UK UK - Jill Dando, 37, Fulham, London, 26 Apr 1999

[Novosti]

From the Guardian:



Putting aside the obvious issue with Mr Paul’s evidence, that he had two fairly lengthy interactions with Barry George and apparently came away with the belief that George was a blonde, spiky haired east European, let’s assume that his recollection of events is correct - does this honestly sound like an attempt by George to ‘coach a witness’? I think that’s a stretch and a half, to put it mildly.

Mr Paul’s belief simply that he was dealing with a ‘nutter’, is surely the correct explanation here.

Did anything that Barry George do in the weeks after Jill Dando died make sense? Of course not - the man was a simpleton, with a poor memory and a personality disorder. He went to the council’s housing office and asked them to erect a memorial to Jill. He collected condolence cards from local businesses, which he forgot all about and left in his flat, to be found later by police. He told at least one random member of the public that he was going to speak at Jill’s memorial service!

All utterly bizarre behaviour obviously, but exactly the sort of behaviour you’d expect a man like Barry George to partake in.

No disagreement on the bizarre nature of his behaviour. But absolutely it was coaching a witness: going back to the taxi office at all for these purposes; asking about his clothing on the day of the murder; pointing to the sun to elicit the colour he wanted; lying about the e-fit. It was a plan (albeit not a sound one) to change the evidence a witness/alibi might give.

 

[rvlvr]

No disagreement on the bizarre nature of his behaviour. But absolutely it was coaching a witness: going back to the taxi office at all for these purposes; asking about his clothing on the day of the murder; pointing to the sun to elicit the colour he wanted; lying about the e-fit. It was a plan (albeit not a sound one) to change the evidence a witness/alibi might give.

Do you have a source for the e-fit thing?

It’s true George told people he resembled the description of the suspect, though that description was being circulated on the day of the murder. I’ve never found evidence to support the oft-made claim George said he resembled the e-fit prior to it being released, though? I suspect it’s a misconception but happy to be corrected!

 

[Novosti]

Do you have a source for the e-fit thing?

It’s true George told people he resembled the description of the suspect, though that description was being circulated on the day of the murder. I’ve never found evidence to support the oft-made claim George said he resembled the e-fit prior to it being released, though? I suspect it’s a misconception but happy to be corrected!

We obviously don't have court transcripts. But here is a relevant piece of Guardian reporting the day after the conviction:

"George, police learnt, had returned to Hafad two days after the murder and asked staff if they remembered what time he had been there on April 26.

George told them he was worried he looked like the e-fit of the man the police were looking for. Detectives, however, had not released an image of a man seen running away from the scene.

George went to Traffic Cars again and asked if the controller, Ramesh Paul, remembered what he was wearing on his previous visit. When he could not, George became agitated and said "I was wearing yellow, like the colour of the sun! You must remember!"

Lost clues that led police to Dando's killer

Eight clues lost in a mass of information provided by 16,000 calls finally led detectives to arrest and charge Barry George. The crucial "messages" were provided by members of the public who called the murder squad between April 26 and June 14 1999. On their own, they were not regarded as overly...

www.theguardian.com

 

[rvlvr]

Yes, I’ve read that piece before. I don’t really think it answers the question though - all the articles I’ve ever read that detail evidence given by the witnesses including direct quotes from Mr Paul and the women at HAFAD don’t mention this thing about the e-fit, which would be quite an extraordinary omission I think - it’s obviously a very different thing to say ‘I look like the description of the gunman’ vs ‘I look like the e-fit (which hasn’t been released yet)’.

I suspect that Guardian piece has its wires crossed but of course without the trial transcripts we can’t be certain.

 

[Novosti]

Yes, I’ve read that piece before. I don’t really think it answers the question though - all the articles I’ve ever read that detail evidence given by the witnesses including direct quotes from Mr Paul and the women at HAFAD don’t mention this thing about the e-fit, which would be quite an extraordinary omission I think - it’s obviously a very different thing to say ‘I look like the description of the gunman’ vs ‘I look like the e-fit (which hasn’t been released yet)’.

I suspect that Guardian piece has its wires crossed but of course without the trial transcripts we can’t be certain.

The point about the efit was also made in other Guardian articles, on Wikipedia and in Orlando Pownall's statements.

I think if you want to assert that it's all mistaken, you need to provide some explanation for that.

 

[rvlvr]

As I say, I’m happy to stand corrected! But I didn’t think that was the strongest link to support you point. As it goes I dug around after posting and found this one, also from the Guardian, which perhaps you meant to link to instead?

