UK Justice Forum 🇬🇧
Other High Profile Cases and Persons of Interest => Twenty years on, the mystery of who shot Jill Dando still prevails. => Topic started by: Nicholas on March 30, 2018, 02:08:07 PM
-
Whilst Barry George's "odd" behaviour may not make him a murderer, doubts still remain.
Investigative journalist Mark Williams Thomas looked again at the the case and presented his findings which appeared to point away from George. But how do any of us know whether he had been influenced in any way by his bias?
Barry George is not innocent enough for compensation!
High Court judges ruled “There was indeed a case upon which a reasonable jury, properly directed, could have convicted the claimant of murder."
To what evidence were the judges referring?
386
-
Barry George's uncle has written a book about his nephew and has stated he felt bitter for a long time after George was released from prison. He talks of how he and fellow supporters were ultimately dumped by George; even though he'd put in years of campaigning?
He also makes a statement regarding a comment Barry George made after watching some film on TV about a murder.
His book is an eye opener and IMO paints a very different story to the one his sister Michelle Bates has portrayed. Especially given the fact she always alluded to me she had kept out of all the feuds?
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ltgorwROQfwC&pg=PA212&lpg=PA212&dq=barry+george+mappa&source=bl&ots=Osv57MD-fI&sig=t2RQTED03Q5wPp3fZSSWGXI5PAk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwixl8LMh5XaAhXqKsAKHfBfDZM4ChDoATAKegQICBAB#v=onepage&q=barry%20george%20mappa&f=false
He concludes his book with:
"God is in the detail if one digs deep enough"
My own opinion on this case is; if one digs deep enough into the facts, all isn't as it appears.
Barry George is most definitely not as odd or indeed dumb as his family want us to believe IMO. I'm with the prosecution on this. Expert opinion is just that. George has spent convictions for attempted rape and indecent assault and is still deemed a risk to the public. Are we to ignore these facts because his murder conviction was overturned on a technicality?
-
Barry George's uncle has written a book about his nephew and has stated he felt bitter for a long time after George was released from prison. He talks of how he and fellow supporters were ultimately dumped by George; even though he'd put in years of campaigning?
He also makes a statement regarding a comment Barry George made after watching some film on TV about a murder.
His book is an eye opener and IMO paints a very different story to the one his sister Michelle Bates has portrayed. Especially given the fact she always alluded to me she had kept out of all the feuds?
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ltgorwROQfwC&pg=PA212&lpg=PA212&dq=barry+george+mappa&source=bl&ots=Osv57MD-fI&sig=t2RQTED03Q5wPp3fZSSWGXI5PAk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwixl8LMh5XaAhXqKsAKHfBfDZM4ChDoATAKegQICBAB#v=onepage&q=barry%20george%20mappa&f=false
He concludes his book with:
"God is in the detail if one digs deep enough"
My own opinion on this case is; if one digs deep enough into the facts, all isn't as it appears.
Barry George is most definitely not as odd or indeed dumb as his family want us to believe IMO. I'm with the prosecution on this. Expert opinion is just that. George has spent convictions for attempted rape and indecent assault and is still deemed a risk to the public. Are we to ignore these facts because his murder conviction was overturned on a technicality?
All a bit too convoluted for me, Stephanie. He was eventually acquitted of this particular crime because the evidence was deemed to be flawed.
He should at least have been given some compensation for the fact that The Prosecution offered flawed evidence. If you can't trust The Prosecution then where does that leave Justice?
-
All a bit too convoluted for me, Stephanie. He was eventually acquitted of this particular crime because the evidence was deemed to be flawed.
He should at least have been given some compensation for the fact that The Prosecution offered flawed evidence. If you can't trust The Prosecution then where does that leave Justice?
Yes I agree. The law can be extremely complex and difficult to follow, especially so in cases like Barry George, but it's why cases like this are tested on their own merits.
In the Supreme Court ruling, Lord Phillips, the then president, said the "mere quashing" of a conviction could not be a "trigger for compensation".
He said the new "test" would not guarantee that all those entitled to compensation were innocent. But those who could not prove their innocence beyond reasonable doubt would not be "precluded" from obtaining compensation.
-
All a bit too convoluted for me, Stephanie. He was eventually acquitted of this particular crime because the evidence was deemed to be flawed.
He should at least have been given some compensation for the fact that The Prosecution offered flawed evidence. If you can't trust The Prosecution then where does that leave Justice?
What is your understanding of the evidence in this case?
Barry George has yet to show conclusively that he is innocent of the crime he was originally convicted
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13356120
-
My brother, who was wrongly convicted of the murder of TV presenter, Jill Dando, has never been awarded any compensation for the years he spent incarcerated for this killing. His conviction was quashed in 2007, and he was then released in 2008, when the jury at his second trial unanimously found him not guilty. Since then, we have tried every avenue we could think of to get this government to correct the wrong, and to make recompense for all that he has lost.’
Michelle Bates
http://www.thejusticegap.com/2015/12/2015-a-year-in-the-justice-gap/
Maybe it's finally time for Michelle Bates to be transparent in order to convince those of us who believe him to not be innocent enough.
And maybe she would be open and honest enough to publicise the total sum of money her brother accrued since his conviction was over turned?
All I'm witnessing is greed; which has nothing to do with truth or justice.
-
In so far as I understand The Law, Reasonable Doubt lies with the Accused. It is not for the Accused to prove Innocence, but for The Prosecution to prove Guilt. This they obviously didn't do.
This is what Innocent until Proven Guilty means.
You cannot say that someone isn't innocent enough just because you don't like him.
-
My brother, who was wrongly convicted of the murder of TV presenter, Jill Dando, has never been awarded any compensation for the years he spent incarcerated for this killing. His conviction was quashed in 2007, and he was then released in 2008, when the jury at his second trial unanimously found him not guilty. Since then, we have tried every avenue we could think of to get this government to correct the wrong, and to make recompense for all that he has lost.’
Michelle Bates
http://www.thejusticegap.com/2015/12/2015-a-year-in-the-justice-gap/
Maybe it's finally time for Michelle Bates to be transparent in order to convince those of us who believe him to not be innocent enough.
And maybe she would be open and honest enough to publicise the total sum of money her brother accrued since his conviction was over turned?
All I'm witnessing is greed; which has nothing to do with truth or justice.
You try being locked up for eight years for a crime that you didn't commit, during which you had no recourse to earning anything.
Hardly Greed.
-
In so far as I understand The Law, Reasonable Doubt lies with the Accused. It is not for the Accused to prove Innocence, but for The Prosecution to prove Guilt. This they obviously didn't do.
This is what Innocent until Proven Guilty means.
You cannot say that someone isn't innocent enough just because you don't like him.
But who's telling the truth Eleanor?
Barry George https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ynZjv5xAQmc
Or the crown prosecution?
I don't for one minute believe the CPS went after George because they didn't like him - they wouldn't get away with that surely?
-
You try being locked up for eight years for a crime that you didn't commit, during which you had no recourse to earning anything.
Hardly Greed.
But how do any of us know for sure he didn't do it? We are referring to a man with previous convictions for attempted rape and indecent assault. Has he been rehabilitated? The facts he's still under MAPPA would suggest not?
And how much was earning before he was locked up?
-
But who's telling the truth Eleanor?
Barry George https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ynZjv5xAQmc
Or the crown prosecution?
I don't for one minute believe the CPS went after George because they didn't like him - they wouldn't get away with that surely?
But they didn't get away with it, did they. That is the point. But he spent a long time in prison during the process.
-
In so far as I understand The Law, Reasonable Doubt lies with the Accused. It is not for the Accused to prove Innocence, but for The Prosecution to prove Guilt. This they obviously didn't do.
This is what Innocent until Proven Guilty means.
You cannot say that someone isn't innocent enough just because you don't like him.
Barry George was wrongly convicted which is not the same as a miscarriage of justice, as I understand it
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2011/may/11/barry-george-compensated-supreme-court
-
Barry George was wrongly convicted which is not the same as a miscarriage of justice, as I understand it
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2011/may/11/barry-george-compensated-supreme-court
Why bother with Trials?
It is no longer a Miscarriage of Justice because he has been Acquitted.
-
But they didn't get away with it, did they. That is the point. But he spent a long time in prison during the process.
Are you claiming the police initially went after George because they didn't like him?
"Jonathan Laidlaw QC, prosecuting, said Dando's death had been the result of the actions of "a loner, a man acting alone with no rational motive to kill".
He said George, 48, had a history of complex medical problems and had told police he had a "personality disorder".
"He had a fixation with the famous and with celebrities," the prosecutor said. "For many years, he lived out the fantasy by calling himself after, and adopting the names of, various entertainers."
George changed his name twice by deed poll, once to Paul Gadd, the real name of the singer Gary Glitter, and then to Steve Majors, an amalgamation of Steve Austin, the protagonist of the TV programme The Six Million Dollar Man, and Lee Majors, the actor who played the role.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/jun/09/ukcrime
-
Why bother with Trials?
It is no longer a Miscarriage of Justice because he has been Acquitted.
You appear to have missed this https://www.theguardian.com/law/2011/may/11/barry-george-compensated-supreme-court
-
Are you claiming the police initially went after George because they didn't like him?
"Jonathan Laidlaw QC, prosecuting, said Dando's death had been the result of the actions of "a loner, a man acting alone with no rational motive to kill".
He said George, 48, had a history of complex medical problems and had told police he had a "personality disorder".
"He had a fixation with the famous and with celebrities," the prosecutor said. "For many years, he lived out the fantasy by calling himself after, and adopting the names of, various entertainers."
George changed his name twice by deed poll, once to Paul Gadd, the real name of the singer Gary Glitter, and then to Steve Majors, an amalgamation of Steve Austin, the protagonist of the TV programme The Six Million Dollar Man, and Lee Majors, the actor who played the role.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/jun/09/ukcrime
What was the personality disorder, does anyone know and is it because of "a personality disorder" that George was a convicted sex offender?
-
Barry George was wrongly convicted which is not the same as a miscarriage of justice, as I understand it
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2011/may/11/barry-george-compensated-supreme-court
The whole thing was a disgrace frankly that someone like George could ever be seen as being capable of such a crime without leaving a forensic footprint behind. SY has lost much credibility over this case and still haven't provided George with an appropriate apology.
-
The whole thing was a disgrace frankly that someone like George could ever be seen as being capable of such a crime without leaving a forensic footprint behind.
If you can keep an open mind for the time being and put aside what you have read about Barry George and concentrate on the facts of the evidence I'd be grateful. We can revisit SY at some point.
Bob Woffinden -2002
"In July 2001, Barry George was convicted of the murder of Jill Dando, after a year-long police investigation and an eight-week trial. Many of the lawyers and reporters who attended the trial had anticipated an acquittal, but the jurors convicted on a 10:1 majority.
The evidence against George - resting primarily on an invisible particle of explosives residue found on the lining of his coat - was remarkably thin. He lived in a cluttered and uncleaned flat. He was inept, disorganised and had suffered learning difficulties all his life. He had a number of personality disorders (the prosecution claimed to have identified at least six). He was not only unemployed, but unemployable, and had not had a job for more than 20 years.
The murder, on Monday, April 26 1999, bore the hallmarks of a ruthless and well thought-out operation. And, only three days earlier, British and US planes had bombed the Radio-Television Serbia building in Belgrade, killing 16 employees in an attack described by Tony Blair as "entirely justified". Earlier that month, Dando had made a high-profile BBC appeal on behalf of Kosovan Albanian refugees. Before long, there was speculation that the two events were linked, and that Dando had been killed in retaliation for the Nato bombing of Serbian journalists.
Following George's conviction, the case continued to be beset by controversy. One of the officers involved in the inquiry resigned after failing to disclose a media contact (he was later reinstated on appeal); a second officer was accused of harassment by a witness, although she later withdrew her allegations. The conviction hangs on that speck of explosives residue that might, as Mansfield argued in court, have come from almost anywhere. It might have been fireworks, or the coat could have become contaminated while in police custody (it was photographed before forensic analysis, so the possibilities for contamination were considerable). As such, the conviction joins a lengthening list of cases in which forensic evidence has been allowed to overwhelm other pieces of evidence.
At least the man who may be ultimately responsible for Dando's death is no longer in a position to wreak further slaughter - Slobodan Milosevic is now at the Hague, standing trial for war crimes.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/jul/06/jilldando.weekend7
-
Are you claiming the police initially went after George because they didn't like him?
"Jonathan Laidlaw QC, prosecuting, said Dando's death had been the result of the actions of "a loner, a man acting alone with no rational motive to kill".
He said George, 48, had a history of complex medical problems and had told police he had a "personality disorder".
"He had a fixation with the famous and with celebrities," the prosecutor said. "For many years, he lived out the fantasy by calling himself after, and adopting the names of, various entertainers."
George changed his name twice by deed poll, once to Paul Gadd, the real name of the singer Gary Glitter, and then to Steve Majors, an amalgamation of Steve Austin, the protagonist of the TV programme The Six Million Dollar Man, and Lee Majors, the actor who played the role.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/jun/09/ukcrime
No. I am saying that The Prosecution Case was Flawed.
The Prosecuting QC said.... What he said doesn't make Barry George a Murderer.
-
No. I am saying that The Prosecution Case was Flawed.
The Prosecuting QC said.... What he said doesn't make Barry George a Murderer.
Point me to a case where a prosecution isn't flawed or rather point me to a case where a prosecution is 100 per cent spot on.
-
No. I am saying that The Prosecution Case was Flawed.
The Prosecuting QC said.... What he said doesn't make Barry George a Murderer.
Can you point me to the trial transcripts and the Judgement handed down in the original trial please
I've found this http://www.scienceandjusticejournal.com/article/S1355-0306(13)00059-2/fulltext but I want to go back to the beginning before the media muddied the waters..
-
Can you point me to the trial transcripts and the Judgement handed down in the original trial please
I've found this http://www.scienceandjusticejournal.com/article/S1355-0306(13)00059-2/fulltext but I want to go back to the beginning before the media muddied the waters..
No, I can't. I am basing my opinion on the fact that The Appeal Court overturned his conviction.
-
No, I can't. I am basing my opinion on the fact that The Appeal Court overturned his conviction.
So your opinion is based on part of the picture as opposed to the full picture, or have I misunderstood?
There's an interesting article here re the autism spectrum
"Little is known about the prevalence of violence and autistic spectrum disorders. This article reviews findings of current research on Asperger's disorder and violence. Criteria for diagnosing Asperger's disorder are given. Three cases are presented in which defendants with diagnosed Asperger's disorder were charged with murder. Specific symptoms in this disorder are discussed as they relate to issues of diminished capacity and criminal responsi
https://www.criminallawandjustice.co.uk/features/Understanding-What-Defendant-Asperger’s-Syndrome-Understood
-
The whole thing was a disgrace frankly that someone like George could ever be seen as being capable of such a crime without leaving a forensic footprint behind. SY has lost much credibility over this case and still haven't provided George with an appropriate apology.
Can you point me to where I can see for myself a list of what the police originally gathered from the crime scene? The exhibits seized and all items tested etc..
Whilst the courts are stating George isn't innocent enough I doubt he'll get an apology. I imagine Jill Dando's murder investigation will need re-opening
-
So your opinion is based on part of the picture as opposed to the full picture, or have I misunderstood?
There's an interesting article here re the autism spectrum
"Little is known about the prevalence of violence and autistic spectrum disorders. This article reviews findings of current research on Asperger's disorder and violence. Criteria for diagnosing Asperger's disorder are given. Three cases are presented in which defendants with diagnosed Asperger's disorder were charged with murder. Specific symptoms in this disorder are discussed as they relate to issues of diminished capacity and criminal responsi
https://www.criminallawandjustice.co.uk/features/Understanding-What-Defendant-Asperger’s-Syndrome-Understood
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1362361315583411
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I know, Barry George has Asperger's syndrome (Nugnug posted this over on blue)
Robert Napper has been diagnosed with aspergers and paranoid schizophrenia, he's currently serving time in Broadmoor.
Why was someone like Barry George sent to prison as opposed to a secure hospital in the first place? And did his family ever attempt to have him transferred to a mental health facility during the time he was in prison?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome
https://www.asd-forum.org.uk/forum/index.php?/topic/18571-barry-george-has-aspergers/
-
You cannot say that someone isn't innocent enough just because you don't like him.
I don't believe George is "innocent enough" because I have doubts. It has nothing to do with my dislike of him or his sister, if that is what you are alluding to and everything to do with what I have learned over the past few years.
-
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1362361315583411
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I know, Barry George has Asperger's syndrome (Nugnug posted this over on blue)
Robert Napper has been diagnosed with aspergers and paranoid schizophrenia, he's currently serving time in Broadmoor.
Why was someone like Barry George sent to prison as opposed to a secure hospital in the first place? And did his family ever attempt to have him transferred to a mental health facility during the time he was in prison?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome
https://www.asd-forum.org.uk/forum/index.php?/topic/18571-barry-george-has-aspergers/
There's been very little research carried out in relation to understanding "Aggression and sexual offense in Asperger's syndrome" which is one reasons why I have doubts
https://search.proquest.com/openview/333e42d6d1df4c1ab0b160be5cb0d043/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=47717
.
-
No. I am saying that The Prosecution Case was Flawed.
The Prosecuting QC said.... What he said doesn't make Barry George a Murderer.
What was the prosecution QC referring to? You've lost me
"Jonathan Laidlaw QC, prosecuting, said Dando's death had been the result of the actions of "a loner, a man acting alone with no rational motive to kill"
What makes a murderer Eleanor and are you suggesting someone with aspergers does not murder?
According to research - "[ censored word]ocial acts, including aggression and sexual offense, are not considered to be common in this disorder." Yet George had a spent conviction for a sexual offense?
-
I wasn't aware BG had been diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome.
I don't know much about the case to have any views either way but I know Prof Simon Baron-Cohen is a world leading expert on Aspergers. The following vid is brill IMO and can maybe account for many acts of 'evil':
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=zeros+degree+of+empathy+YouTube&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-gb&client=safari
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Baron-Cohen
-
"I think anyone who has been vilified like me is going to feel very stressed at times and I do. I am not going to say I am angry because I am not angry, certainly not at society. I would use the word disgusted. I am disgusted at how I am treated by certain elements of the media. I am disgusted at how they can do that to someone. I would not give them the satisfaction of my anger, but sometimes I get so wound up – how am I supposed to deal with it?"
"Upon his release he lived in a flat in Hackney which cost him £310 a week in rent. He paid for it not, as was suggested, by claiming benefits, but by using the proceeds he was paid to do a tabloid interview on the day of his release (the one which described him as "bug-eyed" and an "oddball").
"At times Mr George is incredibly articulate. But due to his Asperger's he sometimes struggles for words and will gesticulate wildly as if searching for them in the air. His reading of body language is poor and it is a struggle to move him from one topic to the next. Often his mind wanders and he goes off on a tangent. When the topic is the media he is hard to stop. Mr George has fought their allegations in the courts, winning libel actions against two Fleet Street titles. But the stories hurt him.
"They are trivial things when it is just one thing, but it is 101. It is things like they said I wear a Superman T-shirt. I have never owned a Superman T-shirt. They said I was buying books about Jill Dando when I was buying a book about civil law."
Jill Dando. During three hours together the name is scarcely mentioned. But like it or not, Mr George will forever be known as the man once convicted of murdering the Crimewatch presenter. He knows this, but says: "I cannot change history and I am not going to begin to try."
He also knows that some people still think he did kill her.
"I cannot do anything about that," he says. "And I am not going to try because in a court of law my innocence has been proven on all the evidence. It frustrates me, because I feel like I am being asked to prove my innocence over and over. But I cannot control what people think."https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/barry-george-i-am-not-angry-certainly-not-at-society-but-i-would-use-the-word-disgustedrsquo-1987499.html
-
Why do you dislike him so much? Do you actually believe that he did murder Jill Dando? Not that you shouldn't if you so wish.
-
The whole thing was a disgrace frankly that someone like George could ever be seen as being capable of such a crime without leaving a forensic footprint behind. SY has lost much credibility over this case and still haven't provided George with an appropriate apology.
According to this news article from 2015 the evidence from the crime scene has never been seen by the public?
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/key-jill-dando-murder-evidence-5419910
-
Why do you dislike him so much? Do you actually believe that he did murder Jill Dando? Not that you shouldn't if you so wish.
I've already answered your questions.
My doubts remain, mainly due to how it (the case) has been presented in the media and by whom it has been presented.
"But the High Court ruled he did not qualify because jurors could still reasonably have convicted him despite new evidence that led to his acquittal.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21195269
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02n7rgj
What is Bates referring to re the Daily Mirror reporting? And from what newspapers did George win damages?
-
Why do you dislike him so much? Do you actually believe that he did murder Jill Dando? Not that you shouldn't if you so wish.
This article suggests the prosecution were "intellectually confused in their arguments relating to George's character" but that could equally be said of the defence (and of the author of the article).
"The prosecution were, to put it politely, intellectually confused in their arguments relating to George’s character. On the one hand they wished us to believe that George was capable of having coldly planned and executed a most efficient killing without leaving any forensic or other direct evidence to convict him. On the other hand, when it suited them, they portrayed George as a reckless near simpleton.
George’s character as depicted at the trial suggested a seriously inept and disorganised man. As a boy he was a problematic enough a personality to have been sent to a special boarding school. He has never been able to hold down a job and has spent almost all of the time since he left school unemployed. He suffers from epilepsy to the extent that he was allowed an attendant in the dock at the Dando trial to assist him in the event of a fit. He was said to be of low intelligence. He lived in a terrible physical mess — his flat was covered with a deep “soil” of paper and other oddments such as a large number of rolls of undeveloped f ilms.
of particular importance to the trial was the fact that George is a serial fantasist of Walter Mitty proportions. This had two effects. First, evidence that he had lied to the police became essentially worthless without other corroborating evidence, be- cause lying was second nature to George and, indeed, it is the type of behaviour which would have been reasonably expected from him in the circumstances of being arrested and questioned by the police. Second, much of the other evidence, such as his habit of following women, could be plausibly explained by his tendency to act out his fantasies.
George’s fantasy world was one in which he sought satisfac- tion, and doubtless attention, by pretending to be someone gla- morous or connected to someone glamorous or to have been in
glamorous or sensational circumstances. At various times dur- ing the twenty years prior to the murder he has claimed to be Steve Majors (a name derived from Lee Majors and the charac- ter, Steve Austin, he played in the TV series The Bionic Man), an SAS soldier by the name of Thomas Palmer (an SAS soldier involved in the Iranian Embassy siege), Paul Gadd (the pop star Gary Glitter’s real name) and Freddie Mercury’s cousin (for which he used the name Barry Bulsara) to mention just a few. He has at various times also claimed to be in possession of a rocket propelled grenade launcher and to be able to roller skate over four double decker buses.
George did not merely have fantasies he acted them out. When he was pretending to be Freddie Mercury’s cousin, Barry Bul- sara, he went to Mercury’s home after the singer’s death in a hired white limousine and left flowers outside the house. He then proceeded to sign autographs for a while, having per- suaded mourning fans that he was related to Mercury.
In 1983 he was arrested by police in Kensington Gardens near to the Princess of Wales’ home, crouched in the bushes, dressed in pseudo military gear and equipped with a knife and rope. The police arrested him but did not press charges, although they searched his flat. The Royal Protection Group (RPG) did however, list him as a potential threat to the Royal Family. An RPG member also suggested him to the team investigating the Rachel Nickell murder in 1992 as a possible suspect.
In 1985 George was living in a bed and breakfast hotel in Gloucester Road, West London. There he came to know a family by the name of Dobbins. After they moved to a flat in Fulham George called on them unexpectedly dressed in combat gear and a balaclava. Once in the hallway of the flat he pro- duced a handgun and fired a blank shot. He showed the Dob- bins’ son, David, the blank rounds in his pocket and then left.
A further example of his exhibitionistic and obsessive men- tality comes from his medical history. George attended no less than eighteen different surgeries in West London at various times and was known as a “heart sink” patient because he was constantly coming in with imagined ailments.
Doctors who examined George after his arrest diagnosed an impressive array of psychiatric disorders: psychopathic person- ality, narcissistic personality, histrionic personality, paranoid personality and Asperger’s Syndrome (a disorder linked to aut- ism). As a boy he was diagnosed as suffering from attention hyperactivity disorder. George was also diagnosed as having somatisation disorder and concurrent factitious disorder.
Whether psychiatric diagnoses mean anything is debatable. However, the police and courts credit them and therefore should have taken them into account before a prosecution was mounted. The interesting thing about these diagnoses is that they relate to personality traits which could innocently explain every part of George’s supposedly suspicious behaviour both before and after the Dando murder. A psychopathic personality is prone to lying and using aliases. A narcissistic personality is one who urgently seeks attention and admiration and has a heightened sense of self-importance. A histrionic personality will imagine they have a well developed relationship with someone they do not know at all in a personal sense. A para- noid personality has obvious ramifications for George’s suspi- cion of the police. Asperger’s sufferers have major problems with personal relationships and a tendency to become ob- sessive. Finally, somatisation disorder and concurrent facti- tious disorder explained his imagined illnesses.http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/legan/legan037.pdf
-
"The police did not take George seriously as a suspect until nearly a year after the murder, despite some reports from the public early in the investigation which suggested that he might be worth investigating. The police explanation for the delay was the sheer volume of leads they had to follow up — these ran to several thousands. This could conceivably be the rea- son, but more probably by the time the police turned their at- tentions to George they were getting desperate because of their failure to charge anyone and feeling utterly thwarted by the sheer lack of hard evidence to follow up. This view is leant weight by the words of Assistant Commissioner Brian Moore who said at the conclusion of the trial:
It was a strange attack. It was not seen by anybody, the killer was not seen by anyone at the time and very little forensic evidence left behind. There could be no more difficult environment to investigate a case.
(Daily Telegraph 3/7/01)
Something very similar to the above was written about Suffolk police in relation to the murder of Joan Albert.
It was around 7 months before her murderer was apprehended.
"Detectives say the attack happened after 9pm on Saturday. They added that the inquiry is focusing on a "burglary that went wrong". Forensic science officers are examining the scene.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/murder-mystery-of-rich-widow-6298913.html
http://www.ipswichstar.co.uk/news/cctv-could-help-joan-murder-hunt-1-124390
https://justice4joanalbert.wordpress.com/2013/02/09/mrs-joan-albert/
-
I've already answered your questions.
My doubts remain, mainly due to how it (the case) has been presented in the media and by whom and when it has been presented.
"But the High Court ruled he did not qualify because jurors could still reasonably have convicted him despite new evidence that led to his acquittal.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21195269
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02n7rgj
What is Bates referring to re the Daily Mirror reporting? And from what newspapers did George win damages?
This clip (above 2nd down) is originally from 5 live Breakfast on April 1 2015. The interviewer had to pick Michelle Bates up on her comment regarding withheld evidence. She then appears unsure of how to respond?
However, Bates refers to offender profiling material. I'm interested in learning more about this.
"His lawyers are demanding an inquiry following a series of reports in The Mirror that claim Mr George could have been cleared earlier if psychological reports had been given to his defence team.
-
No. I am saying that The Prosecution Case was Flawed.
The Prosecuting QC said.... What he said doesn't make Barry George a Murderer.
"As the Old Bailey hearing got underway, pyschologist Dr Susan Young took her seat in the dock alongside the convicted sex offender, where she will remain throughout the case.
Her role is to ensure her client is relaxed, attentive and stress-free during the proceedings.
For George, her "specialist techniques" - which include massaging his temples - are an invaluable aide to his powers of concentration in the courtroom.
But her services do not come cheaply to the taxpayer. Already, she has run up a bill of around £30,000 helping George "cope" with various court proceedings over the past six years.
She was at his side during his ten-week trial in 2001 when she sat in the well of the court monitoring whether George suffered any "petit mal" minor epileptic fits which meant he could not follow the case.
In his cell below Court Number One at the Old Bailey, Dr Young also conducted regular "relaxation exercises" - such as massaging his head.
The £500-a-day psychologist was also in close attention during his failed appeal attempt in 2002.
Yesterday, the pair were reunited when Dr Young, 50, was again allowed to sit next to George.
He passed several notes to his psychologist and they had numerous whispered exchanges behind the wrought-iron bars.
George's QC William Clegg explained Dr Young's presence to the court by saying his client had learning difficulties and "intellectual functioning in the borderline range".
"He has epilepsy and severe cognitive impairment. He has a tendency to fantasise and is on record as claiming to be related to Freddie Mercury and having served in the SAS. Neither was right. At his trial Dr Young sat with him and, with the court's leave, does again today."
Jail sources say George is "clearly delighted" to have Dr Young in such close proximity.
"He certainly perks up when she is around," said one.
Their friendship goes back to 2001 when Dr Young told the Old Bailey that giving evidence would be a devastating experience for George and that he should not be discriminated against for staying silent.
She said she worried whenever she saw him drifting off and her expert opinion was accepted by the court and supported by two eminent psychiatrists.
Her notes for one "fit" as George sat in the dock read: 'He looks spaced out, unfocused. He looks out of it.'
But psychologist Dr Caroline Logan, called by the prosecution, said she believed George feigned illness in the hope of influencing the case.
Prosecutor Orlando Pownall told the Old Bailey that on one occasion George brought up a blue liquid claiming it was bile, only for it to turn out to be washing-up liquid.
Last week Dr Young appeared in a controversial BBC Panorama programme on the case, in which she claimed George was not capable of carrying out Miss Dando's murder.
"He wouldn't have had the wherewithal that he needed to have to plan and execute this crime," she added.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-491772/Blonde-psychologist-paid-500-day-Dando-killer-head-massages-cell.html#ixzz5BMtunFT8
-
"As the Old Bailey hearing got underway, pyschologist Dr Susan Young took her seat in the dock alongside the convicted sex offender, where she will remain throughout the case.
Her role is to ensure her client is relaxed, attentive and stress-free during the proceedings.
For George, her "specialist techniques" - which include massaging his temples - are an invaluable aide to his powers of concentration in the courtroom.
But her services do not come cheaply to the taxpayer. Already, she has run up a bill of around £30,000 helping George "cope" with various court proceedings over the past six years.
She was at his side during his ten-week trial in 2001 when she sat in the well of the court monitoring whether George suffered any "petit mal" minor epileptic fits which meant he could not follow the case.
In his cell below Court Number One at the Old Bailey, Dr Young also conducted regular "relaxation exercises" - such as massaging his head.
The £500-a-day psychologist was also in close attention during his failed appeal attempt in 2002.
Yesterday, the pair were reunited when Dr Young, 50, was again allowed to sit next to George.
He passed several notes to his psychologist and they had numerous whispered exchanges behind the wrought-iron bars.
George's QC William Clegg explained Dr Young's presence to the court by saying his client had learning difficulties and "intellectual functioning in the borderline range".
"He has epilepsy and severe cognitive impairment. He has a tendency to fantasise and is on record as claiming to be related to Freddie Mercury and having served in the SAS. Neither was right. At his trial Dr Young sat with him and, with the court's leave, does again today."
Jail sources say George is "clearly delighted" to have Dr Young in such close proximity.
"He certainly perks up when she is around," said one.
Their friendship goes back to 2001 when Dr Young told the Old Bailey that giving evidence would be a devastating experience for George and that he should not be discriminated against for staying silent.
She said she worried whenever she saw him drifting off and her expert opinion was accepted by the court and supported by two eminent psychiatrists.
Her notes for one "fit" as George sat in the dock read: 'He looks spaced out, unfocused. He looks out of it.'
But psychologist Dr Caroline Logan, called by the prosecution, said she believed George feigned illness in the hope of influencing the case.
Prosecutor Orlando Pownall told the Old Bailey that on one occasion George brought up a blue liquid claiming it was bile, only for it to turn out to be washing-up liquid.
Last week Dr Young appeared in a controversial BBC Panorama programme on the case, in which she claimed George was not capable of carrying out Miss Dando's murder.
"He wouldn't have had the wherewithal that he needed to have to plan and execute this crime," she added.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-491772/Blonde-psychologist-paid-500-day-Dando-killer-head-massages-cell.html#ixzz5BMtunFT8
There's a similar case here http://murderpedia.org/male.M/m/moore-bobby-james.htm
-
Why do you dislike him so much? Do you actually believe that he did murder Jill Dando? Not that you shouldn't if you so wish.
It's not unheard of for men like George, with borderline intellectual functioning, to murder. This case, similar to Jeremy Bambers was "high profile" at the time Jill Dando was murdered - she presented BBC's crime watch programme and a media frenzy followed.
Who and what am I meant to believe? Who's story is more credible? The police or Barry George's supporters? Have we been manipulated? Far too much irony for my liking....
Did the police go after George after bowing down to public pressure? The police at the time said he fit their profile. George wasnt awarded compensation as he wasn't "innocent enough." Is this because of lack of understanding into George's psychology or because the police still suspect he was responsible?
Does this case all boil down to expert opinion relating to George's psychology? The police believed he feigned much. His supporters say he wasn't capable of murder. This was an organised killing?
-
Professor Fallon says: "Psychopathy itself is not recognised as a category in the psychiatric DSM—the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual—partly because the concept of personality disorders is controversial, as so many of the symptoms overlap, such as narcissism, [ censored word]ocial behaviour and lack of empathy.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/allinthemind/5427024
-
As 'misfit' Barry George began his life as a free man today - having spent eight years in jail - a woman told of how he raped her 25 years ago.
Karen Gray was a 20-year-old university languages student, when she was attacked and raped by George in the stairwell of a block of flats in West London.
But the Old Bailey jury were not permitted to hear the details of his vile attack on Miss Gray as she reached home - as it may have prejudiced his trial.
George was a stranger who followed her in the street, told her he was in the RAF, tried to hold her hand and spoke a few German phrases to impress her.
She thought he was a harmless oddball, 'a sad case' and didn't feel threatened or frightened by him.
But when he followed her into the block of flats where her mother lived, he changed.
The Old Bailey jury heard that George was incapable of planning or carrying out a series of actions without panicking or triggering an epileptic fit.
Nine years after the shooting of TV presenter Jill Dando on her own doorstep, and seven years after he was convicted of the crime, the jury took less than two days to acquit him.
As he walked from court a free man, Miss Dando's family are now facing the probability that her murder will never be solved.
But what the jury were not permitted to hear was the details of his vile attack on Miss Gray as she reached home.
On the stairs of a block of flats, George overpowered her, smothered her screams with his hand over her nose and mouth and ripped down her jeans to rape her.
As he left, he said 'sorry' before making for the nearest underground station and disappearing. He was not caught for a year.
It is hard to equate this glimpse of George the determined sex attacker with the man portrayed in court and by his family as a victim.
Miss Gray knows what he is capable of. Now 46 and a mother of two, she says: 'It appeared to me that whatever his IQ, there was something there that permits him to be cunning and devious.
'He had lots of aliases and he told me he was Steve Majors and was clever enough to get himself involved in some Evel Knievel-style stunt.
'I believe there is more to him than is portrayed.'
It is 25 years since the attack, but Miss Gray has not forgotten the details. She was an undergraduate studying French and German when George asked her the time as she walked from Turnham Green Underground station to her mother's home in Chiswick.
'I was a bit of a punk then with auburn hair and had a red leather jacket on and jeans.
'I was not some innocent - I thought I was streetwise - but I didn't read him properly. He presented himself as a harmless character
'He walked beside me and said he was in the RAF and would I like to go to a party with him.
'I kept my answers monosyllabic so he was in no doubt I was not interested in him. But he kept chatting away and tried to hold my hand.
'When he heard I had recently lived in Germany, he said a phrase in German.'
What his victim did not know was that the apparently harmless man at her side had already been given a suspended two-year sentence for a previous sex attack.
Now, she says ruefully: 'I suppose I was far too polite and he wasn't taking the hint but I wasn't frightened.
'In my mind I thought I was nearly at my mum's front door and I thought he would just go away.'
Later, after the murder of Jill Dando, a handwritten note found in his chaotic and cluttered flat provided a clue to what happened next.
It read: 'I have difficulty handling rejection. I become angry ... it starts a chain of events which is beyond my control.'
And so, rejected by the girl in the red leather jacket, he waited until they were alone and attacked her.
She recalled: 'He changed when we walked up the stairs and he jumped on me from behind.
'He didn't have a knife or a gun but he forced me into a corner and put his hand over my mouth and nose so I couldn't breathe.
'He was very strong but it was all pretty pathetic. He pulled my jeans down and raped me but he couldn't finish the act.'
The attack was carried out in silence. When it was over, her attacker simply mumbled 'Sorry' before running off.
'I ran up to my mum's door and hammered on it for help,' his victim says.
'The police came pretty quickly and asked all the neighbours if they had seen anything but no one had. I went back to university and just got on with my life.'
A year later, George was caught after sexually assaulting another woman. He matched the description given by Miss Gray and a police officer remembered her attacker had used a German phrase.
He asked George if he spoke German and the suspect repeated exactly the same phrases.
When confronted, he broke down and confessed. He was initially charged with rape but because of a dispute over forensic evidence, the police reluctantly accepted his plea to attempted rape, partly to spare the victim from giving evidence.
At the Old Bailey in March 1983, George was jailed for two and half years and given an extra three months for breaching the previous suspended sentence.
Miss Gray, a senior civil servant who lives in a west London suburb, has refused to allow George, and his degrading attack, to ruin her life.
'I have only cried twice about it,' she says.
'Once, after it happened because of the shock, and the second time when I heard the same man had been arrested for murdering Jill Dando.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1040746/Barry-George-raped-mums-door-said-sorry.html#ixzz5BSOXcDE1
-
I'm interested in learning more about this.
"His lawyers are demanding an inquiry following a series of reports in The Mirror that claim Mr George could have been cleared earlier if psychological reports had been given to his defence team.
"George was convicted of attempted rape in 1983 and sentenced to 33 months imprisonment after attacking a languages student called Karen Gray, who was 20 at the time.
She said after his original conviction: “He was below me and suddenly he jumped up and pounced on me from behind.
“He didn’t say anything, he just pinned me in the corner, pulling my arm up my back. I was screaming for my life but no one heard. He put his hand over my nose and mouth and I couldn’t breathe, I thought I was going to die. He was desperately trying to shut me up. He had gargantuan strength. I’m five foot eight, well-built and fit but I couldn’t fight him off.”
Two prisoners who shared cells with George in prison came forward during his retrial to allege he had confessed to them that he was guilty of Miss Dando’s murder, but their evidence was not put before the jury.
Commander Simon Foy, who heads the Metropolitan Police’s Homicide Command, said: “We are disappointed by today’s verdict, but especially disappointed for Jill’s family and friends, however we respect the decision of the court.
“The investigation into her murder was complex, thorough and professional with more than 2,500 statements taken and 3,700 exhibits recovered.
“It would not be appropriate to comment any further at this time except to say that we will be reflecting upon today’s verdict and considering how best to proceed.”
Hilary Bradfield, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “Mr George now has the right be regarded as an innocent man but that does not mean it was wrong to bring the case. The fact that the trial ran its full course confirms that although it has changed in detail, the circumstantial evidence which has been tested over and over again by the courts was judged fit to be put before a jury.”
The police investigation into Miss Dando’s murder and the two trials are estimated to have cost the public purse £10million.
Despite the clamour for a new investigation yesterday, detectives pointed out that they have already re-assessed the evidence in the case three times over the years without coming up with any new leads.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2487091/Barry-George-cleared-of-murdering-Jill-Dando.html
-
It's not unheard of for men like George, with borderline intellectual functioning, to murder. This case, similar to Jeremy Bambers was "high profile" at the time Jill Dando was murdered - she presented BBC's crime watch programme and a media frenzy followed.
Who and what am I meant to believe? Who's story is more credible? The police or Barry George's supporters? Have we been manipulated? Far too much irony for my liking....
Did the police go after George after bowing down to public pressure? The police at the time said he fit their profile. George wasnt awarded compensation as he wasn't "innocent enough." Is this because of lack of understanding into George's psychology or because the police still suspect he was responsible?
Does this case all boil down to expert opinion relating to George's psychology? The police believed he feigned much. His supporters say he wasn't capable of murder. This was an organised killing?
Barry George's uncle Mike Burke said in his book, "The investigation into the disappearance of Madaleine McCann was possibly the only case to receive more attention than Dando's murder."
He goes on to say;
"I was quite annoyed when I read reports of Doctor Michael Kopelmans medical opinion of Barry.it seemed to me that Barry's inappropriate behaviour was being blamed on the overall family. I sent a protest to Jeremy Moore. In my opinion one is responsible for ones own actions. And it is a cop out to try and blame ones bad behaviour on the family.
Wasn't part of George's defence based on genetics?
A further example of his exhibitionistic and obsessive men- tality comes from his medical history. George attended no less than eighteen different surgeries in West London at various times and was known as a “heart sink” patient because he was constantly coming in with imagined ailments.
Doctors who examined George after his arrest diagnosed an impressive array of psychiatric disorders: psychopathic person- ality, narcissistic personality, histrionic personality, paranoid personality and Asperger’s Syndrome (a disorder linked to aut- ism). As a boy he was diagnosed as suffering from attention hyperactivity disorder. George was also diagnosed as having somatisation disorder and concurrent factitious disorder.
Whether psychiatric diagnoses mean anything is debatable. However, the police and courts credit them and therefore should have taken them into account before a prosecution was mounted. The interesting thing about these diagnoses is that they relate to personality traits which could innocently explain every part of George’s supposedly suspicious behaviour both before and after the Dando murder. A psychopathic personality is prone to lying and using aliases. A narcissistic personality is one who urgently seeks attention and admiration and has a heightened sense of self-importance. A histrionic personality will imagine they have a well developed relationship with someone they do not know at all in a personal sense. A para- noid personality has obvious ramifications for George’s suspi- cion of the police. Asperger’s sufferers have major problems with personal relationships and a tendency to become ob- sessive. Finally, somatisation disorder and concurrent facti- tious disorder explained his imagined illnesses.http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/legan/legan037.pdf
"Research suggests that genetics, abuse and other factors contribute to the development of obsessive-compulsive, narcissistic or other personality disorders.
In the past, some believed that people with personality disorders were just lazy or even evil. But new research has begun to explore such potential causes as genetics, parenting and peer influences:http://www.apa.org/topics/personality/disorders-causes.aspx
-
Why bother with Trials?
It is no longer a Miscarriage of Justice because he has been Acquitted.
These are throw away comments Eleanor and don't address my posts.
Define your understanding of a miscarriage of justice.
-
My doubts remain, mainly due to how it (the case) has been presented in the media and by whom it has been presented.
"But the High Court ruled he did not qualify because jurors could still reasonably have convicted him despite new evidence that led to his acquittal.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21195269
Seems I'm not alone.
George's uncle said (in his book 'Mike's Story),
"I met Scott Lomax on Friday and we had a chat and a quick drink. Michelle, Serg Sinclair and Tanya joined us. We had a friendly chat but Serg seemed to be a little sarcastic towards Scott's writings. I felt uncomfortable, embarrassed and Scott seemed a little annoyed.
To what "writings" of Scott Lomax was Serg Sinclair referring?
-
In My Opinion your comments are totally disjointed and you frequently contradict yourself, leaving no basis for a reply as I don't understand what you are trying to say.
So far, insofar as I understand, The Media are not yet Judge and Jury. Although I must say that they are taking a stab at it these days.
Barry George was Acquitted at his Second Trial, mainly because the evidence produced at his first Trial was deemed to be flawed. He is to this day an Innocent man.
-
The whole thing was a disgrace frankly that someone like George could ever be seen as being capable of such a crime without leaving a forensic footprint behind. SY has lost much credibility over this case and still haven't provided George with an appropriate apology.
According to Mike Burke, immediately following his nephews acquittal -
"Detectives were reported to be livid at the critism. A Scotland Yard source said it was expected that people connected with George, we're now coming out to attack the police."
-
In My Opinion your comments are totally disjointed and you frequently contradict yourself, leaving no basis for a reply as I don't understand what you are trying to say.
Unless you are specific and point out when and where you see my disjointed comments and contradictions I can't help you.
-
According to Mike Burke, immediately following his nephews acquittal -
"Detectives were reported to be livid at the critism. A Scotland Yard source said it was expected that people connected with George, we're now coming out to attack the police."
John is not wrong. One minuscule piece of Gun Residue in his pocket? What about the rest of his clothes and the rest of his jacket?
The rest of your comment is as usual, a bit beyond me.
Do you have a Cite for Scotland Yard?
-
Unless you are specific and point out when and where you see my disjointed comments and contradictions I can't help you.
I don't think I am actually asking for your help. And since there are now nearly four pages, mostly from you, I wouldn't know where to start.
-
So far, insofar as I understand, The Media are not yet Judge and Jury. Although I must say that they are taking a stab at it these days.
Why do you suggest the media are taking a stab at it (playing judge and jury) these days? To whom and what do you refer?
-
Why do you suggest the media are taking a stab at it (playing judge and jury) these days? To whom and what do you refer?
You mean that you don't know? You quoted an unsubstantiated Scotland Yard "source" which obviously came from The Media.
Again I ask, can we have a Cite for this?
-
John is not wrong. One minuscule piece of Gun Residue in his pocket? What about the rest of his clothes and the rest of his jacket?
The rest of your comment is as usual, a bit beyond me.
Do you have a Cite for Scotland Yard?
