was not unsafe and that appeal was dismissed.

In March 2006, George's lawyers sought an appeal on fresh evidence based on medical examinations suggesting he was not capable of committing the crime because of his mental disabilities. A second defence argument was that two new witnesses say they saw armed police at the scene when George was arrested, contrary to official reports about the circumstances of his arrest — the Metropolitan Police maintain there were no armed officers present during the arrest of George. There was scientific evidence linking Barry George to the murder in the form of a single microscopic particle of what was said to have been gunshot residue, together with evidence as to the character of a fibre found on his clothing. It was argued by the defence that the presence of armed officers and their involvement in his arrest might have been responsible for the gunshot residue.

In September 2006, following investigations by George's campaigners and a Panorama
Panorama (TV series)
Panorama is a BBC Television current affairs documentary programme, which was first broadcast in 1953, and is the longest-running public affairs television programme in the world. Panorama has been presented by many well known BBC presenters, including Richard Dimbleby, Robin Day, David Dimbleby...

documentary about the conviction, first broadcast in the UK on 5 September 2006 and which included an interview with the foreman of the trial jury, fresh evidence was submitted to the Criminal Cases Review Commission
Criminal Cases Review Commission
The Criminal Cases Review Commission is an non-departmental public body set up following the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice itself a continuation of the May Inquiry. It aims to investigate possible miscarriages of justice in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...

 by the programme-makers and by Barry George's solicitor. The evidence concerned scientific analysis of the alleged gunshot residue, eyewitness evidence, and psychiatric reports.

On 20 June 2007, the Criminal Cases Review Commission
Criminal Cases Review Commission
The Criminal Cases Review Commission is an non-departmental public body set up following the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice itself a continuation of the May Inquiry. It aims to investigate possible miscarriages of justice in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...

 announced that it would refer George's case to the Court of Appeal.
On 22 August 2007, George was refused bail prior to the hearing, which subsequently began on 5 November 2007.
One of the defence team's main grounds of appeal was that the single particle of gunshot residue in the coat pocket was not evidence which conclusively linked George to the crime scene; it could have appeared as a result of contamination of the coat when it was placed on a mannequin to be photographed as police evidence.

On 7 November 2007 the Court of Appeal reserved judgement in the case and on 15 November 2007 announced that the appeal was allowed and the conviction quashed.

In summary, the reasoning of the Court was that at the trial the prosecution had relied primarily on four categories of evidence:
  1. One witness who had identified him as being in Jill Dando's street four and a half hours before the murder and other witnesses who, although they could not pick George out at an identity parade, saw a man in the street in the two hours before the murder who might have been George;
  2. Alleged lies told by George in interview;
  3. An alleged attempt to create a false alibi;
  4. The single particle of firearm discharge residue (FDR
    Gunshot residue
    Gunshot residue is principally composed of burnt and unburnt particles from the explosive primer, the propellant, as well as components from the bullet, the cartridge case and the firearm used...

    ) found, about a year after the murder, in George's overcoat.


The prosecution had called expert witnesses at the trial whose evidence suggested that it was likely that the particle of FDR came from a gun fired by Barry George rather than from some other source.

Those witnesses and other witnesses from the Forensic Science Service told the Court of Appeal that this was not the right conclusion to draw from the discovery of the particle of FDR. It was instead no more likely that the particle had come from a gun fired by Barry George than that it had come from some other source. The Court of Appeal concluded that, if this evidence had been given to the jury at the trial, there was no certainty that the jury would have found George guilty. For this reason his conviction had to be quashed.

A retrial was ordered and George was remanded in custody, making no application for bail.