Dando defendant told police a 'pack of lies'

Firearms residue found in strands of Jill Dando's hair matched a particle recovered from a jacket owned by the man accused of murdering her, the Old Bailey heard yesterday. By Nick Hopkins.

www.theguardian.com

"[George] sought to explain this visit on the basis that he wanted to account for his movements because people had said he was similar in appearance to the photofit picture which had been released," said Mr Pownall.

"As you know the e-fit was not released until two days later - the 30th of April."

I’d be curious to know if Mansfield challenged this and as I say I can’t find any quotes from Mr Paul or the HAFAD women that mention the e-fit, but this is definitely interesting coming from Pownall.

 

[Novosti]

As I say, I’m happy to stand corrected! But I didn’t think that was the strongest link to support you point. As it goes I dug around after posting and found this one, also from the Guardian, which perhaps you meant to link to instead?

Dando defendant told police a 'pack of lies'

Firearms residue found in strands of Jill Dando's hair matched a particle recovered from a jacket owned by the man accused of murdering her, the Old Bailey heard yesterday. By Nick Hopkins.

www.theguardian.com

I’d be curious to know if Mansfield challenged this and as I say I can’t find any quotes from Mr Paul or the HAFAD women that mention the e-fit, but this is definitely interesting coming from Pownall.

Lack of transcripts and all that. But as far as we can see, it wasn't challenged. In general, Mansfield and the defence team didn't directly try to challenge the evidence of George giving misleading statements about his whereabouts and seeking to construct alibis etc. Rather, they prioritised challenge to the interpretative inference that any of this could be a solid enough basis to convict.

 

[rvlvr]

Lack of transcripts and all that. But as far as we can see, it wasn't challenged. In general, Mansfield and the defence team didn't directly try to challenge the evidence of George giving misleading statements about his whereabouts and seeking to construct alibis etc. Rather, they prioritised challenge to the interpretative inference that any of this could be a solid enough basis to convict.

Indeed. Though all we can say with any certainty is that Pownall said that witnesses said that George said he looked like the e-fit. And George may well have said this, but then the witnesses may well have been wrong, also. We don’t know when they were spoken to about this matter specifically, how sound their recollections were, and so on. We’ve seen that maybe Mr Paul wasn’t a super reliable witness and of course the prosecution themselves tried to undermine the reliability of at least one HAFAD witness who provided George with an alibi. So while it sounds perfectly believable there’s evidently good grounds for skepticism too, I’d say.

 

[rvlvr]

We do?

This post of yours has stuck with me since last summer. I’d long been of the opinion Jill must’ve been dead by 11.31, as it was at this time that she received a call on her mobile that she didn’t answer. But I started to question this as we know she was carrying shopping and obviously her keys as she approached her house, making it possible she didn’t answer the call as she was busy driving/parking/gathering things from her car.

Anyway I’ve been re-reading the Mirror’s recent articles on Jill’s case and there’s some interesting information in them regarding timings. In particular:

Richard Hughes, then a 32-year-old financial trader, told detectives he saw the killer a few minutes after he had made a short phone call which billing records showed was at 11.33, police files reveal. Mr Hughes told detectives he thought the murder was "nearer to 11.40".

But the only other person to definitely see the gunman, Goeffrey Upfill-Brown, then 71, estimated it could not have been after 11.29, a finding contradicted by the last known sighting.

Ken Williams saw the running man cross Fulham Palace Road at the bottom of Gowan Avenue less than two minutes after placing a bet which was timestamped at 11.37.02:

Williams … reported seeing an athletic suspect spin off the bonnet of a moving car on the same stretch of road as the two motorist witnesses. Ken was waiting at a pelican crossing on the Fulham Palace Road with his black labrador Angie when the man appeared approximately 300 meters from where Jill lay dead outside her Gowan Avenue home.

He said: "I thought that was the man that killed her because he came from Gowan Avenue. Why would he run across that road like that when the traffic was moving? I thought it was mad."

Mystery 18 minutes of TV star's murder – betting slip, sweating man and key mark

Eight Jill Dando murder witnesses described seeing a white man of a roughly similar age, height and build in dark, smart clothing acting suspiciously around the time she was killed

www.mirror.co.uk

The issue with the running man sightings is that if Jill was killed at 11.31, and knowing it’s only a 4 minute walk from her home to Fulham Palace Road, and Williams places his bet at 11.37 then has to walk for a minute or two to where he sees this man, then the timings aren’t quite right (unless of course the killer hung around Gowan Avenue for some reason after shooting Jill). But if the killing happens after 11.35, this sighting has much more relevance imo.

Anyway TL;DR, I think you might be right.