The forensic evidence against George at trial was weak but he wasn't arrested immediately after the murder and I've no idea what happened to the clothes before the police seized them (I'm presuming these were the clothes he was wearing the day of the murder?) and he won't be the first person with "borderline intellectual functioning" to not have left forensic evidence behind at a crime scene.
Jill Dando's father has died and her then fiancé has re-married and moved on by all accounts. Although, please correct me if I'm wrong, he believed George murdered Ms Dando. I've seen nothing to suggest he's changed stance. Why would he believe this - does he know something we don't? And who is fighting for justice for Jill Dando?
Does it not strike you as suspicious that George has been denied compensation and the courts have said what they have?
"But the High Court ruled he did not qualify because jurors could still reasonably have convicted him despite new evidence that led to his acquittal.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21195269
Scotland Yard are no doubt inundated with investigative work, therefore it's unlikely they have much time to spend on cold cases like this. Apparently London's current murder rate is higher than New York and what with the recent terrorist threats and spending cuts to policing I imagine re opening the Jill Dando case isn't a priority.
Mike Burke claims to have fought for justice for Barry (jfb) alongside Michelle, George's sister, but claims he was dumped once George was acquitted.
It's not me who has made these claims re Scotland Yard, it Barry George's nephew. Shouldn't it be he who provides the cite?
Forensics aside, couldn't Barry George be described as "mentally unbalanced?" There's no denying he's stalked women nor is there any getting away from his previous convictions. I'm unaware if he has attempted to have these convictions over turned based on his current diagnosis?
Hasn't it been found that Barry George blanks out at times?
"Mr George’s supporters, including his sister Michelle Diskin, who has campaigned tirelessly for his release, repeated their claims that the man who was described by his own defence barrister as “the local nutter” should never have been charged in the first place.
Mr George, 48, had first come to the attention of police just days after the murder, when a witness rang the incident room to say they had seen him near Miss Dando’s house in Fulham on the morning in question.
He was immediately ruled out as a suspect, because police were certain the killer was a professional hitman hired by a jealous former boyfriend or gangster with a grudge against Crimewatch.https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2484898/Jill-Dando-murder-Only-a-matter-of-time-until-Barry-George-was-cleared.html
Do you agree with George's sisters claims that her brother should never have been arrested in the first place?
-
He is to this day an Innocent man.
George's statements following the over turning of his conviction concern me.
You say he's innocent, that's fine. But something doesn't sit right with me.
"But in a joint interview with Sky News and the News of the World, George insisted that at the time Dando was murdered, he was following another woman after leaving a disability centre in Fulham.
Dando was shot dead on her doorstep in Fulham, west London, at around 11.30am on April 26 1999.
Between 10.30am and 12.33pm on the day of the shooting he was either at the centre or walking beside the woman, George said.
"I walked with her for a bit and from her perspective, maybe it was unwanted attention. But she didn't make that clear," he said.
"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.
"That was at 12.33pm. I know because just a minute before I'd made a call from my mobile to check how much credit I had left."
During three weeks of surveillance before his arrest George was seen to approach 38 women and try to make conversation with them.
He said of his history of stalking: "I know I have done wrong in the past and if I could go back in time and change that I would."
-
None of this makes Barry George a Murderer. I also happen to believe that Jeremy Bamber could be innocent, although he has been convicted.
However, I generally don't have time for other Forums because I am occupied largely on The McCann Case, who I also believe to be innocent.
But this Board requires Cites from Posters and an acknowledgement that without proof everything is in the opinion of the Poster. This also applies to you.
-
None of this makes Barry George a Murderer. I also happen to believe that Jeremy Bamber could be innocent, although he has been convicted.
However, I generally don't have time for other Forums because I am occupied largely on The McCann Case, who I also believe to be innocent.
But this Board requires Cites from Posters and an acknowledgement that without proof everything is in the opinion of the Poster. This also applies to you.
I've no idea what you are talking about? Who's innocent? I don't follow the McCann board.
-
In My Opinion your comments are totally disjointed and you frequently contradict yourself, leaving no basis for a reply as I don't understand what you are trying to say.
So far, insofar as I understand, The Media are not yet Judge and Jury. Although I must say that they are taking a stab at it these days.
Barry George was Acquitted at his Second Trial, mainly because the evidence produced at his first Trial was deemed to be flawed. He is to this day an Innocent man.
You may want to consider John Warboys and his victims https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/01/victims-sexual-violence-john-worboys when you make the claims you do with regards public opinion and the media.
Barry George by passed the parole board once his conviction was overturned ( or so he thought) but he remained on MAPPA - and remains so to this day - unless someone knows otherwise please feel free to correct me.
I reiterate - Barry George's sister may make excuses for her brothers behaviour and the courts may have found him innocent for the murder of Jill Dando but he still poses a risk to the public
Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements or MAPPA is the process through which the police, probation and prison services work together with other agencies to assess and manage violent and sexual offenders in order to protect the public from harm
-
"Your Lordships, I am not sure of the propriety of writing to you, but you cannot have been blind to the barrage of publicity claiming Barry George is innocent.
Some of the coverage has been openly one-sided, though some - like last week's Panorama which took up George's case - has been even more disturbing.
You, as senior judges, are supposed to be above all this, unimpressed by such non-judicial murmurings.
But you are only human and given the febrile atmosphere surrounding this case it would be remarkable if you had not been influenced in some way.
So allow me to set out something by way of balance. Let me start by saying that while there can never be certainties in cases like this, I remain confident that Barry George killed Jill Dando.
That said, on the basis of the evidence, as it was presented at his original trial, I confess I was surprised that the jury found him guilty.
In particular, I was always unimpressed by a piece of evidence that lies at the heart of his latest appeal: a microscopic fragment of firearm discharge residue that was found in his coat pocket.
Barry George's supporters now claim that this tiny speck underpinned the entire prosecution case, though in fact he had already been charged with Jill's murder before tests on the particle had even been completed.
At George's trial, the prosecution argued that this residue matched samples found on Jill's hair and clothing - as well as the cartridge found at the scene.
The defence had ample opportunity to challenge that evidence. Yet now they say there are "new" grounds to question its significance.
So far as I am concerned, nothing has changed; I am as unconvinced about the particle now as I was then.
Even so, if you, my Lords, agree that this piece of evidence was such a crucial that it alone swung the jury, then it follows that George's conviction was unsafe.
But should you uphold his appeal - and I suspect you may well do so - it does not follow that Barry George is innocent, any more than that everyone who is convicted by the courts is definitely guilty.
The police and prosecution lawyers cannot speak out in public in advance of the appeal.
However, before reaching your judgment I urge you to consider clues that have had much less media prominence than the case for the defence, so that if you deem the original verdict unsafe, at least you'll consider a retrial rather than outright acquittal.
Then at least we will have another chance to review all the evidence, some of which was not admissible at the original trial.
But for the time being, let's stick to what we know already.
Despite all the speculation that Jill Dando must have been killed by a professional hitman, the practical evidence is that her murder was very amateur indeed.
I do not say this with the benefit of hindsight - it was obvious from the start.
Jill was shot outside her home in Gowan Avenue in Fulham, an address well-known to locals but which she went to irregularly because she lived with her fiance.
She had no special plans to visit her home that day and an extensive trawl of West London's CCTV cameras shows she wasn't followed.
So her killer either acted impulsively, or lay in wait - neither course suggestive of sophistication.
According to a neighbour who picked out Barry George at an identity parade, he had been hanging about some hours before the shooting.
In any case, whoever killed Jill had prepared no means of escape.
There was no getaway vehicle, and Gowan Avenue has few side streets, so the killer took a big risk in walking away where he would be visible for some time. (Her fiance's address, on the other hand, was much better shielded for any potential ambush.) This is hardly the signature of a well-planned crime.
Nor did the method of attack show any level of skill. The gun was not a proper firearm (it had been converted from a replica), there was no silencer, the bullet was home-made, and the killer held the muzzle against Jill's head risking forensic evidence transferring on to it - none of which is the hallmark of a professional assassin.
Furthermore, Jill's key was in the lock, and anyone with any sense would have pushed her inside and shot her there to muffle the sound and hide the body.
The killer was really not very proficient.
This is all a bit removed from the conspiracy theories that swirled around and distracted the investigation, including a laughable story that the murder was connected to Serb extremists who were unhappy with one of Jill's charity appeals.
(I know how the rumour originated. It was based on a mild letter of complaint from a viewer, which got more and more exaggerated in the retelling.)
As for the killing being a reprisal for Jill's role on Crimewatch, this would have been as unique as it was improbable.
Judges who sentence criminals, barristers who prosecute them, police who investigate them and prison officers who incarcerate them have rarely been threatened by those they have jailed.
And besides, if anyone was daft enough to go for a Crimewatch presenter they would more likely have gone for me, as I had been with the programme for far longer.
But Jill was glamorous. As I pointed out to the police from the beginning, when you look for a motive you usually look to people who know the victim. And through the medium of television, everyone knew Jill - she was in their homes routinely.
It was clear to me, as it was to the forensic psychologist called in by the detectives, that given the celebrity status of the victim, and given the shambolic nature of the killing, the murderer was likely to be one of those men who have a sexual fixation on a public figure but "who separate their internal world from external reality to such an extent that they need no direct physical contact at all with their target, and - because of their narcissism and absolute belief that their fantasies are real - may not need their victim to see them even as they pull the trigger".
(That was what I wrote to detectives privately early in the investigation.)
In short, the killer was likely to be someone with a personality disorder - someone much like Barry George.
It has been suggested that the police were fixated on Mr George from the start, at the expense of any other line of inquiry, but alas the opposite is true.
It was a year before he came into the frame, and the way he did so is instructive and shows why, on balance, I believe him to be guilty.
Soon after the shooting, the police received calls from two independent sources pointing to Barry George as a suspect.
In both cases he had visited places near Jill's home soon after the killing, and in both cases he had gone back to try to persuade the witnesses that he had been there at a different time and in different clothes.
These witnesses were so alarmed that they rang police repeatedly, and were deeply frustrated that their calls went unheeded.
It was not until a review of the inquiry, 11 months later, that a detective became excited by these leads.
That delay may seem shameful, but you must remember there had been literally tens of thousands of callers to the inquiry.
One of the penalties of headline crimes is that they attract more quantity than quality of information - and most media and public pressure on the investigators had been to discover a criminal plot.
It was only when all the conspiracy theories proved bankrupt that the "lone weirdo" option began to take centre stage.
Some commentators have alleged that, in desperation, the cops just picked on Barry George as "a local nutter".
As we have seen, that is not true; ideally, they would have picked on him the day after the murder.
Besides, even when George did become a suspect, the senior investigating officer remained unconvinced - there seemed to be no hard evidence against him.
But slowly a pattern of apparent coincidences emerged which, for me, is quite convincing.
This was not just a man with the sort of personality disorder one might associate with such a crime, but one who lived locally and had been near the scene before and just after the crime took place.
Here was a man who took photos of female presenters as they appeared on his TV (how many other people do that?).
Here was a man with a history of violence against women. Here was a man who carried knives and had a fixation about guns. Here was a man who lied about his whereabouts on the day.
And, contrary to defence claims that he was mentally incapable of organising anything like a shooting, here was a man who lived out his fantasies daily, following women in the street (sometimes, as with Jill, into their front gardens), getting into the grounds of Kensington Palace wearing a balaclava and armed with rope and a knife when Princess Diana was alive (and didn't she remind you a little of Jill?), and living the life of stunt man.
On one memorable occasion he starred in a daredevil feat shown on local TV in which he roller-skated down a ramp and leaped across a row of buses.
It is true that his mental condition has been deteriorating, and it may well be that he is now incapable of acting as coherently as he once did.
I wish he could be transferred to secure accommodation where he can be cared for, rather than remain in prison. But the evidence of his previous capacity and guile is scattered through his history.
So what about the theory that a fantasist like Barry George might deliberately have put himself into the frame to make himself the centre of attention?
This might explain his attempts to give himself false alibis.
But such calculated behaviour is at odds with everything the defence claims about his mental incompetence.
And in any case, he seems not to have wanted to be the centre of attention.
It is conceivable that he might have set about trying to construct his alibis out of misguided fear, though in successive police interviews he never said he was worried about being picked on for the murder.
Nor did he protest that in the past he had been routinely harassed by the police, as later claimed by the defence.
In fact, he had been spoken to by officers a couple of times over perhaps a decade - not unusual in that part of London, especially for a young man who often behaved strangely.
The first occasion was after a disturbance in a McDonald's restaurant, the second was when he was tailing a woman.
And nor, as his supporters now claim, is there reason to believe he was fearful of being set up for Jill's murder because he had been a suspect for a previous notorious crime - the stabbing of Rachel Nickell on Wimbledon Common.
Yes, it is true that he was one of many hundreds of people routinely interviewed in connection with the case, but though he had been convicted of assaulting a woman and later jailed for attempted rape, he was never accused or even vaguely suspected of the Nickell murder.
In any case, the fact that he can be put in the right place at the right time for Jill's murder is not particularly troubling; but the fact that he tried to confuse the key witnesses about his movements on the day is suspicious, to say the least.
There is much other evidence, too, against Barry George.
Each piece on its own is inconclusive, but not when added together.
It is a regrettable fact that as forensic science has advanced, juries have become more and more dependent on technical evidence and less willing to convict on the basis of indirect corroboration.
Indeed, the very phrase "circumstantial evidence" has become almost pejorative. But how many coincidences does it take before we accept that there is a meaningful pattern to them?
I submit to you, your Lordships, that the accumulation of evidence is compelling, and it is quite a list. I urge you to verify how the early conspiracy theories were demonstrably fatuous.
I ask you to consider how the insistence that Barry George was mentally incapable of such a crime is simply contrary to fact.
How his trail of false alibis and continuing pattern of lies appears manipulative rather than fantastical.
How his personality disorder is plainly not benign (as we know from previous violence and stalking).
How his obsession with guns and female TV presenters is curious. How his availability at the scene is proven, and so on.
Let me put it another way: If Barry George was not responsible for Jill Dando's murder, we would need to invent someone of the same build, same appearance, same behaviour, same infatuations, same mental instability and same location, as well as having to disregard his palpable mendacity.
Finally, let me say this. Jill hated miscarriages of justice. So do I.
And though I was her friend and colleague I have no animosity towards George. In fact, having once worked with people suffering from epilepsy and damaged personalities, I feel sorry for him.
Nor, as a TV presenter so closely associated with Crimewatch, do I relish the idea of imprisoning an innocent and vulnerable person when the consequence must be that a dangerous killer is free.
Yet, on balance, I think that the judicial system got the right man, even if the process was imperfect.
What really matters is that whoever killed Jill Dando should not be at large to do something terrible again.
I wish you well with your deliberations.
Nick Ross
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-491452/Dando-murder-I-know-Barry-George-killed-friend-Jill.html#ixzz5Bazr8W52
-
You try being locked up for eight years for a crime that you didn't commit, during which you had no recourse to earning anything.
Hardly Greed.
What did Barry George "earn" before he was incarcerated? What has he earned since his aquittel?
-
Why do you dislike him so much? Do you actually believe that he did murder Jill Dando? Not that you shouldn't if you so wish.
In a nutshell - I don' think much of manipulative individuals who use underhanded tactics in a quite obvious attempt to muddy the waters Eleanor.
Are you familiar with the term "gas lighting?"
I've read many of Barry George's sisters projections in her so called fight to stand for justice but I no longer buy into it. It stopped the day Simon Hall confessed. The niggles I had with regards the personalities of some of those people I once associated with kept niggling away at me - bit like David Jessel said in his comment about "the confession."
I'm driven by truth and justice. I have no agenda. I've learned much since I was conned and I've had to get to the bottom of how and why I was conned.
I've also learned a lot about criminal law and the loopholes used by some in their attempts to give themselves an air of plausible deniability (which equates to a lack of accountability).
-
John is not wrong. One minuscule piece of Gun Residue in his pocket? What about the rest of his clothes and the rest of his jacket?
The rest of your comment is as usual, a bit beyond me.
Do you have a Cite for Scotland Yard?
I'm hopeful John has kept an open mind and will re-evaluate the evidence when he has the time.
If you re read my posts I tend to include a link when I've quoted something said by another. If I've missed something that concerns you please draw it to my attention and I'll edit it.
And if there is something I've posted that you cannot understand please point it out and I'll do my best to explain it to you.
I imagine though, if you don't have a full comprehension of a case like this, it would be beyond anyone.
-
Barry George hasn't been awarded compensation because he isn't innocent enough.
"But the High Court ruled he did not qualify because jurors could still reasonably have convicted him despite new evidence that led to his acquittal.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21195269
-
I'm interested in learning the truth of this case. Who murdered Jill Dando.
And why isn't Barry George innocent enough?
What do the police know that we don't?
The guilty walk in the footsteps of the innocent
They and indeed their families will go to great lengths in order to keep up appearances - I speak from experience you understand!
Where were Barry George's family when he was living in London, apparantly stalking women on a regular basis, and why did his family and friends allow him to live in such a mess? What's the back story?
-
Michelle Bates is the face of and presumably "brains" of the Barry George campaign?
Do you agree with this?
And do you agree the George case is fairly unique?
He never gave evidence during either of his trials - had his conviction overturned - yet all those who dealt with him whilst he was in prison appear concerned in relation to his risk to the public - hence he's now under MAPPA
-
Have you read Mike Burke's book regarding his nephew?
I know there have been some strong opinions expressed on this case in the past here http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=953.msg28042#msg28042 but I think we"ve been misled. My opinion and no reflection on the forum of course.
-
We'll just have to agree to disagree.
We can indeed agree to disagree but its only a matter of time before the truth eventually comes out
-
We can indeed agree to disagree but its only a matter of time before the truth eventually comes out
Sadly there is no guarantee that the truth will ever come out no matter how much time passes.
-
'Barry has mentioned visiting the grave a few times,' his spokesman Surjit Singh Clair told me this week.
'It's something he definitely wants to do. He just feels there's a connection between them - they've been tragically brought together.'
George has also discussed his plans with his confidante, his sister, Michelle Diskin.
'Barry spent eight years in jail for a murder he didn't do,' Mr Singh Clair said. 'He's become entwined with her life and she has played a huge part in his. He wants to exorcise Jill's ghost, and say: "I don't want you to think I hold any hard feelings against you."
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1076331/Obsessed-visiting-Jill-Dandos-grave-acting-erratically-Barry-George-man-edge.html#ixzz5Bd1rDuQV
-
"Barry George finds himself a friend in Sion Jenkins
"The men are said to have become friends about six months ago, through Mr George's sister, Michelle Diskin. She had met Mr Jenkins at a seminar on miscarriages of justice.
It is understood that Mr Jenkins told her Mr George could stay with him if he needed an escape from media attention after his release."
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1051168/Barry-George-friend-SIon-Jenkins.html#ixzz5Bd5x0R7m
Discussion on Sion Jenkins can be found here
http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?board=39.0
-
I believe Jill Dando was killed by Serbians. Her murder came within weeks of the murder of Slavko Curuvija. Both were news reporters who criticised the Serbian regime.
"A widow of one of their alleged victims said Miss Dando's execution in April 1999 has all the hallmarks of her own husband's murder, which was two weeks earlier."
"The cartridge case had crimp marks on it of the type often found in Soviet Union and its satellite countries, according to Mr Mead."
Serbian police claim their is a link to Radomir Markovic, Milan Radonjic, Ratko Romic and Miroslav Kurak for Jill Dando's murders.
(https://ocdn.eu/pulscms-transforms/1/glJk9lLaHR0cDovL29jZG4uZXUvaW1hZ2VzL3B1bHNjbXMvTVRJN01EQV8vZWM5YjNiOTEzNWViYzQxMTdlOGZkOGI4NmM4ZmM4NzcuanBnkZMCzQLkAIGhMAE)
-
I believe Jill Dando was killed by Serbians. Her murder came within weeks of the murder of Slavko Curuvija. Both were news reporters who criticised the Serbian regime.
"A widow of one of their alleged victims said Miss Dando's execution in April 1999 has all the hallmarks of her own husband's murder, which was two weeks earlier."
"The cartridge case had crimp marks on it of the type often found in Soviet Union and its satellite countries, according to Mr Mead."
Serbian police claim their is a link to Radomir Markovic, Milan Radonjic, Ratko Romic and Miroslav Kurak for Jill Dando's murders.
(https://ocdn.eu/pulscms-transforms/1/glJk9lLaHR0cDovL29jZG4uZXUvaW1hZ2VzL3B1bHNjbXMvTVRJN01EQV8vZWM5YjNiOTEzNWViYzQxMTdlOGZkOGI4NmM4ZmM4NzcuanBnkZMCzQLkAIGhMAE)
Yes, and you also believe Jeremy Bamber is innocent David. I don't believe the proganda peddled by the media nor to I believe in individuals who self promote.
-
Ms Diskin said she started working on her brother's case the minute she heard he had been taken into custody. She maintained throughout that her brother was "too gentle" to commit the murder, and she co-ordinated a determined campaign to prove his innocence https://www.irishtimes.com/news/barry-george-s-sister-tells-of-huge-strain-of-campaign-1.931572
-
https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/video/barry-george-begins-life-sentence-bv-barry-georges-uncle-news-footage/684707048
Mr George’s uncle, Michael Bourke, expected the worst. I spoke to Michael immediately after the verdict. He said: “We thought it was going to be guilty and when we saw the jury’s faces, not one of them showing they were for him, we just…” He hunched his shoulders to illustrate how they flinched.
When the “not guilty” came, Michelle Diskin, Mr George’s sister, was the only one of the three to show any emotion – she slammed the bench that was actually right behind where I was sitting and shouted an exultant, but still surprised, “Yes”. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2491147/Analysis-Twists-and-turns-that-enabled-Barry-George-to-walk-free.html
Michael Bourke, George's uncle, is adamant that his nephew does not fit this profile. He is convinced that George possesses neither the physical nor mental ability to carry out such a crime, an opinion which is backed up by experts who have provided evidence to the CCRC investigation. From an early age, he had attended a special school and also suffered from epilepsy. At the time of his arrest, George was using the name Barry Bulsara, the real name of the late Queen frontman Freddie Mercury.
Mr Bourke, who lives in Ireland, said: "Barry is not stupid but he is not the brightest either. A lot of people survive being shot in the head but this was a killing carried out with such efficiency. Barry is the sort of person who would have panicked or tried to hide if he had committed the crime, but people at the advice centre [that he visited that day] said he arrived completely calm." https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/special-report-disturbing-new-evidence-may-reveal-a-miscarriage-of-justice-in-dando-case-413556.html
-
April 2003
"After the murder of the television star, Jill Dando, it was claimed - falsely - that detectives went to him to ask whether her killing was the work of a hitman" https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/jul/28/ukcrime.stevenmorris
"I won't Stop until I clear my name https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/may/30/kevin-lane-robert-magill-charlie-wilson-interview-nick-hopkins
April 1999
"Speculation focussed immediately on a possible motive for the attack which stunned her friends, family and colleagues. Because of her fame and high profile, the possibility that she had been targeted by a stalker was seen as a potential motive. She had not expressed any fears for her personal safety to colleagues and friends could think of her no reason for the attack. https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/apr/27/duncancampbell.rorycarroll
April 1999
"Many hitmen are never caught, although Kevin Lane, 26, known as "The Executioner", was jailed in 1996 for the murder of the millionaire businessman Robert Magill, who was shot while walking his dohttps://www.independent.co.uk/news/dando-murder-a-choice-of-contract-killers-is-now-available-from-just-pounds-1000-1090053.html
May 1999
"Although the BBC has received several death threats since Dando's murder from alleged Serb terror groups, police still believe the killer is most likely to be someone with a more direct connection to Jill, real or imagined
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/may/02/theobserver.uknews
April 2000
"They told the police that the killing was a "Mickey Mouse" affair, committed by an "amateur", and not the work of a professional hitman, said Detective Chief Inspector Hamish Campbell, the officer heading the murder hunt.
The 45-strong Dando squad now believe that the killer is most likely a man obsessed with the television presenter who had a knowledge of firearms, possibly through a gun club.
A profiler used by Scotland Yard believes the "skilled amateur" responsible is extremely unlikely to strike again.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/hitmen-tell-police-dando-killing-is-work-of-amateur-281601.html
May 2000
"Police confirmed that the information which led to the arrest was given to the police several weeks ago - before the BBC television Crimewatch programme appeal to mark the first anniversary of her death on April 26 - but could not be acted on immediately. https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/may/26/sarahhall.nickhopkins
Feb 2001
"Following his conviction, Lane says he was the victim of a sustained smear campaign. In various newspapers, he was dubbed the Executioner, and linked to other unsolved murders. They included the assassinations of Charlie Wilson, the Great Train Robber targeted on the Costa del Sol in 1990, and Karen Reed, a 33-year-old geophysicist, who was shot on the doorstep of her home in Surrey in April 1994 by a man posing as a pizza delivery rider. One report claimed Lane had also worked to order for the Russian mafia.
When the TV presenter Jill Dando was shot on the doorstep of her home in Fulham in April 1999, Lane's name cropped up again. At the time, detectives wanted advice from expert hitmen. Newspapers said they turned to Lane to ask whether Dando's murderer was the work of a professional.
"Nobody from the Dando team came to see me," he says. "It was rubbish, like most of the stuff that has been in the papers. Being wrongly convicted of one was bad enough. Then, overnight, I became a multiple murderer."
Lane says there is another story - his story - and it has only been half told. "Just hear me out," he says. "Then make up your own mind." https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/feb/14/kevin-lane
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2302523/Police-hope-finding-Jill-Dandos-killer.html
-
Ms Diskin said she started working on her brother's case the minute she heard he had been taken into custody. She maintained throughout that her brother was "too gentle" to commit the murder, and she co-ordinated a determined campaign to prove his innocence https://www.irishtimes.com/news/barry-george-s-sister-tells-of-huge-strain-of-campaign-1.931572
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ltgorwROQfwC&pg=PA117&lpg=PA117&dq=michael+boirke+barry+george+campaign+to+clear+name&source=bl&ots=Osv66NAZ9H&sig=u6QkUj9tNaTGF9YhqcBKAPXCuHU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwidxre7ua_aAhWNSsAKHUtQDA4Q6AEwBXoECAEQAQ#v=onepage&q=michael%20boirke%20barry%20george%20campaign%20to%20clear%20name&f=false
http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=9318.msg454799#msg454799 "Barry George's Mike says he felt bitter for a long time after George was released from prison. He talks of how he and fellow supporters were ultimately dumped by George; even though he'd put in years of campaigning?
-
Contributors are again reminded to keep posts relative otherwise they will be removed during routine edit.
-
I'm interested in learning the truth of this case. Who murdered Jill Dando.
And why isn't Barry George innocent enough?
What do the police know that we don't?
The guilty walk in the footsteps of the innocent
They and indeed their families will go to great lengths in order to keep up appearances - I speak from experience you understand!
Where were Barry George's family when he was living in London, apparantly stalking women on a regular basis, and why did his family and friends allow him to live in such a mess? What's the back story?
"Doctors who examined George after his arrest diagnosed an impressive array of psychiatric disorders: psychopathic personality, narcissistic personality, histrionic personality, paranoid personality and Asperger’s Syndrome (a disorder linked to autism). As a boy he was diagnosed as suffering from attention hyperactivity disorder. George was also diagnosed as having somatisation disorder and concurrent factitious disorder.
Whether psychiatric diagnoses mean anything is debatable. However, the police and courts credit them and therefore should have taken them into account before a prosecution was mounted. The interesting thing about these diagnoses is that they relate to personality traits which could innocently explain every part of George’s supposedly suspicious behaviour both before and after the Dando murder. A psychopathic personality is prone to lying and using aliases.
A narcissistic personality is one who urgently seeks attention and admiration and has a heightened sense of self-importance. A histrionic personality will imagine they have a well developed relationship with someone they do not know at all in a personal sense. A paranoid personality has obvious ramifications for George’s suspicion of the police.
Asperger’s sufferers have major problems with personal relationships and a tendency to become obsessive. Finally, somatisation disorder and concurrent factitious disorder explained his imagined illnesses.
https://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/barry-george-and-the-celebrity-effect/
-
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ltgorwROQfwC&pg=PA117&lpg=PA117&dq=michael+boirke+barry+george+campaign+to+clear+name&source=bl&ots=Osv66NAZ9H&sig=u6QkUj9tNaTGF9YhqcBKAPXCuHU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwidxre7ua_aAhWNSsAKHUtQDA4Q6AEwBXoECAEQAQ#v=onepage&q=michael%20boirke%20barry%20george%20campaign%20to%20clear%20name&f=false
http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=9318.msg454799#msg454799 "Barry George's Mike says he felt bitter for a long time after George was released from prison. He talks of how he and fellow supporters were ultimately dumped by George; even though he'd put in years of campaigning?
I ask again, why has Barry George's sister Michelle (nee Diskin) Bate's become Patron to mass murderer & child killer Jeremy Bamber's campaign? https://www.change.org/p/rt-hon-amber-rudd-mp-home-secretary-essex-police-release-all-documents-withheld-under-pii-to-jeremy-bamber-s-legal-defence/u/17935097
They are no similarities in either case
Michelle Bates is apparently up in arms by the fact her brother has not been compensated as he had been found to be not innocent enough.
"Michelle is backing a Campaign to amend the Criminal Justice Act, section 133, which affects many whose convictions have been overturned, or who have been found not guilty at retrial. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/33/section/133
Is she not concerned her brother could be re-tried in the future if new evidence were to come to light?
Her brothers over turned conviction is similar in parts to the Gary Dobson and David Norris convictions.
https://www.ft.com/content/45d351a2-3715-11e1-b741-00144feabdc0
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2013/712.html
https://www.criminallawandjustice.co.uk/blog/No-Coincidence
https://vnnforum.com/showthread.php?p=1351642
Michelle Bates has written a false and indeed misleading blog about her memories following the WHF murders.
On this basis, what has she said or written about her brother which is as equally false and indeed misleading?
-
I cannot get away from the fact that Michelle (nee Diskin) Bates apparent values appear to conflict with her behaviours, which in turn would be suggestive of moral duplicity?
-
"Doctors who examined George after his arrest diagnosed an impressive array of psychiatric disorders: psychopathic personality, narcissistic personality, histrionic personality, paranoid personality and Asperger’s Syndrome (a disorder linked to autism). As a boy he was diagnosed as suffering from attention hyperactivity disorder. George was also diagnosed as having somatisation disorder and concurrent factitious disorder.
Whether psychiatric diagnoses mean anything is debatable. However, the police and courts credit them and therefore should have taken them into account before a prosecution was mounted. The interesting thing about these diagnoses is that they relate to personality traits which could innocently explain every part of George’s supposedly suspicious behaviour both before and after the Dando murder. A psychopathic personality is prone to lying and using aliases.
A narcissistic personality is one who urgently seeks attention and admiration and has a heightened sense of self-importance. A histrionic personality will imagine they have a well developed relationship with someone they do not know at all in a personal sense. A paranoid personality has obvious ramifications for George’s suspicion of the police.
Asperger’s sufferers have major problems with personal relationships and a tendency to become obsessive. Finally, somatisation disorder and concurrent factitious disorder explained his imagined illnesses.
https://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/barry-george-and-the-celebrity-effect/
A psychopathic person is prone to many more traits than lying and using aliases. The above statement is misleading.
Narcissism and psychopathy go hand in hand. A psychopath is also a narcissistic, though a narcissist is not necessarily a psychopath.
"Over the years, few large-scale prospective studies have targeted the causes of personality disorders (PDs). But recently, a new body of research has begun to explore the potential influences of several factors, from genetics and parenting to peer influences, and even the randomness of life events
Thus, although both genetics and environment contributed to the association between normal and abnormal personality, genetics appeared to play the greater role overall, Krueger says. "The predominant reason normal and abnormal personality are linked to each other is because they are linked to the same underlying genetic mechanisms," he explains.
With borderline PD, for example, ongoing research indicates that there may be a genetic base for the problems with impulsivity and aggression, says the University of California's Judd. But environmental influences are significant and can extend deep into childhood, even infancy, Judd adds.
"There is a pretty high prevalence of maltreatment by caregivers across all personality disorders," she notes. "One of the key problems appears to be neglect. Probably more of an emotional neglect--more of a lack of attention to a child's emotional needs."
http://www.apa.org/monitor/mar04/awry.aspx
-
I ask again, why has Barry George's sister Michelle (nee Diskin) Bate's become Patron to mass murderer & child killer Jeremy Bamber's campaign? https://www.change.org/p/rt-hon-amber-rudd-mp-home-secretary-essex-police-release-all-documents-withheld-under-pii-to-jeremy-bamber-s-legal-defence/u/17935097
They are no similarities in either case
Michelle Bates is apparently up in arms by the fact her brother has not been compensated as he had been found to be not innocent enough.
"Michelle is backing a Campaign to amend the Criminal Justice Act, section 133, which affects many whose convictions have been overturned, or who have been found not guilty at retrial. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/33/section/133
Is she not concerned her brother could be re-tried in the future if new evidence were to come to light?
Her brothers over turned conviction is similar in parts to the Gary Dobson and David Norris convictions.
https://www.ft.com/content/45d351a2-3715-11e1-b741-00144feabdc0
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2013/712.html
https://www.criminallawandjustice.co.uk/blog/No-Coincidence
https://vnnforum.com/showthread.php?p=1351642
Michelle Bates has written a false and indeed misleading blog about her memories following the WHF murders.
On this basis, what has she said or written about her brother which is as equally false and indeed misleading?
Michelle Bates writes and I quote,
"Justice is never served by the conviction of the innocent" by Michelle Bates on the 31st Anniversary of the tragedies (Jerrmy Bamber case)
"Becoming aware of a breaking-news story I began to listen in more closely. A siege was taking place at a farmhouse in England. The broadcaster relayed that five people were inside and there was great fear for their safety. As the story unfolded it became apparent that this was an older couple. A farmer and retired Magistrate, Nevill Bamber and his wife, June; their daughter, Sheila, and her six year old twin sons. Jeremy, their son, was outside with police who were trying to communicate with someone inside the house who had been seen pacing back and forth in front of an upstairs window and carrying a firearm. The reporter said that police were reluctant to get too close to the house for fear of causing that person to become more agitated, thereby, escalating the danger to the family. I watched for an hour or so but there was no resolution and, heavily pregnant, I became exhausted and had to go off to bed.
No one was seen pacing back and forth carrying a firearm - this is a lie
Awaking early I was anxious for news, hopefully of a rescue, so I put the News on immediately. The siege was over, police had stormed the house and five bodies had been found inside. I was heartbroken, a whole family! My heart went out to the young man who had waited all night long with the police for news of his family; this was not what he wanted to hear.
There was no live TV coverage during the time Bamber was outside the farmhouse with the police - another lie
My own child was born a few days later and I became engrossed in motherhood. It was a real shock to hear, sometime later, that the son, Jeremy Bamber, had been arrested for the killings…how was that possible when he was outside during the siege and everyone knew that? I presumed the police knew something we did not; there must have been strong evidence to convict a man of killing his entire family…I pushed my unease aside and got on with motherhood and my own life.
Since then I have revisited the facts of this case in light of so many high-profile miscarriage of justice cases coming to light, including that of my own brother, Barry George, for the murder of Jill Dando. More recently we’ve heard of the lies and cover-ups in the Hillsborough deaths and The Chilcot report exposing the same type of cover ups in the Iraqi war scandal. In the Bamber case I can find no evidence to convince me of the guilt of this man. Nothing that can account for a man languishing in jail for more than thirty years. How did a jury convict a young man without proof?
Our justice system is predicated on the ‘presumption of innocence’ and also on ‘beyond reasonable doubt,’ but there is so much doubt surrounding this conviction that this case must be looked into again, urgently. The CCRC and the Court of Appeal seem to be reluctant to do this, and the police, for their part, have been withholding evidence from the defendant. It will cost thousands of pounds to, again, take them to court to force them to hand over the papers and forensic results that the court has already told them they must do. They have also effectively ‘locked down’ documents in the case under a PII* order; what is there to hide? Meanwhile, a man is fighting a conviction for multiple murders that there is no proof he committed. Surely this is not the justice system his father, a Magistrate was proud to be a part of? https://jeremybamber.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/justice-is-never-served-by-conviction.html
Barry George had his conviction quashed. He's not been paid awarded compensation because he's not innocent enough. A judge concluded a jury properly directed may have come to a different conclusion; words to that effect
Michelle Bates is claiming Jeremy Bamber is innocent, she says the same about her brother?
Mark Williams Thomas was involved in both the Bamber and George cases, one via a TV documentary the other a newspaper series.
Who should we believe? I do not believe Michelle Bates!
Furthermore, Michael Mansfield QC was misled in relation to the Simon Hall case. He could have been misled in relation to Barry George. Personality disordered individuals can be extremely convincing.
Mrs Bates further claims in the Bamber case: "Dead people don’t walk (and two only became one at marriage!). Sheila alive, even when police stormed the building. Tragic murder/suicide. 😢 https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/917077719749361664
-
Michelle Bates writes and I quote,
"Justice is never served by the conviction of the innocent" by Michelle Bates on the 31st Anniversary of the tragedies (Jerrmy Bamber case)
"Becoming aware of a breaking-news story I began to listen in more closely. A siege was taking place at a farmhouse in England. The broadcaster relayed that five people were inside and there was great fear for their safety. As the story unfolded it became apparent that this was an older couple. A farmer and retired Magistrate, Nevill Bamber and his wife, June; their daughter, Sheila, and her six year old twin sons. Jeremy, their son, was outside with police who were trying to communicate with someone inside the house who had been seen pacing back and forth in front of an upstairs window and carrying a firearm. The reporter said that police were reluctant to get too close to the house for fear of causing that person to become more agitated, thereby, escalating the danger to the family. I watched for an hour or so but there was no resolution and, heavily pregnant, I became exhausted and had to go off to bed.
No one was seen pacing back and forth carrying a firearm - this is a lie
Awaking early I was anxious for news, hopefully of a rescue, so I put the News on immediately. The siege was over, police had stormed the house and five bodies had been found inside. I was heartbroken, a whole family! My heart went out to the young man who had waited all night long with the police for news of his family; this was not what he wanted to hear.
There was no live TV coverage during the time Bamber was outside the farmhouse with the police - another lie
My own child was born a few days later and I became engrossed in motherhood. It was a real shock to hear, sometime later, that the son, Jeremy Bamber, had been arrested for the killings…how was that possible when he was outside during the siege and everyone knew that? I presumed the police knew something we did not; there must have been strong evidence to convict a man of killing his entire family…I pushed my unease aside and got on with motherhood and my own life.
Since then I have revisited the facts of this case in light of so many high-profile miscarriage of justice cases coming to light, including that of my own brother, Barry George, for the murder of Jill Dando. More recently we’ve heard of the lies and cover-ups in the Hillsborough deaths and The Chilcot report exposing the same type of cover ups in the Iraqi war scandal. In the Bamber case I can find no evidence to convince me of the guilt of this man. Nothing that can account for a man languishing in jail for more than thirty years. How did a jury convict a young man without proof?
Our justice system is predicated on the ‘presumption of innocence’ and also on ‘beyond reasonable doubt,’ but there is so much doubt surrounding this conviction that this case must be looked into again, urgently. The CCRC and the Court of Appeal seem to be reluctant to do this, and the police, for their part, have been withholding evidence from the defendant. It will cost thousands of pounds to, again, take them to court to force them to hand over the papers and forensic results that the court has already told them they must do. They have also effectively ‘locked down’ documents in the case under a PII* order; what is there to hide? Meanwhile, a man is fighting a conviction for multiple murders that there is no proof he committed. Surely this is not the justice system his father, a Magistrate was proud to be a part of? https://jeremybamber.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/justice-is-never-served-by-conviction.html
Barry George had his conviction quashed. He's not been paid awarded compensation because he's not innocent enough. A judge concluded a jury properly directed may have come to a different conclusion; words to that effect
Michelle Bates is claiming Jeremy Bamber is innocent, she says the same about her brother?
Mark Williams Thomas was involved in both the Bamber and George cases, one via a TV documentary the other a newspaper series.
Who should we believe? I do not believe Michelle Bates!
Furthermore, Michael Mansfield QC was misled in relation to the Simon Hall case. He could have been misled in relation to Barry George. Personality disordered individuals can be extremely convincing.
Mrs Bates further claims in the Bamber case: "Dead people don’t walk (and two only became one at marriage!). Sheila alive, even when police stormed the building. Tragic murder/suicide. 😢 https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/917077719749361664
Published On: Tue, Aug 29th, 2017 *Legal | By David Wells
Are you a victim of a genuine miscarriage of justice?
https://insidetime.org/are-you-a-victim-of-a-genuine-miscarriage-of-justice/
"As an example, he has worked on trying to assist Barry George, wrongly convicted of the murder of Jill Dando, and with his quest to obtain the justice it is strongly felt he deserves by getting compensation for having served a 9 year sentence for a crime he did not commit.
Re: Mark Williams Thomas
Cass says:
28th September 2017 at 2:42 pm
"I’m surprised David that as a qualified Solicitor and Barrister who has worked on some high profile cases that you haven’t done your homework on Mark Williams Thomas.
A bit of research will tell you that he was only a Detective for a year in Surrey then left, though I have heard he jumped before he was pushed.
He is not an expert in child protection, and a Masters in criminology, with no other post grad degree, doesn’t make him an expert in that field either.
His various CV’s about investigating or leading high profile cases are I would argue also untrue as Senior officers lead investigations.
Credit due for his dogged work in the Saville case, but he was invited on board by Merrion Jones after a lot of ground work was done. In fact he told Merrion by e-mail he was ‘keen to be involved’ as he started the Jonathan King investigation, which actually started after he left the force and was investigated by other officers.
Merrion thought MWT would be useful as an ex Surrey officer to find out if they had carried out an investigation into Saville. MWT agreed to ‘dig around’… it’s all in the Pollard Review.
As for ‘The Investigator’ the show revealed nothing that wasn’t already in the public domain and was edited to make MWT look good. It’s all in the Court of Appeal decision at http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2003/1840.html
Anyway I don’t wish to harp on, but I often wonder if those who purport to be what they are not actually have a strong belief in justice for others…. or simply a desire to boost their own ego and line their own pockets.
Purporting to those who have suffered the loss of loved ones to be a seasoned and experienced investigator is not for me in the interests of justice. It is called giving false hope… as he did in the Investigator.
If David, as MWT said himself, you ‘dig around’, you’ll come to see he’s not all that he purports to be. In fact why not ask him face to face and see what he says. He knows what it’s like to be grilled after standing trial for Blackmail and being found not guilty.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/southern_counties/2957264.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/southern_counties/2963918.stm
-
Published On: Tue, Aug 29th, 2017 *Legal | By David Wells
Are you a victim of a genuine miscarriage of justice?
https://insidetime.org/are-you-a-victim-of-a-genuine-miscarriage-of-justice/
"As an example, he has worked on trying to assist Barry George, wrongly convicted of the murder of Jill Dando, and with his quest to obtain the justice it is strongly felt he deserves by getting compensation for having served a 9 year sentence for a crime he did not commit.
Re: Mark Williams Thomas
Cass says:
28th September 2017 at 2:42 pm
"I’m surprised David that as a qualified Solicitor and Barrister who has worked on some high profile cases that you haven’t done your homework on Mark Williams Thomas.
A bit of research will tell you that he was only a Detective for a year in Surrey then left, though I have heard he jumped before he was pushed.
He is not an expert in child protection, and a Masters in criminology, with no other post grad degree, doesn’t make him an expert in that field either.
His various CV’s about investigating or leading high profile cases are I would argue also untrue as Senior officers lead investigations.
Credit due for his dogged work in the Saville case, but he was invited on board by Merrion Jones after a lot of ground work was done. In fact he told Merrion by e-mail he was ‘keen to be involved’ as he started the Jonathan King investigation, which actually started after he left the force and was investigated by other officers.
Merrion thought MWT would be useful as an ex Surrey officer to find out if they had carried out an investigation into Saville. MWT agreed to ‘dig around’… it’s all in the Pollard Review.
As for ‘The Investigator’ the show revealed nothing that wasn’t already in the public domain and was edited to make MWT look good. It’s all in the Court of Appeal decision at http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2003/1840.html
Anyway I don’t wish to harp on, but I often wonder if those who purport to be what they are not actually have a strong belief in justice for others…. or simply a desire to boost their own ego and line their own pockets.
Purporting to those who have suffered the loss of loved ones to be a seasoned and experienced investigator is not for me in the interests of justice. It is called giving false hope… as he did in the Investigator.
If David, as MWT said himself, you ‘dig around’, you’ll come to see he’s not all that he purports to be. In fact why not ask him face to face and see what he says. He knows what it’s like to be grilled after standing trial for Blackmail and being found not guilty.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/southern_counties/2957264.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/southern_counties/2963918.stm
Mark Williams-Thomas: says his Jimmy Savile documentary was ‘a huge risk in terms of reputation’.
"When we meet, prestigious industry awards are far from Williams-Thomas's mind. He is concerned about changes to relations between the police and media and the threat to serious investigative journalism.