Retrial

George appeared before the Old Bailey
Old Bailey
The Central Criminal Court in England and Wales, commonly known as the Old Bailey from the street in which it stands, is a court building in central London, one of a number of buildings housing the Crown Court...

 on 14 December 2007 and again pleaded not guilty to the murder. His retrial began on 9 June 2008. Initially there was a lot of coverage in the press, especially of the prosecution portrayal of the defendant as being highly obsessive, lacking in social skills and a danger to women. The prosecution case differed from that of the first trial in that there was practically no scientific evidence as the evidence relating to the FDR was ruled inadmissible by the trial judge (Mr Justice Griffith Williams). There was much evidence of George's bad character which was admitted in the re-trial (at the discretion of the trial judge) as a result of the enactment of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 since the original trial. There were delays due to legal arguments and to the illnesses of the defendant and one of the jurors. For the defence William Clegg QC reminded the jury that evidence from three women from HAFAD (Hammersmith and Fulham Action on Disability) placed the defendant's arrival at their offices at 11:50 or 12:00, which, according to Clegg's argument, would have made it impossible for him to have committed a murder at Dando's house at 11:30 and then gone home (in the wrong direction) to change. Two neighbours who almost certainly saw the murderer immediately after the shooting had seen him go off in this direction, and later failed to identify George at an identification parade. The trial ended with George's acquittal on 1 August 2008.

Life after Dando acquittal

On multiple occasions George has won substantial damages from tabloid newspapers over various allegations published about him, at least twice pursuing these libel claims to the High Court
High Court of Justice
The High Court of Justice is, together with the Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, one of the Senior Courts of England and Wales...

. In December 2009, following mediation, he accepted an undisclosed amount from Rupert Murdoch
Rupert Murdoch
Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG is an Australian-American business magnate. He is the founder and Chairman and CEO of , the world's second-largest media conglomerate....

's News Group Newspapers over articles published in The Sun
The Sun (newspaper)
The Sun is a daily national tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom and owned by News Corporation. Sister editions are published in Glasgow and Dublin...

and the News of the World
News of the World
The News of the World was a national red top newspaper published in the United Kingdom from 1843 to 2011. It was at one time the biggest selling English language newspaper in the world, and at closure still had one of the highest English language circulations...

. In May 2010 Mirror Group Newspapers settled with George after claims, unrelated to the Dando murder, that he had developed an obsession with singer Cheryl Cole
Cheryl Cole
Cheryl Ann Cole is an English pop and R&B recording artist, songwriter, dancer, actress and model. She rose to fame in late 2002 when she auditioned for the reality television show Popstars: The Rivals on ITV. The programme announced that Cole had won a place as a member of the girl group, Girls...

 and newsreader Kay Burley
Kay Burley
Kay Burley is an English television newsreader, presenter and journalist. She currently anchors the Afternoon Live programme on the Sky News station.-Early life:...

.

In April 2010 it emerged that the Ministry of Justice had denied a claim of £
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...

1.4 million compensation made by George in respect of his wrongful imprisonment for Jill Dando's murder. The decision was made by Jack Straw
Jack Straw
Jack Straw , British politician.Jack Straw may also refer to:* Jack Straw , English* "Jack Straw" , 1971 song by the Grateful Dead* Jack Straw by W...

, the Justice Secretary at the time, and in August 2010 the High Court ruled that George is entitled to a judicial review
Judicial review in English Law
Judicial review is a procedure in English administrative law by which the courts in England and Wales supervise the exercise of public power on the application of an individual...

 of the matter. The review is postponed until the Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United Kingdom
The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom is the supreme court in all matters under English law, Northern Ireland law and Scottish civil law. It is the court of last resort and highest appellate court in the United Kingdom; however the High Court of Justiciary remains the supreme court for criminal...

 has ruled over 3 test cases, scheduled for February 2011, on the legal definition of the phrase "miscarriage of justice".

George has regularly appeared wearing Leeds United
Leeds United A.F.C.
Leeds United Association Football Club are an English professional association football club based in Beeston, Leeds, West Yorkshire, who play in the Football League Championship, the second tier of the English football league system...

 training gear and has developed a cult
Cult
The word cult in current popular usage usually refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre. The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices...

 following amongst fans of the Npower
Npower (UK)
RWE Npower plc is a UK-based electricity and gas supply generation company, formerly known as Innogy plc. As Innogy plc it was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index...

 Football League Championship club. "Barry George is an innocent man and a Super Leeds fan" is often sung at Elland Road
Elland Road
Elland Road is an all-seater football stadium in Beeston, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It has been the permanent residence of Leeds United A.F.C...

.

External links

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