“He stood by his evidence. But he later complained to Forensic Science Service colleague Dr Ian Evett that he was "never asked the right questions".
Remarkably, the FSS did not tell either the prosecution or defence what their view of the evidence was. Instead, doubts only emerged after the CCRC launched its own investigation in 2004. Our source said: "Dr Keeley answered questions truthfully and some of his concerns were addressed by the defence. So the FSS didn't see the point in coming forward."
But another insider familiar with the CCRC report said: "It's scandalous that the FSS didn't come forward with their concerns at the time of the first appeal.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/this-firearms-expert-is-utterly-meticulous-he-had-serious-484576
What’s scandalous to me is it’s clear the experts who gave evidence in relation to GSR at Barry George’s appeal were totally bias and any objectively appears to have gone out of the window. Same applies to the CCRC in this instance.
My opinions. My observations.
We know the CCRC make mistakes, the Simon Hall case referral is a prime example.
“Referring to the evidence, CCRC chair Professor Graham Zellick said yesterday: "Considerable weight was placed on it at the trial.
"But we've concluded that it can't bear that weight, if it can bear any weight at all.
"I think there's now a good deal of common ground that it simply isn't incriminating. It's of almost no evidential value in the circumstances at all."
The professor said three commissioners had "deliberated on every point" of the complex investigation, reading thousands of pages of documentation.
He said: "Our role is limited to assessing whether there's a real possibility that the Court of Appeal may quash the conviction in the light of new evidence or argument, and we've concluded that that is so.
"It's now a matter for the Appeal Court to judge whether the new evidence or argument renders the conviction unsafe, in which case it will be quashed. If it is, then the court must decide whether there should be a new trial."
Police believe they have still got the right man and have appointed Commander Dave Johnson, head of Scotland Yard's Homicide Team, to lead their response.
Re GSR - In isolation maybe not but...
As published by John McVicar in the Telegraph:
“In our system where the accused enjoys the presumption of innocence and the burden of proof is on the prosecution, the defence can put the Crown to proof.
This is what William Clegg QC, Mr George’s counsel, did: he tested the Crown’s case but did not put forward any alternative. Mr Clegg said to the Crown: prove your case – the jury decided that the Crown failed that test.
The possibility of delivering a “not proven” verdict is not an option in England and Wales. Mr George was found “not guilty” and is therefore entitled to walk free as an innocent man.
However, it is important to note that the jury’s verdict in a case such as this may have been equivalent to a “not proven” one.
The verdict is essentially one of not meeting the “beyond reasonable doubt” burden of proof.
Indeed, this is borne out by the judge’s directions and the three questions the jury asked for direction on before acquitting Mr George.
The Crown’s case was, in the words of junior counsel Peter Ratliff, “subtle, but compelling”.
It was predicated on identification and the judge directed the jury that only after they were sure of the identification evidence could they look to the other evidence to support it.
Two witnesses saw the killer leave the scene of the crime but neither identified him as Mr George.
Their descriptions of the killer loosely fitted Mr George, so they did not completely exclude him.
The only witnesses who did identify Mr George were those who saw him hanging around near Jill Dando’s home some hours before she was murdered.
Thus, the Crown’s task was to conflate the identifications of the pre-kill witnesses with the descriptions of the two scene-of-the-crime witnesses.
The Crown did not rely on a Tommy Cooper “just like that” wave of the hand to do this but established a backdrop to the killing.
First, it claimed Miss Dando was not murdered by a Serbian hitman, an ex-boyfriend, a vengeful criminal convicted by her Crimewatch work, an obsessive and jealous fan, a thief, a crazed junkie. She was murdered by a man with an irrational motive that would appear senseless to anyone normal. A fantasist — they said Mr George was a “fantasist”, a believer in crackpot theories.
Second, they suggested the killer was a loner, not a professional killer or criminal but with knowledge of pistols, and had access to amateurish kinds of weapons (converted blank-firers, or reactivated deactivated guns). This, they said, fitted Mr George.
Third, the Crown’s case was that the killer would have had to have some experience in following and observing women without their being aware.
They said Mr George’s hobby was to track, stalk and sometimes attack women in the Fulham area and there was a mass of evidence.
Fourth, as Miss Dando was not followed when driving to her home that morning (conclusively shown by the CCTV from numerous vantage points) and as her visits to her home were unpredictable (she was living at her fiancé’s house) the killer would have had to hang around her home in Gowan Avenue.
The jury appeared to accept from their questions after retirement that Mr George was in Gowan Avenue the Monday morning that she was killed.
There were four witnesses who identified Mr George as being in Gowan Avenue that morning.
The first, Susan Mayes, was rock solid on identifying him at being opposite Miss Dando’s house at 7am.
The jury was directed by the judge to look at her evidence first and only if they believed it to move on to the other witnesses.
The jury came out on their second day of retirement and asked to see the video of her identification of Mr George and to listen to the evidence she gave in the witness box.
They went back to their deliberations and came out, three hours later, and asked the judge to go through the evidence of the descriptions given by the two scene-of-the-crime witnesses.
As their directions were that they must acquit if they were not sure about Miss Mayes identifying Mr George, this must have meant they had agreed he was in Gowan Avenue that morning.
They then came out at noon on Friday with a question about the other three witnesses who made “partial identifications” of Mr George.
The judge directed that they could use video evidence of the partial identifications as support for Susan Mayes’s identification but they could “not convert two or more partial identifications into a positive identification”. An hour later they reached their verdict.
Crown counsel Jonathon Laidlaw’s last comment in his closing speech was “We suggest that this is no coincidence.” If they did think about the coincidences, the jury clearly did not think they defied common sense.
On the other hand, they may not have seen the subtlety of the Crown’s case. Who knows, except them?
But it doesn’t matter, the die is cast and cannot be un-cast.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2491147/Analysis-Twists-and-turns-that-enabled-Barry-George-to-walk-free.html