As a police officer in Surrey, he would pass information to local reporters if he believed its disclosure was in the public interest. If those conversations happened today, Williams-Thomas would be facing arrest or suspension
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/feb/24/mark-williams-thomas-jimmy-savile
The Investigator: a British Crime Story, review: a true crime series riddled with X Factor-style clichés
"Produced by Simon Cowell’s Syco production company, The Investigator is a show built on solid ground – true crime from the US, from The Jinx to Making a Murderer to The People vs OJ Simpson, has provided some of the best television of the last five years https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2018/04/05/investigator-british-crime-story-review-true-crime-series-riddled/
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jill-dando-murder-documentary-watch-5460623
-
Michelle Bates writes and I quote,
"Justice is never served by the conviction of the innocent" by Michelle Bates on the 31st Anniversary of the tragedies (Jerrmy Bamber case)
"Becoming aware of a breaking-news story I began to listen in more closely. A siege was taking place at a farmhouse in England. The broadcaster relayed that five people were inside and there was great fear for their safety. As the story unfolded it became apparent that this was an older couple. A farmer and retired Magistrate, Nevill Bamber and his wife, June; their daughter, Sheila, and her six year old twin sons. Jeremy, their son, was outside with police who were trying to communicate with someone inside the house who had been seen pacing back and forth in front of an upstairs window and carrying a firearm. The reporter said that police were reluctant to get too close to the house for fear of causing that person to become more agitated, thereby, escalating the danger to the family. I watched for an hour or so but there was no resolution and, heavily pregnant, I became exhausted and had to go off to bed.
No one was seen pacing back and forth carrying a firearm - this is a lie
Awaking early I was anxious for news, hopefully of a rescue, so I put the News on immediately. The siege was over, police had stormed the house and five bodies had been found inside. I was heartbroken, a whole family! My heart went out to the young man who had waited all night long with the police for news of his family; this was not what he wanted to hear.
There was no live TV coverage during the time Bamber was outside the farmhouse with the police - another lie
My own child was born a few days later and I became engrossed in motherhood. It was a real shock to hear, sometime later, that the son, Jeremy Bamber, had been arrested for the killings…how was that possible when he was outside during the siege and everyone knew that? I presumed the police knew something we did not; there must have been strong evidence to convict a man of killing his entire family…I pushed my unease aside and got on with motherhood and my own life.
Since then I have revisited the facts of this case in light of so many high-profile miscarriage of justice cases coming to light, including that of my own brother, Barry George, for the murder of Jill Dando. More recently we’ve heard of the lies and cover-ups in the Hillsborough deaths and The Chilcot report exposing the same type of cover ups in the Iraqi war scandal. In the Bamber case I can find no evidence to convince me of the guilt of this man. Nothing that can account for a man languishing in jail for more than thirty years. How did a jury convict a young man without proof?
Our justice system is predicated on the ‘presumption of innocence’ and also on ‘beyond reasonable doubt,’ but there is so much doubt surrounding this conviction that this case must be looked into again, urgently. The CCRC and the Court of Appeal seem to be reluctant to do this, and the police, for their part, have been withholding evidence from the defendant. It will cost thousands of pounds to, again, take them to court to force them to hand over the papers and forensic results that the court has already told them they must do. They have also effectively ‘locked down’ documents in the case under a PII* order; what is there to hide? Meanwhile, a man is fighting a conviction for multiple murders that there is no proof he committed. Surely this is not the justice system his father, a Magistrate was proud to be a part of? https://jeremybamber.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/justice-is-never-served-by-conviction.html
Barry George had his conviction quashed. He's not been paid awarded compensation because he's not innocent enough. A judge concluded a jury properly directed may have come to a different conclusion; words to that effect
Michelle Bates is claiming Jeremy Bamber is innocent, she says the same about her brother?
Mark Williams Thomas was involved in both the Bamber and George cases, one via a TV documentary the other a newspaper series.
Who should we believe? I do not believe Michelle Bates!
Furthermore, Michael Mansfield QC was misled in relation to the Simon Hall case. He could have been misled in relation to Barry George. Personality disordered individuals can be extremely convincing.
Mrs Bates further claims in the Bamber case: "Dead people don’t walk (and two only became one at marriage!). Sheila alive, even when police stormed the building. Tragic murder/suicide. 😢 https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/917077719749361664
On 9th Jan 2018, in response to the following https://innocent.org.uk/2018/01/09/luke-mitchell-launches-fresh-innocence-appeal/ on the Luke Mitchell case Michelle (Diskin) Bates states
"There never was any evidence to link Luke to this terrible killing, just supposition and wild fantasy."
She's of course entitled to her opinions but it just makes me doubt her brother's overturned conviction even more.
http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=583.0
-
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ltgorwROQfwC&pg=PA117&lpg=PA117&dq=michael+boirke+barry+george+campaign+to+clear+name&source=bl&ots=Osv66NAZ9H&sig=u6QkUj9tNaTGF9YhqcBKAPXCuHU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwidxre7ua_aAhWNSsAKHUtQDA4Q6AEwBXoECAEQAQ#v=onepage&q=michael%20boirke%20barry%20george%20campaign%20to%20clear%20name&f=false
http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=9318.msg454799#msg454799 "Barry George's uncle Mike says he felt bitter for a long time after George was released from prison. He talks of how he and fellow supporters were ultimately dumped by George; even though he'd put in years of campaigning?
"The sister who stood by him. In the dark days after his conviction and when his first appeal was thrown out she renewed her efforts, urging supporters to wear a bright flower on their lapel. Her greatest ally was the fact that many people believed there was something not quite right about the case.
Ms Diskin, 52, has lived for 25 years in the village of Ballincollig, County Cork, where memories of British justice go further back even than the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four. A local administrator, she is married with three children. For the past eight years she has travelled the country to countless meetings.
Her website has been inundated with support. She has also helped with a book about the case
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/he-stalked-diana-and-had-400-women-on-film-6866238.html
Her website? According to Mike's book, it wasn't her website? https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ltgorwROQfwC&pg=PA108&lpg=PA108&dq=barry+george+mike+story&source=bl&ots=Osv77JEYgK&sig=wMLxHQUzDrrwdZhrvyhIfhiX8U8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiDnsyJtc7aAhXWFsAKHYwwAr8Q6AEwBHoECAUQAQ#v=onepage&q=barry%20george%20mike%20story&f=false
What about the uncle Mike who stood by him? What about the other supporters referred to in Mike's book?
Why has Michelle Bates put herself front and centre stage?
Why does she never refer to those people who ran Barry George's website?
Why does she never mention Michael Burke and the others who grafted for Barry George?
Why were they "dumped?"
Why at this point does it appear to have become all about Michelle Bates? https://www.irishtimes.com/news/barry-george-s-sister-tells-of-huge-strain-of-campaign-1.931572
To me it feels reminiscent of Simon Hall's adoptive mother. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-12195159
(Remember, she knew of the Zenith burglary, among other things. And, she WAS NOT involved in the campaign by this point, nor was she in contact with Hall's legal team - that I was aware of at the time)
The power of secrets https://therealmrshspoofblog.wordpress.com/2016/03/26/the-power-of-secrets/
With hindsight, regarding the Simon Hall campaign, once Hall confessed, it all fell into place as to why I had came up against so much abuse and harassment from the beginning.
Toxic people; and how they seethe and wage a devious smear campaign https://therealmrshspoofblog.wordpress.com/2016/03/26/toxic-people-and-how-they-seethe-and-wage-a-devious-smear-campaign/
Much of it stemmed back to Hall and those who had campaigned on his behalf before me; including his immediate family members. The Shirley McKie forum, the Wrongly Accused Person website, Facebook etc. I still have copies of some of the messages written by Hall's brother, for example, that most of the public were not aware of. He had apparently sent them from his place of work when Billy Middleton had first launched Hall's website/blog. The Facebook page, where I was attacked relentlessly by Trolls, again, many of whom I came to learn could again be linked back to those who had previously campaigned on Hall's behalf.
On top of this were all the others who were out to protect their own self interests.
The Zenith burglary had been known about by others, even though I Knew nothing about it until 5th November 2012. It was clearly important for all those who knew about the Zenith burglary to protect this secret, at all costs, from ever coming out.
Manipulation tactic https://therealmrshspoofblog.wordpress.com/2016/04/17/playing-the-blame-game-as-a-manipulation-tactic/
My point is, that in the Simon Hall case, it was tantamount to Simon Hall (and the Hall's) that my character was assinated early on, in order to protect their interests.
I get a strong sense all is not as it in seems in the Barry George case either.
Many people who knew Simon Hall directly didn't believe he was capable of murder. I most certainly didn't. I didn't, that is, until I came to learn of the Zenith burglary and slowly starting coming out of denial. From this point, Simon Hall, and others, tried their damnedest to break me down.
It's often said that Barry George wasn't capable of murdering Jill Dando. But how do any of us know that for a fact?
If it wasn't for the fact Simon Hall, prior to his confession, disclosed a large volume of information regarding his past, I may not have believed his crime of murder was sexually motivated, as opposed to the incorrect prosecution theory of it being a burglary gone wrong.
Barry George was capable of many things before Jill Dando was murdered, including pathologically lying, taking on the persona of others, stalking, harassment, the list goes on.
His sister states: "Her greatest ally was the fact that many people believed there was something not quite right about the case." "HER GREATEST ALLY". Hum.
There is something still not quite right with this case!
"Barry George is not the type of man any woman would feel comfortable with. A man who had been convicted of indecent assault and attempted rape. A serial stalker who habitually approached and harassed women.
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/gail-walker/odd-yes-but-barry-george-is-no-killer-28442182.html
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/148232/Police-harass-Jill-Dando-case-man
-
Michelle Bates writes and I quote,
"Justice is never served by the conviction of the innocent" by Michelle Bates on the 31st Anniversary of the tragedies (Jerrmy Bamber case)
"Becoming aware of a breaking-news story I began to listen in more closely. A siege was taking place at a farmhouse in England. The broadcaster relayed that five people were inside and there was great fear for their safety. As the story unfolded it became apparent that this was an older couple. A farmer and retired Magistrate, Nevill Bamber and his wife, June; their daughter, Sheila, and her six year old twin sons. Jeremy, their son, was outside with police who were trying to communicate with someone inside the house who had been seen pacing back and forth in front of an upstairs window and carrying a firearm. The reporter said that police were reluctant to get too close to the house for fear of causing that person to become more agitated, thereby, escalating the danger to the family. I watched for an hour or so but there was no resolution and, heavily pregnant, I became exhausted and had to go off to bed.
No one was seen pacing back and forth carrying a firearm - this is a lie
Awaking early I was anxious for news, hopefully of a rescue, so I put the News on immediately. The siege was over, police had stormed the house and five bodies had been found inside. I was heartbroken, a whole family! My heart went out to the young man who had waited all night long with the police for news of his family; this was not what he wanted to hear.
There was no live TV coverage during the time Bamber was outside the farmhouse with the police - another lie
My own child was born a few days later and I became engrossed in motherhood. It was a real shock to hear, sometime later, that the son, Jeremy Bamber, had been arrested for the killings…how was that possible when he was outside during the siege and everyone knew that? I presumed the police knew something we did not; there must have been strong evidence to convict a man of killing his entire family…I pushed my unease aside and got on with motherhood and my own life.
Since then I have revisited the facts of this case in light of so many high-profile miscarriage of justice cases coming to light, including that of my own brother, Barry George, for the murder of Jill Dando. More recently we’ve heard of the lies and cover-ups in the Hillsborough deaths and The Chilcot report exposing the same type of cover ups in the Iraqi war scandal. In the Bamber case I can find no evidence to convince me of the guilt of this man. Nothing that can account for a man languishing in jail for more than thirty years. How did a jury convict a young man without proof?
Our justice system is predicated on the ‘presumption of innocence’ and also on ‘beyond reasonable doubt,’ but there is so much doubt surrounding this conviction that this case must be looked into again, urgently. The CCRC and the Court of Appeal seem to be reluctant to do this, and the police, for their part, have been withholding evidence from the defendant. It will cost thousands of pounds to, again, take them to court to force them to hand over the papers and forensic results that the court has already told them they must do. They have also effectively ‘locked down’ documents in the case under a PII* order; what is there to hide? Meanwhile, a man is fighting a conviction for multiple murders that there is no proof he committed. Surely this is not the justice system his father, a Magistrate was proud to be a part of? https://jeremybamber.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/justice-is-never-served-by-conviction.html
Barry George had his conviction quashed. He's not been paid awarded compensation because he's not innocent enough. A judge concluded a jury properly directed may have come to a different conclusion; words to that effect
Michelle Bates is claiming Jeremy Bamber is innocent, she says the same about her brother?
Mark Williams Thomas was involved in both the Bamber and George cases, one via a TV documentary the other a newspaper series.
Who should we believe? I do not believe Michelle Bates!
Furthermore, Michael Mansfield QC was misled in relation to the Simon Hall case. He could have been misled in relation to Barry George. Personality disordered individuals can be extremely convincing.
Mrs Bates further claims in the Bamber case: "Dead people don’t walk (and two only became one at marriage!). Sheila alive, even when police stormed the building. Tragic murder/suicide. 😢 https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/917077719749361664
Michael Burke, Barry George's uncle says in his book "Mikes story" about Michelle Bates.
"I turned on the TV to see GMTV at 6.00. Michelle and Don were being interviewed. Michelle was speaking and suddenly departed from the agreed script. She made serious allegations which for legal reasons I cannot repeat but I had to laugh at the male interviewer vainly tried to stop her on love TV. The allegation was not repeated or broadcast again but it was made nevertheless.
I'm unsure what the date of this interview was or what Michelle Bates said but according to the uncle, they were "serious allegations."
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ltgorwROQfwC&pg=PA108&lpg=PA108&dq=barry+george+mike+story&source=bl&ots=Osv77JEYgK&sig=wMLxHQUzDrrwdZhrvyhIfhiX8U8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiDnsyJtc7aAhXWFsAKHYwwAr8Q6AEwBHoECAUQAQ#v=onepage&q=barry%20george%20mike%20story&f=false
-
My brother, who was wrongly convicted of the murder of TV presenter, Jill Dando, has never been awarded any compensation for the years he spent incarcerated for this killing. His conviction was quashed in 2007, and he was then released in 2008, when the jury at his second trial unanimously found him not guilty. Since then, we have tried every avenue we could think of to get this government to correct the wrong, and to make recompense for all that he has lost.’
Michelle Bates
http://www.thejusticegap.com/2015/12/2015-a-year-in-the-justice-gap/
Maybe it's finally time for Michelle Bates to be transparent in order to convince those of us who believe him to not be innocent enough.
And maybe she would be open and honest enough to publicise the total sum of money her brother accrued since his conviction was over turned?
All I'm witnessing is greed; which has nothing to do with truth or justice.
Unless I'm mistaken, Barry George's uncle Michael Burke appears to refer to Michelle Bates as "Michelle Moneypenny."
So I'm not alone in my observations https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ltgorwROQfwC&pg=PA108&lpg=PA108&dq=barry+george+mike+story&source=bl&ots=Osv77JEYgK&sig=wMLxHQUzDrrwdZhrvyhIfhiX8U8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiDnsyJtc7aAhXWFsAKHYwwAr8Q6AEwBHoECAUQAQ#v=onepage&q=barry%20george%20mike%20story&f=false
-
"Michelle Diskin was in the front room at her home in Cork listening to the morning radio when she first heard that her brother Barry George had been charged with Jill Dando's murder.
She says she felt numb - completely numb. 'I thought: "No, no, it can't be." 'I wanted to phone my mother, but she is a very quiet and private person. How do you ring your mother and say: "Mum, has my brother been arrested for murder?" she says.
Michelle, a deeply religious woman, finally decided to phone and ask if she should pray for her brother. It seemed a more gentle way of dealing with the appalling news. 'Mother said: "It's all rubbish. He didn't do it. It will die down". I didn't know what to do and said to myself: "Could Barry have done this?"
'Could I see anything in the Barry I knew that might be guilty of this - and I couldn't. I thought about his behaviour. He can be aggravating. But no, not murder.'
But on July 2, last year, Barry George, 42, an educationally-subnormal fantasist with an IQ of just 76, was found guilty of the murder of BBC TV presenter Jill Dando.
She was killed with a single shot to the head. The gun was pressed so hard against her skull that the imprint of the muzzle remained on her scalp afterwards.
There was, however, not one overwhelming piece of evidence to link George to the crime. In the year since the case ended, no other criminal verdict has excited quite so much interest and there has been an endless debate over whether he was indeed guilty 'beyond reasonable doubt'.
Last month, an appeal against his conviction was rejected by three of the country's most senior judges.
Michelle continues to insist upon her brother's innocence. She is determined to take the case to the House of Lords and, should that fail, to Europe, believing his conviction to be a dreadful miscarriage of justice.
In fairness, she doesn't believe her brother to be an angel, but she insists that does not make him a murderer.
Michelle is a warm, articulate woman with a strong sense of right and wrong. Being in the public eye does not sit easily with her. She is, by nature, a home-builder, a wife and mother to three teenage children.
Their terraced family house near Cork is tidy, comfortable and perfumed with scented candles. It is a tactile household where hugs and kisses are easily exchanged.
Her own London childhood had been tough, often violent. In her late teens, she moved to Ireland to work with mentally disabled children. She had little need to dwell upon her past - until her brother's arrest.
Initially, Michelle believed the courts would clear her brother and she resolved not to speak out on his behalf. Indeed, she didn't want to drag her family into the unholy mess, and, in any case, no direct evidence linked her brother to the crime.
No confession. No apparent motive. No eyewitnesses. No murder weapon was ever found.
There was virtually no scientific evidence, except for minute traces of firearm discharge found in one of George's pockets and described as a 'close match' to particles found in Dando's hair. There was also a risk, acknowledged at the trial, that even this evidence was contaminated.
The prosecution case seemed to be simply that George lived locally and was an oddball with unhealthy obsessions. He was said to be 'fixated' with Princess Diana and to stalk women.
He had been convicted, many years earlier, of attempted rape and impersonating a police officer. He used different names (he was arrested as Barry Bulsara, using the real surname of one of his idols, Freddie Mercury) and lived in a world of fantasy. He was said to be 'obsessed' with guns.
George also happened to be near Dando's Fulham home on the morning of her murder. His own home, a chaotically untidy flat, happened to be just a few streets away. Michelle says: 'Barry was in Belmarsh Prison on remand when I first saw him. I had to see him through a glass screen. It was like being in a confessional box. There was a dark, dingy glass between us and you could hardly hear a thing.
'He looked terribly vulnerable and scared. Almost the first thing he said was: "Shhh, don't talk."
'Then he said: "I have not done what they are saying."
'I was asking questions and he kept telling me to talk to my solicitor. I cried. I think he did too. He said he was sorry that he had put us in this. I couldn't touch him but I wanted him to know he was being supported.
We held up our hands against the glass. I felt utterly overwhelmed that this could be happening to us. At each step along the way I thought it would be stopped. It's unbelievable it wasn't.
'There was no evidence. They just lumped everything up and made out he was one big psycho. Timeframes were forgotten, facts were distorted to make a picture - a very bad picture.
'The police needed somebody, and Barry looked, on the surface, as if he would disappear and nobody would fight for him.
'That's why I have to support him. I have always loved him very much.'
Michelle was the eldest of three children, raised in a cramped highrise flat in White City, West London. The bath was in the kitchen and she shared a bedroom with both her sister, a mentally handicapped epileptic two years her junior, and Barry, the baby of the family.
It was an uneasy household with frequent violent rows. 'Barry and Susan were always very special because I had to look after them when I was small.
'There were a lot of pressures living in such close quarters with people on both sides of you and underneath you. My parents fought all the time so I would take the kids out - sometimes for hours on end.
'It was very difficult. Because Susan had very definite problems that were so big, Barry's were pushed to one side.
'He was a gorgeous baby and, as a boy, was into cars and buildings. He sometimes got into trouble, but he could never seem to understand why.
'He couldn't concentrate for long periods of time and was taken out of school and sent to special school. But his disability didn't become really apparent until he got older.
'Barry has a rigidity of thought. He gets a thought and isn't able to change tack. If you changed the topic of conversation, he wouldn't be able to stop focusing on the first one.'
Michelle was 12 when their parents separated. She says it was a relief, an end to the dreadful rows. Her relationship with her mother was not easy and by the age of 15 she was living with her father.
'My mother was warmer earlier in the marriage,' she says. 'And less warm towards the end of it.'
When Barry asked to move in with his father, he was refused. 'I'm sure Barry saw it as a rejection. Probably the first of many,' she says.
By the age of 18, Michelle was living in Ireland with her grandmother. She kept in contact with her family and her brother visited for a holiday. 'He was 14 and so sweet I didn't want to send him back. I remember he used to hang about this place called Barry's Tea and wanted to work there in the yard but he was too young.
'But he would pester people, so this man sent him home with a letter saying he would take him out as his helper if I said it was OK. He said that he could see Barry needed special attention.
'The man gave Barry some pocket money and he came back with sausages, milk and bread so he could help with his keep.'
Michelle displays a certain pride when she repeats this story. It becomes clear that achievements which most people would take for granted were enormously special when accomplished by Barry.
For example, she tells how he arrived at her wedding 'all by himself' and had 'even hired his own suit so he wouldn't show me up'. She saw him handing out buttonholes to guests and was 'proud'.
By this time, he had started to create fantasies about himself and, intriguingly, she recalls a relative having to steer him away from talking about the SAS.
During their phone calls, Barry would talk of his obsession about being a stuntman. He tried to join the Territorial Army under the name Steve Major.
'It seemed perfectly innocent. He said he'd chosen it because the Six Million Dollar Man had such a name. When he later changed his name to Barry Bulsara, it wasn't something I was happy with. But he said he really loved Freddie Mercury and he was doing it as a tribute.
'He wanted to be a special person. He wanted to have friends. I can only speculate that these inventions were ways of opening a conversation. Let's face it, it's a bit more of a conversation grabber than "I'm classified disabled and I can't do anything".'
The prosecuting lawyers made much of George's fantasies. 'They tried to turn him into the Anti-Christ,' says Michelle. 'They spoke about his so-called obsession with guns after joining the Territorial Army. But the TA realised he had problems and Barry didn't handle guns. The only ones he's had are a starter pistol and a plastic gun that was stolen and broken.
'They said he had an obsession with Diana and stalked and photographed women. It was mentioned that he was discovered by police in Kensington Gardens with a rope and a knife dressed in Army gear. He told me that he was "doing manoeuvres".
'But he was never charged and there are no records of him being in the grounds by Diana's apartment as has been suggested.
'Even being "on manoeuvres" in the park, is not the normal behaviour of a grown person, but still pretty ordinary if you think like a child. He was going through his ex-SAS stage then - and it was almost 20 years ago.
'When police examined his flat they found a pile of 736 newspapers on the floor. Of course, there were some articles about Jill Dando, but there were more about Manchester United, although he's a Fulham supporter.
'There were also never any photos of women pinned up on the wall as has been suggested. The police found rolls of undeveloped film - 2,597 photographs showing 419 women.
'He wasn't using the photographs to satisfy some strange obsession. He was playing a role - that's all to do with the childish part of his life. And he'd just thrown the rolls of film in the corner - as he dropped everything in his flat and forgot about things.
'When Barry was in custody, the police had nothing to charge him with. They knew he'd been convicted of attempted rape in 1983, which he'd owned up to at the time, but he wouldn't admit to Jill Dando's murder.
'They were allowed to keep him for extra time, but still he wouldn't say he was responsible.
'If you know my brother, he's not capable of not caving in under that sort of pressure. But he does know when he's done something wrong and when he hasn't. The next thing that happened was that a particle (of firearm discharge) turned up in a coat - it was the only reason they were able to charge him.
'But the integrity of the coat had been corrupted. It was put in an evidence bag, sealed, carted away from his flat, photographed on a dummy in a police studio with an officer's shirt underneath and put back in the crate before it was examined by forensics.
'And as far as identification is concerned, there was only one person who said she was certain she saw Barry at 7.30am. She said she saw him by a car, but Barry can't drive.
'Barry has been described as a loner. But he's not. He was always out seeing people. He had friends, people who loved him - who accepted Barry with his differences. They didn't know about the attempted rape, but that happened almost 20 years before.
He paid his price to society for what he did and he'd turned his life around. And, despite his disabilities, he had made a life for himself. He discussed his friends and would say: "There's a guy down the road and he's my friend. I wash his car for him." After he was charged, I started piecing things together.
'There was a big, motherly Jamaican woman who lived across the road. When I went to see her, I could see she really loved Barry.
'She was really pleased to see me and said she hadn't known if anyone was going to help him. She was going to get some friends together to stand outside Hammersmith police station with placards saying: "Free Barry Bulsara."
'She's adamant he didn't carry out the crime.'
Michelle gathers strength from such support. She knows her brother, not as a psychopath, but as 'quiet, softly-spoken and wellmannered'.
During medical examinations before his trial, it was discovered that George had suffered severe brain damage from a physical injury while in his 20s. Michelle says he does not know how it occurred, although she conjectures that perhaps it was something to do with his 'Steve Majors' phase.
In the early Eighties, he was registered disabled and suffered increasingly from epileptic fits. If the problem was not properly controlled he would often stumble around.
Michelle is not convinced that he would have had the ability to plan or dexterity to carry out such carefully executed crime and getaway. Indeed, the case confounded police for a year before Barry's arrest.
'I knew right from the beginning, from his whole demeanour that he's innocent. I could tell when I saw him in Belmarsh - through his body language, his eye contact - before and after his conviction.
'He said to me: "They had to have someone. I didn't do this and I don't know why I'm here. But you do realise I am here for the rest of my life?"
'I said he wouldn't be - that the sentence would be reduced and he replied: "Oh no, not for me. I can't ever say I'm sorry for doing it - because I didn't do it."
'At night, things play over and over in my mind. When you realise this is a miscarriage of justice, it becomes enormous. They have grabbed Barry's life and taken it away from him. They have also taken my life.
'It wasn't an easy thing to decide to become vocal. But I have to stand up for Barry's rights. I'm determined to at least do that.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-135212/My-brother-didnt-kill-Jill.html#ixzz5DQUKMFv4
-
"Lawyers acting for Barry George will begin a fresh attempt this week to overturn his conviction for the murder of television presenter Jill Dando, who was gunned down on the doorstep of her Fulham home in April 1999.
George's sister, Michelle Diskin, and Hazel Keirle, legal officer for the Miscarriage of Justice Organisation, will present their case for a second appeal to the Criminal Cases Review Commission on Tuesday.
They will press for urgency because of fears that George's deteriorating mental state could affect his ability to remember key details.
Mrs Keirle said there was also a need to investigate allegations about the conduct of the jury. One female juror contacted George's defence team on several occasions after his conviction in July last year complaining that some, but not all, jury members had continued to debate the case in a hotel, despite the judge's ban.
The dossier includes the testimony of Fulham Baptist minister Rev John Hale, who, as The Mail on Sunday revealed last month, reported that he saw armed police officers searching George's flat in April 2000, four weeks before he was arrested, raising the disturbing possibility that the crucial evidence of a speck of gunshot discovered in George's coat pocket may have come from a police gun, not the missing murder weapon.
George was found guilty of murder but many have cast doubt on the conviction due to the largely circumstantial nature of the evidence. His first attempt to have the verdict overturned failed earlier this year.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-145789/Fresh-bid-free-Dando-murderer.html#ixzz5DQeMh19E
-
March 2002
THE award-winning newspaper editor who helped to secure the release of a man wrongly convicted of murder claimed yesterday that Barry George did not kill Jill Dando. Don Hale, the former editor of the Matlock Mercury, said underworld contacts have told him the TV presenter was killed by a hired overseas hitman. He believes Miss Dando was killed by someone unhappy with the BBC’s coverage of the Balkans conflict. Mr Hale won universal acclaim for his seven-year campaign for the release of Stephen Downing, who spent 27 years in prison for the murder of Wendy Sewell. After writing a book about the Downing campaign, he has received hundreds of letters from convicts protesting their innocence
Read more at: https://www.scotsman.com/news/uk/dando-editor-speaks-1-605683
-
Michael Burke, Barry George's uncle says in his book "Mikes story" about Michelle Bates.
"I turned on the TV to see GMTV at 6.00. Michelle and Don were being interviewed. Michelle was speaking and suddenly departed from the agreed script. She made serious allegations which for legal reasons I cannot repeat but I had to laugh at the male interviewer vainly tried to stop her on love TV. The allegation was not repeated or broadcast again but it was made nevertheless.
I'm unsure what the date of this interview was or what Michelle Bates said but according to the uncle, they were "serious allegations."
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ltgorwROQfwC&pg=PA108&lpg=PA108&dq=barry+george+mike+story&source=bl&ots=Osv77JEYgK&sig=wMLxHQUzDrrwdZhrvyhIfhiX8U8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiDnsyJtc7aAhXWFsAKHYwwAr8Q6AEwBHoECAUQAQ#v=onepage&q=barry%20george%20mike%20story&f=false
Michael Burke continues:
"I thought of the allegation Michelle has made and felt a little uneasy.
.. but it made me think that what Michelle had said was not very wise. She was safely at home in Cork, while my family had to live in London, and I would be travelling over and back alone for the foreseeable future.
Relations between some members of my family became strained as most felt that as Barry was convicted and appealed we should leave it as that. But I was convinced the conviction was unsafe.
I accepted that there was a possibility that Barry was the man, but the evidence used to convict him was unconvincing.
In late October I sent a strongly worded letter to MOJO complaining about their tactics. By now the website was taking shape, and I was involved in a struggle as to what direction it should take. The webmaster Mick Lynch wanted to portray Barry as innocent but I insisted we should question the safety of the conviction, rather than call it a Miscarriage of Justice. I wanted people to judge for themselves and in the end I won out.
-
"Michelle Diskin was in the front room at her home in Cork listening to the morning radio when she first heard that her brother Barry George had been charged with Jill Dando's murder.
She says she felt numb - completely numb. 'I thought: "No, no, it can't be." 'I wanted to phone my mother, but she is a very quiet and private person. How do you ring your mother and say: "Mum, has my brother been arrested for murder?" she says.
Michelle, a deeply religious woman, finally decided to phone and ask if she should pray for her brother. It seemed a more gentle way of dealing with the appalling news. 'Mother said: "It's all rubbish. He didn't do it. It will die down". I didn't know what to do and said to myself: "Could Barry have done this?"
'Could I see anything in the Barry I knew that might be guilty of this - and I couldn't. I thought about his behaviour. He can be aggravating. But no, not murder.'
But on July 2, last year, Barry George, 42, an educationally-subnormal fantasist with an IQ of just 76, was found guilty of the murder of BBC TV presenter Jill Dando.
She was killed with a single shot to the head. The gun was pressed so hard against her skull that the imprint of the muzzle remained on her scalp afterwards.
There was, however, not one overwhelming piece of evidence to link George to the crime. In the year since the case ended, no other criminal verdict has excited quite so much interest and there has been an endless debate over whether he was indeed guilty 'beyond reasonable doubt'.
Last month, an appeal against his conviction was rejected by three of the country's most senior judges.
Michelle continues to insist upon her brother's innocence. She is determined to take the case to the House of Lords and, should that fail, to Europe, believing his conviction to be a dreadful miscarriage of justice.
In fairness, she doesn't believe her brother to be an angel, but she insists that does not make him a murderer.
Michelle is a warm, articulate woman with a strong sense of right and wrong. Being in the public eye does not sit easily with her. She is, by nature, a home-builder, a wife and mother to three teenage children.
Their terraced family house near Cork is tidy, comfortable and perfumed with scented candles. It is a tactile household where hugs and kisses are easily exchanged.
Her own London childhood had been tough, often violent. In her late teens, she moved to Ireland to work with mentally disabled children. She had little need to dwell upon her past - until her brother's arrest.
Initially, Michelle believed the courts would clear her brother and she resolved not to speak out on his behalf. Indeed, she didn't want to drag her family into the unholy mess, and, in any case, no direct evidence linked her brother to the crime.
No confession. No apparent motive. No eyewitnesses. No murder weapon was ever found.
There was virtually no scientific evidence, except for minute traces of firearm discharge found in one of George's pockets and described as a 'close match' to particles found in Dando's hair. There was also a risk, acknowledged at the trial, that even this evidence was contaminated.
The prosecution case seemed to be simply that George lived locally and was an oddball with unhealthy obsessions. He was said to be 'fixated' with Princess Diana and to stalk women.
He had been convicted, many years earlier, of attempted rape and impersonating a police officer. He used different names (he was arrested as Barry Bulsara, using the real surname of one of his idols, Freddie Mercury) and lived in a world of fantasy. He was said to be 'obsessed' with guns.
George also happened to be near Dando's Fulham home on the morning of her murder. His own home, a chaotically untidy flat, happened to be just a few streets away. Michelle says: 'Barry was in Belmarsh Prison on remand when I first saw him. I had to see him through a glass screen. It was like being in a confessional box. There was a dark, dingy glass between us and you could hardly hear a thing.
'He looked terribly vulnerable and scared. Almost the first thing he said was: "Shhh, don't talk."
'Then he said: "I have not done what they are saying."
'I was asking questions and he kept telling me to talk to my solicitor. I cried. I think he did too. He said he was sorry that he had put us in this. I couldn't touch him but I wanted him to know he was being supported.
We held up our hands against the glass. I felt utterly overwhelmed that this could be happening to us. At each step along the way I thought it would be stopped. It's unbelievable it wasn't.
'There was no evidence. They just lumped everything up and made out he was one big psycho. Timeframes were forgotten, facts were distorted to make a picture - a very bad picture.
'The police needed somebody, and Barry looked, on the surface, as if he would disappear and nobody would fight for him.
'That's why I have to support him. I have always loved him very much.'
Michelle was the eldest of three children, raised in a cramped highrise flat in White City, West London. The bath was in the kitchen and she shared a bedroom with both her sister, a mentally handicapped epileptic two years her junior, and Barry, the baby of the family.
It was an uneasy household with frequent violent rows. 'Barry and Susan were always very special because I had to look after them when I was small.
'There were a lot of pressures living in such close quarters with people on both sides of you and underneath you. My parents fought all the time so I would take the kids out - sometimes for hours on end.
'It was very difficult. Because Susan had very definite problems that were so big, Barry's were pushed to one side.
'He was a gorgeous baby and, as a boy, was into cars and buildings. He sometimes got into trouble, but he could never seem to understand why.
'He couldn't concentrate for long periods of time and was taken out of school and sent to special school. But his disability didn't become really apparent until he got older.
'Barry has a rigidity of thought. He gets a thought and isn't able to change tack. If you changed the topic of conversation, he wouldn't be able to stop focusing on the first one.'
Michelle was 12 when their parents separated. She says it was a relief, an end to the dreadful rows. Her relationship with her mother was not easy and by the age of 15 she was living with her father.
'My mother was warmer earlier in the marriage,' she says. 'And less warm towards the end of it.'
When Barry asked to move in with his father, he was refused. 'I'm sure Barry saw it as a rejection. Probably the first of many,' she says.
By the age of 18, Michelle was living in Ireland with her grandmother. She kept in contact with her family and her brother visited for a holiday. 'He was 14 and so sweet I didn't want to send him back. I remember he used to hang about this place called Barry's Tea and wanted to work there in the yard but he was too young.
'But he would pester people, so this man sent him home with a letter saying he would take him out as his helper if I said it was OK. He said that he could see Barry needed special attention.
'The man gave Barry some pocket money and he came back with sausages, milk and bread so he could help with his keep.'
Michelle displays a certain pride when she repeats this story. It becomes clear that achievements which most people would take for granted were enormously special when accomplished by Barry.
For example, she tells how he arrived at her wedding 'all by himself' and had 'even hired his own suit so he wouldn't show me up'. She saw him handing out buttonholes to guests and was 'proud'.
By this time, he had started to create fantasies about himself and, intriguingly, she recalls a relative having to steer him away from talking about the SAS.
During their phone calls, Barry would talk of his obsession about being a stuntman. He tried to join the Territorial Army under the name Steve Major.
'It seemed perfectly innocent. He said he'd chosen it because the Six Million Dollar Man had such a name. When he later changed his name to Barry Bulsara, it wasn't something I was happy with. But he said he really loved Freddie Mercury and he was doing it as a tribute.
'He wanted to be a special person. He wanted to have friends. I can only speculate that these inventions were ways of opening a conversation. Let's face it, it's a bit more of a conversation grabber than "I'm classified disabled and I can't do anything".'
The prosecuting lawyers made much of George's fantasies. 'They tried to turn him into the Anti-Christ,' says Michelle. 'They spoke about his so-called obsession with guns after joining the Territorial Army. But the TA realised he had problems and Barry didn't handle guns. The only ones he's had are a starter pistol and a plastic gun that was stolen and broken.
'They said he had an obsession with Diana and stalked and photographed women. It was mentioned that he was discovered by police in Kensington Gardens with a rope and a knife dressed in Army gear. He told me that he was "doing manoeuvres".
'But he was never charged and there are no records of him being in the grounds by Diana's apartment as has been suggested.
'Even being "on manoeuvres" in the park, is not the normal behaviour of a grown person, but still pretty ordinary if you think like a child. He was going through his ex-SAS stage then - and it was almost 20 years ago.
'When police examined his flat they found a pile of 736 newspapers on the floor. Of course, there were some articles about Jill Dando, but there were more about Manchester United, although he's a Fulham supporter.
'There were also never any photos of women pinned up on the wall as has been suggested. The police found rolls of undeveloped film - 2,597 photographs showing 419 women.
'He wasn't using the photographs to satisfy some strange obsession. He was playing a role - that's all to do with the childish part of his life. And he'd just thrown the rolls of film in the corner - as he dropped everything in his flat and forgot about things.
'When Barry was in custody, the police had nothing to charge him with. They knew he'd been convicted of attempted rape in 1983, which he'd owned up to at the time, but he wouldn't admit to Jill Dando's murder.
'They were allowed to keep him for extra time, but still he wouldn't say he was responsible.
'If you know my brother, he's not capable of not caving in under that sort of pressure. But he does know when he's done something wrong and when he hasn't. The next thing that happened was that a particle (of firearm discharge) turned up in a coat - it was the only reason they were able to charge him.
'But the integrity of the coat had been corrupted. It was put in an evidence bag, sealed, carted away from his flat, photographed on a dummy in a police studio with an officer's shirt underneath and put back in the crate before it was examined by forensics.
'And as far as identification is concerned, there was only one person who said she was certain she saw Barry at 7.30am. She said she saw him by a car, but Barry can't drive.
'Barry has been described as a loner. But he's not. He was always out seeing people. He had friends, people who loved him - who accepted Barry with his differences. They didn't know about the attempted rape, but that happened almost 20 years before.
He paid his price to society for what he did and he'd turned his life around. And, despite his disabilities, he had made a life for himself. He discussed his friends and would say: "There's a guy down the road and he's my friend. I wash his car for him." After he was charged, I started piecing things together.
'There was a big, motherly Jamaican woman who lived across the road. When I went to see her, I could see she really loved Barry.
'She was really pleased to see me and said she hadn't known if anyone was going to help him. She was going to get some friends together to stand outside Hammersmith police station with placards saying: "Free Barry Bulsara."
'She's adamant he didn't carry out the crime.'
Michelle gathers strength from such support. She knows her brother, not as a psychopath, but as 'quiet, softly-spoken and wellmannered'.
During medical examinations before his trial, it was discovered that George had suffered severe brain damage from a physical injury while in his 20s. Michelle says he does not know how it occurred, although she conjectures that perhaps it was something to do with his 'Steve Majors' phase.
In the early Eighties, he was registered disabled and suffered increasingly from epileptic fits. If the problem was not properly controlled he would often stumble around.
Michelle is not convinced that he would have had the ability to plan or dexterity to carry out such carefully executed crime and getaway. Indeed, the case confounded police for a year before Barry's arrest.
'I knew right from the beginning, from his whole demeanour that he's innocent. I could tell when I saw him in Belmarsh - through his body language, his eye contact - before and after his conviction.
'He said to me: "They had to have someone. I didn't do this and I don't know why I'm here. But you do realise I am here for the rest of my life?"
'I said he wouldn't be - that the sentence would be reduced and he replied: "Oh no, not for me. I can't ever say I'm sorry for doing it - because I didn't do it."
'At night, things play over and over in my mind. When you realise this is a miscarriage of justice, it becomes enormous. They have grabbed Barry's life and taken it away from him. They have also taken my life.
'It wasn't an easy thing to decide to become vocal. But I have to stand up for Barry's rights. I'm determined to at least do that.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-135212/My-brother-didnt-kill-Jill.html#ixzz5DQUKMFv4
Michelle Bates: "They said he had an obsession with Diana and stalked and photographed women. It was mentioned that he was discovered by police in Kensington Gardens with a rope and a knife dressed in Army gear. He told me that he was "doing manoeuvres". 'But he was never charged and there are no records of him being in the grounds by Diana's apartment as has been suggested.
Michael Burke: "I asked him why he was arrested at Kensington palace and he said that he had fallen asleep in the grounds as he made his way back from Chelsea barracks in 1983.
On June 26th the Daily Express did a two page spread on Scotts book. A couple of days later Michelle featured in an Irish evening paper, and appeared to dismiss the value of Scott's book, saying that a book would not get Barry out.
-
"But his Irish sister – who recently launched an appeal for witnesses to
help her brother – said last night that although the family had
investigated the possibility of him doing one, they have been advised by
doctors against it.
Speaking from her Cork home, Michelle Diskin said: “We have thought
about it and taken medical advice but we have been told a lie test
wouldn’t work properly because of the condition he is in.
“He has suffered brain damage as a result of his years of having
epilepsy and it was main reason why he didn’t take the stand in his own
defence at his trail.
“It’s not so much that a lie test wouldn’t work, but it’s more that it
would have a better chance of not working properly because of his
condition and then Barry would just end up in a worse position than he
already is.
https://randomirishnews.com/2006/04/21/jill-dando-killer-barry-george-too-sick-for-lie-test/
"During medical examinations before his trial, it was discovered that George had suffered severe brain damage from a physical injury while in his 20s. Michelle says he does not know how it occurred, although she conjectures that perhaps it was something to do with his 'Steve Majors' phase
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-135212/My-brother-didnt-kill-Jill.html#ixzz5DQUKMFv4
-
"But his Irish sister – who recently launched an appeal for witnesses to
help her brother – said last night that although the family had
investigated the possibility of him doing one, they have been advised by
doctors against it.
Speaking from her Cork home, Michelle Diskin said: “We have thought
about it and taken medical advice but we have been told a lie test
wouldn’t work properly because of the condition he is in.
“He has suffered brain damage as a result of his years of having
epilepsy and it was main reason why he didn’t take the stand in his own
defence at his trail.
“It’s not so much that a lie test wouldn’t work, but it’s more that it
would have a better chance of not working properly because of his
condition and then Barry would just end up in a worse position than he
already is.
https://randomirishnews.com/2006/04/21/jill-dando-killer-barry-george-too-sick-for-lie-test/
"During medical examinations before his trial, it was discovered that George had suffered severe brain damage from a physical injury while in his 20s. Michelle says he does not know how it occurred, although she conjectures that perhaps it was something to do with his 'Steve Majors' phase
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-135212/My-brother-didnt-kill-Jill.html#ixzz5DQUKMFv4
Yet more and more contradictions and inconsistencies
-
I ask again, why has Barry George's sister Michelle (nee Diskin) Bate's become Patron to mass murderer & child killer Jeremy Bamber's campaign? https://www.change.org/p/rt-hon-amber-rudd-mp-home-secretary-essex-police-release-all-documents-withheld-under-pii-to-jeremy-bamber-s-legal-defence/u/17935097
They are no similarities in either case
Michelle Bates is apparently up in arms by the fact her brother has not been compensated as he had been found to be not innocent enough.
"Michelle is backing a Campaign to amend the Criminal Justice Act, section 133, which affects many whose convictions have been overturned, or who have been found not guilty at retrial. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/33/section/133
Is she not concerned her brother could be re-tried in the future if new evidence were to come to light?
Her brothers over turned conviction is similar in parts to the Gary Dobson and David Norris convictions.
https://www.ft.com/content/45d351a2-3715-11e1-b741-00144feabdc0
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2013/712.html
https://www.criminallawandjustice.co.uk/blog/No-Coincidence
https://vnnforum.com/showthread.php?p=1351642
Michelle Bates has written a false and indeed misleading blog about her memories following the WHF murders.
On this basis, what has she said or written about her brother which is as equally false and indeed misleading?
Michelle Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
People hate to think there has been a wrongful conviction, it shakes their confidence, therefore they attack the people campaigning for justice, like journalist Chris Mullin, or in this case, Sandra Lean. https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1041002046386790401
-
Michelle Bates
@Michelle_Diskin
People hate to think there has been a wrongful conviction, it shakes their confidence, therefore they attack the people campaigning for justice, like journalist Chris Mullin, or in this case, Sandra Lean. https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1041002046386790401
Getting it wrong once was bad enough but Sandra Lean got it wrong twice that we definitely know about. She went to great lengths to campaign for killers Adrian Prout and Simon Hall yet both men eventually admitted their guilt. I for one would certainly question her judgement.
Michelle Bates involvement in the Bamber case is surprising given what we know about the conviction. Jeremy Bamber is certainly no Barry George, the two cases couldn't be more different.
-
Michelle Bates involvement in the Bamber case is surprising given what we know about the conviction. Jeremy Bamber is certainly no Barry George, the two cases couldn't be more different.
Did Barry George sue those responsible for the following https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/police-to-examine-confession-from-killer-of-dando-9159153.html
And is the alleged confession why he failed the legal test for compensation or something else?
"a jury, properly directed, could have found him guilty.’
