Jill Dando

[MissKittyBeaudelais]

I watched the ITV programme last night about the death of Jill Dando. It was awful and even worse that her killer has not been found and brought to justice. However, Barry George, the man who was wrongly accused and imprisoned for over a decade has never received a penny in compensation. Am I reasonable to think that this is utterly unacceptable? This man, who was arrested it seems for basically “hanging around” and taking photos (he has Aspergers) has received no apology and no financial settlement for the sabotage of his life. I don’t understand this but can only assume it was disability discrimination.

I do think that it is wrong that Barry George has not received compensation, but as I understand it the compensation amount would be based on lack of earnings, and as he didn't work he wouldn't have got much anyway. I think it is just as important that he never received an apology and that the Police (in the BBC documentary) seemed to still believe he did it unless he can prove otherwise.
Some Universities are using the case in their miscarriage of justice units for law students and Michelle Bates' book Stand Against Injustice is on their reading list.
The cynic in me thinks Barry was a convenient odd ball to pin it on, but they reckoned without him having a sister like Ms Bates.

The police can believe what they like it is their job to create a well backed up accusation, not to judge, and inherent to that is the idea that they can be wrong.

As far as the rest of us are concerned he should be considered an innocent man, and I agree OP there is more compensation due someone innocent who is locked up in misery for years than how many shifts they couldn't do at work.

Do people not get compensation for loss of liberty? Regardless of whether he worked or not .

Not an expert, but I think the amount received is linked to loss of earnings.
A person who is released after a retrial doesn't get any help with rehabilitation either. For someone like BG coming out of jail, trying to return to 'normal' life would represent a considerable challenge.
Some people who have been in prison for a number of years find basic things like crossing a road or going to a shop really difficult.

I can't believe how someone can be shot dead outside in broad daylight in the middle of London has not been tracked down.

This is why it seems more likely that it was done by someone who knew what they were doing.

I really hate the compensation culture, but surely for situations like this, it should come down to more than just loss of earnings?! He lost years and years of his life for something that he didn't do. He probably had a hellish time in prison because other inmates thought that he had killed a much admired public figure for no reason. I agree that an apology is absolutely necessary, but I think there should be more than that. I don't think it's okay to say 'oh well, you wouldn't have earned much in 10 years anyway, so you get nothing.' Loss of liberty is a huge huge thing, ten years of his life that he will never get back.

Wow!!! We went from aspergers, to odd ball to village idiot. Please think about what you write, we're not all odd and idiot!

The police treatment of Barry George is an utter disgrace and illustrates the contempt of the State for people like him. It was clear to everyone even from just reading newspaper coverage that he was not guilty and should never have been charged let alone found guilty. Victim of a police tidy-up to brush it under the table. He should be compensated and the officers who fitted him up should be in jail. They're all retired on pensions now. Disgusting.

"village idiot" ??? Although irrelevent to this particular case, Barry George had a conviction list and false identies as long as your arm. "Villiage idiot"" he was not. He also stalked Cheryl Cole and Kay Birley after his release ....

Before his trial for the Dando murder, George was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome.[13] Prosecution psychologists studying George concluded that he had several different personality disorders: antisocial, histrionic, narcissistic and possibly paranoid,[5] as well as somatization and factitious disorders and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.[14] He was said to be epileptic and to have an IQ of 75;[10] however, a prior assessment found George to be of average intelligence.[5] George has also been likened to a "lone obsessive, Walter Mitty-type figure" for his desire to impersonate famous figures.[15]

😡 my husband and two DDs have Asperger’s. They are far from village idiots! Please think about your words before you type.

Is it not the case though that you have to actively pursue compensation? If he hasn’t done this I imagine that it wouldn’t be just given to him, so we don’t know what the details there are.

I do however think that while it seems implausible that BG did shoot her, I also think we need to be careful about simply labelling him as an odd ball who was innocently going about his business. Barry George had a history of stalking, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of photographs of women in his house, a conviction for which he served a prison term for attempted rape. Basically Barry George was a dangerous creepy fucker, and while that does not a murderer make, it’s not hard to see why the authorities might have originally made the connections they did.

