Barry George

Barry Michael George (born 15 April 1960) is an English man who was found guilty of the murder of English television presenter Jill Dando and whose conviction was overturned on appeal.

Dando's profile and popularity ensured high public interest in the case.

When no motive could be found and no evidence emerged from criminals or British intelligence of a contract or conspiracy to kill Dando, police began to reassess evidence that had been set aside at the start of the inquiry.

The only non-circumstantial evidence was a single particle of firearm discharge residue—a speck that matched the ammunition used in the killing.

In March 1980, after George failed in his attempt to join the Metropolitan Police, he was arrested and charged for impersonating a police officer, having obtained false warrant cards.

In May 1980, he appeared in court clad in glam rock clothing and untruthfully stated his name to be Paul Gadd.

At Kingston Magistrates' Court he was convicted and fined £25.

In the early 1980s he appeared in a local newspaper claiming to be the winner of the British Karate Championship; he was exposed as a fraud by another newspaper.

In 1980, George joined the Territorial Army, but was discharged the following year.

He then adopted the persona of SAS member Tom Palmer, one of the soldiers who ended the 1980 Iranian Embassy Siege.

In both March and August of 1980, George was arrested and charged for indecent assault, going to trial on the two counts in June 1981; 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.

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

In January 1983, George was charged with rape for a February 1982 sexual assault of a woman in Acton; in March 1983, he was convicted at the Old Bailey, untruthfully stating his name to be Steve Majors, for attempted rape in the February 1982 attack, 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, 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.

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".

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; the marriage ended in April 1990.

In April 1990, and again in January 1992, George was arrested and charged with indecent assault.

Neither case went to court.

At the time of Dando's murder, he was using the pseudonym Barry Bulsara, telling people that he was the cousin of Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara), and gave that name after the murder when he contacted various businesses, seeking alibi video footage to prove he was present at any of those businesses at the time of the murder.

These actions led to tips from the businesses that brought George (then believed to be George Bulsara) to the attention of the police unit investigating the murder, though these initial tips, amongst the thousands received in the days immediately following the murder, were not connected as referring to one person – and pursued by police – until a year after the murder.

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 on 25 May 2000, and charged on 29 May 2000.

Before his trial for the Dando murder, George was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome.

Prosecution psychologists studying George concluded that he had several different personality disorders: antisocial, histrionic, narcissistic and possibly paranoid, as well as somatization and factitious disorders and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

He was said to have epilepsy and to have an IQ of 75; however, a prior assessment found George to be of average intelligence.

He was convicted by a majority of 10 to one, and was sentenced to life imprisonment on 2 July 2001.

This verdict was considered unsafe by some observers at the time.

In 2002, George appealed his conviction, with his legal team disputing his identification as Dando's killer and the reliability of forensic evidence used in the trial.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal.

George was convicted of murder but the forensic evidence was later discounted and his conviction was judged unsafe by the Court of Appeal and quashed in 2007.

After a retrial, he was acquitted on 1 August 2008.

His claims for compensation for wrongful imprisonment have been dismissed, on the grounds that a reasonable first trial had occurred, with the successful appeal having been on legitimate technical issues rather than due to an overt "miscarriage of justice".

Barry George was born in Hammersmith Hospital, London.

He is the youngest of three children.

At 14, George attended the publicly funded Heathermount boarding school in Sunningdale, Berkshire, for children with emotional and behavioural difficulties.

After leaving school without qualifications, his only employment was as a messenger at BBC Television Centre on a fixed term contract for six months; the job lasted only five months.

George has been likened to a "lone obsessive, Walter Mitty-type figure" for his desire to impersonate famous figures.

George adopted several pseudonyms, starting at school, where he used the name Paul Gadd, the real name of singer Gary Glitter.