-
Can you point me to the trial transcripts and the Judgement handed down in the original trial please
I've found this http://www.scienceandjusticejournal.com/article/S1355-0306(13)00059-2/fulltext but I want to go back to the beginning before the media muddied the waters..
Sandra Laville Crime Correspondant for the Guardian reported in June 2006 the following:
"Scientific evidence which helped convict Barry George of the murder of the BBC presenter Jill Dando six years ago has since been codified by the government's Forensic Science Service as "of no value", the Guardian understands.
The guidance on the evidence, a speck of firearms residue found deep in the pocket of George's coat, was circulated internally by the Forensic Science Service early last year in a paper on gunshot residue.
The paper was seized upon by lawyers at the Criminal Cases Review Commission who have spent five years examining various theories in the George case.
It is the scientists' opinion that single speck ballistics evidence is of no value which formed the basis of yesterday's decision by the review commission to refer the case to the court of appeal, where George's lawyers will argue the murder conviction must be quashed as unsafe.
The Crown Prosecution Service said yesterday it was examining the evidence. It is understood the CPS and the Metropolitan police will contest the appeal, which is likely to be heard this year.
The headline read - "Six years on, evidence that helped convict TV presenter's murderer is deemed valueless
However emerging research in 2013 by N Fenton et al "When ‘neutral’ evidence still has probative value (with implications from the Barry George Case) suggests, among other things, that the single particle of gun shot residue was of significant probative value.
"Justice is best served when the evidence and hypotheses under con- sideration are accessible and clear to all parties and are unambiguously defined. In particular, this is the only way to assign correct meanings to the likelihoods provided by expert witnesses. Furthermore, because the probative value of a piece of evidence on source-level hypotheses may be very different from its probative value on offence-level hypotheses, the relationships between source-level and offence-level hypotheses must be made clear. We have demonstrated that an efficient way to achieve such clarity will require the construction of causal models through the aid of tools such as Bayesian networks. This approach helps to improve legal reasoning and by doing so demonstrates how hypotheses can be clarified, related and made precise enough for reliable quantification. Central to this approach is the distinction between hypotheses that are mutually exclusive and exhaustive and those that are not.
We contend that, in order to determine whether evidence has probative value – and therefore whether it should be excluded from proceedings or not – it should be evaluated against offence-level hypotheses. Any diversion from this key principle will carry the risk that evidence might be presented to the jury merely as a diversionary tactic, and persuade it to make decisions based on superfluous source- level hypotheses.
We have demonstrated serious concerns about the Barry George Appeal Court judgement. The case document suffered from oversimpli- fication: what appeared as a superficially simple set of hypotheses were actually a set of ill-defined, but related, assumptions and vaguely defined hypotheses
Under these circumstances the ‘simple LR rule’ inadequately captured the probative value of the evidence. We have shown that evidence with a LR equal to the one in this case was not necessarily ‘neutral’.
The errors we highlight are taken from a judgement document, and although this may not always have accurately recorded what was said in court, the fact that it contains so much erroneous reasoning is cause for concern. Clearly, if a case judgement can be wrought with so many fail- ings, similar problems are likely to occur in courtroom judgments too. Additionally, it is a concern that the careful and rigorous presentations of statistical evidence made by conscientious expert witnesses can become distorted in a case judgement.
https://www.scienceandjusticejournal.com/article/S1355-0306(13)00059-2/fulltext?code=scijus-site
https://www.scienceandjusticejournal.com/article/S1355-0306(13)00059-2/fulltext#/article/S1355-0306(13)00059-2/fulltext
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2007/2722.html
-
Has anyone considered the possibility that contents of Michelle Bate's forthcoming book could lead to the re-arrest of her brother for JD's murder?
-
Michelle Bates writes and I quote,
"Justice is never served by the conviction of the innocent" by Michelle Bates on the 31st Anniversary of the tragedies (Jerrmy Bamber case)
"Becoming aware of a breaking-news story I began to listen in more closely. A siege was taking place at a farmhouse in England. The broadcaster relayed that five people were inside and there was great fear for their safety. As the story unfolded it became apparent that this was an older couple. A farmer and retired Magistrate, Nevill Bamber and his wife, June; their daughter, Sheila, and her six year old twin sons. Jeremy, their son, was outside with police who were trying to communicate with someone inside the house who had been seen pacing back and forth in front of an upstairs window and carrying a firearm. The reporter said that police were reluctant to get too close to the house for fear of causing that person to become more agitated, thereby, escalating the danger to the family. I watched for an hour or so but there was no resolution and, heavily pregnant, I became exhausted and had to go off to bed.
No one was seen pacing back and forth carrying a firearm - this is a lie
Awaking early I was anxious for news, hopefully of a rescue, so I put the News on immediately. The siege was over, police had stormed the house and five bodies had been found inside. I was heartbroken, a whole family! My heart went out to the young man who had waited all night long with the police for news of his family; this was not what he wanted to hear.
There was no live TV coverage during the time Bamber was outside the farmhouse with the police - another lie
My own child was born a few days later and I became engrossed in motherhood. It was a real shock to hear, sometime later, that the son, Jeremy Bamber, had been arrested for the killings…how was that possible when he was outside during the siege and everyone knew that? I presumed the police knew something we did not; there must have been strong evidence to convict a man of killing his entire family…I pushed my unease aside and got on with motherhood and my own life.
Since then I have revisited the facts of this case in light of so many high-profile miscarriage of justice cases coming to light, including that of my own brother, Barry George, for the murder of Jill Dando. More recently we’ve heard of the lies and cover-ups in the Hillsborough deaths and The Chilcot report exposing the same type of cover ups in the Iraqi war scandal. In the Bamber case I can find no evidence to convince me of the guilt of this man. Nothing that can account for a man languishing in jail for more than thirty years. How did a jury convict a young man without proof?
Our justice system is predicated on the ‘presumption of innocence’ and also on ‘beyond reasonable doubt,’ but there is so much doubt surrounding this conviction that this case must be looked into again, urgently. The CCRC and the Court of Appeal seem to be reluctant to do this, and the police, for their part, have been withholding evidence from the defendant. It will cost thousands of pounds to, again, take them to court to force them to hand over the papers and forensic results that the court has already told them they must do. They have also effectively ‘locked down’ documents in the case under a PII* order; what is there to hide? Meanwhile, a man is fighting a conviction for multiple murders that there is no proof he committed. Surely this is not the justice system his father, a Magistrate was proud to be a part of? https://jeremybamber.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/justice-is-never-served-by-conviction.html
Mrs Bates further claims in the Bamber case: "Dead people don’t walk (and two only became one at marriage!). Sheila alive, even when police stormed the building. Tragic murder/suicide. 😢 https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/917077719749361664
Det Ch Insp Bent added: "A murder investigation is never closed until the conviction of those involved
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-45707524
"Yesterday, his legal team and Scotland Yard officials argued over the handling of the case.
Supporters of Barry George became embroiled in a feud with police over fears her killer may never be caught and jailed.
William Clegg QC, who represented Mr George, accused the Metropolitan Police of abandoning objectivity and "closing their minds" to other suspects over the murder of the television presenter in London nine years ago.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2491773/Jill-Dando-murder-Feud-erupts-over-verdict.html
On 9th Jan 2018, in response to the following https://innocent.org.uk/2018/01/09/luke-mitchell-launches-fresh-innocence-appeal/ on the Luke Mitchell case Michelle (Diskin) Bates states
"There never was any evidence to link Luke to this terrible killing, just supposition and wild fantasy."
http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=595.msg490903#msg490903
-
Sandra Laville Crime Correspondant for the Guardian reported in June 2006 the following:
"Scientific evidence which helped convict Barry George of the murder of the BBC presenter Jill Dando six years ago has since been codified by the government's Forensic Science Service as "of no value", the Guardian understands.
The guidance on the evidence, a speck of firearms residue found deep in the pocket of George's coat, was circulated internally by the Forensic Science Service early last year in a paper on gunshot residue.
The paper was seized upon by lawyers at the Criminal Cases Review Commission who have spent five years examining various theories in the George case.
It is the scientists' opinion that single speck ballistics evidence is of no value which formed the basis of yesterday's decision by the review commission to refer the case to the court of appeal, where George's lawyers will argue the murder conviction must be quashed as unsafe.
The Crown Prosecution Service said yesterday it was examining the evidence. It is understood the CPS and the Metropolitan police will contest the appeal, which is likely to be heard this year.
The headline read - "Six years on, evidence that helped convict TV presenter's murderer is deemed valueless
However emerging research in 2013 by N Fenton et al "When ‘neutral’ evidence still has probative value (with implications from the Barry George Case) suggests, among other things, that the single particle of gun shot residue was of significant probative value.
"Justice is best served when the evidence and hypotheses under con- sideration are accessible and clear to all parties and are unambiguously defined. In particular, this is the only way to assign correct meanings to the likelihoods provided by expert witnesses. Furthermore, because the probative value of a piece of evidence on source-level hypotheses may be very different from its probative value on offence-level hypotheses, the relationships between source-level and offence-level hypotheses must be made clear. We have demonstrated that an efficient way to achieve such clarity will require the construction of causal models through the aid of tools such as Bayesian networks. This approach helps to improve legal reasoning and by doing so demonstrates how hypotheses can be clarified, related and made precise enough for reliable quantification. Central to this approach is the distinction between hypotheses that are mutually exclusive and exhaustive and those that are not.
We contend that, in order to determine whether evidence has probative value – and therefore whether it should be excluded from proceedings or not – it should be evaluated against offence-level hypotheses. Any diversion from this key principle will carry the risk that evidence might be presented to the jury merely as a diversionary tactic, and persuade it to make decisions based on superfluous source- level hypotheses.
We have demonstrated serious concerns about the Barry George Appeal Court judgement. The case document suffered from oversimpli- fication: what appeared as a superficially simple set of hypotheses were actually a set of ill-defined, but related, assumptions and vaguely defined hypotheses
Under these circumstances the ‘simple LR rule’ inadequately captured the probative value of the evidence. We have shown that evidence with a LR equal to the one in this case was not necessarily ‘neutral’.
The errors we highlight are taken from a judgement document, and although this may not always have accurately recorded what was said in court, the fact that it contains so much erroneous reasoning is cause for concern. Clearly, if a case judgement can be wrought with so many fail- ings, similar problems are likely to occur in courtroom judgments too. Additionally, it is a concern that the careful and rigorous presentations of statistical evidence made by conscientious expert witnesses can become distorted in a case judgement.
https://www.scienceandjusticejournal.com/article/S1355-0306(13)00059-2/fulltext?code=scijus-site
https://www.scienceandjusticejournal.com/article/S1355-0306(13)00059-2/fulltext#/article/S1355-0306(13)00059-2/fulltext
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2007/2722.html
abstract
"The likelihood ratio (LR) is a probabilistic method that has been championed as a ‘simple rule’ for evaluating the probative value of forensic evidence in court. Intuitively, if the LR is greater than one then the evidence supports the prosecution hypothesis; if the LR is less than one it supports the defence hypothesis, and if the LR is equal to one then the evidence favours neither (and so is considered ‘neutral’—having no probative value). It can be shown by Bayes' theorem that this simple relationship only applies to pairs of hypotheses for which one is the negation of the other (i.e. to mutually exclusive and exhaustive hypotheses) and is not applicable otherwise. We show how easy it can be – even for evidence experts – to use pairs of hypotheses that they assume are mutually exclusive and exhaustive but are not, and hence to arrive at erroneous conclusions about the value of evidence using the LR. Furthermore, even when mutually exclusive and exhaustive hypotheses are used there are extreme restrictions as to what can be concluded about the probative value of evidence just from a LR. Most importantly, while the distinction between source-level hypotheses (such as defendant was/was not at the crime scene) and offence-level hypotheses (defendant is/is not guilty) is well known, it is not widely under- stood that a LR for evidence about the former generally has no bearing on the LR of the latter. We show for the first time (using Bayesian networks) the full impact of this problem, and conclude that it is only the LR of the offence level hypotheses that genuinely determines the probative value of the evidence. We investigate common scenarios in which evidence has a LR of one but still has significant probative value (i.e. is not neutral as is commonly assumed). As illustration we consider the ramifications of these points for the case of Barry George. The successful appeal against his conviction for the murder of Jill Dando was based primarily on the argument that the firearm discharge residue (FDR) evidence, assumed to support the prosecution hypothesis at the original trial, actually had a LR equal to one and hence was ‘neutral’. However, our review of the appeal transcript shows numerous examples of the problems with the use of hypotheses identified above. We show that if one were to follow the arguments recorded in the Appeal judgement verbatim, then contrary to the Appeal conclusion, the probative value of the FDR evidence may not have been neutral as was concluded
N Fenton et al "When ‘neutral’ evidence still has probative value (with implications from the Barry George Case)
https://www.scienceandjusticejournal.com/article/S1355-0306(13)00059-2/pdf
Gunshot Residue Evidence – A Loose Canon?
by Angela Shaw - The Forensic Firearms Consultancy Ltd 2016
"The Criminal Case Review Commission (CCRC) in 2006 requested a review of the oral and written evidence in relation to the significance of the single particle and the way in which the case would have been reported today. While employed at the FSS I carried out this review in conjunction with a colleague. We concluded that the GSR evidence was inconclusive; it was no more likely that the particle had originated from the shooting of Ms Dando than it had come from another source. This was based on the information that the coat in which the particle had been found was not recovered until a year after the shooting. The CCRC referred the case to the Court of Appeal stating that the GSR particle that was given great significance by the Prosecution at the trial in 2001 was, in reality of no probative value
http://forensicfirearmsconsultancy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/GSR-Evidence-A-Loose-Canon.pdf
"That forensic remnant did not appear in the retrial, however, after the court of appeal ruled that the jury had been misled about the significance of the microscopic speck in his coat. The single thread attached to her coat was the only remaining forensic detail before the jury. https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/aug/01/jilldando.ukcrime2
-
Lynn Hales said: "George has now claimed to be a reformed man. If that is true he should tell the police who did this"
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/who-pulled-trigger-mum-daniel-8257691
Ex Manchester gangster Dwaine George pleads innocence over murder conviction
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b8ZQbYtGlwE
https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/r-v-dwaine-george.pdf
Gunshot Residue and The Cardiff Innocence Project
"Dwayne, who had always protested his innocence, had the good fortune to write to and involve the Innocence Project at Cardiff University. Over successive years volunteering law students studied the case, and considered various avenues which might lead to the overturning of the conviction. The case of Barry George [2007] EWCA Crim 2722 with its staunch criticisms of the standards which had applied to gun shot residue evidence, and its recognition of the important revision of those standards under the auspices of the FSS and in particular their lead scientist Angela Shaw, led to the students securing the services of a firearms expert to write a report on the impact of the Barry George decision on Dwayne George’s case. Detailed submissions to the CCRC were prepared by the many students, into all aspects of the case. Impressed by the work involved the CCRC themselves commissioned Angela Shaw to write a report on the GSR findings in the case, and the approach which had been adopted to them. As a result the Commission referred the case back to the Court of Appeal. http://doughty-street-chambers.newsweaver.com/Appeals/1cisha3cvxh?a=1&p=456432&t=174031
The Justice Gap
"Barry George’s conviction was quashed in the same year that Kevin Lane’s legal team made a third application to the CCRC. It was overturned followed a referral by the CCRC after a Panorama investigation identified concerns about a single speck on George’s coat which had convinced the jury that murdered Jill Dando. It was Cardiff Law School that identified the vulnerability of the gunshot residue evidence in the Dwaine George case as reported on the Justice Gap (here). The CCRC referred that case on the grounds there was ‘a real possibility’ the evidence of gunshot residue ‘does not now attract the value attributed to it at trial, and therefore does not support the identification evidence’. That conviction was quashed in 2014
Sir Brian Leveson, giving judgment in the Court of Appeal, pointed to new guidelines on firearms residue issued by the Forensic Science Service in 2006, two years after George’s conviction. If the new guidelines were followed ‘the number and type of particles of residue found on the coat were so small so as to be at or near the level at which they could not be considered to have evidential value’, according to the judgment. If the judge at the original trial had access to the new guidelines his directions to the jury ‘would have been couched in terms of much greater circumspection and caution,’ it added. https://www.thejusticegap.com/unmanageable-workloads-and-substandard-investigations-that-fail-to-put-right-miscarriages-of-justice/
National Training Conference on Investigating Miscarriages of Justice 2018
Organised by the School of Law at The University of Manchester, sponsored by Clyde & Co. and LexisNexis.
The 2018 National Training Conference for students in pro bono innocence projects, Miscarriages of Justice Review Centres, and independent case investigators will take place at the University of Manchester on Friday 16 and Saturday 17 February. The students and other investigators give their own time to help with cases of people who claim to be innocent of crimes of which they have been convicted, and who cannot afford to pay lawyers to review their cases. This Conference gives them unique opportunities to hear and meet some of the UK’s leading experts who can help them find out what might have gone wrong in police investigations and prosecutions, and what evidence can be found to support claims of innocence.
We are delighted to have a major contribution from the Criminal Cases Review Commission, an independent body which has the powers to obtain the fresh evidence needed to overturn wrongful convictions, and to refer cases to the Court of Appeal. The CCRC will explain in detail how it carries out its work and lead workshops for participants.
Experts giving presetations and leading discussions include:
Professor Allan Jamieson, Director of the Forensic Institute in Scotland. Allan is often called to give expert evidence about DNA in the UK and the USA. His evidence was of key importance in the Omagh bombing trial.
Andy Townsend of Footprint Investigations, leading experts on the analysis of phone call data which pinpoints where users are located.
Eric Allison, prisons correspondent of the Guardian who writes on miscarriage of justice cases.
Neil Smith, perhaps the UK’s foremost expert on using the internet to trace people and find information about them.
We will debate and explore the problem of joint enterprise prosecutions, in which innocent people are convicted just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, with:
Felicity Gerry QC, who contributed to rectifying the highly controversial law on joint criminal enterprise in the UK Supreme Court case of Jogee. She continues to work on joint enterprise cases and campaign for changes in the law on accessory liability. Felicity will speak via a video link from Australia;
Dwaine George who was himself wrongly convicted in a joint enterprise murder case. His conviction was overturned with the help of Cardiff Innocence Project. He now studies law at Manchester Metropolitan University.
The chaotic state of the disclosure system, responsible for many wrongful convictions because evidence gathered by the police which would help suspects is not passed on to them, will be explored through recent high profile cases, including those of Defence barrister Julia Smart from Furnival Chambers will be present to explain what happened when Liam Allan nearly went to prison for rape that he did not commit and was saved from this fate when undisclosed evidence was found.
Danny Kay, whose rape conviction was recently overturned thanks to the work of barrister Philip Rule who discovered important undisclosed material.
Philip Rule was called to the bar in 2001 and is a barrister at No 5 Chambers. Philip is renowned for his work in public law, civil liberties and human rights and was named Legal Aid Barrister of the year in 2017. He was recently involved in Danny Kay’s case discovering important evidence that overturned his conviction.
Mark Newby, solicitor advocate, possibly the UK's foremost criminal appeal lawyer and a long term active supporter of innocence projects MJRCs, will talk about his recent successes and the technicalities of putting together an appeal case. Andrew Green, is the Director of the Miscarriages of Justice Review Centre at the University of Sheffield. Andrew also runs INNOCENT and has a long history of working with the families and victims of Miscarriages of Justice.
Hannah Quirk, has worked at the University of Manchester since 2005. Her research interests in are mainly in criminal justice and criminal evidence. Hannah worked as Senior Researcher at the Legal Services Research Centre (the research unit of the Legal Services Commission), and as a Case Review Manager at the Criminal Cases Review Commission, investigating claims of wrongful conviction and sentence. Hannah also spent six months on a research sabbatical at the Innocence Project New Orleans. Finally, students, experts, leading lawyers and MPs will come together to discuss how to take forward the campaign to eradicate the scourge of miscarriage of justice.
Mark George QC, head of Garden Court North Chambers, who represented families at the Hillsborough, who will help students, as he has for many years, to understand cases make progress with them.
Brigid Baillie, is a defence advocate at Garden Court North Chambers, experienced in the most serious types of criminal cases and appeals including murder, serious sexual offences (such as paedophile rings and historical sex allegations), drug importation and terrorism. Brigid has a particular interest in vulnerable defendants and those with mental health conditions and is skilled at dealing sensitively with demanding clients in those circumstances.
Michael O’ Brien, spent eleven years in prison for a crime he didn't commit - the so-called Cardiff Newsagent Murder. Since having his conviction quashed in December 1999, Michael has worked tirelessly to ensure that those falsely convicted of crimes are exonerated.
Sarah McGill, headed the Cardiff Innocence Project student team responsible for the 2010 casework that led to Dwaine George’s conviction being quashed R v George 2014 EWCA Crim 2507. Sarah joined 15 Winkley Square Chambers in 2016 having been Called to the Bar as a transferring duty qualified Solicitor-Advocate. She routinely appears in serious cases covering the criminal and regulatory spectrum, including multi-handed prosecutions and those involving complicated expert evidence.
Danielle Manson is a barrister at 25 Bedford Row and was part of the Innocence Project at The University of Sheffield. She has been a clerk at Doughty St Chambers and worked at Justice.
Nazir Afsal was the Chief Crown Prosecutor of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for North West England from 2011 to 2015. He was the first Muslim to be appointed to such a position and was Britain's most senior Muslim lawyer within the CPS of Manchester. . Nazir was also the prosecutor who reopened the sex trafficking gang case in Rochdale which saw nine men jailed in 2012. He is Honorary Lecturer in law.
Dr Dennis Eady, works as Case Consultant to the Innocence Project at Cardiff University Law School and has been an active campaigner on miscarriage of justice issues for 20 years with South Wales against Wrongful Conviction (formerly South Wales Liberty). He has many years of experience on the topic of miscarriages of justice including the appeal process, particularly the CCRC and applications to them.
Professor Julie Price, heads the Cardiff Law School Pro Bono “Law in the Real World” schemes, including the Cardiff Law School Innocence Project, teaming law students with local criminal law practitioners to look at cases involving possible miscarriages of justice.
Henry Thompson, is the father of James Thompson. Battered, bloodied and concussed James ended up in prison. He is now serving a life sentence for murder, a crime he did not commit. He was a victim of assault. Students at the University of Manchester are now working with the family to get this case back to the Court of Appeal.
Finally students, experts, leading lawyers and MPs will come together to discuss how to take forward the campaign to eradicate the scourge of miscarriage of justice.
Book tickets for the conference via Eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/national-training-conference-on-investigating-miscarriages-of-justice-2018-the-school-of-law-at-the-tickets-42046234419
"Eric Allison: Show me a miscarriage of justice and, nine times out of 10, I will show you the blueprint that caused it. There is a pattern, a template, in virtually all of these cases, made up of the following strands.....
http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=8523.msg456531#msg456531
Angela Shaw
Angela added: “We concluded that, given the coat from Barry George’s home was not recovered until a year after the shooting, the likelihood that the particle would remain in a pocket of the coat a year after the shooting would be very small.
“But the likelihood that the particle originated from another source was also very small – in other words, the GSR evidence was inconclusive
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/crime/scots-forensic-firearm-expert-who-2319573
-
Whilst Barry George's "odd" behaviour may not make him a murderer, doubts still remain.
Investigative journalist Mark Williams Thomas looked again at the the case and presented his findings which appeared to point away from George. But how do any of us know whether he had been influenced in any way by his bias?
Barry George is not innocent enough for compensation!
High Court judges ruled “There was indeed a case upon which a reasonable jury, properly directed, could have convicted the claimant of murder."
To what evidence were the judges referring?
Published On: Tue, Aug 29th, 2017 *Legal | By David Wells
Are you a victim of a genuine miscarriage of justice?
https://insidetime.org/are-you-a-victim-of-a-genuine-miscarriage-of-justice/
"As an example, he has worked on trying to assist Barry George, wrongly convicted of the murder of Jill Dando, and with his quest to obtain the justice it is strongly felt he deserves by getting compensation for having served a 9 year sentence for a crime he did not commit.
Re: Mark Williams Thomas
Cass says:
28th September 2017 at 2:42 pm
"I’m surprised David that as a qualified Solicitor and Barrister who has worked on some high profile cases that you haven’t done your homework on Mark Williams Thomas.
A bit of research will tell you that he was only a Detective for a year in Surrey then left, though I have heard he jumped before he was pushed.
He is not an expert in child protection, and a Masters in criminology, with no other post grad degree, doesn’t make him an expert in that field either.
His various CV’s about investigating or leading high profile cases are I would argue also untrue as Senior officers lead investigations.
Credit due for his dogged work in the Saville case, but he was invited on board by Merrion Jones after a lot of ground work was done. In fact he told Merrion by e-mail he was ‘keen to be involved’ as he started the Jonathan King investigation, which actually started after he left the force and was investigated by other officers.
Merrion thought MWT would be useful as an ex Surrey officer to find out if they had carried out an investigation into Saville. MWT agreed to ‘dig around’… it’s all in the Pollard Review.
As for ‘The Investigator’ the show revealed nothing that wasn’t already in the public domain and was edited to make MWT look good. It’s all in the Court of Appeal decision at http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2003/1840.html
Anyway I don’t wish to harp on, but I often wonder if those who purport to be what they are not actually have a strong belief in justice for others…. or simply a desire to boost their own ego and line their own pockets.
Purporting to those who have suffered the loss of loved ones to be a seasoned and experienced investigator is not for me in the interests of justice. It is called giving false hope… as he did in the Investigator.
If David, as MWT said himself, you ‘dig around’, you’ll come to see he’s not all that he purports to be. In fact why not ask him face to face and see what he says. He knows what it’s like to be grilled after standing trial for Blackmail and being found not guilty.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/southern_counties/2957264.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/southern_counties/2963918.stm
Top barrister sparks social media row with telly-copper over Janner ‘trial of facts’
"The hack that dug up the dirt on Jimmy Savile has described some of Pump Court man’s Twitter followers as “pro paedophile”
Commenter says: "Remember that it was Mr Williams-Thomas who visited Oscar Pistorius during his trial and used the media to declare him innocent!"
https://www.legalcheek.com/2015/06/top-barrister-sparks-social-media-row-with-telly-copper-over-janner-trial-of-facts/
Was the Pistorious interview designed to manipulate?
https://allafrica.com/view/resource/main/main/id/00100764.html
-
Was Mark Williams Thomas involvement in this case designed to manipulate?
-
Was Mark Williams Thomas involvement in this case designed to manipulate?
"The collapse of Jonathan King’s trial raises questions about Surrey Police that go beyond disclosure failures"
http://barristerblogger.com/2018/08/08/the-collapse-of-jonathan-kings-trial-raises-questions-about-surrey-police-that-go-beyond-disclosure-failures/
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/mark_williams_thomas
http://barthsnotes.com/2018/08/09/jonathan-king-and-mark-williams-thomas-some-media-notes/
-
Michael Burke continues:
"I thought of the allegation Michelle has made and felt a little uneasy.
.. but it made me think that what Michelle had said was not very wise. She was safely at home in Cork, while my family had to live in London, and I would be travelling over and back alone for the foreseeable future.
Relations between some members of my family became strained as most felt that as Barry was convicted and appealed we should leave it as that. But I was convinced the conviction was unsafe.
I accepted that there was a possibility that Barry was the man, but the evidence used to convict him was unconvincing.
In late October I sent a strongly worded letter to MOJO complaining about their tactics. By now the website was taking shape, and I was involved in a struggle as to what direction it should take. The webmaster Mick Lynch wanted to portray Barry as innocent but I insisted we should question the safety of the conviction, rather than call it a Miscarriage of Justice. I wanted people to judge for themselves and in the end I won out.
What "tactics?"
-
"The collapse of Jonathan King’s trial raises questions about Surrey Police that go beyond disclosure failures"
http://barristerblogger.com/2018/08/08/the-collapse-of-jonathan-kings-trial-raises-questions-about-surrey-police-that-go-beyond-disclosure-failures/
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/mark_williams_thomas
http://barthsnotes.com/2018/08/09/jonathan-king-and-mark-williams-thomas-some-media-notes/
More re Mark Williams Thomas http://barthsnotes.com/2018/08/11/mark-williams-thomas-issues-statement-after-judge-references-alleged-attempts-to-gain-financial-advantage-from-selling-details/
THE PAEDOFILE: MARK WILLIAMS-THOMAS – Is there more we should know about the Paedofinder General?
https://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2013/12/04/the-paedofile-mark-williams-thomas-is-there-more-we-should-know-about-the-paedofinder-general/
-
I've already answered your questions.
My doubts remain, mainly due to how it (the case) has been presented in the media and by whom it has been presented.
"But the High Court ruled he did not qualify because jurors could still reasonably have convicted him despite new evidence that led to his acquittal.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21195269
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02n7rgj
What is Bates referring to re the Daily Mirror reporting? And from what newspapers did George win damages?
Reporter 'offered to sell names of victims'
"A FORMER police officer in the Jonathan King case who is now a TV documentary reporter offered to sell the names of the pop mogul’s victims, according to a judge.
Investigative reporter Mark Williams-Thomas, who made his name in a documentary exposing Jimmy Savile, has claimed to have solved a number of high-profile cases, including the murder of TV host Jill Dando.
But yesterday his professional reputation was called into question after Judge Deborah Taylor delivered a withering assessment of his previous work for Surrey Police on the King case. Before he left the force in October 2000 Mr Williams-Thomas was the detective who interviewed the first man to accuse King of sexual assault. He was subsequently accused – and acquitted – of blackmail in an unrelated case.
Yesterday the judge said: ‘ During the investigation into that offence a document was found on his computer offering for sale names and introductions to victims of Mr King.
‘There was also information that prior to Mr King’s arrest, Williams-Thomas said that he had been provided by a journalist with information about King. Williams-Thomas left taking his contemporaneous notebooks of his involvement with inquiries into Mr King with him.
‘No attempts had been made to obtain them, although it is the Crown’s position that he should not have taken them with him as they were the property of Surrey Police.’
The judge added that it had been suggested ‘there was deliberate concealment of his previous prosecution and of the documents indicating attempts to gain financial advantage from selling details of Mr King’s case’. Yesterday Mr Williams-Thomas denied ever knowing the victims’ identities, or offering them for sale.
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/daily-mail/20180807/281732680305413
-
.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02n7rgj
What is Bates referring to re the Daily Mirror reporting?
Oh, does she mean this?
"How police failed to trace 100 suspects in the Jill Dando murder - but questioned Cliff Richard and Jeremy Paxman to find out about her life https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3017544/How-police-failed-trace-100-suspects-Jill-Dando-murder-questioned-Cliff-Richard-Jeremy-Paxman-life.html
"Mark Williams-Thomas, the criminologist who helped expose Jimmy Savile as one of Britain's worst paedophiles, said today 'I have no doubt that the name of the killer or the person that arranged the 'professional hit' on is contained within the files'.
Imagine if it turned out to be Barry George all along?
-
"But his Irish sister – who recently launched an appeal for witnesses to
help her brother – said last night that although the family had
investigated the possibility of him doing one, they have been advised by
doctors against it.
Speaking from her Cork home, Michelle Diskin said: “We have thought
about it and taken medical advice but we have been told a lie test
wouldn’t work properly because of the condition he is in.
“He has suffered brain damage as a result of his years of having
epilepsy and it was main reason why he didn’t take the stand in his own
defence at his trail.
“It’s not so much that a lie test wouldn’t work, but it’s more that it
would have a better chance of not working properly because of his
condition and then Barry would just end up in a worse position than he
already is.
https://randomirishnews.com/2006/04/21/jill-dando-killer-barry-george-too-sick-for-lie-test/
"During medical examinations before his trial, it was discovered that George had suffered severe brain damage from a physical injury while in his 20s. Michelle says he does not know how it occurred, although she conjectures that perhaps it was something to do with his 'Steve Majors' phase
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-135212/My-brother-didnt-kill-Jill.html#ixzz5DQUKMFv4
"Research carried out by The Disabilities Trust Foundation shows nearly half of prisoners (47%) have a history of traumatic brain injury (TBI). https://www.thedtgroup.org/foundation/brain-injury-and-offending#LEE
-
Reporter 'offered to sell names of victims'
"A FORMER police officer in the Jonathan King case who is now a TV documentary reporter offered to sell the names of the pop mogul’s victims, according to a judge.
Investigative reporter Mark Williams-Thomas, who made his name in a documentary exposing Jimmy Savile, has claimed to have solved a number of high-profile cases, including the murder of TV host Jill Dando.
But yesterday his professional reputation was called into question after Judge Deborah Taylor delivered a withering assessment of his previous work for Surrey Police on the King case. Before he left the force in October 2000 Mr Williams-Thomas was the detective who interviewed the first man to accuse King of sexual assault. He was subsequently accused – and acquitted – of blackmail in an unrelated case.
Yesterday the judge said: ‘ During the investigation into that offence a document was found on his computer offering for sale names and introductions to victims of Mr King.
‘There was also information that prior to Mr King’s arrest, Williams-Thomas said that he had been provided by a journalist with information about King. Williams-Thomas left taking his contemporaneous notebooks of his involvement with inquiries into Mr King with him.
‘No attempts had been made to obtain them, although it is the Crown’s position that he should not have taken them with him as they were the property of Surrey Police.’
The judge added that it had been suggested ‘there was deliberate concealment of his previous prosecution and of the documents indicating attempts to gain financial advantage from selling details of Mr King’s case’. Yesterday Mr Williams-Thomas denied ever knowing the victims’ identities, or offering them for sale.
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/daily-mail/20180807/281732680305413
Jill Dando murder: Ex policeman claims he has the name of professional hitman who killed her
https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/jill-dandos-killer-finally-found-13020582
-
"......... In fact he told Merrion by e-mail he was ‘keen to be involved’ as he started the Jonathan King investigation, which actually started after he left the force and was investigated by other officers.
Merrion thought MWT would be useful as an ex Surrey officer to find out if they had carried out an investigation into Saville. MWT agreed to ‘dig around’… it’s all in the Pollard Review.
Newsnight visited the headquarters of Interpol in Lyon with Mark Willams Thomas, a criminologist and former child protection detective.
In the agency's Victim Identification Suite, Interpol officers demonstrated how central databases and international co-operation can aid rapid identification.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/9532058.stm
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/dec/24/newsnight-researcher-bbc
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/may/03/bbc-newsnight-jimmy-savile-report
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/our_work/pollard_review/pollard_review.pdf
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/may/29/bbc-newsnight-liz-mackean-channel-4
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/may/29/bbc-newsnight-liz-mackean-channel-4
Was Mark Williams Thomas involvement in this case designed to manipulate?
"Mark Williams-Thomas, who now works as a TV investigator, said in an exclusive interview with the Daily Mirror that she died at the orders of a Mr Big to warn off others from probing a crime clan.
He said: "My theory is that Jill was gunned down on the orders of a London underworld Mr Big to send out a direct, bloody message to others: "Do not take on organised crime."
Mr Williams-Thomas found an intelligence report naming two men from Islington, North London, who were said to be acting for one of the capital's biggest crime families after examined more than 52,000 documents in the Dando Files.
https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/jill-dando-shot-dead-because-2503
-
"The collapse of Jonathan King’s trial raises questions about Surrey Police that go beyond disclosure failures"
http://barristerblogger.com/2018/08/08/the-collapse-of-jonathan-kings-trial-raises-questions-about-surrey-police-that-go-beyond-disclosure-failures/
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/mark_williams_thomas
http://barthsnotes.com/2018/08/09/jonathan-king-and-mark-williams-thomas-some-media-notes/
Murder victims Grandson accuses Mark Williams Thomas of "Predatory actions"
http://barthsnotes.com/2018/08/16/murder-victims-grandson-accuses-mark-williams-thomas-of-predatory-actions/
Michelle Bates
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@neill_bob
,
@CommonsJustice
and
@cpsuk
Don’t let Alison Saunders make this about rape cases. Non disclosure in OTHER cases, too. Dando/George case, I have the letters to prove that. Jeremy Bamber case is an abomination. Noncompliance by police, they refuse to disclose evidence.
@Bambertweets
@tru68
@michaeljnaughto
7:36 am · 27 Jan 2018 https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/957155274485219328
-
Are you a victim of a genuine miscarriage of justice?
"In recent months, I have been working with the multi award winning investigative reporter, Mark Williams-Thomas, best known for his extraordinary investigative work leading to the exposure of Jimmy Savile. He has investigated, reviewed and reported on many of the biggest crime stories including: The Alps murders, Tia Sharp murder, Claudia Lawrence murder and the murder of Alice Gross, together with his work on the Oscar Pistorius trial in South Africa. His work has led to numerous awards, including two Royal Television Society Awards, a Broadcasting Press Guild Award and an International Peabody Award. He is also BAFTA nominated.
Mark is a highly skilled crime investigator. He has reviewed a number of high profile cases. He has a tenacious and meticulous approach to the cases he reviews, an approach which is seldom matched even by lawyers and those working in the criminal justice system. Mark’s reputation is built on his many successes and he has shown that he is not afraid to take on the establishment and uncover the truth.
Although much of Mark’s worked has focused on detecting crime, he has also reviewed many miscarriages of justice and is currently actively involved in some high-profile reviews with a view to reversing wrongful convictions and establishing the truth. As an example, he has worked on trying to assist Barry George, wrongly convicted of the murder of Jill Dando, and with his quest to obtain the justice it is strongly felt he deserves by getting compensation for having served a 9 year sentence for a crime he did not commit. He has been involved in a review of the disappearance of the Malaysian flight MH370 and is actively reviewing the murder conviction of a young dentist believed to have been wrongly convicted. It is no secret that Mark is a former police officer, but this has simply served to strengthen his ability to consider matters from both defence and prosecution perspectives when reviewing a case, which can only assist when looking at cases involving substantial injustice.
What is clear from Mark’s involvement in a case is not just his unrivalled approach to establishing what needs to be done to establish the truth, but how he achieves it. He has an extraordinary ability of understanding complex cases and establishing what went wrong at trial, and more importantly, what needs to be done. You only have to look at the resistance he must have faced when delving into the deep and murky world of Jimmy Savile when acknowledging just how successful he can be at uncovering the truth.
The significance of all this is that Mark and I have agreed to join forces with a view to reviewing 5 or so genuine miscarriages of justice. The cases we are looking to review need not be high profile, or even complex factually or legally, but simply where it is felt that with a further more detailed investigation, the truth can be exposed. It may be that various lines of enquiry need to be pursued which were perhaps considered not possible previously. This could be because witnesses would not come forward or could not be traced. It may be a case where there is a new theory to be explored as to who committed a crime that has resulted in the wrong person being convicted. It may be that enquiries need to be made of third parties who may hold and possess information that casts considerable doubt on the safety of a conviction. It may be that witnesses are out there who can be traced with a little digging who know the truth but simply need to be found. Equally, there may be concerns about a case that is still subject to an enquiry, and if charged a forensic investigation of the evidence leading to the charging decision may also be of great significance. As has been shown over the years, many overturned convictions in the court of appeal have resulted from a proper review of the unused evidence schedule. Many will know that this is a document prepared by the police and is often misleading, inaccurate or simply fails completely to record the full extent of an investigation. Lack of disclosure is a very common ground for appeal.
Mark and I will review the selected cases to uncover the fresh evidence that is needed to overturn a conviction. In addition, it may be that enquiries are received from suspects under investigation for serious offences where corruption or malpractice is alleged. It may be that our assistance in those cases and our intervention at an early stage can prevent wrongful conviction.
At first instance, those who wish to be considered for this should express their interest initially by writing to David Wells, Wells Burcombe. https://insidetime.org/are-you-a-victim-of-a-genuine-miscarriage-of-justice/
Michelle (Diskin) Bates says:
30th August 2017 at 8:45 am
A great great teaming. Miscarriage of justice victims need strong support and experienced, structured assistance to fight their convictions. Good luck with the new venture.
Michelle
(Barry George’s sister)
Cass says:
28th September 2017 at 2:42 pm
"I’m surprised David that as a qualified Solicitor and Barrister who has worked on some high profile cases that you haven’t done your homework on Mark Williams Thomas.
A bit of research will tell you that he was only a Detective for a year in Surrey then left, though I have heard he jumped before he was pushed.
He is not an expert in child protection, and a Masters in criminology, with no other post grad degree, doesn’t make him an expert in that field either.
His various CV’s about investigating or leading high profile cases are I would argue also untrue as Senior officers lead investigations.
Credit due for his dogged work in the Saville case, but he was invited on board by Merrion Jones after a lot of ground work was done. In fact he told Merrion by e-mail he was ‘keen to be involved’ as he started the Jonathan King investigation, which actually started after he left the force and was investigated by other officers.
Merrion thought MWT would be useful as an ex Surrey officer to find out if they had carried out an investigation into Saville. MWT agreed to ‘dig around’… it’s all in the Pollard Review.
As for ‘The Investigator’ the show revealed nothing that wasn’t already in the public domain and was edited to make MWT look good. It’s all in the Court of Appeal decision at http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2003/1840.html
Anyway I don’t wish to harp on, but I often wonder if those who purport to be what they are not actually have a strong belief in justice for others…. or simply a desire to boost their own ego and line their own pockets.
Purporting to those who have suffered the loss of loved ones to be a seasoned and experienced investigator is not for me in the interests of justice. It is called giving false hope… as he did in the Investigator.
If David, as MWT said himself, you ‘dig around’, you’ll come to see he’s not all that he purports to be. In fact why not ask him face to face and see what he says. He knows what it’s like to be grilled after standing trial for Blackmail and being found not guilty.
"Adding fuel to the fire was a British former policeman and TV celebrity, Mark Williams-Thomas, who made the 2012 TV documentary which exposed the crimes of Jimmy Savile. Working with UK lawyer David Wells, he travelled to KL and compiled – at a cost of £8,000 – an unofficial report for Ivana’s family. Last week Wells issued a press release, headlined: ‘Model’s fatal fall was no accident, conclude St Albans solicitor and private investigator duo.’ They say they have ‘no doubt’ that in Britain, Ivana’s death would be treated as homicide. https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-mail-on-sunday/20180401/281822874356022
-
Are you a victim of a genuine miscarriage of justice?
"In recent months, I have been working with the multi award winning investigative reporter, Mark Williams-Thomas, best known for his extraordinary investigative work leading to the exposure of Jimmy Savile. He has investigated, reviewed and reported on many of the biggest crime stories including: The Alps murders, Tia Sharp murder, Claudia Lawrence murder and the murder of Alice Gross, together with his work on the Oscar Pistorius trial in South Africa. His work has led to numerous awards, including two Royal Television Society Awards, a Broadcasting Press Guild Award and an International Peabody Award. He is also BAFTA nominated.
Mark is a highly skilled crime investigator. He has reviewed a number of high profile cases. He has a tenacious and meticulous approach to the cases he reviews, an approach which is seldom matched even by lawyers and those working in the criminal justice system. Mark’s reputation is built on his many successes and he has shown that he is not afraid to take on the establishment and uncover the truth.
Although much of Mark’s worked has focused on detecting crime, he has also reviewed many miscarriages of justice and is currently actively involved in some high-profile reviews with a view to reversing wrongful convictions and establishing the truth. As an example, he has worked on trying to assist Barry George, wrongly convicted of the murder of Jill Dando, and with his quest to obtain the justice it is strongly felt he deserves by getting compensation for having served a 9 year sentence for a crime he did not commit. He has been involved in a review of the disappearance of the Malaysian flight MH370 and is actively reviewing the murder conviction of a young dentist believed to have been wrongly convicted. It is no secret that Mark is a former police officer, but this has simply served to strengthen his ability to consider matters from both defence and prosecution perspectives when reviewing a case, which can only assist when looking at cases involving substantial injustice.
What is clear from Mark’s involvement in a case is not just his unrivalled approach to establishing what needs to be done to establish the truth, but how he achieves it. He has an extraordinary ability of understanding complex cases and establishing what went wrong at trial, and more importantly, what needs to be done. You only have to look at the resistance he must have faced when delving into the deep and murky world of Jimmy Savile when acknowledging just how successful he can be at uncovering the truth.
The significance of all this is that Mark and I have agreed to join forces with a view to reviewing 5 or so genuine miscarriages of justice. The cases we are looking to review need not be high profile, or even complex factually or legally, but simply where it is felt that with a further more detailed investigation, the truth can be exposed. It may be that various lines of enquiry need to be pursued which were perhaps considered not possible previously. This could be because witnesses would not come forward or could not be traced. It may be a case where there is a new theory to be explored as to who committed a crime that has resulted in the wrong person being convicted. It may be that enquiries need to be made of third parties who may hold and possess information that casts considerable doubt on the safety of a conviction. It may be that witnesses are out there who can be traced with a little digging who know the truth but simply need to be found. Equally, there may be concerns about a case that is still subject to an enquiry, and if charged a forensic investigation of the evidence leading to the charging decision may also be of great significance. As has been shown over the years, many overturned convictions in the court of appeal have resulted from a proper review of the unused evidence schedule. Many will know that this is a document prepared by the police and is often misleading, inaccurate or simply fails completely to record the full extent of an investigation. Lack of disclosure is a very common ground for appeal.
Mark and I will review the selected cases to uncover the fresh evidence that is needed to overturn a conviction. In addition, it may be that enquiries are received from suspects under investigation for serious offences where corruption or malpractice is alleged. It may be that our assistance in those cases and our intervention at an early stage can prevent wrongful conviction.