Lets just put Barry George into perspective - hes is not a nice character, with a history of violence, rape and sexual assault

George adopted several pseudonyms, starting at school, where he used the name Paul Gadd, the real name of singer Gary Glitter.[8] In 1980, after George failed in his attempt to join the Metropolitan Police, he posed as a policeman, having obtained false warrant cards. For this he was arrested and prosecuted. In May 1980,[5] he appeared in court clad in glam rock clothing and untruthfully stated his name to be Paul Gadd,[10] and stated his occupation as 'unemployed musician' and former managing director of a company that handled three rock bands.[5] At Kingston Magistrates' Court he was convicted and fined £25.[6] In the early 1980s he appeared in a local newspaper claiming to be the winner of the British Karate Championship. He gave his name as Paul Gadd and his occupation as 'a singer with the band Xanadu and a session musician with the Electric Light Orchestra'. He was exposed as a fraud by another newspaper. He then assumed the identity of the cousin of Electric Light Orchestra singer Jeff Lynne and created a fictional company called Xanadu Constructional and Mechanical Engineers.[5] In 1980, George joined the Territorial Army, but was discharged the following year.[6] He then adopted the persona of SAS member Tom Palmer, one of the soldiers who ended the 1980 Iranian Embassy Siege.[3] George was charged with two counts of indecent assault in June 1981;[5] he was acquitted of indecent assault against one woman, and convicted of indecent assault against another woman, for which he received a three-month sentence, suspended for two years.[11]

He assumed the identity of Steve Majors and claimed to be a stuntman; he convinced a stadium to stage a show in which he would jump over four double-decker buses on roller skates, and injured himself attempting this stunt.[5] In March 1983 George was convicted at the Old Bailey under the pseudonym of Steve Majors for the February 1982 attempted rape of a woman in Acton,[5] for which he served 18 months of a 33-month sentence.[11] On 10 January 1983,[5] as was revealed after his arrest for the Dando murder, George had been found in the grounds of Kensington Palace, 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 a poem he had written to Prince Charles.[8]

On 2 May 1989 at Fulham register office, George married a 35-year-old Japanese student, Itsuko Toide, in what Toide described as a marriage "of convenience – but nonetheless violent and terrifying" [5][12] After four months she reported to the police that he had assaulted her. On 29 October 1989, George was arrested and charged, but the case was dropped and did not go to court;[5] the marriage ended in April 1990.[11][6]

In April 1990, and again in January 1992, George was arrested and charged with indecent assault. Neither case went to court.[5]

Good grief Plainspeaking! I had no idea that he was this bad. I just thought he was the local, off-beat character who the police had arrested because they had failed to identify anyone else! Thank you for the info - it does put a whole different slant on it.

Oh. That's all right then. By all means lock him up for something he didn't do. Such reasoning negates any need for a system of justice, just grab the nearest likely looking person and twist the facts to support your prejudice. What a shame capital punishment's been abolished, that would've cleared it all up nicely.

longwayoff nobody has said that. But there’s a lot of supposition that the police happened to pick on George because he was a bit of an odd ball who was hanging around a bit too much and was a victim of circumstance, not to forget the fragment of gunshot cartridge found in his pocket.

Bearing in mind the suggestion was that the person who killed Dando was likely someone who was obsessed with her in some way. George was a violent stalker with a history of sexual crimes. It’s not beyond the realms of reality therefore that he should fall under investigation.

It wasn't a fragment of gunshot cartridge, it was a minute particle of gunshot residue.
The forensic scientist on the BBC programme said that if it had happened today the CPS would not have allowed it to go to court on the basis of that one piece of 'evidence'.

"village idiot" ??? Although irrelevent to this particular case, Barry George had a conviction list and false identies as long as your arm. "Villiage idiot"" he was not.

He assumed the identity of Steve Majors and claimed to be a stuntman; he convinced a stadium to stage a show in which he would jump over four double-decker buses on roller skates, and injured himself attempting this stunt

Definitely not the village idiot then. Pretending to be the six million dollar man and jumping over 4 double decker buses on roller skates....I mean...we've all been there

Sorry I should clarify longwayoff - I still don’t think Barry George did it and I think its appalling that he was wrongly convicted and spent so long in jail. What I mean is that it makes the actions of the police a little more understandable, to look in his direction given past convictions.

Thank you nocause, of course he should have been properly investigated, nobody could argue against that. He should not have been fitted up by the police. Clearly he is/was a disturbed individual and was a 'useful idiot' for their clear up. He should be compensated. Belief is not evidence.

He wasn't compensated because he wasn't found to be innocent. They said that in the programme.

I apologise for misrepresenting you Cora, I get particularly exercised by miscarriages of justice where its clear that evidence is insufficient yet a trial follows with a guilty conviction almost as a matter of course. There have been many such cases in my lifetime. Hopefully current forensics make this less likely.

Thanks whitehall.. Our legal system presumes innocence unless guilt is proved. Regardless of what they said in the programme, Mr George is innocent until found guilty.

He has twice tried to get compensation for this and been denied both times the first time was in April 2010 he wanted £1.4million and they turned him down the 2nd time was in May 2011 he took it to the high court they said he had evidence for miscarriage of justice but they still denied him any compensation for wrongful incarceration.