George tells of stalking alibi
2008-08-03 19:51
London - Barry George says he could not
have shot BBC presenter Jill Dando as he was following another
woman at the time of the murder.
George, 48, was freed on Friday after eight years in prison
when a jury cleared him of Dando's murder at a retrial.
Speaking to British newspapers after his release, he
revealed how he had been stalking another woman on the day of
Dando's death nine years ago.
"I walked with her for a bit and from her perspective, maybe
it was unwanted attention," George told the News of the World.
"But she didn't make that clear. It didn't seem like she was
telling me to go away. If she'd told me to leave I'd have done
so straight away."
Prior to his arrest in May 2000 a police surveillance
operation watched George approach 38 women over three weeks, but
he insisted he was now a changed man.
'Her Majesty's
holiday camps'
"I don't want to spend any more time in any of Her Majesty's
holiday camps," he told the Sunday Mirror. "I won't follow women
anymore. I know it's wrong.
"I will be vigilant from now on. I am never going to give
anyone the chance to send me away again. I have changed."
Dando, 37, was shot with a gun pressed against her head on
the doorstep of her London home in April 1999. Her murder
stunned the nation and prompted one of the police force's
biggest murder investigations.
George was arrested a year later and convicted in 2001,
though he always maintained he did not kill Dando.
Before arresting George, detectives examined a wide range of
theories. One was that Dando was killed by a Serb, angry that
she had presented a TV fundraiser for Kosovan refugees.
Others suggested she was killed by an ex-lover or by an
underworld hitman for her work helping the police on the BBC's
Crimewatch.
Dando was one of the most popular figures on television and
thousands of viewers turned out to pay their respects at her
funeral in her home town of Weston-super-Mare, Somerset.