At first instance, those who wish to be considered for this should express their interest initially by writing to David Wells, Wells Burcombe. https://insidetime.org/are-you-a-victim-of-a-genuine-miscarriage-of-justice/
Michelle (Diskin) Bates says:
30th August 2017 at 8:45 am
A great great teaming. Miscarriage of justice victims need strong support and experienced, structured assistance to fight their convictions. Good luck with the new venture.
Michelle
(Barry George’s sister)
Cass says:
28th September 2017 at 2:42 pm
"I’m surprised David that as a qualified Solicitor and Barrister who has worked on some high profile cases that you haven’t done your homework on Mark Williams Thomas.
A bit of research will tell you that he was only a Detective for a year in Surrey then left, though I have heard he jumped before he was pushed.
He is not an expert in child protection, and a Masters in criminology, with no other post grad degree, doesn’t make him an expert in that field either.
His various CV’s about investigating or leading high profile cases are I would argue also untrue as Senior officers lead investigations.
Credit due for his dogged work in the Saville case, but he was invited on board by Merrion Jones after a lot of ground work was done. In fact he told Merrion by e-mail he was ‘keen to be involved’ as he started the Jonathan King investigation, which actually started after he left the force and was investigated by other officers.
Merrion thought MWT would be useful as an ex Surrey officer to find out if they had carried out an investigation into Saville. MWT agreed to ‘dig around’… it’s all in the Pollard Review.
As for ‘The Investigator’ the show revealed nothing that wasn’t already in the public domain and was edited to make MWT look good. It’s all in the Court of Appeal decision at http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2003/1840.html
Anyway I don’t wish to harp on, but I often wonder if those who purport to be what they are not actually have a strong belief in justice for others…. or simply a desire to boost their own ego and line their own pockets.
Purporting to those who have suffered the loss of loved ones to be a seasoned and experienced investigator is not for me in the interests of justice. It is called giving false hope… as he did in the Investigator.
If David, as MWT said himself, you ‘dig around’, you’ll come to see he’s not all that he purports to be. In fact why not ask him face to face and see what he says. He knows what it’s like to be grilled after standing trial for Blackmail and being found not guilty.
"Adding fuel to the fire was a British former policeman and TV celebrity, Mark Williams-Thomas, who made the 2012 TV documentary which exposed the crimes of Jimmy Savile. Working with UK lawyer David Wells, he travelled to KL and compiled – at a cost of £8,000 – an unofficial report for Ivana’s family. Last week Wells issued a press release, headlined: ‘Model’s fatal fall was no accident, conclude St Albans solicitor and private investigator duo.’ They say they have ‘no doubt’ that in Britain, Ivana’s death would be treated as homicide. https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-mail-on-sunday/20180401/281822874356022
"Barry George had a gun pressed to his head and was told “watch your back” shortly after he was acquitted of BBC star Jill Dando’s murder.
He believes the threat came from somebody linked to the killing of the Crimewatch presenter in 1999.
Making a rare return to the street where he was living at the time, Barry, 58, adds that after one wrongful conviction he fears police will arrest him for something else he did not do.
Despite being acquitted 10 years ago he says he does “not feel free” and is “looking over my shoulder”.
After being found guilty in 2001 of murdering Jill, Barry was cleared at a retrial in 2008.
He was living in Hackney, East London, the following year when the chilling threat was made.
Barry says: “When I was in emergency accommodation in Hackney, I was stood in a long hallway and I had a gun put to my head and was told ‘Watch your back
“I went to the police station and told them and they gave me lip service. I was living in fear.
“There were two things in my mind: I’ve been acquitted of this crime and then I get a gun to my head.
“There was talk of a Serbian hit team involved in Jill’s killing.
“We think it must have been someone who had a link to the murder. It’s too much of a coincidence.” He added: “I didn’t get a look at them.”
The Met police confirmed a man then in his 40s reported an incident in Hackney in May 2009, but were unable to give full details of the probe.
David Wells, a criminal defence specialist at Wells Burcombe Solicitors, accompanied Barry to the police station to report the threat.
David said: “He was incredibly distressed... sweating, out of breath and in quite a state.
“I’d seen Barry on many occasions and I had never seen him this distressed.
“Barry repeated that someone pointed a gun at him and made a threat – he appeared highly credible.
"He was very afraid. It could well have been someone linked to the murder of Jill Dando.
“It does seem unlikely someone would randomly select Barry out of millions in London and threaten him and put a gun to his head after his acquittal...
"If indeed it was rated as a serious complaint and investigated by police, nothing came of it
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/gunman-told-barry-george-watch-12932133
-
Michelle Bate's:
"More men have since joined us and, as a group we have planned a protest to coincide with day one of the Magna Carta 800 year commemoration, which takes place at Westminster on 23rd February.
The Magna Carta enshrines ‘Justice for all’, but we will be highlighting the fact that there is no justice for the little man
https://www.thejusticegap.com/innocent-innocent-enough/
"Mr George, along with three other men who have had their convictions quashed - Victor Nealon, Martin Foran and James Boyle - will protest later outside a global law summit taking place in central London.
The government introduced new legislation in 2014 which made changes to the compensation scheme, creating a statutory definition of what constitutes a "miscarriage of justice".
Now compensation is only paid when the court quashes a conviction because a new fact has emerged to show beyond reasonable doubt that the applicant did not commit the offence.
In an interview with Radio 5 live Breakfast, Mr George's sister Michelle Bates said: "In the British justice system you are innocent until proven guilty.
"To say that Barry should prove his innocence after his conviction was quashed is ridiculous. There is no court in the land where you can prove your innocence. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31578422
James Boyle
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/local-news/group-say-rutherglen-man-should-8925437
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13085281.Classroom_watchdog_finds_teacher_guilty_of_rape/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-20769477
https://stv.tv/news/west-central/206463-ex-teacher-cleared-of-rape-and-sex-abuse-fails-to-return-to-schools/
-
Murder victims Grandson accuses Mark Williams Thomas of "Predatory actions"
http://barthsnotes.com/2018/08/16/murder-victims-grandson-accuses-mark-williams-thomas-of-predatory-actions/
Michelle Bates
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@neill_bob
,
@CommonsJustice
and
@cpsuk
Don’t let Alison Saunders make this about rape cases. Non disclosure in OTHER cases, too. Dando/George case, I have the letters to prove that. Jeremy Bamber case is an abomination. Noncompliance by police, they refuse to disclose evidence.
@Bambertweets
@tru68
@michaeljnaughto
7:36 am · 27 Jan 2018 https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/957155274485219328
Fanning the flames in the Ethical Vacuum.
by Anna Raccoon on November 30, 2012
‘It’s all the fault of the Internet’, cries the dead tree press. ‘We have to compete with them, and their wild landscape, and that has driven us to excesses we would never have thought of without their insane ramblings’.
Remarkable then, that Leveson has devoted 1973 pages to how the dead tree press should be behaving, and the nature of the naughty step that he thinks they should sit on when they fail to behave, and a mere 12 pages to the Internet that they claim to be aping in their rush to compete. The Internet is, Leveson says, an ‘ethical vacuum’, and as with the Curate’s egg, that is surely true in parts. Like Catholic priests, he believes the media should remain celibate, and foreswear the cyber pleasures. Theirs is a higher calling – that to inform, educate and entertain.
This morning, they are doing their best to do just that. To a man, they have eyed the excesses of ‘Rolf’ trending on Twitter, made their excuses and left, in time honoured fashion, pausing only to confirm that ‘an 80 year old man from Berkshire was interviewed under caution by appointment on matters not directly related to Savile’. Perfect – the Internet can do their dirty work for them, and they can merely slyly confirm that actually ‘it’ is on the right track, giving lofty credence to the rumours.
At a stroke, Leveson has ensured that in future the newspapers will behave – or face strict regulation to ensure that they do so. He has also ensured that it is the Internet which will be seen as the villain in the piece; the child that was left standing on the doorstep after the big boys had run away. Leveson claims that he was only mandated to look at the print media, not the Internet. Once the print media is behaving, assuming that this continues to happen as it has today, there will surely be renewed calls for a similar Inquiry into the Internet. Divide and Conquer.
That being said, we should look at who and why is busy fanning the flames in the Internet. Yesterday, whilst the Police were being suitably circumspect in giving information regarding the fact that ‘an 80 year old man’ had attended ‘an interview’ by appointment – which could be anything from, for instance, their role as Landlord of premises that might be of interest, to an allegation that had been made directly about them – ‘under caution’, which merely means that whatever they said was being formally recorded. The media followed in similar fashion.
However, someone, who self evidently didn’t get their information from either the media or officially from the Metropolitan Police, was very keen that the Internet should be given a new football to kick around. That someone was an ex-policeman.
(See link for screenshot)
Mark Williams-Thomas. A police constable who had finally climbed the greasy pole to get away from pounding the streets after 11 long years, and made it to Detective Constable – only to pack the job in a brief 12 months later. Mr Williams-Thomas claims to have ‘15 years in child protection‘ – the obvious inference from this statement, if not read in conjunction with his police record, would be that this was within a formal, professional environment such as the police. But he was only in the police for 12 years, and some of those would have been as a probationary PC. So a self made expert then?
When Mr Williams-Thomas first emerged from the police service, he described himself as a ‘freelance investigative journalist’. A much misunderstood ‘investigative journalist’, certainly misunderstood by one of his first subjects who was under the erroneous impression that Williams-Thomas was trying to blackmail him rather than document wrong doing within his organisation, a matter happily discharged by a jury.
A man who has since reinvented himself as a ‘child protection’ expert and talking head of choice to several TV stations whenever the issue of child abuse comes up. Madeleine McCann, Tia Sharp, Ashleigh Hall. A man who says he is all too well aware of the dangers to children posed by the Internet…and the need for, in his view, ‘policing’ of the Internet.
For the internet is full of people with sexually deviant desires – the level of danger goes way beyond even the most worried parent’s imagination.
Now why would someone who wants to see the Internet more effectively regulated and policed, ignore the restrained and professional behaviour of his ex-colleagues and the new found restraint of the print media – and, surely unintentionally, surely, be the cause of much possibly libellous chatter, speculation and gossip on the Internet by naming – and ‘hash-tagging’ with ‘Savile’ and ‘Sexual’ the mystery 80 year old as Rolf Harris?
The cynical amongst us, including myself, could almost believe that it was in such a persons interests to fan the flames in the ‘Ethical Vacuum’. Either that or he is a complete dipstick.
I can feel only sympathy for Rolf Harris – and his wife. We have absolutely no idea whatsoever why he was interviewed. It could have been as tenuous as having been named as an ‘alibi’ by someone else. At 80 years old though, at the end of his life, when he should have been reflecting with some satisfaction on his legacy, he is now subject to endless speculation on the Internet that he may be connected with such a vile practice as Paedophilia. Responsible people in the police and media gave him the benefit of the doubt pending concrete information, and chose not to link his name to Savile and the various allegations.
Mark Williams-Thomas didn’t.
‘Why not’? – is a question I shall ponder more over the coming weeks.
https://annaraccoon.com/2012/11/30/fanning-the-flames-in-the-ethical-vacuum/
-
Wonder what Barry George and his sister Michelle Bate's have to say about this nonsense?
DID SAVILE ORDER JILL DANDO’S MURDER?
She was going to expose him, says new book
November 2016
"JILL Dando was murdered on the orders of Jimmy Savile because the late Crimewatch presenter was just about to expose the meganonce’s vile crimes.
What’s more, the authorities KNEW that Savile was the ‘ Mr Big’ who ordered the hit but were powerless to act as the DJ and industrial scale kiddy- fiddler was protected by shadowy Establishment figures.
That is the chilling theory proposed by author John Gilchrist, who has spent the last two years researching links between Savile and Jill’s murder.
The 37- year- old TV presenter was shot dead on April 26, 1999, on the doorstep of her home in west London. The crime remains unsolved to this day.
In 2001, Barry George was wrongly convicted of the murder and spent seven years behind bars before he was freed on appeal.
Disgrace
John reckons that Mr George was set up as a “fall guy” to divert attention away from Savile, who died in 2011, aged 84.
The author said: “The whole case is tragic, chilling and a disgrace to Britain. It was particularly tragic for Barry George, who rotted in jail for years, wrongly convicted of killing Jill.”
John claims Jill was told that DJs, celebrities and other staff were involved in organised abuse and that Savile “topped the list”.
But an anonymous source told him that “no- one wanted to know” when Jill raised concerns about the alleged ring and other sexual abuse claims at the BBC.
The source is quoted by John as saying: “I think Jill was shocked by what she was told and made it her business to stop it.
“She was a woman on a mission – and that mission terrified Savile. Nobody at the BBC had stood up to him before.
“Savile considered sexually smearing Jill through his contacts in the media but that was a non- runner. Jill was too popular.
“She had to die… and it was Savile who gave the order.”
John says that Savile “called in a favour” from underworld pals, who blasted Jill to death on the doorstep of her home.
Theories about her death ranged from the culprit being a Serbian warlord angry over her TV appeal on behalf of Kosovan refugees, to British underworld enforcers who were furious at her
Crimewatch investigations. But the paedophile ring link appears to be the only one that still holds water.
John said: “It was a massive job to protect Savile from investigation but the people shielding him are among the most powerful in the land.
“Even with Savile dead, the cover- up continues – if details ever came out it would rock the government, the civil service, the courts… the lot.”
Meanwhile, a former Scotland Yard Flying Squad boss revealed his former colleagues ignored ‘ excellent leads’ into the unsolved murder of Jill Dando.
John O’Connor said: “I was given an excellent lead that was ignored.
“The Met did nothing with it. It was quite clear this was a pro hit by a trained assassin.
Witness
“The person identified was a significant and key witness. But the Met just shut its eyes to everything else, once they’d nicked poor Barry George.”
Mr O’Connor now wants Home Secretary Amber Rudd to look into the unsolved case.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: “The Metropolitan Police Service fully investigated the circumstances into the murder of Jill Dando.
“If any new information comes to our attention this will be investigated.”
Last year, it was revealed that more than 100 potential murder suspects who could have shot dead Jill Dando on her doorstep in a ‘ professional hit’ were never traced by police.
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/sunday-sport/20161127/282626032287910
Jill Dando raised alarm about ‘paedophile ring at BBC’ - By JOHN CARR
00:01, Mon, Jul 21, 2014
"MURDERED television presenter Jill Dando tried to alert her bosses to a paedophile ring at the BBC involving “big name” stars, claims a former colleague.
"The friend and retired BBC worker said the late Crimewatch host was told DJs, celebrities and other staff were involved in organised abuse.
But the anonymous source says “no one wanted to know” when Miss Dando raised concerns about the alleged ring and other sexual abuse claims at the BBC.
She is said to have passed a file to senior management in the mid-1990s, but they never carried out an investigation.
The 37-year-old TV presenter was shot dead on April 26, 1999, on the doorstep of her home in west London. The crime remains unsolved.
The source said: “I don’t recall the names of all the stars now and don’t want to implicate anyone, but Jill said they were surprisingly big names.
“I think she was quite shocked when told about images of children and that information on how to join this horrible paedophile ring was freely available.
“Jill said others had complained to her about sexual matters and that some female workmates also claimed they had been groped or assaulted.
“Nothing had been done and there seemed to be a policy of turning a blind eye.”
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/490169/Dando-alarm-paedophile-ring-BBC
"Knowing God Personally
The Christian Message to the Muslim World
By John Gilchrist
https://www.answering-islam.org/authors/gilchrist/knowing_god.html
-
Getting it wrong once was bad enough but Sandra Lean got it wrong twice that we definitely know about. She went to great lengths to campaign for killers Adrian Prout and Simon Hall yet both men eventually admitted their guilt. I for one would certainly question her judgement.
Michelle Bates involvement in the Bamber case is surprising given what we know about the conviction. Jeremy Bamber is certainly no Barry George, the two cases couldn't be more different.
What surprises you about Michelle Bate's involvement with Jeremy Bamber?
You only need look at some of the other people she's been involved with to recognise it's not just Sandra Lean's judgement that's lacking.
(Wonder who'll be the first to post to remind me of the Simon Hall case?)
-
Wonder what Barry George and his sister Michelle Bate's have to say about this nonsense?
DID SAVILE ORDER JILL DANDO’S MURDER?
She was going to expose him, says new book
November 2016
"JILL Dando was murdered on the orders of Jimmy Savile because the late Crimewatch presenter was just about to expose the meganonce’s vile crimes.
What’s more, the authorities KNEW that Savile was the ‘ Mr Big’ who ordered the hit but were powerless to act as the DJ and industrial scale kiddy- fiddler was protected by shadowy Establishment figures.
That is the chilling theory proposed by author John Gilchrist, who has spent the last two years researching links between Savile and Jill’s murder.
The 37- year- old TV presenter was shot dead on April 26, 1999, on the doorstep of her home in west London. The crime remains unsolved to this day.
In 2001, Barry George was wrongly convicted of the murder and spent seven years behind bars before he was freed on appeal.
Disgrace
John reckons that Mr George was set up as a “fall guy” to divert attention away from Savile, who died in 2011, aged 84.
The author said: “The whole case is tragic, chilling and a disgrace to Britain. It was particularly tragic for Barry George, who rotted in jail for years, wrongly convicted of killing Jill.”
John claims Jill was told that DJs, celebrities and other staff were involved in organised abuse and that Savile “topped the list”.
But an anonymous source told him that “no- one wanted to know” when Jill raised concerns about the alleged ring and other sexual abuse claims at the BBC.
The source is quoted by John as saying: “I think Jill was shocked by what she was told and made it her business to stop it.
“She was a woman on a mission – and that mission terrified Savile. Nobody at the BBC had stood up to him before.
“Savile considered sexually smearing Jill through his contacts in the media but that was a non- runner. Jill was too popular.
“She had to die… and it was Savile who gave the order.”
John says that Savile “called in a favour” from underworld pals, who blasted Jill to death on the doorstep of her home.
Theories about her death ranged from the culprit being a Serbian warlord angry over her TV appeal on behalf of Kosovan refugees, to British underworld enforcers who were furious at her
Crimewatch investigations. But the paedophile ring link appears to be the only one that still holds water.
John said: “It was a massive job to protect Savile from investigation but the people shielding him are among the most powerful in the land.
“Even with Savile dead, the cover- up continues – if details ever came out it would rock the government, the civil service, the courts… the lot.”
Meanwhile, a former Scotland Yard Flying Squad boss revealed his former colleagues ignored ‘ excellent leads’ into the unsolved murder of Jill Dando.
John O’Connor said: “I was given an excellent lead that was ignored.
“The Met did nothing with it. It was quite clear this was a pro hit by a trained assassin.
Witness
“The person identified was a significant and key witness. But the Met just shut its eyes to everything else, once they’d nicked poor Barry George.”
Mr O’Connor now wants Home Secretary Amber Rudd to look into the unsolved case.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: “The Metropolitan Police Service fully investigated the circumstances into the murder of Jill Dando.
“If any new information comes to our attention this will be investigated.”
Last year, it was revealed that more than 100 potential murder suspects who could have shot dead Jill Dando on her doorstep in a ‘ professional hit’ were never traced by police.
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/sunday-sport/20161127/282626032287910
Jill Dando raised alarm about ‘paedophile ring at BBC’ - By JOHN CARR
00:01, Mon, Jul 21, 2014
"MURDERED television presenter Jill Dando tried to alert her bosses to a paedophile ring at the BBC involving “big name” stars, claims a former colleague.
"The friend and retired BBC worker said the late Crimewatch host was told DJs, celebrities and other staff were involved in organised abuse.
But the anonymous source says “no one wanted to know” when Miss Dando raised concerns about the alleged ring and other sexual abuse claims at the BBC.
She is said to have passed a file to senior management in the mid-1990s, but they never carried out an investigation.
The 37-year-old TV presenter was shot dead on April 26, 1999, on the doorstep of her home in west London. The crime remains unsolved.
The source said: “I don’t recall the names of all the stars now and don’t want to implicate anyone, but Jill said they were surprisingly big names.
“I think she was quite shocked when told about images of children and that information on how to join this horrible paedophile ring was freely available.
“Jill said others had complained to her about sexual matters and that some female workmates also claimed they had been groped or assaulted.
“Nothing had been done and there seemed to be a policy of turning a blind eye.”
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/490169/Dando-alarm-paedophile-ring-BBC
"Knowing God Personally
The Christian Message to the Muslim World
By John Gilchrist
https://www.answering-islam.org/authors/gilchrist/knowing_god.html
So who is John Gilchrist alleged annonymous source!
-
Barry George's uncle Mike Burke said in his book, "The investigation into the disappearance of Madaleine McCann was possibly the only case to receive more attention than Dando's murder."
He goes on to say;
"I was quite annoyed when I read reports of Doctor Michael Kopelmans medical opinion of Barry.it seemed to me that Barry's inappropriate behaviour was being blamed on the overall family. I sent a protest to Jeremy Moore. In my opinion one is responsible for ones own actions. And it is a cop out to try and blame ones bad behaviour on the family.
Wasn't part of George's defence based on genetics?
A further example of his exhibitionistic and obsessive mentality comes from his medical history. George attended no less than eighteen different surgeries in West London at various times and was known as a “heart sink” patient because he was constantly coming in with imagined ailments.
Doctors who examined George after his arrest diagnosed an impressive array of psychiatric disorders: psychopathic person- ality, narcissistic personality, histrionic personality, paranoid personality and Asperger’s Syndrome (a disorder linked to aut- ism). As a boy he was diagnosed as suffering from attention hyperactivity disorder. George was also diagnosed as having somatisation disorder and concurrent factitious disorder.
Whether psychiatric diagnoses mean anything is debatable. However, the police and courts credit them and therefore should have taken them into account before a prosecution was mounted. The interesting thing about these diagnoses is that they relate to personality traits which could innocently explain every part of George’s supposedly suspicious behaviour both before and after the Dando murder. A psychopathic personality is prone to lying and using aliases. A narcissistic personality is one who urgently seeks attention and admiration and has a heightened sense of self-importance. A histrionic personality will imagine they have a well developed relationship with someone they do not know at all in a personal sense. A para- noid personality has obvious ramifications for George’s suspi- cion of the police. Asperger’s sufferers have major problems with personal relationships and a tendency to become ob- sessive. Finally, somatisation disorder and concurrent facti- tious disorder explained his imagined illnesses.http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/legan/legan037.pdf
"Research suggests that genetics, abuse and other factors contribute to the development of obsessive-compulsive, narcissistic or other personality disorders.
In the past, some believed that people with personality disorders were just lazy or even evil. But new research has begun to explore such potential causes as genetics, parenting and peer influences:http://www.apa.org/topics/personality/disorders-causes.aspx
Jill Dando murder trial: Experts were split on Barry George's behaviour
https://www.scotsman.com/news/uk/jill-dando-murder-trial-experts-were-split-on-barry-george-s-behaviour-1-1083223
"JURORS were asked to consider whether Barry George was a harmless "local nutter" – or a dangerous celebrity-obsessed stalker with a grudge against women.
Experts called by the prosecution and defence came up with rival theories to explain his behaviour
wever, Dr Philip Joseph, another leading psychiatrist who was called by the prosecution, said George was "far more competent" than tests would suggest and capable of lying in police interviews.
While some of his behaviour could be attributed to his epilepsy and cognitive impairment, his stalking of women appeared to stem from an "intense anger" caused by rejection, Dr Joseph said.
He also said that George developed a "fantasy world" in which he believed he knew famous people.
-
Does anyone know the outcome of the following?
"He had been labelled as posing ''a high-level risk'' despite his acquittal of the Dando murder. His other two spent convictions, dating from 1983, could not justify interference with his liberty.
Mr George has a pending High Court hearing challenging the decision to keep his movements under supervision, expected to be heard early in the New Year
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/6833611/Barry-George-wants-police-off-his-back-court-hears.html
All I could find was this https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11081686
Suggesting it may have been dropped? Anyone?
-
"Since his acquittal last year he has been on the highest category list of a Multi-Agency PublicProtection Arrangement, which involves police visiting his home every three months.
Mr George, 49, will argue in the High Court that this gives police the authority to stop him for no reason and prevents him leading a normal life.
Since his release he has been stopped in the street 15 times.
On one occasion officers said that he had looked at them in a “funny way” and at another time he was accused of paying “close attention to coffee shops”.
Mr George was also stopped by police during a visit to the Isle of Wight and, while visiting family in Ireland, was taken to a city centre police station in Cork by officers from the Gardai.
He has moved to Hackney, east London, from Fulham in west London, where he lived before his imprisonment and where TV presenter Jill was shot dead on her doorstep in 1999.
His new housing authority, which has a duty to give him a home following his quashed sentence, has not allowed him to move from rented emergency accommodation because of his “high-risk” status. Mr George has convictions for indecent assault and attempted rape dating back to 1983 but it is claimed they happened too long ago to justify the monitoring.
At a preliminary hearing, Ian Glen, QC, said that his client wants to “get the police off his back” so he can rebuild his life.
He said: “Paying close attention to coffee shops is not an offence as far as I know.
“To be stopped for reasons such as that, and there are many, many other examples we will submit, is disproportionate interference with his liberties.”
The Metropolitan Police, acting in court in defence of the Mappa order, said any street stops are nothing to do with it.
His new housing authority, which has a duty to give him a home following his quashed sentence, has not allowed him to move from rented emergency accommodation because of his “high-risk” status. Mr George has convictions for indecent assault and attempted rape dating back to 1983 but it is claimed they happened too long ago to justify the monitoring.
At a preliminary hearing, Ian Glen, QC, said that his client wants to “get the police off his back” so he can rebuild his life.
He said: “Paying close attention to coffee shops is not an offence as far as I know.
“To be stopped for reasons such as that, and there are many, many other examples we will submit, is disproportionate interference with his liberties.”
The Metropolitan Police, acting in court in defence of the Mappa order, said any street stops are nothing to do with it.
James Dingemans QC told the hearing: “Harassment allegations that came to light during the Dando investigation are still relevant..”
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/148232/Police-harass-Jill-Dando-case-man
-
Michelle Bates writes and I quote,
"Justice is never served by the conviction of the innocent" by Michelle Bates on the 31st Anniversary of the tragedies (Jerrmy Bamber case)
"Becoming aware of a breaking-news story I began to listen in more closely. A siege was taking place at a farmhouse in England. The broadcaster relayed that five people were inside and there was great fear for their safety. As the story unfolded it became apparent that this was an older couple. A farmer and retired Magistrate, Nevill Bamber and his wife, June; their daughter, Sheila, and her six year old twin sons. Jeremy, their son, was outside with police who were trying to communicate with someone inside the house who had been seen pacing back and forth in front of an upstairs window and carrying a firearm. The reporter said that police were reluctant to get too close to the house for fear of causing that person to become more agitated, thereby, escalating the danger to the family. I watched for an hour or so but there was no resolution and, heavily pregnant, I became exhausted and had to go off to bed.
No one was seen pacing back and forth carrying a firearm - this is a lie
Awaking early I was anxious for news, hopefully of a rescue, so I put the News on immediately. The siege was over, police had stormed the house and five bodies had been found inside. I was heartbroken, a whole family! My heart went out to the young man who had waited all night long with the police for news of his family; this was not what he wanted to hear.
There was no live TV coverage during the time Bamber was outside the farmhouse with the police - another lie
My own child was born a few days later and I became engrossed in motherhood. It was a real shock to hear, sometime later, that the son, Jeremy Bamber, had been arrested for the killings…how was that possible when he was outside during the siege and everyone knew that? I presumed the police knew something we did not; there must have been strong evidence to convict a man of killing his entire family…I pushed my unease aside and got on with motherhood and my own life.
Since then I have revisited the facts of this case in light of so many high-profile miscarriage of justice cases coming to light, including that of my own brother, Barry George, for the murder of Jill Dando. More recently we’ve heard of the lies and cover-ups in the Hillsborough deaths and The Chilcot report exposing the same type of cover ups in the Iraqi war scandal. In the Bamber case I can find no evidence to convince me of the guilt of this man. Nothing that can account for a man languishing in jail for more than thirty years. How did a jury convict a young man without proof?
Our justice system is predicated on the ‘presumption of innocence’ and also on ‘beyond reasonable doubt,’ but there is so much doubt surrounding this conviction that this case must be looked into again, urgently. The CCRC and the Court of Appeal seem to be reluctant to do this, and the police, for their part, have been withholding evidence from the defendant. It will cost thousands of pounds to, again, take them to court to force them to hand over the papers and forensic results that the court has already told them they must do. They have also effectively ‘locked down’ documents in the case under a PII* order; what is there to hide? Meanwhile, a man is fighting a conviction for multiple murders that there is no proof he committed. Surely this is not the justice system his father, a Magistrate was proud to be a part of? https://jeremybamber.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/justice-is-never-served-by-conviction.html
Barry George had his conviction quashed. He's not been paid awarded compensation because he's not innocent enough. A judge concluded a jury properly directed may have come to a different conclusion; words to that effect
Michelle Bates is claiming Jeremy Bamber is innocent, she says the same about her brother?
Mark Williams Thomas was involved in both the Bamber and George cases, one via a TV documentary the other a newspaper series.
Who should we believe? I do not believe Michelle Bates!
Furthermore, Michael Mansfield QC was misled in relation to the Simon Hall case. He could have been misled in relation to Barry George. Personality disordered individuals can be extremely convincing.
Mrs Bates further claims in the Bamber case: "Dead people don’t walk (and two only became one at marriage!). Sheila alive, even when police stormed the building. Tragic murder/suicide. 😢 https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/917077719749361664
.Michelle Bates involvement in the Bamber case is surprising given what we know about the conviction. Jeremy Bamber is certainly no Barry George, the two cases couldn't be more different.
Together magazine speaks to Michelle Diskin, sister of Barry George, the man who was wrongly convicted for the murder of Jill Dando.
You have become a campaigner for other cases of miscarriage of justice. Can you tell us why you decided to get involved and about the work that you do?
Michelle Diskin Bate's states:
"The decision to speak out about other wrongful convictions was not one I took lightly. Historically, we can see that people who do so are often maligned for their efforts. I took my concerns to God … what should I do? He gave me the same answer he had given me in Barry’s case: he said STAND. Therefore, I take every opportunity to point people to the true facts of these cases. It is not enough to make judgements based solely on the media’s slanted editorials. I still speak at miscarriage of justice conventions, and also address universities to encourage and inform the next generation of legal students.
Finally, do you have a personal message for any bookshop manager, reading this, who has to decide whether to stock your book?
Michelle Diskin Bate's:
"I have long felt that this book should have a Christian publisher, and should be distributed through Christian bookshops because of the testimony of how God brought us through this ordeal. Stand Against Injustice has a Christian message about injustice and I believe this story will reignite the interest of the public and show how God is working in our lives, daily, in a very real way.
https://clcbookshops.com/post/stand-against-injustice-jill-dando-murder
Here are Mike Tesco's statements on "Who or what is God"
http://jeremybamberforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,9734.msg447916/topicseen.html?PHPSESSID=u6ta23fjialbsrn3sumepfdnr6#msg447916
-
"Michelle Diskin was in the front room at her home in Cork listening to the morning radio when she first heard that her brother Barry George had been charged with Jill Dando's murder.
She says she felt numb - completely numb. 'I thought: "No, no, it can't be." 'I wanted to phone my mother, but she is a very quiet and private person. How do you ring your mother and say: "Mum, has my brother been arrested for murder?" she says.
Michelle, a deeply religious woman, finally decided to phone and ask if she should pray for her brother. It seemed a more gentle way of dealing with the appalling news. 'Mother said: "It's all rubbish. He didn't do it. It will die down". I didn't know what to do and said to myself: "Could Barry have done this?"
'Could I see anything in the Barry I knew that might be guilty of this - and I couldn't. I thought about his behaviour. He can be aggravating. But no, not murder.'
But on July 2, last year, Barry George, 42, an educationally-subnormal fantasist with an IQ of just 76, was found guilty of the murder of BBC TV presenter Jill Dando.
She was killed with a single shot to the head. The gun was pressed so hard against her skull that the imprint of the muzzle remained on her scalp afterwards.
There was, however, not one overwhelming piece of evidence to link George to the crime. In the year since the case ended, no other criminal verdict has excited quite so much interest and there has been an endless debate over whether he was indeed guilty 'beyond reasonable doubt'.
Last month, an appeal against his conviction was rejected by three of the country's most senior judges.
Michelle continues to insist upon her brother's innocence. She is determined to take the case to the House of Lords and, should that fail, to Europe, believing his conviction to be a dreadful miscarriage of justice.
In fairness, she doesn't believe her brother to be an angel, but she insists that does not make him a murderer.
Michelle is a warm, articulate woman with a strong sense of right and wrong. Being in the public eye does not sit easily with her. She is, by nature, a home-builder, a wife and mother to three teenage children.
Their terraced family house near Cork is tidy, comfortable and perfumed with scented candles. It is a tactile household where hugs and kisses are easily exchanged.
Her own London childhood had been tough, often violent. In her late teens, she moved to Ireland to work with mentally disabled children. She had little need to dwell upon her past - until her brother's arrest.
Initially, Michelle believed the courts would clear her brother and she resolved not to speak out on his behalf. Indeed, she didn't want to drag her family into the unholy mess, and, in any case, no direct evidence linked her brother to the crime.
No confession. No apparent motive. No eyewitnesses. No murder weapon was ever found.
There was virtually no scientific evidence, except for minute traces of firearm discharge found in one of George's pockets and described as a 'close match' to particles found in Dando's hair. There was also a risk, acknowledged at the trial, that even this evidence was contaminated.
The prosecution case seemed to be simply that George lived locally and was an oddball with unhealthy obsessions. He was said to be 'fixated' with Princess Diana and to stalk women.
He had been convicted, many years earlier, of attempted rape and impersonating a police officer. He used different names (he was arrested as Barry Bulsara, using the real surname of one of his idols, Freddie Mercury) and lived in a world of fantasy. He was said to be 'obsessed' with guns.
George also happened to be near Dando's Fulham home on the morning of her murder. His own home, a chaotically untidy flat, happened to be just a few streets away. Michelle says: 'Barry was in Belmarsh Prison on remand when I first saw him. I had to see him through a glass screen. It was like being in a confessional box. There was a dark, dingy glass between us and you could hardly hear a thing.
'He looked terribly vulnerable and scared. Almost the first thing he said was: "Shhh, don't talk."
'Then he said: "I have not done what they are saying."
'I was asking questions and he kept telling me to talk to my solicitor. I cried. I think he did too. He said he was sorry that he had put us in this. I couldn't touch him but I wanted him to know he was being supported.
We held up our hands against the glass. I felt utterly overwhelmed that this could be happening to us. At each step along the way I thought it would be stopped. It's unbelievable it wasn't.
'There was no evidence. They just lumped everything up and made out he was one big psycho. Timeframes were forgotten, facts were distorted to make a picture - a very bad picture.
'The police needed somebody, and Barry looked, on the surface, as if he would disappear and nobody would fight for him.
'That's why I have to support him. I have always loved him very much.'
Michelle was the eldest of three children, raised in a cramped highrise flat in White City, West London. The bath was in the kitchen and she shared a bedroom with both her sister, a mentally handicapped epileptic two years her junior, and Barry, the baby of the family.
It was an uneasy household with frequent violent rows. 'Barry and Susan were always very special because I had to look after them when I was small.
'There were a lot of pressures living in such close quarters with people on both sides of you and underneath you. My parents fought all the time so I would take the kids out - sometimes for hours on end.
'It was very difficult. Because Susan had very definite problems that were so big, Barry's were pushed to one side.
'He was a gorgeous baby and, as a boy, was into cars and buildings. He sometimes got into trouble, but he could never seem to understand why.
'He couldn't concentrate for long periods of time and was taken out of school and sent to special school. But his disability didn't become really apparent until he got older.
'Barry has a rigidity of thought. He gets a thought and isn't able to change tack. If you changed the topic of conversation, he wouldn't be able to stop focusing on the first one.'
Michelle was 12 when their parents separated. She says it was a relief, an end to the dreadful rows. Her relationship with her mother was not easy and by the age of 15 she was living with her father.
'My mother was warmer earlier in the marriage,' she says. 'And less warm towards the end of it.'
When Barry asked to move in with his father, he was refused. 'I'm sure Barry saw it as a rejection. Probably the first of many,' she says.
By the age of 18, Michelle was living in Ireland with her grandmother. She kept in contact with her family and her brother visited for a holiday. 'He was 14 and so sweet I didn't want to send him back. I remember he used to hang about this place called Barry's Tea and wanted to work there in the yard but he was too young.
'But he would pester people, so this man sent him home with a letter saying he would take him out as his helper if I said it was OK. He said that he could see Barry needed special attention.
'The man gave Barry some pocket money and he came back with sausages, milk and bread so he could help with his keep.'
Michelle displays a certain pride when she repeats this story. It becomes clear that achievements which most people would take for granted were enormously special when accomplished by Barry.
For example, she tells how he arrived at her wedding 'all by himself' and had 'even hired his own suit so he wouldn't show me up'. She saw him handing out buttonholes to guests and was 'proud'.
By this time, he had started to create fantasies about himself and, intriguingly, she recalls a relative having to steer him away from talking about the SAS.
During their phone calls, Barry would talk of his obsession about being a stuntman. He tried to join the Territorial Army under the name Steve Major.
'It seemed perfectly innocent. He said he'd chosen it because the Six Million Dollar Man had such a name. When he later changed his name to Barry Bulsara, it wasn't something I was happy with. But he said he really loved Freddie Mercury and he was doing it as a tribute.
'He wanted to be a special person. He wanted to have friends. I can only speculate that these inventions were ways of opening a conversation. Let's face it, it's a bit more of a conversation grabber than "I'm classified disabled and I can't do anything".'
The prosecuting lawyers made much of George's fantasies. 'They tried to turn him into the Anti-Christ,' says Michelle. 'They spoke about his so-called obsession with guns after joining the Territorial Army. But the TA realised he had problems and Barry didn't handle guns. The only ones he's had are a starter pistol and a plastic gun that was stolen and broken.
'They said he had an obsession with Diana and stalked and photographed women. It was mentioned that he was discovered by police in Kensington Gardens with a rope and a knife dressed in Army gear. He told me that he was "doing manoeuvres".
'But he was never charged and there are no records of him being in the grounds by Diana's apartment as has been suggested.
'Even being "on manoeuvres" in the park, is not the normal behaviour of a grown person, but still pretty ordinary if you think like a child. He was going through his ex-SAS stage then - and it was almost 20 years ago.
'When police examined his flat they found a pile of 736 newspapers on the floor. Of course, there were some articles about Jill Dando, but there were more about Manchester United, although he's a Fulham supporter.
'There were also never any photos of women pinned up on the wall as has been suggested. The police found rolls of undeveloped film - 2,597 photographs showing 419 women.
'He wasn't using the photographs to satisfy some strange obsession. He was playing a role - that's all to do with the childish part of his life. And he'd just thrown the rolls of film in the corner - as he dropped everything in his flat and forgot about things.
'When Barry was in custody, the police had nothing to charge him with. They knew he'd been convicted of attempted rape in 1983, which he'd owned up to at the time, but he wouldn't admit to Jill Dando's murder.
'They were allowed to keep him for extra time, but still he wouldn't say he was responsible.
'If you know my brother, he's not capable of not caving in under that sort of pressure. But he does know when he's done something wrong and when he hasn't. The next thing that happened was that a particle (of firearm discharge) turned up in a coat - it was the only reason they were able to charge him.
'But the integrity of the coat had been corrupted. It was put in an evidence bag, sealed, carted away from his flat, photographed on a dummy in a police studio with an officer's shirt underneath and put back in the crate before it was examined by forensics.
'And as far as identification is concerned, there was only one person who said she was certain she saw Barry at 7.30am. She said she saw him by a car, but Barry can't drive.
'Barry has been described as a loner. But he's not. He was always out seeing people. He had friends, people who loved him - who accepted Barry with his differences. They didn't know about the attempted rape, but that happened almost 20 years before.
He paid his price to society for what he did and he'd turned his life around. And, despite his disabilities, he had made a life for himself. He discussed his friends and would say: "There's a guy down the road and he's my friend. I wash his car for him." After he was charged, I started piecing things together.
'There was a big, motherly Jamaican woman who lived across the road. When I went to see her, I could see she really loved Barry.
'She was really pleased to see me and said she hadn't known if anyone was going to help him. She was going to get some friends together to stand outside Hammersmith police station with placards saying: "Free Barry Bulsara."
'She's adamant he didn't carry out the crime.'
Michelle gathers strength from such support. She knows her brother, not as a psychopath, but as 'quiet, softly-spoken and wellmannered'.
During medical examinations before his trial, it was discovered that George had suffered severe brain damage from a physical injury while in his 20s. Michelle says he does not know how it occurred, although she conjectures that perhaps it was something to do with his 'Steve Majors' phase.
In the early Eighties, he was registered disabled and suffered increasingly from epileptic fits. If the problem was not properly controlled he would often stumble around.
Michelle is not convinced that he would have had the ability to plan or dexterity to carry out such carefully executed crime and getaway. Indeed, the case confounded police for a year before Barry's arrest.
'I knew right from the beginning, from his whole demeanour that he's innocent. I could tell when I saw him in Belmarsh - through his body language, his eye contact - before and after his conviction.
'He said to me: "They had to have someone. I didn't do this and I don't know why I'm here. But you do realise I am here for the rest of my life?"
'I said he wouldn't be - that the sentence would be reduced and he replied: "Oh no, not for me. I can't ever say I'm sorry for doing it - because I didn't do it."
'At night, things play over and over in my mind. When you realise this is a miscarriage of justice, it becomes enormous. They have grabbed Barry's life and taken it away from him. They have also taken my life.
'It wasn't an easy thing to decide to become vocal. But I have to stand up for Barry's rights. I'm determined to at least do that.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-135212/My-brother-didnt-kill-Jill.html#ixzz5DQUKMFv4
Stalker, rapist and sex prowler
Ian Cobain and Stewart Tendler in London
July 3 2001 12:11 AM
"Mr Campbell told the court that George had raped a woman in 1982 - he pleaded guilty to attempted rape - and that he had previous convictions for indecent assault and for impersonating a police officer.
George also raped his Japanese wife Itsuko Toide, who left him after 11 months of a marriage filled with violence and intimidation. In an interview published today, she gives a remarkable insight into the mind of a man filled with rage and hatred of women.
George met Miss Toide after she had suffered a sexual assault herself and was feeling highly vulnerable. They married after a romance lasting four months. Almost immediately he began subjecting her to a series of sexual and physical attacks at the cramped ground-floor council flat that they shared in Crookham Road, Fulham.
The jury was not allowed to know that George had a long history of stalking women in the area where Miss Dando lived, although detectives found clear evidence that he had followed at least 419 women in Fulham, taking 2,597 photographs of them.
The judge also ruled during pre-trial legal argument that the jury should not learn that George had been arrested in 1983 while prowling in the grounds of Kensington Palace, close to the private apartments of the Prince and Princess of Wales, clad in camouflage fatigues and wielding a commando knife.
Despite these revelations, George's defence team announced they were to launching an immediate appeal.
One possible ground for appeal may be the discovery that one of the prosecution witnesses, Charlotte de Rosnay, 29, was involved for a while in a relationship with a member of the murder squad, Detective Constable Peter Bartlett.
Miss Dando (37) was murdered as she arrived at her home in Fulham, southwest London, on the morning of Monday April 26, 1999
https://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/stalker-rapist-and-sex-prowler-26079016.html
Dando detective forced out over leaks 19 February 2002
"A Metropolitan Police detective who worked on the Jill Dando murder investigation has been forced to resign for leaking information to the media.
Scotland Yard said Detective Constable Robert McKenzie was found guilty of failing to disclose contact with the media and failing to obey a lawful order.
After he was found guilty at a disciplinary tribunal last week he was "required to resign".
DC McKenzie was one of 45 officers drafted in to the high-profile murder inquiry after Miss Dando, a BBC TV presenter, was shot on her London doorstep in April 1999.
They were all told not to talk to any member of the media without prior approval and without reporting what they had said.
DC McKenzie was working with the central area Organised Crime Squad when he was suspended in January 2000.
It is not known what he had told the media.
Meanwhile another Dando inquiry detective who has had charges of harassing a married woman witness dropped is set to face an internal inquiry.
Superiors took DC Peter Bartlett, 40, off the Dando case when it emerged he had had an affair during the investigation with Charlotte de Rosnay, a neighbour of Miss Dando's in Fulham, west London.
The harassment charge was dropped on Monday when Mrs de Rosnay withdrew the allegation.
An internal inquiry has been launched by the Metropolitan Police's directorate of professional standards.
DC Bartlett, based at Barnes police station in south west London, has been placed on restricted duties.
Last December the man convicted of Miss Dando's murder, 41-year-old Barry George, was given leave to appeal and the case is expected to be heard this summer.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1829128.stm
-
Reporter 'offered to sell names of victims'
"A FORMER police officer in the Jonathan King case who is now a TV documentary reporter offered to sell the names of the pop mogul’s victims, according to a judge.
Investigative reporter Mark Williams-Thomas, who made his name in a documentary exposing Jimmy Savile, has claimed to have solved a number of high-profile cases, including the murder of TV host Jill Dando.
