This blog post has been contributed by Ms Amber Marks, Module Convenor for Evidence.
At about 11.30 am on 26 April 1999, Ms Jill Dando, the well-known television presenter, was shot and killed as she was about to enter her home in London. Her death was caused by a single shot to the head. On 2 July 2001, after deliberating for almost 32 hours, Barry George was convicted by a majority of 10:1 of the murder of Jill Dando, and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Barry George appealed against his conviction and on 29 July 2002 his appeal was dismissed by the Court of Appeal. On 5 November 2002 the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) received submissions made on Barry George’s behalf. After a full and thorough investigation the Commission decided, on 19 May 2007, to refer the conviction back to the Court of Appeal under s.9 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1995 on the following ground: “New evidence calls into question the firearms discharge evidence at trial and the significance apparently attached to that evidence.” The single ground of appeal before the Court of Appeal was that the evidence in relation to the discovery of the particle of firearms discharge residue (FDR) in the pocket of the appellant’s overcoat, which was relied on by the prosecution at the trial as of great significance, was, in reality, of no probative value. As a result of the fresh evidence heard by the Court of Appeal, it was clear that the jury had been misled as to the significance of the FDR. Quashing the conviction the Court of Appeal stated:
“It is impossible to know what weight, if any, the jury attached to the FDR evidence. It is equally impossible to know what verdict they would have reached had they been told as we were told, by the witnesses who gave evidence before us, that it was just as likely that the single particle of FDR came from some extraneous source as it was that it came from a gun fired by the appellant. The verdict is unsafe. The conviction will be quashed.”
This much you will already know from reading the case of Barry George [2007] EWCA Crim 2722 (listed in the essential reading under section 2: Key Concepts of the University of London Undergraduate LLB Evidence Module Guide). It was recommended reading to illustrate that the concept of relevance is complex and deserving of your attention. Relevance depends entirely on context for its existence. In the particular circumstances of this case, the finding of firearms discharge residue was of no probative weight and should not have been admitted.
What you will not know from the case report is that a retrial was ordered and that Barry George was acquitted at his retrial. Neither will you be aware of the extraordinary real life events that provide the backdrop to this now notorious case.
In the United Kingdom this autumn Netflix aired its three part documentary entitled Who Killed Jill Dando? It tells the tragic story of the unsolved murder of television presenter Jill Dando in 1999 and of the police´s investigation into her killing and the arrest, interview, prosecution and conviction of ´loner´ Barry George.
The documentary highlights several themes from our introductory readings. It underlines the damage done to the ´legitimacy´ of the criminal justice system where a person is wrongly convicted (see extract from Ian Dennis´s Textbook listed in the essential reading at 2.3 of the University of London Undergraduate LLB Evidence Module Guide). It reminds us that in convicting the innocent we necessarily fail to identify or convict the real culprit. The documentary does not reveal the true extent to which the criminal justice system failed Barry George (it took the initiative of a senior member of the forensic science service and a reference from the CCRC before his conviction was quashed) or the complexity of the issues in his appeal but it does offer real insight into many of the challenges of the law of evidence including the challenge of ´information overload´ (a problem discussed in the first chapter of Robert and Zuckerman´s textbook on Criminal Evidence).
The series does a brilliant job in showing how suspicious people can become simply from having the finger of guilt pointed at them. One by one the audience is invited to suspect a series of individuals as they are drawn to our attention and that of the police. The programme shows the vulnerability of suspects, particularly those with any kind of learning difficulties or lower levels of intelligence and the immensity of pressure one is under when questioned by the police. It underlines the risks inherent in bad character evidence and how easily a person can take on an aura of guilt when we learn about the unsavoury aspects of their character. It reminds us of the importance of the presumption of innocence.
It shows us the immense pressure that the police face to identify a suspect, particularly where the offence is serious and in the public eye. The programme devotes quite a bit of attention to the theory that Jill Dando´s murder was committed by a professional hitman for political reasons. We know from R v Blastland (further reading at 2.1.3) that this is not something a trial judge would be likely to allow the defence to probe in any detail at trial on grounds of (ir)relevance.
Finally, the documentary reveals that the presence of firearm discharge residue, the evidence that played such a key role in the decision to prosecute Barry George and in the prosecution case in the trial proceedings, seemed much more significant to all at the time than it actually turns out to be.