But yesterday his professional reputation was called into question after Judge Deborah Taylor delivered a withering assessment of his previous work for Surrey Police on the King case. Before he left the force in October 2000 Mr Williams-Thomas was the detective who interviewed the first man to accuse King of sexual assault. He was subsequently accused – and acquitted – of blackmail in an unrelated case.
Yesterday the judge said: ‘ During the investigation into that offence a document was found on his computer offering for sale names and introductions to victims of Mr King.
‘There was also information that prior to Mr King’s arrest, Williams-Thomas said that he had been provided by a journalist with information about King. Williams-Thomas left taking his contemporaneous notebooks of his involvement with inquiries into Mr King with him.
‘No attempts had been made to obtain them, although it is the Crown’s position that he should not have taken them with him as they were the property of Surrey Police.’
The judge added that it had been suggested ‘there was deliberate concealment of his previous prosecution and of the documents indicating attempts to gain financial advantage from selling details of Mr King’s case’. Yesterday Mr Williams-Thomas denied ever knowing the victims’ identities, or offering them for sale.
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/daily-mail/20180807/281732680305413
Why did Michelle Diskin Bate's & Barry George choose Mark Williams Thomas to "re-investiagate" the murder of Jill Dando?
-
Stalker, rapist and sex prowler
Ian Cobain and Stewart Tendler in London
July 3 2001 12:11 AM
"Mr Campbell told the court that George had raped a woman in 1982 - he pleaded guilty to attempted rape - and that he had previous convictions for indecent assault and for impersonating a police officer.
George also raped his Japanese wife Itsuko Toide, who left him after 11 months of a marriage filled with violence and intimidation. In an interview published today, she gives a remarkable insight into the mind of a man filled with rage and hatred of women.
George met Miss Toide after she had suffered a sexual assault herself and was feeling highly vulnerable. They married after a romance lasting four months. Almost immediately he began subjecting her to a series of sexual and physical attacks at the cramped ground-floor council flat that they shared in Crookham Road, Fulham.
The jury was not allowed to know that George had a long history of stalking women in the area where Miss Dando lived, although detectives found clear evidence that he had followed at least 419 women in Fulham, taking 2,597 photographs of them.
The judge also ruled during pre-trial legal argument that the jury should not learn that George had been arrested in 1983 while prowling in the grounds of Kensington Palace, close to the private apartments of the Prince and Princess of Wales, clad in camouflage fatigues and wielding a commando knife.
Despite these revelations, George's defence team announced they were to launching an immediate appeal.
One possible ground for appeal may be the discovery that one of the prosecution witnesses, Charlotte de Rosnay, 29, was involved for a while in a relationship with a member of the murder squad, Detective Constable Peter Bartlett.
Miss Dando (37) was murdered as she arrived at her home in Fulham, southwest London, on the morning of Monday April 26, 1999
https://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/stalker-rapist-and-sex-prowler-26079016.html
Dando detective forced out over leaks 19 February 2002
"A Metropolitan Police detective who worked on the Jill Dando murder investigation has been forced to resign for leaking information to the media.
Scotland Yard said Detective Constable Robert McKenzie was found guilty of failing to disclose contact with the media and failing to obey a lawful order.
After he was found guilty at a disciplinary tribunal last week he was "required to resign".
DC McKenzie was one of 45 officers drafted in to the high-profile murder inquiry after Miss Dando, a BBC TV presenter, was shot on her London doorstep in April 1999.
They were all told not to talk to any member of the media without prior approval and without reporting what they had said.
DC McKenzie was working with the central area Organised Crime Squad when he was suspended in January 2000.
It is not known what he had told the media.
Meanwhile another Dando inquiry detective who has had charges of harassing a married woman witness dropped is set to face an internal inquiry.
Superiors took DC Peter Bartlett, 40, off the Dando case when it emerged he had had an affair during the investigation with Charlotte de Rosnay, a neighbour of Miss Dando's in Fulham, west London.
The harassment charge was dropped on Monday when Mrs de Rosnay withdrew the allegation.
An internal inquiry has been launched by the Metropolitan Police's directorate of professional standards.
DC Bartlett, based at Barnes police station in south west London, has been placed on restricted duties.
Last December the man convicted of Miss Dando's murder, 41-year-old Barry George, was given leave to appeal and the case is expected to be heard this summer.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1829128.stm
What information was leaked to the media and when?
This?
Dando Murder: A choice of contract killers is now available from just pounds 1000 April 1999
"The murder of Jill Dando closely matches the blueprint for a professional hit, in terms of location, timing and method of execution.
Detectives say that typically, victims are targeted on their doorsteps as they arrive home or answer a knock at the door. The 9mm semi-automatic is, along with the old-fashioned revolver, the contract killer's weapon of choice. The US-made Browning, though illegal in the wake of Dunblane, is widely available for as little as pounds 250 on the black market. Originally issued to British servicemen in the 1950s it is still in use by the Army.
Ms Dando's murderer also followed the first rule of such executions, which is to fire from point-blank range.
But instead of using a motor cycle for a quick getaway and wearing a crash helmet to hide his face, as is usual for hitmen, Ms Dando's murderer apparently lingered in the street, undisguised, before the killing, and left the scene on foot.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/dando-murder-a-choice-of-contract-killers-is-now-available-from-just-pounds-1000-1090053.html
http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=9318.msg456096#msg456096
-
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ltgorwROQfwC&pg=PA117&lpg=PA117&dq=michael+boirke+barry+george+campaign+to+clear+name&source=bl&ots=Osv66NAZ9H&sig=u6QkUj9tNaTGF9YhqcBKAPXCuHU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwidxre7ua_aAhWNSsAKHUtQDA4Q6AEwBXoECAEQAQ#v=onepage&q=michael%20boirke%20barry%20george%20campaign%20to%20clear%20name&f=false
http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=9318.msg454799#msg454799 "Barry George's Mike says he felt bitter for a long time after George was released from prison. He talks of how he and fellow supporters were ultimately dumped by George; even though he'd put in years of campaigning?
"In an angry email to me this week, Michelle Diskin claimed her brother was the victim of a media-driven plot designed to smear and intimidate him.
George's uncle on his mother's side, Michael Bourke fears that the police, having ultimately failed to nail him for murder, might be trying to frame him.
It could be like O. J. Simpson - you get him second time around,' he said.
His mother said much the same when I spoke to her at her West London home. 'I'm very worried for Barry,' she said. 'How can he be happy when they're all out to get him?'
The George family, incidentally, have been torn apart by in-fighting since their 'Free Barry' crusade ended.
Limerick bus-driver Mr Bourke, 53, is estranged from the main George camp for suggesting that the Miscarriages of Justice outfit might be self-serving.
He also questioned the wisdom of parading his nephew (who, in the words of one friend 'can't tell the difference between fame and infamy') before the TV cameras just hours after he was freed.
Of course, all this turmoil is just what a volatile character like George does not need, as he struggles to adjust to the real world after eight years inside.
In the grim appraisal of Ian Horrocks, the retired Scotland Yard detective who was number two on the original Dando murder inquiry, George is still a 'danger to women' and in need of constant supervision.
Listening to his friends describing the cloistered, eerily obsessive netherworld he has invented for himself, it is impossible to escape the fear that here is a walking time-bomb, just waiting to explode.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1076331/Obsessed-visiting-Jill-Dandos-grave-acting-erratically-Barry-George-man-edge.html
-
Michelle Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
People hate to think there has been a wrongful conviction, it shakes their confidence, therefore they attack the people campaigning for justice, like journalist Chris Mullin, or in this case, Sandra Lean. https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1041002046386790401
Getting it wrong once was bad enough but Sandra Lean got it wrong twice that we definitely know about. She went to great lengths to campaign for killers Adrian Prout and Simon Hall yet both men eventually admitted their guilt. I for one would certainly question her judgement.
Michelle Bates involvement in the Bamber case is surprising given what we know about the conviction. Jeremy Bamber is certainly no Barry George, the two cases couldn't be more different.
What about Billy Middleton and Nick Ward? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-13048362
"When Emma first went missing between late March and May last year, they led public appeals to help find their friend. A group set up on social networking site Facebook attracted more than 7,400 people, initially to help trace the 22-year-old and later paying tribute to her.http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/crime/murder-trial-background-friends-pay-tribute-to-norfolk-woman-emma-ward-1-863970
http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/crime/murder-trial-background-friends-pay-tribute-to-norfolk-woman-emma-ward-1-863970
Sandra Lean has been involved in lots of cases, however her thesis suggests she was impartial, as opposed to a campaigner? Her thesis records something like 360 cases?
I'm familiar with some of them.
At one time I was in contact with several friends and family members of some of the cases she was involved in. Nick Wards ex girlfriend (and her Mum) were two of them. She was Ward's partner whilst he was on remand; prior to being found guilty for the murder of his wife. Before his trial she had campaigned on his behalf on Facebook claiming he was innocent.
Michelle Bate's refers to Sandra Lean as a campaigner (campaigning for justice) and that's what I always assumed she was as did the people I was in contact with?
"DOCTOR Sandra Lean has dedicated her career to defending those who have been wrongfully convicted.
A mother of two daughters, she had a quiet but content life, running her own business in the town of Dalkeith.
But that all changed when the area was rocked by the brutal murder of 14-year old Jodi Jones in June 2003.
The teenager was discovered in woodland behind Newbattle High School – the same school that her eldest attended. At the heart of the crime was the accusation that 14-year old Luke Mitchell, Jodi’s boyfriend, was the murderer.
The murder would take Lean in an unexpected direction, as she sought to understand the events which were unfolding on her doorstep. After doubts that Mitchell was the killer, she began to investigate, leading to the publication of her first book about miscarriages of justice.
She then gained her PHD in criminal justice, becoming a fully qualified paralegal at the same time as finishing her thesis, all the while campaigning for those wrongfully convicted. https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-herald/20180915/281492162220037
-
Why did Michelle Diskin Bate's & Barry George choose Mark Williams Thomas to "re-investiagate" the murder of Jill Dando?
https://en-gb.facebook.com/pages/category/Community/Ive-been-blocked-by-Mark-Williams-Thomas-522810787785441/
-
Barry George's uncle Mike Burke said in his book, "The investigation into the disappearance of Madaleine McCann was possibly the only case to receive more attention than Dando's murder."
He goes on to say;
"I was quite annoyed when I read reports of Doctor Michael Kopelmans medical opinion of Barry.it seemed to me that Barry's inappropriate behaviour was being blamed on the overall family. I sent a protest to Jeremy Moore. In my opinion one is responsible for ones own actions. And it is a cop out to try and blame ones bad behaviour on the family.
Wasn't part of George's defence based on genetics?
A further example of his exhibitionistic and obsessive mentaloty comes from his medical history. George attended no less than eighteen different surgeries in West London at various times and was known as a “heart sink” patient because he was constantly coming in with imagined ailments.
Doctors who examined George after his arrest diagnosed an impressive array of psychiatric disorders: psychopathic personality, narcissistic personality, histrionic personality, paranoid personality and Asperger’s Syndrome (a disorder linked to autism). As a boy he was diagnosed as suffering from attention hyperactivity disorder. George was also diagnosed as having somatisation disorder and concurrent factitious disorder.
Whether psychiatric diagnoses mean anything is debatable. However, the police and courts credit them and therefore should have taken them into account before a prosecution was mounted. The interesting thing about these diagnoses is that they relate to personality traits which could innocently explain every part of George’s supposedly suspicious behaviour both before and after the Dando murder. A psychopathic personality is prone to lying and using aliases. A narcissistic personality is one who urgently seeks attention and admiration and has a heightened sense of self-importance. A histrionic personality will imagine they have a well developed relationship with someone they do not know at all in a personal sense. A para- noid personality has obvious ramifications for George’s suspi- cion of the police. Asperger’s sufferers have major problems with personal relationships and a tendency to become ob- sessive. Finally, somatisation disorder and concurrent facti- tious disorder explained his imagined illnesses.http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/legan/legan037.pdf
"Research suggests that genetics, abuse and other factors contribute to the development of obsessive-compulsive, narcissistic or other personality disorders.
In the past, some believed that people with personality disorders were just lazy or even evil. But new research has begun to explore such potential causes as genetics, parenting and peer influences:
http://www.apa.org/topics/personality/disorders-causes.aspx
Martin Bryant described as "intellectually limited & dim witted" and said to have Asperger’s Syndrome.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=56JCVbaCqCM
"A psychologist's view was that he would never hold down a job, as he would aggravate people to such an extent that he would always be in trouble
Descriptions of Bryant's behaviour as an adolescent show that he continued to be disturbed and outlined the possibility of an intellectual disability. He was revealed to be borderline mentally disabled, with an I.Q. of 66,[4] equivalent to an 11-year-old. Further testing following his arrest indicated a verbal I.Q. of 64 and non-verbal reasoning and cognitive functioning of 68, giving a full-scale I.Q. of 66, an age equivalent of 11 years in the 10th percentile (90% of 11-year-olds would score higher).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Bryant
"Before his trial, George was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome.[13] Prosecution psychologists studying George since his arrest for the Dando murder claimed that he was suffering from several different personality disorders: [ censored word]ocial, histrionic, narcissistic and possibly paranoid,[5] as well as somatization and factitious disorders and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.[14] He was said to suffer from epilepsy and 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
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_George
-
The power of cognitive bias
"A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment. ... A continually evolving list of cognitive biases has been identified over the last six decades of research on human judgment and decision-making in cognitive science, social psychology, and behavioral economics.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/cognitive-biases-2015-10
Criminal Investigational Ethics
"12.1 Investigator Biases
Cognitive biases including individual perception, intuition, and tunnel vision can influence an investigator’s view of a particular issue within a case.9 Detectives should also be aware of external pressures that might influence decisions. Organizational traps such as groupthink, rumor, and ego all might impact investigative decision-making. Kim Rossmo (2009) in his book, Criminal Investigative Failures,9 provides an in-depth look at these and other specific issues
Conclusions
"The following link lists approximately 50 automatic and unconscious cognitive biases, including those mentioned above, that render cognitive decisions defective, distorted, biased, and just plain wrong.21 The worst part is that we are almost always unaware of these unconscious processes. Automatic and unconscious memory defects, distortions, and biases further complicate our ability to reason effectively. A list of 45 common memory biases can be found at the following URL.22 Together they form 95 ways in which people automatically and unconsciously process information without the slightest awareness of doing so.
There are two common themes or threads that run through the examples provided above. The first common theme is that we are typically unaware when we use these well-documented cognitive heuristics, which means that they often operate unconsciously. In fact there are so many of these biases that we cannot even keep them all in mind so as to consistently monitor if we are using them or not. Short-term memory is limited by Miller’s magic number of 7 ± 2. The 95 biases reviewed or referenced above far exceed this capacity. So unless we keep a heuristic checklist in front of us at all times, and check it frequently, we may well unconsciously use one or more of them.
The second common theme is that cognitive and memory heuristics reflect functional properties of our neural networks just as optical illusions do. This explains why heuristics are reflexive and automatic. It also explains why education and insight into these heuristics cannot free us from them. We are left with recognizing and compensating for them. Recognition here means acceptance of unconscious processing as common and pervasive, given the approximately 100 ways in which it intrudes on our ability to think rationally.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/cognitive-biases
-
Why did Michelle Diskin Bate's & Barry George choose Mark Williams Thomas to "re-investiagate" the murder of Jill Dando?
July 2016
"Ironically, Mark Williams-Thomas became a TV personality by savaging the reputations of other small-screen stars
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/jul/14/the-investigator-the-ex-cop-taking-over-tv-mark-williams-thomas-simon-cowell
-
Would be interesting to learn WHY Mark Williams Thomas resigned from the police force?
This officer resigned before she was sacked https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-46075215
"Det Supt Scott Cannon, who sat on the panel, said: "In order to maintain public confidence and trust, it's vital information held by the police is accessed only for policing purposes
......The Essex Police misconduct hearing found she had breached the standards of professional behaviour relating to confidentially, orders and instructions.
-
July 2016
"Ironically, Mark Williams-Thomas became a TV personality by savaging the reputations of other small-screen stars
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/jul/14/the-investigator-the-ex-cop-taking-over-tv-mark-williams-thomas-simon-cowell
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6350331/Self-promoting-TV-detective-obsessed-celebrity-sex-abusers-helped-police-ruin-lives.html
-
I wonder when Jill Dando's murder investigation will be re opened?
-
https://mobile.twitter.com/mwilliamsthomas/status/1058827120779104256?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
-
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jimmy-savile-investigator-claims-two-13510102
-
http://www.mediamasters.fm/mark-williams-thomas/
-
"Michelle Diskin was in the front room at her home in Cork listening to the morning radio when she first heard that her brother Barry George had been charged with Jill Dando's murder.
She says she felt numb - completely numb. 'I thought: "No, no, it can't be." 'I wanted to phone my mother, but she is a very quiet and private person. How do you ring your mother and say: "Mum, has my brother been arrested for murder?" she says.
Michelle, a deeply religious woman, finally decided to phone and ask if she should pray for her brother. It seemed a more gentle way of dealing with the appalling news. 'Mother said: "It's all rubbish. He didn't do it. It will die down". I didn't know what to do and said to myself: "Could Barry have done this?"
'Could I see anything in the Barry I knew that might be guilty of this - and I couldn't. I thought about his behaviour. He can be aggravating. But no, not murder.'
But on July 2, last year, Barry George, 42, an educationally-subnormal fantasist with an IQ of just 76, was found guilty of the murder of BBC TV presenter Jill Dando.
She was killed with a single shot to the head. The gun was pressed so hard against her skull that the imprint of the muzzle remained on her scalp afterwards.
There was, however, not one overwhelming piece of evidence to link George to the crime. In the year since the case ended, no other criminal verdict has excited quite so much interest and there has been an endless debate over whether he was indeed guilty 'beyond reasonable doubt'.
Last month, an appeal against his conviction was rejected by three of the country's most senior judges.
Michelle continues to insist upon her brother's innocence. She is determined to take the case to the House of Lords and, should that fail, to Europe, believing his conviction to be a dreadful miscarriage of justice.
In fairness, she doesn't believe her brother to be an angel, but she insists that does not make him a murderer.
Michelle is a warm, articulate woman with a strong sense of right and wrong. Being in the public eye does not sit easily with her. She is, by nature, a home-builder, a wife and mother to three teenage children.
Their terraced family house near Cork is tidy, comfortable and perfumed with scented candles. It is a tactile household where hugs and kisses are easily exchanged.
Her own London childhood had been tough, often violent. In her late teens, she moved to Ireland to work with mentally disabled children. She had little need to dwell upon her past - until her brother's arrest.
Initially, Michelle believed the courts would clear her brother and she resolved not to speak out on his behalf. Indeed, she didn't want to drag her family into the unholy mess, and, in any case, no direct evidence linked her brother to the crime.
No confession. No apparent motive. No eyewitnesses. No murder weapon was ever found.
There was virtually no scientific evidence, except for minute traces of firearm discharge found in one of George's pockets and described as a 'close match' to particles found in Dando's hair. There was also a risk, acknowledged at the trial, that even this evidence was contaminated.
The prosecution case seemed to be simply that George lived locally and was an oddball with unhealthy obsessions. He was said to be 'fixated' with Princess Diana and to stalk women.
He had been convicted, many years earlier, of attempted rape and impersonating a police officer. He used different names (he was arrested as Barry Bulsara, using the real surname of one of his idols, Freddie Mercury) and lived in a world of fantasy. He was said to be 'obsessed' with guns.
George also happened to be near Dando's Fulham home on the morning of her murder. His own home, a chaotically untidy flat, happened to be just a few streets away. Michelle says: 'Barry was in Belmarsh Prison on remand when I first saw him. I had to see him through a glass screen. It was like being in a confessional box. There was a dark, dingy glass between us and you could hardly hear a thing.
'He looked terribly vulnerable and scared. Almost the first thing he said was: "Shhh, don't talk."
'Then he said: "I have not done what they are saying."
'I was asking questions and he kept telling me to talk to my solicitor. I cried. I think he did too. He said he was sorry that he had put us in this. I couldn't touch him but I wanted him to know he was being supported.
We held up our hands against the glass. I felt utterly overwhelmed that this could be happening to us. At each step along the way I thought it would be stopped. It's unbelievable it wasn't.
'There was no evidence. They just lumped everything up and made out he was one big psycho. Timeframes were forgotten, facts were distorted to make a picture - a very bad picture.
'The police needed somebody, and Barry looked, on the surface, as if he would disappear and nobody would fight for him.
'That's why I have to support him. I have always loved him very much.'
Michelle was the eldest of three children, raised in a cramped highrise flat in White City, West London. The bath was in the kitchen and she shared a bedroom with both her sister, a mentally handicapped epileptic two years her junior, and Barry, the baby of the family.
It was an uneasy household with frequent violent rows. 'Barry and Susan were always very special because I had to look after them when I was small.
'There were a lot of pressures living in such close quarters with people on both sides of you and underneath you. My parents fought all the time so I would take the kids out - sometimes for hours on end.
'It was very difficult. Because Susan had very definite problems that were so big, Barry's were pushed to one side.
'He was a gorgeous baby and, as a boy, was into cars and buildings. He sometimes got into trouble, but he could never seem to understand why.
'He couldn't concentrate for long periods of time and was taken out of school and sent to special school. But his disability didn't become really apparent until he got older.
'Barry has a rigidity of thought. He gets a thought and isn't able to change tack. If you changed the topic of conversation, he wouldn't be able to stop focusing on the first one.'
Michelle was 12 when their parents separated. She says it was a relief, an end to the dreadful rows. Her relationship with her mother was not easy and by the age of 15 she was living with her father.
'My mother was warmer earlier in the marriage,' she says. 'And less warm towards the end of it.'
When Barry asked to move in with his father, he was refused. 'I'm sure Barry saw it as a rejection. Probably the first of many,' she says.
By the age of 18, Michelle was living in Ireland with her grandmother. She kept in contact with her family and her brother visited for a holiday. 'He was 14 and so sweet I didn't want to send him back. I remember he used to hang about this place called Barry's Tea and wanted to work there in the yard but he was too young.
'But he would pester people, so this man sent him home with a letter saying he would take him out as his helper if I said it was OK. He said that he could see Barry needed special attention.
'The man gave Barry some pocket money and he came back with sausages, milk and bread so he could help with his keep.'
Michelle displays a certain pride when she repeats this story. It becomes clear that achievements which most people would take for granted were enormously special when accomplished by Barry.
For example, she tells how he arrived at her wedding 'all by himself' and had 'even hired his own suit so he wouldn't show me up'. She saw him handing out buttonholes to guests and was 'proud'.
By this time, he had started to create fantasies about himself and, intriguingly, she recalls a relative having to steer him away from talking about the SAS.
During their phone calls, Barry would talk of his obsession about being a stuntman. He tried to join the Territorial Army under the name Steve Major.
'It seemed perfectly innocent. He said he'd chosen it because the Six Million Dollar Man had such a name. When he later changed his name to Barry Bulsara, it wasn't something I was happy with. But he said he really loved Freddie Mercury and he was doing it as a tribute.
'He wanted to be a special person. He wanted to have friends. I can only speculate that these inventions were ways of opening a conversation. Let's face it, it's a bit more of a conversation grabber than "I'm classified disabled and I can't do anything".'
The prosecuting lawyers made much of George's fantasies. 'They tried to turn him into the Anti-Christ,' says Michelle. 'They spoke about his so-called obsession with guns after joining the Territorial Army. But the TA realised he had problems and Barry didn't handle guns. The only ones he's had are a starter pistol and a plastic gun that was stolen and broken.
'They said he had an obsession with Diana and stalked and photographed women. It was mentioned that he was discovered by police in Kensington Gardens with a rope and a knife dressed in Army gear. He told me that he was "doing manoeuvres".
'But he was never charged and there are no records of him being in the grounds by Diana's apartment as has been suggested.
'Even being "on manoeuvres" in the park, is not the normal behaviour of a grown person, but still pretty ordinary if you think like a child. He was going through his ex-SAS stage then - and it was almost 20 years ago.
'When police examined his flat they found a pile of 736 newspapers on the floor. Of course, there were some articles about Jill Dando, but there were more about Manchester United, although he's a Fulham supporter.
'There were also never any photos of women pinned up on the wall as has been suggested. The police found rolls of undeveloped film - 2,597 photographs showing 419 women.
'He wasn't using the photographs to satisfy some strange obsession. He was playing a role - that's all to do with the childish part of his life. And he'd just thrown the rolls of film in the corner - as he dropped everything in his flat and forgot about things.
'When Barry was in custody, the police had nothing to charge him with. They knew he'd been convicted of attempted rape in 1983, which he'd owned up to at the time, but he wouldn't admit to Jill Dando's murder.
'They were allowed to keep him for extra time, but still he wouldn't say he was responsible.
'If you know my brother, he's not capable of not caving in under that sort of pressure. But he does know when he's done something wrong and when he hasn't. The next thing that happened was that a particle (of firearm discharge) turned up in a coat - it was the only reason they were able to charge him.
'But the integrity of the coat had been corrupted. It was put in an evidence bag, sealed, carted away from his flat, photographed on a dummy in a police studio with an officer's shirt underneath and put back in the crate before it was examined by forensics.
'And as far as identification is concerned, there was only one person who said she was certain she saw Barry at 7.30am. She said she saw him by a car, but Barry can't drive.
'Barry has been described as a loner. But he's not. He was always out seeing people. He had friends, people who loved him - who accepted Barry with his differences. They didn't know about the attempted rape, but that happened almost 20 years before.
He paid his price to society for what he did and he'd turned his life around. And, despite his disabilities, he had made a life for himself. He discussed his friends and would say: "There's a guy down the road and he's my friend. I wash his car for him." After he was charged, I started piecing things together.
'There was a big, motherly Jamaican woman who lived across the road. When I went to see her, I could see she really loved Barry.
'She was really pleased to see me and said she hadn't known if anyone was going to help him. She was going to get some friends together to stand outside Hammersmith police station with placards saying: "Free Barry Bulsara."
'She's adamant he didn't carry out the crime.'
Michelle gathers strength from such support. She knows her brother, not as a psychopath, but as 'quiet, softly-spoken and wellmannered'.
During medical examinations before his trial, it was discovered that George had suffered severe brain damage from a physical injury while in his 20s. Michelle says he does not know how it occurred, although she conjectures that perhaps it was something to do with his 'Steve Majors' phase.
In the early Eighties, he was registered disabled and suffered increasingly from epileptic fits. If the problem was not properly controlled he would often stumble around.
Michelle is not convinced that he would have had the ability to plan or dexterity to carry out such carefully executed crime and getaway. Indeed, the case confounded police for a year before Barry's arrest.
'I knew right from the beginning, from his whole demeanour that he's innocent. I could tell when I saw him in Belmarsh - through his body language, his eye contact - before and after his conviction.
'He said to me: "They had to have someone. I didn't do this and I don't know why I'm here. But you do realise I am here for the rest of my life?"
'I said he wouldn't be - that the sentence would be reduced and he replied: "Oh no, not for me. I can't ever say I'm sorry for doing it - because I didn't do it."
'At night, things play over and over in my mind. When you realise this is a miscarriage of justice, it becomes enormous. They have grabbed Barry's life and taken it away from him. They have also taken my life.
'It wasn't an easy thing to decide to become vocal. But I have to stand up for Barry's rights. I'm determined to at least do that.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-135212/My-brother-didnt-kill-Jill.html#ixzz5DQUKMFv4
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p06pn49r
Is it me or does she sound aggrieved for having not been told during the time she campaigned for her brother that he would not be guaranteed compensation?
'He looked terribly vulnerable and scared. Almost the first thing he said was: "Shhh, don't talk
-
Michelle Bates writes and I quote,
"Justice is never served by the conviction of the innocent" by Michelle Bates on the 31st Anniversary of the tragedies (Jerrmy Bamber case)
"Becoming aware of a breaking-news story I began to listen in more closely. A siege was taking place at a farmhouse in England. The broadcaster relayed that five people were inside and there was great fear for their safety. As the story unfolded it became apparent that this was an older couple. A farmer and retired Magistrate, Nevill Bamber and his wife, June; their daughter, Sheila, and her six year old twin sons. Jeremy, their son, was outside with police who were trying to communicate with someone inside the house who had been seen pacing back and forth in front of an upstairs window and carrying a firearm. The reporter said that police were reluctant to get too close to the house for fear of causing that person to become more agitated, thereby, escalating the danger to the family. I watched for an hour or so but there was no resolution and, heavily pregnant, I became exhausted and had to go off to bed.
No one was seen pacing back and forth carrying a firearm - this is a lie
Awaking early I was anxious for news, hopefully of a rescue, so I put the News on immediately. The siege was over, police had stormed the house and five bodies had been found inside. I was heartbroken, a whole family! My heart went out to the young man who had waited all night long with the police for news of his family; this was not what he wanted to hear.
There was no live TV coverage during the time Bamber was outside the farmhouse with the police - another lie
My own child was born a few days later and I became engrossed in motherhood. It was a real shock to hear, sometime later, that the son, Jeremy Bamber, had been arrested for the killings…how was that possible when he was outside during the siege and everyone knew that? I presumed the police knew something we did not; there must have been strong evidence to convict a man of killing his entire family…I pushed my unease aside and got on with motherhood and my own life.
Since then I have revisited the facts of this case in light of so many high-profile miscarriage of justice cases coming to light, including that of my own brother, Barry George, for the murder of Jill Dando. More recently we’ve heard of the lies and cover-ups in the Hillsborough deaths and The Chilcot report exposing the same type of cover ups in the Iraqi war scandal. In the Bamber case I can find no evidence to convince me of the guilt of this man. Nothing that can account for a man languishing in jail for more than thirty years. How did a jury convict a young man without proof?
Our justice system is predicated on the ‘presumption of innocence’ and also on ‘beyond reasonable doubt,’ but there is so much doubt surrounding this conviction that this case must be looked into again, urgently. The CCRC and the Court of Appeal seem to be reluctant to do this, and the police, for their part, have been withholding evidence from the defendant. It will cost thousands of pounds to, again, take them to court to force them to hand over the papers and forensic results that the court has already told them they must do. They have also effectively ‘locked down’ documents in the case under a PII* order; what is there to hide? Meanwhile, a man is fighting a conviction for multiple murders that there is no proof he committed. Surely this is not the justice system his father, a Magistrate was proud to be a part of? https://jeremybamber.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/justice-is-never-served-by-conviction.html
Barry George had his conviction quashed. He's not been paid awarded compensation because he's not innocent enough. A judge concluded a jury properly directed may have come to a different conclusion; words to that effect
Michelle Bates is claiming Jeremy Bamber is innocent, she says the same about her brother?
Mark Williams Thomas was involved in both the Bamber and George cases, one via a TV documentary the other a newspaper series.
Who should we believe? I do not believe Michelle Bates!
Furthermore, Michael Mansfield QC was misled in relation to the Simon Hall case. He could have been misled in relation to Barry George. Personality disordered individuals can be extremely convincing.
Mrs Bates further claims in the Bamber case: "Dead people don’t walk (and two only became one at marriage!). Sheila alive, even when police stormed the building. Tragic murder/suicide. 😢 https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/917077719749361664
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_i2CjYDJGTo#fauxfullscreen
-
"Michelle Diskin was in the front room at her home in Cork listening to the morning radio when she first heard that her brother Barry George had been charged with Jill Dando's murder.
She says she felt numb - completely numb. 'I thought: "No, no, it can't be." 'I wanted to phone my mother, but she is a very quiet and private person. How do you ring your mother and say: "Mum, has my brother been arrested for murder?" she says.
Michelle, a deeply religious woman, finally decided to phone and ask if she should pray for her brother. It seemed a more gentle way of dealing with the appalling news. 'Mother said: "It's all rubbish. He didn't do it. It will die down". I didn't know what to do and said to myself: "Could Barry have done this?"
'Could I see anything in the Barry I knew that might be guilty of this - and I couldn't. I thought about his behaviour. He can be aggravating. But no, not murder.'
But on July 2, last year, Barry George, 42, an educationally-subnormal fantasist with an IQ of just 76, was found guilty of the murder of BBC TV presenter Jill Dando.
She was killed with a single shot to the head. The gun was pressed so hard against her skull that the imprint of the muzzle remained on her scalp afterwards.
There was, however, not one overwhelming piece of evidence to link George to the crime. In the year since the case ended, no other criminal verdict has excited quite so much interest and there has been an endless debate over whether he was indeed guilty 'beyond reasonable doubt'.
Last month, an appeal against his conviction was rejected by three of the country's most senior judges.
Michelle continues to insist upon her brother's innocence. She is determined to take the case to the House of Lords and, should that fail, to Europe, believing his conviction to be a dreadful miscarriage of justice.
In fairness, she doesn't believe her brother to be an angel, but she insists that does not make him a murderer.
Michelle is a warm, articulate woman with a strong sense of right and wrong. Being in the public eye does not sit easily with her. She is, by nature, a home-builder, a wife and mother to three teenage children.
Their terraced family house near Cork is tidy, comfortable and perfumed with scented candles. It is a tactile household where hugs and kisses are easily exchanged.
Her own London childhood had been tough, often violent. In her late teens, she moved to Ireland to work with mentally disabled children. She had little need to dwell upon her past - until her brother's arrest.
Initially, Michelle believed the courts would clear her brother and she resolved not to speak out on his behalf. Indeed, she didn't want to drag her family into the unholy mess, and, in any case, no direct evidence linked her brother to the crime.
No confession. No apparent motive. No eyewitnesses. No murder weapon was ever found.
There was virtually no scientific evidence, except for minute traces of firearm discharge found in one of George's pockets and described as a 'close match' to particles found in Dando's hair. There was also a risk, acknowledged at the trial, that even this evidence was contaminated.
The prosecution case seemed to be simply that George lived locally and was an oddball with unhealthy obsessions. He was said to be 'fixated' with Princess Diana and to stalk women.
He had been convicted, many years earlier, of attempted rape and impersonating a police officer. He used different names (he was arrested as Barry Bulsara, using the real surname of one of his idols, Freddie Mercury) and lived in a world of fantasy. He was said to be 'obsessed' with guns.
George also happened to be near Dando's Fulham home on the morning of her murder. His own home, a chaotically untidy flat, happened to be just a few streets away. Michelle says: 'Barry was in Belmarsh Prison on remand when I first saw him. I had to see him through a glass screen. It was like being in a confessional box. There was a dark, dingy glass between us and you could hardly hear a thing.
'He looked terribly vulnerable and scared. Almost the first thing he said was: "Shhh, don't talk."
'Then he said: "I have not done what they are saying."
'I was asking questions and he kept telling me to talk to my solicitor. I cried. I think he did too. He said he was sorry that he had put us in this. I couldn't touch him but I wanted him to know he was being supported.
We held up our hands against the glass. I felt utterly overwhelmed that this could be happening to us. At each step along the way I thought it would be stopped. It's unbelievable it wasn't.
'There was no evidence. They just lumped everything up and made out he was one big psycho. Timeframes were forgotten, facts were distorted to make a picture - a very bad picture.
'The police needed somebody, and Barry looked, on the surface, as if he would disappear and nobody would fight for him.
'That's why I have to support him. I have always loved him very much.'
Michelle was the eldest of three children, raised in a cramped highrise flat in White City, West London. The bath was in the kitchen and she shared a bedroom with both her sister, a mentally handicapped epileptic two years her junior, and Barry, the baby of the family.
It was an uneasy household with frequent violent rows. 'Barry and Susan were always very special because I had to look after them when I was small.
'There were a lot of pressures living in such close quarters with people on both sides of you and underneath you. My parents fought all the time so I would take the kids out - sometimes for hours on end.
'It was very difficult. Because Susan had very definite problems that were so big, Barry's were pushed to one side.
'He was a gorgeous baby and, as a boy, was into cars and buildings. He sometimes got into trouble, but he could never seem to understand why.
'He couldn't concentrate for long periods of time and was taken out of school and sent to special school. But his disability didn't become really apparent until he got older.
'Barry has a rigidity of thought. He gets a thought and isn't able to change tack. If you changed the topic of conversation, he wouldn't be able to stop focusing on the first one.'
Michelle was 12 when their parents separated. She says it was a relief, an end to the dreadful rows. Her relationship with her mother was not easy and by the age of 15 she was living with her father.
'My mother was warmer earlier in the marriage,' she says. 'And less warm towards the end of it.'
When Barry asked to move in with his father, he was refused. 'I'm sure Barry saw it as a rejection. Probably the first of many,' she says.
By the age of 18, Michelle was living in Ireland with her grandmother. She kept in contact with her family and her brother visited for a holiday. 'He was 14 and so sweet I didn't want to send him back. I remember he used to hang about this place called Barry's Tea and wanted to work there in the yard but he was too young.
'But he would pester people, so this man sent him home with a letter saying he would take him out as his helper if I said it was OK. He said that he could see Barry needed special attention.
'The man gave Barry some pocket money and he came back with sausages, milk and bread so he could help with his keep.'
Michelle displays a certain pride when she repeats this story. It becomes clear that achievements which most people would take for granted were enormously special when accomplished by Barry.
For example, she tells how he arrived at her wedding 'all by himself' and had 'even hired his own suit so he wouldn't show me up'. She saw him handing out buttonholes to guests and was 'proud'.
By this time, he had started to create fantasies about himself and, intriguingly, she recalls a relative having to steer him away from talking about the SAS.
During their phone calls, Barry would talk of his obsession about being a stuntman. He tried to join the Territorial Army under the name Steve Major.
'It seemed perfectly innocent. He said he'd chosen it because the Six Million Dollar Man had such a name. When he later changed his name to Barry Bulsara, it wasn't something I was happy with. But he said he really loved Freddie Mercury and he was doing it as a tribute.
'He wanted to be a special person. He wanted to have friends. I can only speculate that these inventions were ways of opening a conversation. Let's face it, it's a bit more of a conversation grabber than "I'm classified disabled and I can't do anything".'
The prosecuting lawyers made much of George's fantasies. 'They tried to turn him into the Anti-Christ,' says Michelle. 'They spoke about his so-called obsession with guns after joining the Territorial Army. But the TA realised he had problems and Barry didn't handle guns. The only ones he's had are a starter pistol and a plastic gun that was stolen and broken.
'They said he had an obsession with Diana and stalked and photographed women. It was mentioned that he was discovered by police in Kensington Gardens with a rope and a knife dressed in Army gear. He told me that he was "doing manoeuvres".
'But he was never charged and there are no records of him being in the grounds by Diana's apartment as has been suggested.
'Even being "on manoeuvres" in the park, is not the normal behaviour of a grown person, but still pretty ordinary if you think like a child. He was going through his ex-SAS stage then - and it was almost 20 years ago.
'When police examined his flat they found a pile of 736 newspapers on the floor. Of course, there were some articles about Jill Dando, but there were more about Manchester United, although he's a Fulham supporter.
'There were also never any photos of women pinned up on the wall as has been suggested. The police found rolls of undeveloped film - 2,597 photographs showing 419 women.
'He wasn't using the photographs to satisfy some strange obsession. He was playing a role - that's all to do with the childish part of his life. And he'd just thrown the rolls of film in the corner - as he dropped everything in his flat and forgot about things.
'When Barry was in custody, the police had nothing to charge him with. They knew he'd been convicted of attempted rape in 1983, which he'd owned up to at the time, but he wouldn't admit to Jill Dando's murder.
'They were allowed to keep him for extra time, but still he wouldn't say he was responsible.
'If you know my brother, he's not capable of not caving in under that sort of pressure. But he does know when he's done something wrong and when he hasn't. The next thing that happened was that a particle (of firearm discharge) turned up in a coat - it was the only reason they were able to charge him.
'But the integrity of the coat had been corrupted. It was put in an evidence bag, sealed, carted away from his flat, photographed on a dummy in a police studio with an officer's shirt underneath and put back in the crate before it was examined by forensics.
'And as far as identification is concerned, there was only one person who said she was certain she saw Barry at 7.30am. She said she saw him by a car, but Barry can't drive.
'Barry has been described as a loner. But he's not. He was always out seeing people. He had friends, people who loved him - who accepted Barry with his differences. They didn't know about the attempted rape, but that happened almost 20 years before.
He paid his price to society for what he did and he'd turned his life around. And, despite his disabilities, he had made a life for himself. He discussed his friends and would say: "There's a guy down the road and he's my friend. I wash his car for him." After he was charged, I started piecing things together.
'There was a big, motherly Jamaican woman who lived across the road. When I went to see her, I could see she really loved Barry.
'She was really pleased to see me and said she hadn't known if anyone was going to help him. She was going to get some friends together to stand outside Hammersmith police station with placards saying: "Free Barry Bulsara."
'She's adamant he didn't carry out the crime.'
Michelle gathers strength from such support. She knows her brother, not as a psychopath, but as 'quiet, softly-spoken and wellmannered'.
During medical examinations before his trial, it was discovered that George had suffered severe brain damage from a physical injury while in his 20s. Michelle says he does not know how it occurred, although she conjectures that perhaps it was something to do with his 'Steve Majors' phase.
In the early Eighties, he was registered disabled and suffered increasingly from epileptic fits. If the problem was not properly controlled he would often stumble around.
Michelle is not convinced that he would have had the ability to plan or dexterity to carry out such carefully executed crime and getaway. Indeed, the case confounded police for a year before Barry's arrest.
'I knew right from the beginning, from his whole demeanour that he's innocent. I could tell when I saw him in Belmarsh - through his body language, his eye contact - before and after his conviction.
'He said to me: "They had to have someone. I didn't do this and I don't know why I'm here. But you do realise I am here for the rest of my life?"
'I said he wouldn't be - that the sentence would be reduced and he replied: "Oh no, not for me. I can't ever say I'm sorry for doing it - because I didn't do it."
'At night, things play over and over in my mind. When you realise this is a miscarriage of justice, it becomes enormous. They have grabbed Barry's life and taken it away from him. They have also taken my life.
'It wasn't an easy thing to decide to become vocal. But I have to stand up for Barry's rights. I'm determined to at least do that.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-135212/My-brother-didnt-kill-Jill.html#ixzz5DQUKMFv4
And no mention of Barry George bouncing to tell his sister about the baptist church in Fulham?
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6350331/Self-promoting-TV-detective-obsessed-celebrity-sex-abusers-helped-police-ruin-lives.html
Further http://barthsnotes.com/2018/11/04/man-who-accused-cliff-richard-was-already-known-as-a-fantasist-following-leon-brittan-investigation/#comment-1987204
-
"His high profile since Downing was released on bail last February has brought him around 500 letters from others claiming to be victims of injustice. He has been asked to help with the case of Barry George, jailed for murdering Jill Dando. "I've been given names about who did the Dando murder, and it's not the man they have," he says. "I reckon I could get him off quite easily. You see, barristers are not investigative journalists. They'll go through the proper channels - but the people who give you the golden information are not the Rotary Club members, they're in the underworld, and these people feel an injustice has been done. Michael Mansfield (the human rights QC) won't find out who did it by cycling up and down on his bike in London."
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/police-say-next-week-will-be-dangerous-6304394.html
"The Simon Cowell tag had amused me; it was real wannabe stuff. A dead man was mixing past and present like the Ghost of Popstars past. I was intrigued to find that exactly the same analogy had been made by the dead Terry Thornton in 2014! The dead man has given other interviews!
ROCK legend Joe Cocker became a sixties superstar after taking advice from the SPIRIT WORLD during a spooky Ouija session, his former Midland manager reveals today. Pop entrepreneur Terry Thornton, who lives in Bakewell, Derbyshire - first met the young Cocker when he was setting up a nightclub in the gravel-voiced singer's Sheffield hometown. "He was a quiet young lad who was starting to make a name for himself in pubs and working men's clubs," recalls Thornton, who has been dubbed the Simon Cowell of the 1960s.
It seems Terry has been giving interviews from the grave for quite some time! Unlike my Savile piece from 2015, this piece from 2014 had a reporters credit
In truth Don Hale being behind this deceit came as no surprise since all of this ghost-hunting had really got started because I had happened across the book authored by Don Hale, in which Don himself had explained that Terry had died in 2010. Quite how Don explains the interviews he’s been having with Terry since then, I have no idea. However it does go some way to expose the state British journalism is in, in the 21st Century. It turns out that Don Hale is the new David Icke. He is a thwarted pro-footballer… And just like David Icke, Don began his journalist career with the BBC after injury cut short his soccer days!! Incredible coincidences!
2003:
It was always my ambition to become either a reporter or a pro soccer player and just before I left school, I was offered a professional contract to become an apprentice player with Bury FC. I played for about six years for Bury, Blackburn Rovers and many other clubs but became injured and used to sit in the stands and watch the team play. That was very boring until I became friendly with the BBC radio commentator who sat next to me… I was then asked to join the BBC…
http://www.mysteryone.com/interview.php?ID=651
Later on in the interview we find Terry. It’s in response to a question about Don’s book about Joe Cocker.
I got his ex manager out of jail about three years ago. He was a guy called Terry Thornton. Another of my famous miscarriage cases. I didn't know he was into rock at the time but as some reward for my work he let me write about his involvement with Cocker and other pop/rock stars such as The New Faces, Rod Stewart, Cream, Eric Capton, and a host of others. I have the book and can send it to you if you like?
So, there we have the connection. A famous “miscarriage” case? I googled in vain to discover what this case might be. There didn’t seem all that much on the internet but I did work out that Terry Thornton had been sent to prison for life for the attempted murder of a woman named Eileen Caulton. Once I had her name, the story began to fall into my lap. A 5lb Nail Bomb was delivered as a parcel to Eileen in August 1989. It blew off her left arm and the one-inch nails smashed into her entire body… She spent two weeks in Intensive Care; both of her legs were broken – the bomb seared 30% of her skin off. Her sight and hearing were permanently damaged too. I eventually found that the case had been famous enough back in the 1990’s to make one of those part-works advertised on TV sometimes. This series was called Real Crimes. A build-your-own magazine was published by Midsummer Books Ltd in 1993
http://jimcannotfixthis.blogspot.com/2015/04/a-victim-law-ghost-writer.html
http://barthsnotes.com/2017/09/10/edward-heath-sex-abuse-allegations-media-circus-continues/
"Another story about Leon Brittan and a dossier comes from Don Hale, who by his own account is himself part of the wider story. Hale used to be editor of the Bury Messenger, and last summer he claimed (or, as some hacks prefer, “revealed”) that he had been given “an incendiary dossier… by long-serving Labour politician Barbara Castle
http://barthsnotes.com/2015/02/01/some-notes-on-leon-brittan-geoffrey-dickens-and-the-media/
"Now, the third question: did Barry George do it? Yes, I think so, but then perhaps you think I would. People close to the victims of a crime might be expected to latch on to any suspect to get some sort of closure. Actually, the opposite is true.
It matters far more to me that they have the right man than it does to almost anyone who reads this; it would be appalling if Jill's killer were still on the loose. But I was convinced it was Barry George long before I heard his name. From day one I said that whoever did it was suffering from a personality disorder. The conspiracy theories (everything from Mafia hitmen to Serb gunmen) were so dismally incoherent as to be laughable. All my years of experience on Crimewatch taught me that if it wasn't Barry George it would be someone very much like him.
One thing is for sure. The defence is always more vociferous at this stage than the prosecution. The police and the CPS have to bite their tongues and Jill's family is far too dignified to get involved. The result is a one-sided presentation of the "facts" and, in the past few days, I have heard wild allegations that the police "fitted up the local village idiot", which is deeply prejudiced, ill-informed and insulting to all concerned.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/features/3633091/Past-it-Its-hardly-a-fair-cop....html
-
https://mobile.twitter.com/mwilliamsthomas/status/1058827120779104256?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
*&^^&
-
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jimmy-savile-investigator-claims-two-13510102
http://www.kingofhits.co.uk/index.php?option=com_kunena&Itemid=65&func=view&catid=2&id=88196
http://www.kingofhits.co.uk/component/option,com_kunena/Itemid,65/func,view/catid,2/id,182402/
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2018/11/10/microscope-on-the-investigators-response/
-
http://www.kingofhits.co.uk/index.php?option=com_kunena&Itemid=65&func=view&catid=2&id=88196
http://www.kingofhits.co.uk/component/option,com_kunena/Itemid,65/func,view/catid,2/id,182402/
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2018/11/10/microscope-on-the-investigators-response/
http://www.kingofhits.co.uk/component/option,com_gallery2/Itemid,64/?g2_itemId=7100&g2_imageViewsIndex=1
-
I believe Jill Dando was killed by Serbians. Her murder came within weeks of the murder of Slavko Curuvija. Both were news reporters who criticised the Serbian regime.
"A widow of one of their alleged victims said Miss Dando's execution in April 1999 has all the hallmarks of her own husband's murder, which was two weeks earlier."
"The cartridge case had crimp marks on it of the type often found in Soviet Union and its satellite countries, according to Mr Mead."
Serbian police claim their is a link to Radomir Markovic, Milan Radonjic, Ratko Romic and Miroslav Kurak for Jill Dando's murders.
(https://ocdn.eu/pulscms-transforms/1/glJk9lLaHR0cDovL29jZG4uZXUvaW1hZ2VzL3B1bHNjbXMvTVRJN01EQV8vZWM5YjNiOTEzNWViYzQxMTdlOGZkOGI4NmM4ZmM4NzcuanBnkZMCzQLkAIGhMAE)
“The cartridge bore ‘crimping’ scratches where a pointed tool had been used, possibly to tighten its grip on the bullet. This was not the weapon of a professional assassin. Nor was the single shot the modus operandi of someone who had been hired to make a certain kill
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6845491/Dramatic-interview-criminal-investigated-Jill-Dandos-murder.html
-
“A man has been fatally stabbed on the road where television presenter Jill Dando was shot on her doorstep nearly two decades ago.
Police were called to Gowan Avenue in Fulham, London, at 12.27am yesterday after reports of a fight. The victim, a 29-year-old engineering graduate named locally as Nathaniel, was pronounced dead minutes later.
The attack came nearly 20 years after former Crimewatch reporter Dando was killed by a single bullet fired at her head as she reached the front door of her house, on 26 April 1999.
“The murder, in the quiet, leafy street where the cherry trees were in blossom yesterday, remains one of the most high-profile unsolved murders,” says The Times.
Barry George, a convicted sex offender, was found guilty of killing the 37-year-old presenter in July 2001, but was acquitted six years later after gun residue found on him during the forensic investigation was discredited.
https://www.theweek.co.uk/94727/who-killed-jill-dando-six-theories-behind-her-murder
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
Mar 17
That poor man, his poor family. How does this help them? Yes people...I AM INCENSED! Cheap shots at an innocent, disabled man
@thetimes
Mention Jill, yes, that’s relevant. Barry is not relevant and he is not a cash cow!
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
Mar 19
My new flyer...use the email address below to book me to speak with your group. 🤗
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin
-
"..........Barry George, a convicted sex offender, was found guilty of killing the 37-year-old presenter in July 2001, but was acquitted six years later after gun residue found on him during the forensic investigation was discredited.
https://www.theweek.co.uk/94727/who-killed-jill-dando-six-theories-behind-her-murder
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
Mar 17
That poor man, his poor family. How does this help them? Yes people...I AM INCENSED! Cheap shots at an innocent, disabled man
@thetimes
Mention Jill, yes, that’s relevant. Barry is not relevant and he is not a cash cow!
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
8h
My response to the awful articles in the DM. Tomorrow they intimate they will rip Barry George to shreds:
Tomorrow they are going to tell you about Barry George since his release? Why? "If there was anything newsworthy about him in the past ten years it would have been reported!"
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
"This is just another vilification of a wrongfully convicted, vulnerable adult.
If someone wants the REAL truth about the Dando investigation they should read his sister's book - Stand Against Injustice, the untold story of Barry George, wrongly convicted of the murder..."
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1110171935898505216
Poppy Ann Miller™
@PoppyMeze
Replying to
@Michelle_Diskin
Would expect no better from gutter tabloids. Ignore it unless you want to make a stand in some way, like a formal complaint, if so, I'm with you. DLTBGYD x
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
8h
My response to the awful articles in the DM. Tomorrow they intimate they will rip Barry George to shreds:
Tomorrow they are going to tell you about Barry George since his release? Why? "If there was anything newsworthy about him in the past ten years it would have been reported!"
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
"This is just another vilification of a wrongfully convicted, vulnerable adult.
If someone wants the REAL truth about the Dando investigation they should read his sister's book - Stand Against Injustice, the untold story of Barry George, wrongly convicted of the murder..."
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1110171935898505216
Poppy Ann Miller™
@PoppyMeze
Replying to
@Michelle_Diskin
Would expect no better from gutter tabloids. Ignore it unless you want to make a stand in some way, like a formal complaint, if so, I'm with you. DLTBGYD x
”How dare they say I'm 'not innocent enough' for compensation: Cleared Jill Dando murder suspect Barry George's indignant words in an extraordinary encounter
“He is a shambling, dishevelled bear of a man, barely contained by a dark suit and overcoat. As Barry George talks in a low, throaty growl, the breeze picks at his white shirt tails and red tie.
Plus ca change. George had been dressed in identical fashion on the morning Jill Dando was murdered, he had suggested in the police witness statement he gave almost a year later.
Twenty years have passed since the killing. But in the troubled world of the only man ever charged with the crime — George was convicted at the Old Bailey then acquitted at a second trial — time appears to have stood still.
Now, though, he cuts a pathetic figure rather than one of any menace, as was alleged by police and prosecutors at the time. In these circumstances, why should he not today be considered the ‘other victim’ in Britain’s most sensational modern murder case?".............
Barry Michael George was born in West London in April 1960 to a special police constable father and an Irish cleaner mother..........
“.........There would be other personas and more baseless yarns to impress those he met, particularly young women.
He liked to say he had been a member of the SAS. Indeed, he assumed the identity of Thomas Palmer, one of the SAS soldiers who had taken part in the 1980 Iranian embassy siege, and the Falklands War two years later.
This fantasy reflected his interest in the military and guns.
In December 1981, he enlisted in the Territorial Army. By the time he was rejected the following November he had attended a number of training days in which he was taught to maintain and shoot assault rifles and machine guns.
During this period, George also joined the Kensington and Chelsea Pistol Club as a probationary member. He attended on eight occasions before his application was not accepted.
His Walter Mitty stories and attempts at derring-do masked a darker side to George’s personality. In 1981, he was charged with indecent assault after grabbing a woman’s breasts in a car park. ‘Paul Gadd, unemployed entertainer,’ was given a three-month prison sentence, suspended for two years. He was acquitted of assaulting another woman, an actress, on the same day.
The following year he sexually assaulted a modern languages undergraduate having followed her to the door of her mother’s home.
At the Old Bailey under the name ‘Steven Majors’, the 22-year-old George pleaded guilty to attempted rape. He was jailed for 33 months, of which he served 18.
Soon after his release he was found by police hiding in bushes in the grounds of Kensington Palace, then the home of Princess Diana. George was wearing a combat jacket and carrying a 12-inch hunting knife and 50 feet of rope. Somewhat surprisingly, he was released uncharged.
In Stand Against Injustice, the book Barry George’s sister Michelle Diskin Bates has written about her brother’s case, she described these paramilitary escapades: ‘Barry’s interest in guns and all things military was born of our family’s long association with the Armed Forces. He’d have loved to be able to follow his dad’s footsteps into the Army or the Royal Marines, he wanted to excel, but even the Territorial Army had to let him go because of his disabilities.’......
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6849355/Cleared-Jill-Dando-murder-suspect-Barry-Georges-indignant-words-extraordinary-encounter.html
-
”How dare they say I'm 'not innocent enough' for compensation: Cleared Jill Dando murder suspect Barry George's indignant words in an extraordinary encounter
“He is a shambling, dishevelled bear of a man, barely contained by a dark suit and overcoat. As Barry George talks in a low, throaty growl, the breeze picks at his white shirt tails and red tie.
Plus ca change. George had been dressed in identical fashion on the morning Jill Dando was murdered, he had suggested in the police witness statement he gave almost a year later.
Twenty years have passed since the killing. But in the troubled world of the only man ever charged with the crime — George was convicted at the Old Bailey then acquitted at a second trial — time appears to have stood still.
Now, though, he cuts a pathetic figure rather than one of any menace, as was alleged by police and prosecutors at the time. In these circumstances, why should he not today be considered the ‘other victim’ in Britain’s most sensational modern murder case?".............
Barry Michael George was born in West London in April 1960 to a special police constable father and an Irish cleaner mother..........
“.........There would be other personas and more baseless yarns to impress those he met, particularly young women.
He liked to say he had been a member of the SAS. Indeed, he assumed the identity of Thomas Palmer, one of the SAS soldiers who had taken part in the 1980 Iranian embassy siege, and the Falklands War two years later.
This fantasy reflected his interest in the military and guns.
In December 1981, he enlisted in the Territorial Army. By the time he was rejected the following November he had attended a number of training days in which he was taught to maintain and shoot assault rifles and machine guns.
During this period, George also joined the Kensington and Chelsea Pistol Club as a probationary member. He attended on eight occasions before his application was not accepted.
His Walter Mitty stories and attempts at derring-do masked a darker side to George’s personality. In 1981, he was charged with indecent assault after grabbing a woman’s breasts in a car park. ‘Paul Gadd, unemployed entertainer,’ was given a three-month prison sentence, suspended for two years. He was acquitted of assaulting another woman, an actress, on the same day.
The following year he sexually assaulted a modern languages undergraduate having followed her to the door of her mother’s home.
At the Old Bailey under the name ‘Steven Majors’, the 22-year-old George pleaded guilty to attempted rape. He was jailed for 33 months, of which he served 18.
Soon after his release he was found by police hiding in bushes in the grounds of Kensington Palace, then the home of Princess Diana. George was wearing a combat jacket and carrying a 12-inch hunting knife and 50 feet of rope. Somewhat surprisingly, he was released uncharged.
In Stand Against Injustice, the book Barry George’s sister Michelle Diskin Bates has written about her brother’s case, she described these paramilitary escapades: ‘Barry’s interest in guns and all things military was born of our family’s long association with the Armed Forces. He’d have loved to be able to follow his dad’s footsteps into the Army or the Royal Marines, he wanted to excel, but even the Territorial Army had to let him go because of his disabilities.’......
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6849355/Cleared-Jill-Dando-murder-suspect-Barry-Georges-indignant-words-extraordinary-encounter.html
“..............Now let us move on to the spring of 2000. In his witness statement, given on April 11, George said that on the day of the murder he had been at home all morning before going to a disability charity’s office at 12.30pm-12.45pm. Jill was shot at around 11.30am that day.
It was an alibi, but not a strong one.
Of his attire he said ‘I wore either my dark suit with a white shirt and a red tie and a black overcoat or… jeans.’
When police subsequently searched George’s flat in Crookham Road they found what they thought was an evidential goldmine.
Among the piles of clutter and rubbish were scores of rolls of undeveloped film. These contained 2,248 photographs of 419 young women, largely taken on the streets of West London. George had stalked them, taking pictures surreptitiously and trying to discover where they lived.
Often he would approach his target and try to engage in conversation, or ask her out for a drink. When rebuffed he could become verbally aggressive or simply ignore requests to leave them alone. Some were told ‘I know where you live’.
The Mail can reveal that some 98 women would later come forward to allege they were harassed by George. Some were left with deep psychological scars.
-
Jim Newton-Smith
@LifeinBiteSize
·
11h
Replying to
@Michelle_Diskin
What on earth does the DM hope to achieve by this?
1
1
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
11h
Revenue! He is still a cash-cow 😪
Interesting, especially in terms of psychological projection!
-
”How dare they say I'm 'not innocent enough' for compensation: Cleared Jill Dando murder suspect Barry George's indignant words in an extraordinary encounter
“He is a shambling, dishevelled bear of a man, barely contained by a dark suit and overcoat. As Barry George talks in a low, throaty growl, the breeze picks at his white shirt tails and red tie.
Plus ca change. George had been dressed in identical fashion on the morning Jill Dando was murdered, he had suggested in the police witness statement he gave almost a year later.
Twenty years have passed since the killing. But in the troubled world of the only man ever charged with the crime — George was convicted at the Old Bailey then acquitted at a second trial — time appears to have stood still.
Now, though, he cuts a pathetic figure rather than one of any menace, as was alleged by police and prosecutors at the time. In these circumstances, why should he not today be considered the ‘other victim’ in Britain’s most sensational modern murder case?".............
Barry Michael George was born in West London in April 1960 to a special police constable father and an Irish cleaner mother..........
“.........There would be other personas and more baseless yarns to impress those he met, particularly young women.
He liked to say he had been a member of the SAS. Indeed, he assumed the identity of Thomas Palmer, one of the SAS soldiers who had taken part in the 1980 Iranian embassy siege, and the Falklands War two years later.
This fantasy reflected his interest in the military and guns.
In December 1981, he enlisted in the Territorial Army. By the time he was rejected the following November he had attended a number of training days in which he was taught to maintain and shoot assault rifles and machine guns.
During this period, George also joined the Kensington and Chelsea Pistol Club as a probationary member. He attended on eight occasions before his application was not accepted.
His Walter Mitty stories and attempts at derring-do masked a darker side to George’s personality. In 1981, he was charged with indecent assault after grabbing a woman’s breasts in a car park. ‘Paul Gadd, unemployed entertainer,’ was given a three-month prison sentence, suspended for two years. He was acquitted of assaulting another woman, an actress, on the same day.
The following year he sexually assaulted a modern languages undergraduate having followed her to the door of her mother’s home.
At the Old Bailey under the name ‘Steven Majors’, the 22-year-old George pleaded guilty to attempted rape. He was jailed for 33 months, of which he served 18.
Soon after his release he was found by police hiding in bushes in the grounds of Kensington Palace, then the home of Princess Diana. George was wearing a combat jacket and carrying a 12-inch hunting knife and 50 feet of rope. Somewhat surprisingly, he was released uncharged.
In Stand Against Injustice, the book Barry George’s sister Michelle Diskin Bates has written about her brother’s case, she described these paramilitary escapades: ‘Barry’s interest in guns and all things military was born of our family’s long association with the Armed Forces. He’d have loved to be able to follow his dad’s footsteps into the Army or the Royal Marines [/u], he wanted to excel, but even the Territorial Army had to let him go because of his disabilities.’......
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6849355/Cleared-Jill-Dando-murder-suspect-Barry-Georges-indignant-words-extraordinary-encounter.html
“Born on April 15 1960, at Hammersmith hospital, Barry Michael George was the youngest of his parents three children, and the only son. Alfred, his father, was a lorry driver and special constable in the Metropolitan police. He had met George's mother Margaret in London and married her in Brook Green, Hammersmith, in July 1954, when she was 18
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/jul/03/jilldando.media5
?
-
"Michelle Diskin was in the front room at her home in Cork listening to the morning radio when she first heard that her brother Barry George had been charged with Jill Dando's murder.
She says she felt numb - completely numb. 'I thought: "No, no, it can't be." 'I wanted to phone my mother, but she is a very quiet and private person. How do you ring your mother and say: "Mum, has my brother been arrested for murder?" she says.
Michelle, a deeply religious woman, finally decided to phone and ask if she should pray for her brother. It seemed a more gentle way of dealing with the appalling news. 'Mother said: "It's all rubbish. He didn't do it. It will die down". I didn't know what to do and said to myself: "Could Barry have done this?"
'Could I see anything in the Barry I knew that might be guilty of this - and I couldn't. I thought about his behaviour. He can be aggravating. But no, not murder.'
But on July 2, last year, Barry George, 42, an educationally-subnormal fantasist with an IQ of just 76, was found guilty of the murder of BBC TV presenter Jill Dando.
She was killed with a single shot to the head. The gun was pressed so hard against her skull that the imprint of the muzzle remained on her scalp afterwards.
There was, however, not one overwhelming piece of evidence to link George to the crime. In the year since the case ended, no other criminal verdict has excited quite so much interest and there has been an endless debate over whether he was indeed guilty 'beyond reasonable doubt'.
Last month, an appeal against his conviction was rejected by three of the country's most senior judges.
Michelle continues to insist upon her brother's innocence. She is determined to take the case to the House of Lords and, should that fail, to Europe, believing his conviction to be a dreadful miscarriage of justice.
In fairness, she doesn't believe her brother to be an angel, but she insists that does not make him a murderer.
Michelle is a warm, articulate woman with a strong sense of right and wrong. Being in the public eye does not sit easily with her. She is, by nature, a home-builder, a wife and mother to three teenage children.
Their terraced family house near Cork is tidy, comfortable and perfumed with scented candles. It is a tactile household where hugs and kisses are easily exchanged.
Her own London childhood had been tough, often violent. In her late teens, she moved to Ireland to work with mentally disabled children. She had little need to dwell upon her past - until her brother's arrest.
Initially, Michelle believed the courts would clear her brother and she resolved not to speak out on his behalf. Indeed, she didn't want to drag her family into the unholy mess, and, in any case, no direct evidence linked her brother to the crime.
No confession. No apparent motive. No eyewitnesses. No murder weapon was ever found.
There was virtually no scientific evidence, except for minute traces of firearm discharge found in one of George's pockets and described as a 'close match' to particles found in Dando's hair. There was also a risk, acknowledged at the trial, that even this evidence was contaminated.
The prosecution case seemed to be simply that George lived locally and was an oddball with unhealthy obsessions. He was said to be 'fixated' with Princess Diana and to stalk women.
He had been convicted, many years earlier, of attempted rape and impersonating a police officer. He used different names (he was arrested as Barry Bulsara, using the real surname of one of his idols, Freddie Mercury) and lived in a world of fantasy. He was said to be 'obsessed' with guns.
George also happened to be near Dando's Fulham home on the morning of her murder. His own home, a chaotically untidy flat, happened to be just a few streets away. Michelle says: 'Barry was in Belmarsh Prison on remand when I first saw him. I had to see him through a glass screen. It was like being in a confessional box. There was a dark, dingy glass between us and you could hardly hear a thing.
'He looked terribly vulnerable and scared. Almost the first thing he said was: "Shhh, don't talk."
'Then he said: "I have not done what they are saying."
'I was asking questions and he kept telling me to talk to my solicitor. I cried. I think he did too. He said he was sorry that he had put us in this. I couldn't touch him but I wanted him to know he was being supported.
We held up our hands against the glass. I felt utterly overwhelmed that this could be happening to us. At each step along the way I thought it would be stopped. It's unbelievable it wasn't.
'There was no evidence. They just lumped everything up and made out he was one big psycho. Timeframes were forgotten, facts were distorted to make a picture - a very bad picture.
'The police needed somebody, and Barry looked, on the surface, as if he would disappear and nobody would fight for him.
'That's why I have to support him. I have always loved him very much.'
Michelle was the eldest of three children, raised in a cramped highrise flat in White City, West London. The bath was in the kitchen and she shared a bedroom with both her sister, a mentally handicapped epileptic two years her junior, and Barry, the baby of the family.
It was an uneasy household with frequent violent rows. 'Barry and Susan were always very special because I had to look after them when I was small.
'There were a lot of pressures living in such close quarters with people on both sides of you and underneath you. My parents fought all the time so I would take the kids out - sometimes for hours on end.
'It was very difficult. Because Susan had very definite problems that were so big, Barry's were pushed to one side.
'He was a gorgeous baby and, as a boy, was into cars and buildings. He sometimes got into trouble, but he could never seem to understand why.
'He couldn't concentrate for long periods of time and was taken out of school and sent to special school. But his disability didn't become really apparent until he got older.
'Barry has a rigidity of thought. He gets a thought and isn't able to change tack. If you changed the topic of conversation, he wouldn't be able to stop focusing on the first one.'
Michelle was 12 when their parents separated. She says it was a relief, an end to the dreadful rows. Her relationship with her mother was not easy and by the age of 15 she was living with her father.
'My mother was warmer earlier in the marriage,' she says. 'And less warm towards the end of it.'
When Barry asked to move in with his father, he was refused. 'I'm sure Barry saw it as a rejection. Probably the first of many,' she says.
By the age of 18, Michelle was living in Ireland with her grandmother. She kept in contact with her family and her brother visited for a holiday. 'He was 14 and so sweet I didn't want to send him back. I remember he used to hang about this place called Barry's Tea and wanted to work there in the yard but he was too young.
'But he would pester people, so this man sent him home with a letter saying he would take him out as his helper if I said it was OK. He said that he could see Barry needed special attention.
'The man gave Barry some pocket money and he came back with sausages, milk and bread so he could help with his keep.'
Michelle displays a certain pride when she repeats this story. It becomes clear that achievements which most people would take for granted were enormously special when accomplished by Barry.
For example, she tells how he arrived at her wedding 'all by himself' and had 'even hired his own suit so he wouldn't show me up'. She saw him handing out buttonholes to guests and was 'proud'.
By this time, he had started to create fantasies about himself and, intriguingly, she recalls a relative having to steer him away from talking about the SAS.
During their phone calls, Barry would talk of his obsession about being a stuntman. He tried to join the Territorial Army under the name Steve Major.
'It seemed perfectly innocent. He said he'd chosen it because the Six Million Dollar Man had such a name. When he later changed his name to Barry Bulsara, it wasn't something I was happy with. But he said he really loved Freddie Mercury and he was doing it as a tribute.
'He wanted to be a special person. He wanted to have friends. I can only speculate that these inventions were ways of opening a conversation. Let's face it, it's a bit more of a conversation grabber than "I'm classified disabled and I can't do anything".'
The prosecuting lawyers made much of George's fantasies. 'They tried to turn him into the Anti-Christ,' says Michelle. 'They spoke about his so-called obsession with guns after joining the Territorial Army. But the TA realised he had problems and Barry didn't handle guns. The only ones he's had are a starter pistol and a plastic gun that was stolen and broken.
'They said he had an obsession with Diana and stalked and photographed women. It was mentioned that he was discovered by police in Kensington Gardens with a rope and a knife dressed in Army gear. He told me that he was "doing manoeuvres".
'But he was never charged and there are no records of him being in the grounds by Diana's apartment as has been suggested.
'Even being "on manoeuvres" in the park, is not the normal behaviour of a grown person, but still pretty ordinary if you think like a child. He was going through his ex-SAS stage then - and it was almost 20 years ago.
'When police examined his flat they found a pile of 736 newspapers on the floor. Of course, there were some articles about Jill Dando, but there were more about Manchester United, although he's a Fulham supporter.
'There were also never any photos of women pinned up on the wall as has been suggested. The police found rolls of undeveloped film - 2,597 photographs showing 419 women.
'He wasn't using the photographs to satisfy some strange obsession. He was playing a role - that's all to do with the childish part of his life. And he'd just thrown the rolls of film in the corner - as he dropped everything in his flat and forgot about things.
'When Barry was in custody, the police had nothing to charge him with. They knew he'd been convicted of attempted rape in 1983, which he'd owned up to at the time, but he wouldn't admit to Jill Dando's murder.
'They were allowed to keep him for extra time, but still he wouldn't say he was responsible.
'If you know my brother, he's not capable of not caving in under that sort of pressure. But he does know when he's done something wrong and when he hasn't. The next thing that happened was that a particle (of firearm discharge) turned up in a coat - it was the only reason they were able to charge him.
'But the integrity of the coat had been corrupted. It was put in an evidence bag, sealed, carted away from his flat, photographed on a dummy in a police studio with an officer's shirt underneath and put back in the crate before it was examined by forensics.
'And as far as identification is concerned, there was only one person who said she was certain she saw Barry at 7.30am. She said she saw him by a car, but Barry can't drive.
'Barry has been described as a loner. But he's not. He was always out seeing people. He had friends, people who loved him - who accepted Barry with his differences. They didn't know about the attempted rape, but that happened almost 20 years before.
He paid his price to society for what he did and he'd turned his life around. And, despite his disabilities, he had made a life for himself. He discussed his friends and would say: "There's a guy down the road and he's my friend. I wash his car for him." After he was charged, I started piecing things together.
'There was a big, motherly Jamaican woman who lived across the road. When I went to see her, I could see she really loved Barry.
'She was really pleased to see me and said she hadn't known if anyone was going to help him. She was going to get some friends together to stand outside Hammersmith police station with placards saying: "Free Barry Bulsara."
'She's adamant he didn't carry out the crime.'
Michelle gathers strength from such support. She knows her brother, not as a psychopath, but as 'quiet, softly-spoken and wellmannered'.
During medical examinations before his trial, it was discovered that George had suffered severe brain damage from a physical injury while in his 20s. Michelle says he does not know how it occurred, although she conjectures that perhaps it was something to do with his 'Steve Majors' phase.
In the early Eighties, he was registered disabled and suffered increasingly from epileptic fits. If the problem was not properly controlled he would often stumble around.
Michelle is not convinced that he would have had the ability to plan or dexterity to carry out such carefully executed crime and getaway. Indeed, the case confounded police for a year before Barry's arrest.
'I knew right from the beginning, from his whole demeanour that he's innocent. I could tell when I saw him in Belmarsh - through his body language, his eye contact - before and after his conviction.
'He said to me: "They had to have someone. I didn't do this and I don't know why I'm here. But you do realise I am here for the rest of my life?"
'I said he wouldn't be - that the sentence would be reduced and he replied: "Oh no, not for me. I can't ever say I'm sorry for doing it - because I didn't do it."
'At night, things play over and over in my mind. When you realise this is a miscarriage of justice, it becomes enormous. They have grabbed Barry's life and taken it away from him. They have also taken my life.
'It wasn't an easy thing to decide to become vocal. But I have to stand up for Barry's rights. I'm determined to at least do that.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-135212/My-brother-didnt-kill-Jill.html#ixzz5DQUKMFv4
?
According to the recently released video footage in the DM of her brother roller skating over 4 double decker buses he hurt his leg (fractured femur) and back (dislocated spine)?
-
“Born on April 15 1960, at Hammersmith hospital, Barry Michael George was the youngest of his parents three children, and the only son. Alfred, his father, was a lorry driver and special constable in the Metropolitan police. He had met George's mother Margaret in London and married her in Brook Green, Hammersmith, in July 1954, when she was 18
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/jul/03/jilldando.media5
?
“George often had "funny turns", but staff were not sure whether these episodes were real or feigned. Doctors examined him on two occasions between 1974 and 1976 and concluded there was nothing wrong.
It is now accepted that George does suffer from a mild form of epilepsy, though the experts are divided about its effects. Some believe George deliberately exaggerates the condition, others claim it has caused "severe brain dysfunction
-
"Michelle Diskin was in the front room at her home in Cork listening to the morning radio when she first heard that her brother Barry George had been charged with Jill Dando's murder.
She says she felt numb - completely numb. 'I thought: "No, no, it can't be." 'I wanted to phone my mother, but she is a very quiet and private person. How do you ring your mother and say: "Mum, has my brother been arrested for murder?" she says.
Michelle, a deeply religious woman, finally decided to phone and ask if she should pray for her brother. It seemed a more gentle way of dealing with the appalling news. 'Mother said: "It's all rubbish. He didn't do it. It will die down". I didn't know what to do and said to myself: "Could Barry have done this?"
'Could I see anything in the Barry I knew that might be guilty of this - and I couldn't. I thought about his behaviour. He can be aggravating. But no, not murder.'
But on July 2, last year, Barry George, 42, an educationally-subnormal fantasist with an IQ of just 76, was found guilty of the murder of BBC TV presenter Jill Dando.
She was killed with a single shot to the head. The gun was pressed so hard against her skull that the imprint of the muzzle remained on her scalp afterwards.
There was, however, not one overwhelming piece of evidence to link George to the crime. In the year since the case ended, no other criminal verdict has excited quite so much interest and there has been an endless debate over whether he was indeed guilty 'beyond reasonable doubt'.
Last month, an appeal against his conviction was rejected by three of the country's most senior judges.
Michelle continues to insist upon her brother's innocence. She is determined to take the case to the House of Lords and, should that fail, to Europe, believing his conviction to be a dreadful miscarriage of justice.
In fairness, she doesn't believe her brother to be an angel, but she insists that does not make him a murderer.
Michelle is a warm, articulate woman with a strong sense of right and wrong. Being in the public eye does not sit easily with her. She is, by nature, a home-builder, a wife and mother to three teenage children.
Their terraced family house near Cork is tidy, comfortable and perfumed with scented candles. It is a tactile household where hugs and kisses are easily exchanged.
Her own London childhood had been tough, often violent. In her late teens, she moved to Ireland to work with mentally disabled children. She had little need to dwell upon her past - until her brother's arrest.
Initially, Michelle believed the courts would clear her brother and she resolved not to speak out on his behalf. Indeed, she didn't want to drag her family into the unholy mess, and, in any case, no direct evidence linked her brother to the crime.
No confession. No apparent motive. No eyewitnesses. No murder weapon was ever found.
There was virtually no scientific evidence, except for minute traces of firearm discharge found in one of George's pockets and described as a 'close match' to particles found in Dando's hair. There was also a risk, acknowledged at the trial, that even this evidence was contaminated.
The prosecution case seemed to be simply that George lived locally and was an oddball with unhealthy obsessions. He was said to be 'fixated' with Princess Diana and to stalk women.
He had been convicted, many years earlier, of attempted rape and impersonating a police officer. He used different names (he was arrested as Barry Bulsara, using the real surname of one of his idols, Freddie Mercury) and lived in a world of fantasy. He was said to be 'obsessed' with guns.
George also happened to be near Dando's Fulham home on the morning of her murder. His own home, a chaotically untidy flat, happened to be just a few streets away. Michelle says: 'Barry was in Belmarsh Prison on remand when I first saw him. I had to see him through a glass screen. It was like being in a confessional box. There was a dark, dingy glass between us and you could hardly hear a thing.
'He looked terribly vulnerable and scared. Almost the first thing he said was: "Shhh, don't talk."
'Then he said: "I have not done what they are saying."
'I was asking questions and he kept telling me to talk to my solicitor. I cried. I think he did too. He said he was sorry that he had put us in this. I couldn't touch him but I wanted him to know he was being supported.
We held up our hands against the glass. I felt utterly overwhelmed that this could be happening to us. At each step along the way I thought it would be stopped. It's unbelievable it wasn't.
'There was no evidence. They just lumped everything up and made out he was one big psycho. Timeframes were forgotten, facts were distorted to make a picture - a very bad picture.
'The police needed somebody, and Barry looked, on the surface, as if he would disappear and nobody would fight for him.
'That's why I have to support him. I have always loved him very much.'
Michelle was the eldest of three children, raised in a cramped highrise flat in White City, West London. The bath was in the kitchen and she shared a bedroom with both her sister, a mentally handicapped epileptic two years her junior, and Barry, the baby of the family.
It was an uneasy household with frequent violent rows. 'Barry and Susan were always very special because I had to look after them when I was small.
'There were a lot of pressures living in such close quarters with people on both sides of you and underneath you. My parents fought all the time so I would take the kids out - sometimes for hours on end.
'It was very difficult. Because Susan had very definite problems that were so big, Barry's were pushed to one side.
'He was a gorgeous baby and, as a boy, was into cars and buildings. He sometimes got into trouble, but he could never seem to understand why.
'He couldn't concentrate for long periods of time and was taken out of school and sent to special school. But his disability didn't become really apparent until he got older.
'Barry has a rigidity of thought. He gets a thought and isn't able to change tack. If you changed the topic of conversation, he wouldn't be able to stop focusing on the first one.'
Michelle was 12 when their parents separated. She says it was a relief, an end to the dreadful rows. Her relationship with her mother was not easy and by the age of 15 she was living with her father.
'My mother was warmer earlier in the marriage,' she says. 'And less warm towards the end of it.'
When Barry asked to move in with his father, he was refused. 'I'm sure Barry saw it as a rejection. Probably the first of many,' she says.
By the age of 18, Michelle was living in Ireland with her grandmother. She kept in contact with her family and her brother visited for a holiday. 'He was 14 and so sweet I didn't want to send him back. I remember he used to hang about this place called Barry's Tea and wanted to work there in the yard but he was too young.
'But he would pester people, so this man sent him home with a letter saying he would take him out as his helper if I said it was OK. He said that he could see Barry needed special attention.
'The man gave Barry some pocket money and he came back with sausages, milk and bread so he could help with his keep.'
Michelle displays a certain pride when she repeats this story. It becomes clear that achievements which most people would take for granted were enormously special when accomplished by Barry.
For example, she tells how he arrived at her wedding 'all by himself' and had 'even hired his own suit so he wouldn't show me up'. She saw him handing out buttonholes to guests and was 'proud'.
By this time, he had started to create fantasies about himself and, intriguingly, she recalls a relative having to steer him away from talking about the SAS.
During their phone calls, Barry would talk of his obsession about being a stuntman. He tried to join the Territorial Army under the name Steve Major.
'It seemed perfectly innocent. He said he'd chosen it because the Six Million Dollar Man had such a name. When he later changed his name to Barry Bulsara, it wasn't something I was happy with. But he said he really loved Freddie Mercury and he was doing it as a tribute.
'He wanted to be a special person. He wanted to have friends. I can only speculate that these inventions were ways of opening a conversation. Let's face it, it's a bit more of a conversation grabber than "I'm classified disabled and I can't do anything".'
The prosecuting lawyers made much of George's fantasies. 'They tried to turn him into the Anti-Christ,' says Michelle. 'They spoke about his so-called obsession with guns after joining the Territorial Army. But the TA realised he had problems and Barry didn't handle guns. The only ones he's had are a starter pistol and a plastic gun that was stolen and broken.
'They said he had an obsession with Diana and stalked and photographed women. It was mentioned that he was discovered by police in Kensington Gardens with a rope and a knife dressed in Army gear. He told me that he was "doing manoeuvres".
'But he was never charged and there are no records of him being in the grounds by Diana's apartment as has been suggested.
'Even being "on manoeuvres" in the park, is not the normal behaviour of a grown person, but still pretty ordinary if you think like a child. He was going through his ex-SAS stage then - and it was almost 20 years ago.
'When police examined his flat they found a pile of 736 newspapers on the floor. Of course, there were some articles about Jill Dando, but there were more about Manchester United, although he's a Fulham supporter.
'There were also never any photos of women pinned up on the wall as has been suggested. The police found rolls of undeveloped film - 2,597 photographs showing 419 women.
'He wasn't using the photographs to satisfy some strange obsession. He was playing a role - that's all to do with the childish part of his life. And he'd just thrown the rolls of film in the corner - as he dropped everything in his flat and forgot about things.
'When Barry was in custody, the police had nothing to charge him with. They knew he'd been convicted of attempted rape in 1983, which he'd owned up to at the time, but he wouldn't admit to Jill Dando's murder.
'They were allowed to keep him for extra time, but still he wouldn't say he was responsible.
'If you know my brother, he's not capable of not caving in under that sort of pressure. But he does know when he's done something wrong and when he hasn't. The next thing that happened was that a particle (of firearm discharge) turned up in a coat - it was the only reason they were able to charge him.
'But the integrity of the coat had been corrupted. It was put in an evidence bag, sealed, carted away from his flat, photographed on a dummy in a police studio with an officer's shirt underneath and put back in the crate before it was examined by forensics.
'And as far as identification is concerned, there was only one person who said she was certain she saw Barry at 7.30am. She said she saw him by a car, but Barry can't drive.
'Barry has been described as a loner. But he's not. He was always out seeing people. He had friends, people who loved him - who accepted Barry with his differences. They didn't know about the attempted rape, but that happened almost 20 years before.
He paid his price to society for what he did and he'd turned his life around. And, despite his disabilities, he had made a life for himself. He discussed his friends and would say: "There's a guy down the road and he's my friend. I wash his car for him." After he was charged, I started piecing things together.
'There was a big, motherly Jamaican woman who lived across the road. When I went to see her, I could see she really loved Barry.
'She was really pleased to see me and said she hadn't known if anyone was going to help him. She was going to get some friends together to stand outside Hammersmith police station with placards saying: "Free Barry Bulsara."
'She's adamant he didn't carry out the crime.'
Michelle gathers strength from such support. She knows her brother, not as a psychopath, but as 'quiet, softly-spoken and wellmannered'.
During medical examinations before his trial, it was discovered that George had suffered severe brain damage from a physical injury while in his 20s. Michelle says he does not know how it occurred, although she conjectures that perhaps it was something to do with his 'Steve Majors' phase.
In the early Eighties, he was registered disabled and suffered increasingly from epileptic fits. If the problem was not properly controlled he would often stumble around.
Michelle is not convinced that he would have had the ability to plan or dexterity to carry out such carefully executed crime and getaway. Indeed, the case confounded police for a year before Barry's arrest.
'I knew right from the beginning, from his whole demeanour that he's innocent. I could tell when I saw him in Belmarsh - through his body language, his eye contact - before and after his conviction.
'He said to me: "They had to have someone. I didn't do this and I don't know why I'm here. But you do realise I am here for the rest of my life?"
'I said he wouldn't be - that the sentence would be reduced and he replied: "Oh no, not for me. I can't ever say I'm sorry for doing it - because I didn't do it."
'At night, things play over and over in my mind. When you realise this is a miscarriage of justice, it becomes enormous. They have grabbed Barry's life and taken it away from him. They have also taken my life.
'It wasn't an easy thing to decide to become vocal. But I have to stand up for Barry's rights. I'm determined to at least do that.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-135212/My-brother-didnt-kill-Jill.html#ixzz5DQUKMFv4
In December 1981, he enlisted in the Territorial Army. By the time he was rejected the following November he had attended a number of training days in which he was taught to maintain and shoot assault rifles and machine guns.
During this period, George also joined the Kensington and Chelsea Pistol Club as a probationary member. He attended on eight occasions before his application was not accepted.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6849355/Cleared-Jill-Dando-murder-suspect-Barry-Georges-indignant-words-extraordinary-encounter.html
”He wanted to be a special person. He wanted to have friends. I can only speculate that these inventions were ways of opening a conversation. Let's face it, it's a bit more of a conversation grabber than "I'm classified disabled and I can't do anything
-
"But his Irish sister – who recently launched an appeal for witnesses to
help her brother – said last night that although the family had
investigated the possibility of him doing one, they have been advised by
doctors against it.
Speaking from her Cork home, Michelle Diskin said: “We have thought
about it and taken medical advice but we have been told a lie test
wouldn’t work properly because of the condition he is in.
“He has suffered brain damage as a result of his years of having
epilepsy and it was main reason why he didn’t take the stand in his own
defence at his trail.
“It’s not so much that a lie test wouldn’t work, but it’s more that it
would have a better chance of not working properly because of his
condition and then Barry would just end up in a worse position than he
already is.
https://randomirishnews.com/2006/04/21/jill-dando-killer-barry-george-too-sick-for-lie-test/
"During medical examinations before his trial, it was discovered that George had suffered severe brain damage from a physical injury while in his 20s. Michelle says he does not know how it occurred, although she conjectures that perhaps it was something to do with his 'Steve Majors' phase
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-135212/My-brother-didnt-kill-Jill.html#ixzz5DQUKMFv4
Appears to me the media are finally seeing the wood through the trees regarding the numerous inconsistencies, contradictions and damn right lies regarding Barry George!
-
“A man has been fatally stabbed on the road where television presenter Jill Dando was shot on her doorstep nearly two decades ago.
Police were called to Gowan Avenue in Fulham, London, at 12.27am yesterday after reports of a fight. The victim, a 29-year-old engineering graduate named locally as Nathaniel, was pronounced dead minutes later.
The attack came nearly 20 years after former Crimewatch reporter Dando was killed by a single bullet fired at her head as she reached the front door of her house, on 26 April 1999.
“The murder, in the quiet, leafy street where the cherry trees were in blossom yesterday, remains one of the most high-profile unsolved murders,” says The Times.
Barry George, a convicted sex offender, was found guilty of killing the 37-year-old presenter in July 2001, but was acquitted six years later after gun residue found on him during the forensic investigation was discredited.
https://www.theweek.co.uk/94727/who-killed-jill-dando-six-theories-behind-her-murder
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
Mar 17
That poor man, his poor family. How does this help them? Yes people...I AM INCENSED! Cheap shots at an innocent, disabled man
@thetimes
Mention Jill, yes, that’s relevant. Barry is not relevant and he is not a cash cow!
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
Mar 19
My new flyer...use the email address below to book me to speak with your group. 🤗
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀 Retweeted
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
Mar 17
Did they HAVE to drag Barry into this and be so disparaging? He’s no more obsessed than anyone else 🤬🤬🤬 It seems Barry is still fair game 😢 19 years on
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1107384527750602755
“The best liars are natural manipulators,"
-
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eeYhz2zsvXo
“Barry George mingled with mourners in the quiet street where hours earlier he had shot dead Jill Dando - and even brought his own flowers.
Saying he felt "concern and remorse" at her murder, he laid a bouquet at the cordon police had set up around the crime scene
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-57542/The-evidence-Barry-George.html
-
29th March 2019
“The detective who led the inquiry into Jill Dando's murder has told the BBC her case will never be solved.
Hamish Campbell told a documentary to mark 20 years since the newsreader's shooting: "Do I think somebody will come back to court? Probably not, no."
His team arrested Barry George in 2000, one year after Dando, 37, was killed on her doorstep in Fulham, west London.
Mr George was convicted of murder and spent eight years in jail, before being acquitted at a retrial and released.
The Murder of Jill Dando will be shown on BBC One at 21:00 BST on Tuesday 2 April.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47742654
“Mr Campbell and the Metropolitan Police faced criticism after Mr George was cleared, but maintained that they had never used the convicted sex offender as a scapegoat.
He said: 'There's always been the view, in the media and elsewhere, that the police chose Barry George somehow as a scapegoat and for want of a better word, a patsy, for the investigation team because we couldn't solve it.
'That is somewhat insulting and completely untrue, and wrong.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6862889/Met-officer-investigated-Jill-Dando-case-claims-killer-unlikely-face-justice.html
-
29th March 2019
“The detective who led the inquiry into Jill Dando's murder has told the BBC her case will never be solved.
Hamish Campbell told a documentary to mark 20 years since the newsreader's shooting: "Do I think somebody will come back to court? Probably not, no."
His team arrested Barry George in 2000, one year after Dando, 37, was killed on her doorstep in Fulham, west London.
Mr George was convicted of murder and spent eight years in jail, before being acquitted at a retrial and released.
The Murder of Jill Dando will be shown on BBC One at 21:00 BST on Tuesday 2 April.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47742654
“Mr Campbell and the Metropolitan Police faced criticism after Mr George was cleared, but maintained that they had never used the convicted sex offender as a scapegoat.
He said: 'There's always been the view, in the media and elsewhere, that the police chose Barry George somehow as a scapegoat and for want of a better word, a patsy, for the investigation team because we couldn't solve it.
'That is somewhat insulting and completely untrue, and wrong.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6862889/Met-officer-investigated-Jill-Dando-case-claims-killer-unlikely-face-justice.html
“Since George's release, no one else has been convicted of Jill's murder. Asked in the documentary whether he believes anyone will ever be charged with the journalist's murder,
Detective Campbell responded: "Do I think somebody will come back to court, probably not. [Will somebody new come to court?] No... no."
https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/reports/a26971858/jill-dando-murder/
-
"As the inquiry developed, as the picture built, you 12 [jurors] all now understand why it is the prosecution say, and they maintain, that this man in court, Barry George, and no other, murdered Jill Dando," said Laidlaw.
"When you put the evidence together, when you look collectively at the component parts of it, each arising independently, then all this cannot possibly be explained merely by unhappy coincidence."
Laidlaw said the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann was possibly the only case to have received more press attention than Dando's murder.
He said identifying the culprit had been "demanding and exacting," with investigators having to fend off the distractions of "countless theories" about what had happened.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/jul/24/ukcrime.television
"That is not to say that we lack any confidence in this case or the assertion we make against this defendant that he is Miss Dando's assailant," said Laidlaw.
"We do not lack any confidence in that assertion."
-
“The man accused of murdering the TV presenter Jill Dando bought a pair of inline skates so that he could follow women, the Old Bailey heard today.
Barry George, 48, denies murdering BBC presenter Jill Dando, 37, who was shot through the head as she arrived home in Fulham, west London, in April 1999.
A witness told the court that George, who lived 500 yards from Dando, would follow women home from a local park and, if they boarded a bus, he would stalk the bus wearing the blades.
Susan Coombe said she was a fellow resident of a hostel in Kensington, west London, with George for six months in 1985, when he was calling himself Tom Palmer.
Advertisement
"Tom would tell us that he used to follow girls through the park, mainly Holland Park," she said.
"He bought himself some Rollerblades. He would follow them on the Rollerblades.
"Tom would follow girls from the park. If he liked a girl, he would follow her home in the afternoon or evening. If they got on buses, he would follow them on Rollerblades."
She said he would also try to chat up women in two other London parks, Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens.
"If he liked them he would go back early the following morning and stand outside the house to see if they lived alone or had a partner."
She said George would then approach them at a different time and strike up conversations by saying: "I know you - I know where you live".
The prosecution has alleged that the defendant had a fascination with female celebrities and guns and that he stalked women. Some 4,000 undeveloped photos of women were found at his flat.
Coombe said George told her he had been in the SAS but having initially believed him she changed her mind. She said he would discuss guns on a regular basis.
"He said he went to a store in the North End Road, Fulham, which used to sell guns and knives," she said.
"He said he used to have a friend from the army who dismantled guns and put them back together again."
George had boasted of collecting guns and one night produced two guns. He gave one to another resident and kept hold of what looked like a rifle.
"They were going around the room pretending to shoot people," said Coombe.
On another occasion, she went into his room and he produced a "small, shiny silver gun" from a box. He also had army fatigues and a balaclava, she said
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/jun/12/ukcrime2
-
“By summer 1980, when he was 20, he was emerging as a 'character' in West London.
At Kingston Crown Court he was fined £15 for impersonating a police officer.
Then a picture of him with a trophy appeared in his local newspaper when he duped the Fulham Chronicle into believing that he had won the British Karate Championships by breaking 47 tiles with his feet.
He used the name Paul Gadd - real name of the now disgraced pop star Gary Glitter. Readers were told he was 'a singer with the band Xanadu and a session musician with the Electric Light Orchestra'.
Another newspaper, the West London Observer, exposed him as a sham, but he would not be put off.
His need to impress now had him describing himself as a cousin of Jeff Lynne, lead singer with ELO.
Step by step, George was becoming more than a harmless eccentric. Within weeks, he was in the paper again, this time on charges of indecent assault after grabbing a woman's breasts in a car park.
As 'Paul Gadd, unemployed entertainer' he was given a three-month sentence, suspended for two years.
He was acquitted of assaulting another woman, actress June Zeller, on the same day.
Soon afterwards he entered his 'Steve Majors' period when he posed as a stuntman of the same name and made a ludicrous attempt to speed down a ramp on roller skates and leap across four double-decker buses.
He clipped the fourth bus and landed in a heap, fracturing his femur and dislocating his spine. But he got up grinning and managed to skate about before being carted off to hospital.
The following year, 1982, George tried to rape a modern languages student he met near Turnham Green Tube station in Chiswick, West London. He was not caught for another year.
By now a new interest had come into George's life - guns.
He had joined the Territorial Army, training with the 10th Battalion Parachute Regiment at White City. He enlisted under the name S F Majors and completed 29 days' training.
The training did not cover pistols but late in 1982, while still with the TA, he joined Kensington and Chelsea Pistol Club as a probationary member, named Steve Majors.
He completed eight periods of pistol shooting, but in September that year his application for full membership was refused.
In November the TA also rejected him as unsuitable, but in his fantasy world instead of shedding his Army uniform he elevated himself to the elite corps of fighting soldiers, the SAS.
He told whoever would listen that he was Thomas Palmer, the hero who led the storming of the Iranian embassy in London in 1980.
Now came the Kensington Palace incident in January 1983, when he was discovered in the grounds with the Rambo-size hunting knife and simply sent home.
Although Diana was away that evening, the significance of the incident to police later investigating Jill Dando's killing cannot be exaggerated: George, they now became convinced, was undoubtedly a threat to the public.
Within weeks of being released without charge, he was identified as the man who assaulted the student in Turnham Green.
Questioned by police, he broke down and confessed and in March 1983, under the name Steven Majors, George, then 22, was jailed for 33 months at the Old Bailey for attempted rape.
He served 18 months and was released without treatment or supervision. No one knew of his arrest carrying a knife near the walls of Kensington Palace.
By now guns and the Army were a fixation. He wore khakis in public, bought specialist military magazines, and showed acquaintances guns he kept in his flat.
He built up a huge collection of magazines, photos of the famous and articles from newspapers that police were later to discover.
George had been through several personality phases, and more were to come, but the Army and guns were to remain a constant.
In 1986 he mimicked his SAS hero Thomas Palmer's finest hour by staging a bizarre 'raid' on the home of a friend from school called David Dobbins.
The Dobbins family lived in South Kensington and one evening there was a knock on the door. It was George, in combat gear and balaclava, and he charged in holding a pistol and fired a shot.
When the panic subsided they realised it was a blank.
By now he was increasingly filling his jobless days by pestering women in Holland Park in West London. He carried flowers and a 12in hunting knife tucked in the leg pocket of his Army trousers.
One female acquaintance, Susan Coombe, said George (whom she knew as Tom Palmer) would try to 'chat them up or he would follow them to see where they lived'.
She said: 'If a girl he approached was polite and made conversation he would fall in love, but if they were not interested he would get angry.'
At the time George was living in council-paid accommodation at the Stanhope Gardens Hotel in West London, where he was renowned for romancing Oriental girls because white women usually rejected him.
One night at the hotel, a girl was heard screaming for help in George's room. A burly Scottish resident went to the rescue and forced George to open the door.
Out fled a naked Japanese girl, carrying her clothes, with blood running down her legs. The police were not called.
George's stalking habits continued when he moved to his dingy council flat in Crookham Road, Fulham.
His odd behaviour frequently came to the attention of police, who compiled an intelligence report on him. One entry described him as an 'idiot - but a dangerous one', while another said he was 'a persistent pathological-liar'.
Later George would harass language students of the London Study Centre in Fulham Road.
Surprisingly, perhaps, one of them, Itsuko Toide, from Tokyo, became a girlfriend and on May 2, 1989, she married him at Fulham register office. The marriage was a disaster and she fled back to Japan.
After she left, George changed his name for the last time. Now he became Barry Bulsara, taking the real surname of one of his idols, Freddie Mercury.
He took the fantasy to extraordinary lengths, insisting he was not only Mercury's cousin but also a follower of Zoroastrianism, Mercury's religion.
Mercury's death in 1991 was a golden opportunity for George to immerse himself in the singer's life. He visited Mercury's home in Kensington so often, making sinister approaches to female fans, that the Queen International Fan Club called the police.
George would save up for months to hire a white limousine in which he would drive up to the house on the anniversary of the singer's death, dressed like his idol in tight vest and leather jacket.
He would hand out business cards to women on which was printed 'Bulsara Productions Inc: Directors Barry Bulsara and Frederick Bulsara Mercury'.
And he consulted a plastic surgeon with a view to being made to look like his idol.
He had two consultations at the New You clinic on Fulham Broadway with surgeon Riad Roomi. Mr Roomi told him he would carry out the work only if George obtained the approval of a psychiatrist. The surgery was never carried out.
His supposed link with Mercury was now his main gambit when accosting girls, or when running up huge bills on premium-rate porn chat-lines on his mother's phone.
It was about this time that he was questioned over the murder of Rachel Nickell, stabbed to death on Wimbledon Common in July 1992.
Broadmoor patient was recently charged with the murder.
By now Jill Dando was living in Gowan Avenue, only 500 yards from George's flat and four doors from the doctors' surgery he attended.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1040722/Rambo-karate-kid-rock-star-The-fantasy-life-Barry-George.html
-
“By the late 1980s Mr George had developed his routine of relentlessly following women, often on his roller skates, and drawing up lists of addresses, descriptions and car registration numbers for those he had followed.
During his trial, diplomat Claudia Casey, 40, sobbed as she described having to jump into a passing car after having her arm grabbed by a man she believes was George in Fulham in 1995. Another witness, Angela Gordon, claimed he appeared on her doorstep and asked to kiss her.
They and the hundreds of women who were unwittingly stalked by Mr George will be hoping he is now housed a very long way away from them
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2484893/Jill-Dando-verdict-What-now-for-Barry-George.html
-
“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
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
1h
In the light of the forthcoming BBC documentary next Tuesday, I thought it opportune to highlight my book, the TRUE story of our family and the flawed investigation into Jill Dando’s murder, 20 years ago.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin
-
In a nutshell - I don' think much of manipulative individuals who use underhanded tactics in a quite obvious attempt to muddy the waters Eleanor.
Are you familiar with the term "gas lighting?"
I've read many of Barry George's sisters projections in her so called fight to stand for justice but I no longer buy into it. It stopped the day Simon Hall confessed. The niggles I had with regards the personalities of some of those people I once associated with kept niggling away at me - bit like David Jessel said in his comment about "the confession."
I'm driven by truth and justice. I have no agenda. I've learned much since I was conned and I've had to get to the bottom of how and why I was conned.
I've also learned a lot about criminal law and the loopholes used by some in their attempts to give themselves an air of plausible deniability (which equates to a lack of accountability).
!
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
1h
In the light of the forthcoming BBC documentary next Tuesday, I thought it opportune to highlight my book, the TRUE story of our family and the flawed investigation into Jill Dando’s murder, 20 years ago.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
1h
Yes...this is also in my book! My mother was targeted the same way.
‘A PHONE HACKING HIT? How Jill Dando was Tracked to her Doorstep’ – Byline Times
https://bylinetimes.com/2019/03/29/a-phone-hacking-hit-how-jill-dando-was-tracked-to-her-doorstep/
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
1h
Yes...this is also in my book! My mother was targeted the same way.
‘A PHONE HACKING HIT? How Jill Dando was Tracked to her Doorstep’ – Byline Times
https://bylinetimes.com/2019/03/29/a-phone-hacking-hit-how-jill-dando-was-tracked-to-her-doorstep/
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
50m
Why oh why do they keep saying...’stash of photos’ found in Barry’s flat...THEY WERE UNDEVELOPED ROLLS OF FILM!!!
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8724070/who-killed-jill-dando-serbian-mafia-paedophile-ring/#comments
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
50m
Why oh why do they keep saying...’stash of photos’ found in Barry’s flat...THEY WERE UNDEVELOPED ROLLS OF FILM!!!
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8724070/who-killed-jill-dando-serbian-mafia-paedophile-ring/#comments
How many photos did Barry George take and of whom?
How long did it take him to take these photos?
What lengths and planning did he go to in order to take the photos in the first place?
Seems these facts are lost on those intent on attempting to downplay the nature of his obsessive stalking.
-
Jim Newton-Smith
@LifeinBiteSize
·
11h
Replying to
@Michelle_Diskin
What on earth does the DM hope to achieve by this?
1
1
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
11h
Revenue! He is still a cash-cow 😪
Interesting, especially in terms of psychological projection!
Who’s cash cow is he?
-
Video of Barry George’s attempt to roller skate over 4 double decker buses
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-1890544/Video-Barry-George-attempts-rollerskate-four-double-decker-buses.html
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀 Retweeted
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
8h
Replying to
@DrSusanYoung1
Barry George is on trial again
@DrSusanYoung1
. Of course no one else will be brought to justice...no one is investigating!
✴️Police/media, stop referring to autism in derogatory term...oddball, loner, weirdo! You offend many families with this discrimination, not just Barry.
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀 Retweeted
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
8h
Replying to
@DrSusanYoung1
Barry George is on trial again
@DrSusanYoung1
. Of course no one else will be brought to justice...no one is investigating!
✴️Police/media, stop referring to autism in derogatory term...oddball, loner, weirdo! You offend many families with this discrimination, not just Barry.
Susan Young’s reputation is at stake so she had a need to defend Barry George.
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀 Retweeted
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
2h
Replying to
@ccrcupdate
Not so much interesting for Barry, as scary! He’s been battling for justice for 19yrs, then the officer who was responsible for his wrongful conviction is given a platform on BBC to say ‘no one else was being sought for this crime’ how else would he be feeling? Disgraceful!
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀 Retweeted
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
2h
Replying to
@ccrcupdate
Not so much interesting for Barry, as scary! He’s been battling for justice for 19yrs, then the officer who was responsible for his wrongful conviction is given a platform on BBC to say ‘no one else was being sought for this crime’ how else would he be feeling? Disgraceful!
I’d like to hear firsthand how Barry George ‘feels’ as opposed to his sisters opinion of what she thinks he ‘feels.’
-
Mark Williams-Thomas
@mwilliamsthomas
Just watched Dando programme - so ex DCI Campbell basically is convinced Barry George is guilty & has just said as much . When the full details are known about the investigation and case it’s clear that Barry was not responsible at all .
11:05 PM · Apr 2, 2019 · Twitter for iPhone
13
Retweets
70
Likes
Geraint Cynan
@cerddcynan
·
12h
Replying to
@mwilliamsthomas
Graceless individual. Bombastic and unrepentant. As opposed to the magnificent decorum displayed by Dando family.
1
1
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
12h
This is just betraying the Dando family further, they’ve been lied to for 19years. Not to mention us 😢
https://mobile.twitter.com/mwilliamsthomas/status/1113200690321612800
-
Mark Williams-Thomas
@mwilliamsthomas
Just watched Dando programme - so ex DCI Campbell basically is convinced Barry George is guilty & has just said as much . When the full details are known about the investigation and case it’s clear that Barry was not responsible at all .
11:05 PM · Apr 2, 2019 · Twitter for iPhone
13
Retweets
70
Likes
Geraint Cynan
@cerddcynan
·
12h
Replying to
@mwilliamsthomas
Graceless individual. Bombastic and unrepentant. As opposed to the magnificent decorum displayed by Dando family.
1
1
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
12h
This is just betraying the Dando family further, they’ve been lied to for 19years. Not to mention us 😢
https://mobile.twitter.com/mwilliamsthomas/status/1113200690321612800
http://www.kingofhits.co.uk/component/option,com_kunena/Itemid,65/func,view/catid,2/id,187606/
-
Video of Barry George’s attempt to roller skate over 4 double decker buses
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-1890544/Video-Barry-George-attempts-rollerskate-four-double-decker-buses.html
There’s a photograph in this link https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/local-news/they-put-gun-head-acquitted-1793222
where Barry George is clearly seen imitating holding and pointing a gun.
(https://i2-prod.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/incoming/article1793509.ece/ALTERNATES/s615b/0_Barry-George-Jill-Dando-MURDER.jpg)
-
“George often had "funny turns", but staff were not sure whether these episodes were real or feigned. Doctors examined him on two occasions between 1974 and 1976 and concluded there was nothing wrong.
It is now accepted that George does suffer from a mild form of epilepsy, though the experts are divided about its effects. Some believe George deliberately exaggerates the condition, others claim it has caused "severe brain dysfunction
“One specific meaning of the term religious abuse refers to psychological manipulation and harm inflicted on a person by using the teachings of their religion. This is perpetrated by members of the same or similar faith, and includes the use of a position of authority within the religion.[2] It is most often directed at children and emotionally vulnerable adults, and motivations behind such abuse vary, but can be either well-intentioned or malicious.[3]
Even well-intentioned religious abuse can have long-term psychological consequences, such as the victim developing phobias or long-term depression. They may have a sense of shame that persists even after they leave the religion. A person can also be manipulated into avoiding a beneficial action (such as a medical treatment) or to engage in a harmful behavior. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_abuse
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
2h
Well, we were not disappointed, were we? Not informed of content, not given ‘right of reply’, ex cop telling outright lies...par for the course, really 😡 Disgraceful behaviour from the BBC and Crimewatch. Yes, this was made by Crimewatch personnel.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1113367458042253312
Stand Against Injustice by Michelle Diskin Bates https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stand-Against-Injustice-Michelle-Diskin/dp/1910786241
”PiXeLWRiTeR
5.0 out of 5 starsI wish this book was in the fiction section.
9 December 2018
Format: Paperback
Having read the introduction, this book seemed set up to be a rollercoaster ride of a novel, mixing the crime and thriller genres with an uncomfortable hint of horror as well.
I normally head for the sci-fi section of a bookshop, but something about fighting injustice struck a chord. I had no idea what an experience it would be to read this book, to follow and share (in a very small way!) the path taken by the author and others in the book.
This story feels almost like fiction anyway - the real-life landscape revealed in this book is such an eye-opener I was almost hoping the last page would be the standard disclaimer that there was no real or intended reference to real people, names or events.
Read and learn. . .
-
Michelle Diskin Bates
@Michelle_Diskin
·
2h
Well, we were not disappointed, were we? Not informed of content, not given ‘right of reply’, ex cop telling outright lies...par for the course, really Disgraceful behaviour from the BBC and Crimewatch. Yes, this was made by Crimewatch personnel.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1113367458042253312
Stand Against Injustice by Michelle Diskin Bates https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stand-Against-Injustice-Michelle-Diskin/dp/1910786241
”PiXeLWRiTeR
5.0 out of 5 starsI wish this book was in the fiction section.
9 December 2018
Format: Paperback
Having read the introduction, this book seemed set up to be a rollercoaster ride of a novel, mixing the crime and thriller genres with an uncomfortable hint of horror as well.
I normally head for the sci-fi section of a bookshop, but something about fighting injustice struck a chord. I had no idea what an experience it would be to read this book, to follow and share (in a very small way!) the path taken by the author and others in the book.
This story feels almost like fiction anyway - the real-life landscape revealed in this book is such an eye-opener I was almost hoping the last page would be the standard disclaimer that there was no real or intended reference to real people, names or events.
Read and learn. . .
“I first met Michelle Bates when I interviewed her at my Spiritual Health Conference and then again when I interviewed her on my TV chat show. Even though I knew her story when I read this book I could not put it down. This is an amazing story of love and faith whilst pursuing justice for her brother. What a story! You have to read this book! --Nancy Goudie, Author and Motivational Speaker; Founder/CEO of ngm and Founder of Nancy Goudie's Spiritual Health Weekends.
Written with great integrity and without even a hint of self-pity or hatred towards, or vengeance against, those responsible for causing her brother's wrongful conviction or who played a part in preventing its overturn or are currently refusing him compensation.... https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stand-Against-Injustice-Michelle-Diskin/dp/1910786241
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀 Retweeted
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
2h
Replying to
@ccrcupdate
Not so much interesting for Barry, as scary! He’s been battling for justice for 19yrs, then the officer who was responsible for his wrongful conviction is given a platform on BBC to say ‘no one else was being sought for this crime’ how else would he be feeling? Disgraceful!
“Notable by its absence was an interview with Barry George, who spent eight years in jail for her murder before having his conviction overturned in 2008.
Explaining why, a BBC spokesperson said: "Barry George's arrest, conviction, appeal, retrial and acquittal are addressed in the film with archive footage to recount the events.
"It was not necessary to have a present day interview with Mr George as this film set out to tell the wider context of Jill's death and the fact her murder remains unsolved.
"Barry George has been kept informed of the nature of the film and transmission."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-47798970
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
2h
Well, we were not disappointed, were we? Not informed of content, not given ‘right of reply’, ex cop telling outright lies...par for the course, really 😡 Disgraceful behaviour from the BBC and Crimewatch. Yes, this was made by Crimewatch personnel.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1113367458042253312
Who is telling outright lies?
"Barry George has been kept informed of the nature of the film and transmission."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-47798970
-
“One specific meaning of the term religious abuse refers to psychological manipulation and harm inflicted on a person by using the teachings of their religion. This is perpetrated by members of the same or similar faith, and includes the use of a position of authority within the religion.[2] It is most often directed at children and emotionally vulnerable adults, and motivations behind such abuse vary, but can be either well-intentioned or malicious.[3]
Even well-intentioned religious abuse can have long-term psychological consequences, such as the victim developing phobias or long-term depression. They may have a sense of shame that persists even after they leave the religion. A person can also be manipulated into avoiding a beneficial action (such as a medical treatment) or to engage in a harmful behavior. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_abuse
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
.
God is so good... we have been showered with love today, we are not discouraged. Thank you twitter friends.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1113505527244443648/photo/1
-
29th March 2019
“The detective who led the inquiry into Jill Dando's murder has told the BBC her case will never be solved.
Hamish Campbell told a documentary to mark 20 years since the newsreader's shooting: "Do I think somebody will come back to court? Probably not, no."
His team arrested Barry George in 2000, one year after Dando, 37, was killed on her doorstep in Fulham, west London.
Mr George was convicted of murder and spent eight years in jail, before being acquitted at a retrial and released.
The Murder of Jill Dando will be shown on BBC One at 21:00 BST on Tuesday 2 April.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47742654
“Mr Campbell and the Metropolitan Police faced criticism after Mr George was cleared, but maintained that they had never used the convicted sex offender as a scapegoat.
He said: 'There's always been the view, in the media and elsewhere, that the police chose Barry George somehow as a scapegoat and for want of a better word, a patsy, for the investigation team because we couldn't solve it.
'That is somewhat insulting and completely untrue, and wrong.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6862889/Met-officer-investigated-Jill-Dando-case-claims-killer-unlikely-face-justice.html
“Standing outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London with her brother, Michelle Diskin, from Ballincollig, Co Cork, told reporters:
“There never was any viable evidence against Barry.”
The appeals court upheld an earlier ruling by the British high court that Mr George was “not innocent enough to be compensated”.
This whole case from Apr 2000 until today has been a smoke and mirrors exercise designed to placate a worried public, and give the impression that justice had been done.
“Well neither the Dando family, nor our family, has seen any justice in the past 13 years.”
Ms Diskin said: “We are extremely disappointed with the decision and will need to go away and regroup to decide what to do next. We cannot let this go unchallenged.
“Serving eight years in prison for someone else’s crime is not acceptable.
“Everything was taken from this man when the police started what we believe to be a malicious prosecution.
https://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/family-of-barry-george-to-fight-travesty-of-justice-236443.html
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀 Retweeted
Poppy Ann Miller™
@PoppyMeze
·
Apr 4
I've studied various aspects of the law including Forensic Psychology but it doesn't take an expert to know - just by looking at the MO of Dando's murder that it had to be carried out by an expert - a contract killing and the culprit is connected to someone known to her.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin
Strewth *&^^&
-
A recent BBC documentary about the murder of Jill Dando:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0003w40/the-murder-of-jill-dando
What has always struck me as odd about this case is the fact Jill Dando spent very little time at her house. Instead spending most of the time at her fiancees house in Chiswick where she spent the night before she was murdered. Then when she left his house that morning she didn't go straight to her house but went shopping. CCTV footage doesn't show any evidence that she was being followed. Later that day she was due to attend a bridal shop for a fitting.
How would anyone, other than those in the know through Jill, her fiancee and those close to her know her movements? The one exception being immediate neighbours.
Jill and Alan were engaged in Feb 1999 and on the day of the murder she was due to attend a bridal shop. Was the perp, either directly or through a hit person, a jealous ex or someone that had desires on Alan Farthing from afar?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Farthing
The docu shows yet another completely male dominated police investigation so once again we only see the case investigated through the male eye!
Many of the participants ask why would anyone want to murder Jill Dando? Jealousy? Here was a woman who appeared to have it all and if the perp had some unhealthy interest in Alan Farthing or was a jealous ex then I would imagine if you were that way inclined it would only be exacerbated by seeing Jill's face on high profile tv programmes like News, Holiday and Crimewatch.
-
A recent BBC documentary about the murder of Jill Dando:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0003w40/the-murder-of-jill-dando
What has always struck me as odd about this case is the fact Jill Dando spent very little time at her house. Instead spending most of the time at her fiancees house in Chiswick where she spent the night before she was murdered. Then when she left his house that morning she didn't go straight to her house but went shopping. CCTV footage doesn't show any evidence that she was being followed. Later that day she was due to attend a bridal shop for a fitting.
How would anyone, other than those in the know through Jill, her fiancee and those close to her know her movements? The one exception being immediate neighbours.
An opportunist/stalker wouldn’t need to know her movements!
-
Here's an old article by Geoffrey Levy:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2244910/Why-murder-ex-fianc-Jill-Dando-haunts-man-deliver-Kate-Middletons-baby.html
It appears the emphasis was on looking at Jill's ex's/obsessives rather than Alan's?!
What a misogynist:
"There were five men who figured seriously in Jill Dando’s life - not an excessive number for a modern, single woman of 37".
Would he honestly write that comment if he was referring to a male?
'There were five women who figured seriously in Bill Blogg's life - not an excessive number for a modern, single male of 37'.
And how would anyone know the exact nature of these relationships excluding the participants? Any what about anyone who was actually acquainted with Jill or Alan but not intimately involved emotionally/sexually but had an unhealthy interest/obsession?
-
Jill and Alan were engaged in Feb 1999 and on the day of the murder she was due to attend a bridal shop. Was the perp, either directly or through a hit person, a jealous ex or someone that had desires on Alan Farthing from afar?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Farthing
To which “jealous ex” do you refer?
-
Jill and Alan were engaged in Feb 1999 and on the day of the murder she was due to attend a bridal shop. Was the perp, either directly or through a hit person, a jealous ex or someone that had desires on Alan Farthing from afar?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Farthing
... or someone who had “desires” on Jill Dando from afar?
-
An opportunist/stalker wouldn’t need to know her movements!
As Jill's cousin said in the docu for this to have happened all the stars would need to align.
The statistical chances of an opportunist stalker happening upon Jill at her home address when her movements were random and unknown who just happened to have a loaded firearm on his/her person would imo be so statistically unlikely I would rule it out.
She had not mentioned to anyone about being stalked.
-
Here's an old article by Geoffrey Levy:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2244910/Why-murder-ex-fianc-Jill-Dando-haunts-man-deliver-Kate-Middletons-baby.html
It appears the emphasis was on looking at Jill's ex's/obsessives rather than Alan's?!
Because it appears this way doesn’t make it so.
-
... or someone who had “desires” on Jill Dando from afar?
But how would anyone not acquainted with her or those closely involved with her know she was going to be at her home address when she turned up?
-
As Jill's cousin said in the docu for this to have happened all the stars would need to align.
The statistical chances of an opportunist stalker happening upon Jill at her home address when her movements were random and unknown who just happened to have a loaded firearm on his/her person would imo be so statistically unlikely I would rule it out.
In your opinion....
“Jill Dando was killed by a loner who had an obsession with female presenters and stalked women...
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/jun/09/ukcrime
Based on the recent documentary it appears to me the police still believe in the above theory.
-
But how would anyone not acquainted with her or those closely involved with her know she was going to be at her home address when she turned up?
Why did they need to know when she turned up?
Could they not have laid in wait or loitered, for example?
-
Because it appears this way doesn’t make it so.
I would hope investigators did look at Alan Farthing's ex's and anyone who had an unhealthy interest in him but I can't find any news articles to this effect?
-
Why did they need to know when she turned up?
Could they not have laid in wait or loitered, for example?
Well she spent most of her time at Alan Farthing's house in Chiswick, Gowan Avenue isn't the sort of place you could sit in a car or loiter for any length of time unnoticed. How long could anyone wait around before they would need to eat/drink/use the loo/get chilly/bored/need to sleep/wash/get cold feet?
-
I would hope investigators did look at Alan Farthing's ex's and anyone who had an unhealthy interest in him but I can't find any news articles to this effect?
You could always approach Barry George’s sister directly (via twitter for example) and ask her.
I too would hope investigators looked at each and every avenue and again imo i imagine they did.
“Jonathan Laidlaw QC, prosecuting, said Dando's death had been the result of the actions of "a loner, a man acting alone with no rational motive to kill"
-
As Jill's cousin said in the docu for this to have happened all the stars would need to align.
The statistical chances of an opportunist stalker happening upon Jill at her home address when her movements were random and unknown who just happened to have a loaded firearm on his/her person would imo be so statistically unlikely I would rule it out.
She had not mentioned to anyone about being stalked.
Sadly it’s not as unusual as you appear to think for some people to walk the streets with a concealed weapon
-
Well she spent most of her time at Alan Farthing's house in Chiswick, Gowan Avenue isn't the sort of place you could sit in a car or loiter for any length of time unnoticed. How long could anyone wait around before they would need to eat/drink/use the loo/get chilly/bored/need to sleep/wash/get cold feet?
So you agree then it makes sense that the person who murdered her most probably lived a few hundred yards away?
“George lived half a mile from the home of the 37-year-old BBC News, Crimewatch and Holiday presenter. He would allegedly approach women in the area to try to find out their addresses
-
In your opinion....
“Jill Dando was killed by a loner who had an obsession with female presenters and stalked women...
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/jun/09/ukcrime
Based on the recent documentary it appears to me the police still believe in the above theory.
I would be interested to learn what the items of military equipment were that Barry George ordered 2 weeks before the murder?
“"...........and had ordered "a number of items of military equipment" in April 1999, just two weeks before Dando died.
-
Well she spent most of her time at Alan Farthing's house in Chiswick, Gowan Avenue isn't the sort of place you could sit in a car or loiter for any length of time unnoticed. How long could anyone wait around before they would need to eat/drink/use the loo/get chilly/bored/need to sleep/wash/get cold feet?
"Some of the witnesses provide evidence that Barry George, having discovered where they lived, also spent time waiting in the area and observing their addresses; on occasions, that he was present outside watching when they arrived back at their homes." https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/jun/09/ukcrime
-
A recent BBC documentary about the murder of Jill Dando:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0003w40/the-murder-of-jill-dando
What has always struck me as odd about this case is the fact Jill Dando spent very little time at her house. Instead spending most of the time at her fiancees house in Chiswick where she spent the night before she was murdered. Then when she left his house that morning she didn't go straight to her house but went shopping. CCTV footage doesn't show any evidence that she was being followed. Later that day she was due to attend a bridal shop for a fitting.
How would anyone, other than those in the know through Jill, her fiancee and those close to her know her movements? The one exception being immediate neighbours.
Jill and Alan were engaged in Feb 1999 and on the day of the murder she was due to attend a bridal shop. Was the perp, either directly or through a hit person, a jealous ex or someone that had desires on Alan Farthing from afar?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Farthing
The docu shows yet another completely male dominated police investigation so once again we only see the case investigated through the male eye!
Many of the participants ask why would anyone want to murder Jill Dando? Jealousy? Here was a woman who appeared to have it all and if the perp had some unhealthy interest in Alan Farthing or was a jealous ex then I would imagine if you were that way inclined it would only be exacerbated by seeing Jill's face on high profile tv programmes like News, Holiday and Crimewatch.
Btw can you explain what you mean by “we can only see the case investigated through the male eye?”
It appears to me the police still appear to believe Barry George was responsible for Miss Dando’s murder.
-
So you agree then it makes sense that the person who murdered her most probably lived a few hundred yards away?
“George lived half a mile from the home of the 37-year-old BBC News, Crimewatch and Holiday presenter. He would allegedly approach women in the area to try to find out their addresses
Alan Farthing told the court Jill virtually lived at his house and that she only went back when she had an early morning start and to collect mail. On the day in question she made Alan's breakfast at his house in Chiswick. She then went shopping en route to her house in Fulham. She then intended visiting a bridal shop for a fitting. How would anyone other than those who were acquainted with her directly or indirectly through others or neighbours who could observe her arriving know she was going to turn up at the time she did on that particular day? CCTV footage doesn't show any evidence she was being followed.
Barry George lived 0.4 miles away in Crookham Road but he would not have been able to view Jill's house or her car arriving.
http://www.theaa.com/route-planner/index.jsp#fromNode=0%7CCrookham%20Rd,%20Fulham,%20London%20SW6,%20UK%7C%7C-0.205078%7C51.474645%7CtoNode=0%7CGowan%20Ave,%20Fulham,%20London%20SW6,%20UK%7C%7C-0.212113%7C51.476462
No one reported anyone loitering about in the weeks/days leading up to the murder. On the day of the murder there were various conflicting sightings as there always are in these cases. Jill had not reported anyone bothering her.
-
Alan Farthing told the court Jill virtually lived at his house and that she only went back when she had an early morning start and to collect mail. On the day in question she made Alan's breakfast at his house in Chiswick. She then went shopping en route to her house in Fulham. She then intended visiting a bridal shop for a fitting. How would anyone other than those who were acquainted with her directly or indirectly through others or neighbours who could observe her arriving know she was going to turn up at the time she did on that particular day? CCTV footage doesn't show any evidence she was being followed.
Barry George lived 0.4 miles away in Crookham Road but he would not have been able to view Jill's house or her car arriving.
http://www.theaa.com/route-planner/index.jsp#fromNode=0%7CCrookham%20Rd,%20Fulham,%20London%20SW6,%20UK%7C%7C-0.205078%7C51.474645%7CtoNode=0%7CGowan%20Ave,%20Fulham,%20London%20SW6,%20UK%7C%7C-0.212113%7C51.476462
No one reported anyone loitering about in the weeks/days leading up to the murder. On the day of the murder there were various conflicting sightings as there always are in these cases. Jill had not reported anyone bothering her.
0.4 miles is approximately 704 yards!So you agree then it makes sense that the person who murdered her most probably lived a few hundred yards away?
“George lived half a mile from the home of the 37-year-old BBC News, Crimewatch and Holiday presenter. He would allegedly approach women in the area to try to find out their addresses
“Detectives investigating the killing became increasingly convinced Mr George was the gunman after they discovered he had followed numerous women and taken thousands of pictures of them.
But in an interview, Mr George insisted that at the time Miss Dando was murdered, he was following another woman after leaving a disability centre in Fulham.
Miss Dando was shot dead on her doorstep in Fulham, west London, at around 11.30am on April 26 1999.
Between 10.30am and 12.33pm on the day of the shooting, Mr George insisted, he was either at the centre or walking beside the woman.
"I walked with her for a bit and from her perspective, maybe it was unwanted attention. But she didn't make that clear," he said.
"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.
"That was at 12.33pm. I know because just a minute before I'd made a call from my mobile to check how much credit I had left."
During three weeks of surveillance before his arrest Mr George was seen to approach 38 women and try to make conversation with them.
He said of his history of stalking: "I know I have done wrong in the past and if I could go back in time and change that I would." https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2492744/Jill-Dando-murder-I-was-stalking-another-woman-at-the-time-says-Barry-George.html
Who said anything about George being able to view Miss Dando’s house or car from his address? By his own admission he was out and about in the area that day!
Because no one allegedly reported anyone loitering in the vicinity in the weeks/days leading up to the murder again doesn’t mean no one was.
There were “various conflicting sightings” on the day of the murder. Again doesn’t rule Barry George out.
And because Miss Dando hadn’t “reported anyone bothering her” again doesn’t mean this is a fact.
Did the 38 women who Barry George is said to have approached during 3 weeks of surveillance report anyone bothering them?
Was there CCTV is Gowen Avenue?
-
Maybe an extremely old snail was the culprit. 8(8-))
-
... or maybe not. 8((()*/
-
A recent BBC documentary about the murder of Jill Dando:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0003w40/the-murder-of-jill-dando
What has always struck me as odd about this case is the fact Jill Dando spent very little time at her house. Instead spending most of the time at her fiancees house in Chiswick where she spent the night before she was murdered. Then when she left his house that morning she didn't go straight to her house but went shopping. CCTV footage doesn't show any evidence that she was being followed. Later that day she was due to attend a bridal shop for a fitting.
How would anyone, other than those in the know through Jill, her fiancee and those close to her know her movements? The one exception being immediate neighbours.
Jill and Alan were engaged in Feb 1999 and on the day of the murder she was due to attend a bridal shop. Was the perp, either directly or through a hit person, a jealous ex or someone that had desires on Alan Farthing from afar?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Farthing
The docu shows yet another completely male dominated police investigation so once again we only see the case investigated through the male eye!
Many of the participants ask why would anyone want to murder Jill Dando? Jealousy? Here was a woman who appeared to have it all and if the perp had some unhealthy interest in Alan Farthing or was a jealous ex then I would imagine if you were that way inclined it would only be exacerbated by seeing Jill's face on high profile tv programmes like News, Holiday and Crimewatch.
Many things stand out for me including the fact that,
“psychologist Dr Caroline Logan, called by the prosecution, said she believed George feigned illness in the hope of influencing the case.
And Barry George’s history proves he had form for having previously conned the criminal justice system.
I’m of the opinion that he could well be re-tried in the not too distant future.
-
... or maybe not. 8((()*/
8((()*/
Yep that appears to have been yet another auto correct blunder
-
0.4 miles is approximately 704 yards!
“Detectives investigating the killing became increasingly convinced Mr George was the gunman after they discovered he had followed numerous women and taken thousands of pictures of them.
But in an interview, Mr George insisted that at the time Miss Dando was murdered, he was following another woman after leaving a disability centre in Fulham.
Miss Dando was shot dead on her doorstep in Fulham, west London, at around 11.30am on April 26 1999.
Between 10.30am and 12.33pm on the day of the shooting, Mr George insisted, he was either at the centre or walking beside the woman.
"I walked with her for a bit and from her perspective, maybe it was unwanted attention. But she didn't make that clear," he said.
"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.
"That was at 12.33pm. I know because just a minute before I'd made a call from my mobile to check how much credit I had left."
During three weeks of surveillance before his arrest Mr George was seen to approach 38 women and try to make conversation with them.
He said of his history of stalking: "I know I have done wrong in the past and if I could go back in time and change that I would." https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2492744/Jill-Dando-murder-I-was-stalking-another-woman-at-the-time-says-Barry-George.html
Who said anything about George being able to view Miss Dando’s house or car from his address? By his own admission he was out and about in the area that day!
Because no one allegedly reported anyone loitering in the vicinity in the weeks/days leading up to the murder again doesn’t mean no one was.
There were “various conflicting sightings” on the day of the murder. Again doesn’t rule Barry George out.
And because Miss Dando hadn’t “reported anyone bothering her” again doesn’t mean this is a fact.
Did the 38 women who Barry George is said to have approached during 3 weeks of surveillance report anyone bothering them?
Was there CCTV is Gowen Avenue?
As Jill's cousin said if Barry George was responsible all the stars had to align @ 45 mins in plus
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0003w40/the-murder-of-jill-dando
-
Alan Farthing told the court:
"He said the breakdown of his seven-year marriage had been very painful and that Ms Dando had been "supportive"."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/the-private-man-the-tv-celebrity-and-a-whirlwind-romance-9249829.html
"Very painful"? Who ended the marriage Alan Farthing, Maria Farthing or was it by mutual consent?
-
As Jill's cousin said if Barry George was responsible all the stars had to align @ 45 mins in plus
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0003w40/the-murder-of-jill-dando
Not the smartest of idioms to use. Whether you believe Barry George to have murdered Miss Dando or A N Other - the stars were aligned *&^^&
-
Alan Farthing told the court:
"He said the breakdown of his seven-year marriage had been very painful and that Ms Dando had been "supportive"."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/the-private-man-the-tv-celebrity-and-a-whirlwind-romance-9249829.html
"Very painful"? Who ended the marriage Alan Farthing, Maria Farthing or was it by mutual consent?
It appears to me you are choosing to under estimate the police investigations in this case?! Is there a reason for that; other than your apparent bias for male police officers?
Btw can you explain what you mean by “we can only see the case investigated through the male eye?”
-
As Jill's cousin said if Barry George was responsible all the stars had to align @ 45 mins in plus
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0003w40/the-murder-of-jill-dando
You could say the stars were aligned when he rollerskated over 4 double decker buses without killing himself.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-1890544/Video-Barry-George-attempts-rollerskate-four-double-decker-buses.html
He was quite clearly a risk taker.
Incidentally during the video, one minute he claims to have never done anything like this before then he says he had been planning it for 4 years..??
-
Not the smartest of idioms to use. Whether you believe Barry George to have murdered Miss Dando or A N Other - the stars were aligned *&^^&
I assume what was meant by this is that BG needed luck on his side. Jill no longer lived at her house. The house was on, or about to go on, the market. She went back very infrequently on random days/times. So if BG was responsible he must have struck lucky in that Jill pulled up in her car and he happened to be in the vicinity at the right time with a loaded firearm.
-
It appears to me you are choosing to under estimate the police investigations in this case?! Is there a reason for that; other than your apparent bias for male police officers?
I don't believe the best decisions are made by homogeneous groups of people.
In the case of Jill Dando the chief investigating officer, Hamish Campbell, makes silly comments such as the perp only had one bullet. How could he possibly know the perp only had one bullet on his/her person? How does the fact the bullet may have been tampered with in some way tell us the perp only had one bullet and was unprofessional? He then refers to the perp leaving the signature bullet behind when in fact he was referring to the casing. %56&
@ 21 mins in
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0003w40/the-murder-of-jill-dando
-
I assume what was meant by this is that BG needed luck on his side. Jill no longer lived at her house. The house was on, or about to go on, the market. She went back very infrequently on random days/times. So if BG was responsible he must have struck lucky in that Jill pulled up in her car and he happened to be in the vicinity at the right time with a loaded firearm.
He lived in the vicinity! Approx 700 yards away!
And Barry George had previously been caught by police carrying a lethal weapon!
I’d say he was damn lucky he wasn’t arrested and charged when found in the grounds of Kensington palace wouldn’t you?!
-
He lived in the vicinity! Approx 700 yards away!
And Barry George had previously been caught by police carrying a lethal weapon!
I’d say he was damn lucky he wasn’t arrested and charged when found in the grounds of Kensington palace wouldn’t you?!
But he couldn't see Jill's car from his house. Therefore if he was the perp he was lucky in that as he happened past Jill turned up.
-
I wonder if the perp fitted a tracking device to her car or less likely mobile phone?
-
But he couldn't see Jill's car from his house.
No matter how many times you repeat it, the fact remains, by his own admission, he wasn’t in his house at the time of Miss Dando’s murder! He was apparently stalking another women?
However, based on his quite apparent and numerous contradictions it’s hard to believe anything he says.
-
I wonder if the perp fitted a tracking device to her car or less likely mobile phone?
The idiom “grasping at straws” springs to mind.
-
The idiom “grasping at straws” springs to mind.
Jill no longer lived at Gowan Avenue. She lived with her fiancee at Bedford Close, Chiswick. She returned home briefly to collect something and did not even open her front door. CCTV shows she was not being followed. How did the perp know she was going to call at her home address on that day at that time? If BG was responsible he got lucky.
BG clearly had/has mental health issues but that doesn't mean he murdered Jill Dando.
Imo the perp was either someone who was acquainted with Jill directly or indirectly through a.n other. Or a neighbour who could watch out for her car turning up. Or someone had decided they wanted to murder her and put a tracking device on her car or some personal possession and decided the less risky place to murder her was her home address. What were the other options? BBC - too much surveillance in the vicinity. Alan Farthing's house at Bedford Close, Chiswick?
-
Imo the perp was either someone who was acquainted with Jill directly or indirectly through a.n other. Or a neighbour who could watch out for her car turning up. Or someone had decided they wanted to murder her and put a tracking device on her car or some personal possession and decided the less risky place to murder her was her home address. What were the other options? BBC - too much surveillance in the vicinity. Alan Farthing's house at Bedford Close, Chiswick?
“I tend to think it wasn't a professional hit. I think you can rule out the Serbian hitman, which was a popular theory that was doing the rounds at the time,' said Nigel, whose sister was murdered aged 37. 'For what it's worth, my belief is that it was just a misguided individual on the street on the day, with a firearm, who knew where Jill lived, and who just 'struck lucky'.
Proceeding to explain his theory, Nigel revealed that Jill's lifestyle at the time meant she wasn't guaranteed to be in a certain place at any given time.
'I think it was a relatively random act [given] Jill's lifestyle at the time, as she wasn't regularly at home. You couldn't say that every 'Monday morning at 11 'o' clock she would be there.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-6876353/Jill-Dandos-brother-believes-misguided-person-blame-murder-TWENTY-years-ago.html
-
Jill no longer lived at Gowan Avenue. She lived with her fiancee at Bedford Close, Chiswick. She returned home briefly to collect something and did not even open her front door. CCTV shows she was not being followed. How did the perp know she was going to call at her home address on that day at that time? If BG was responsible he got lucky.
BG clearly had/has mental health issues but that doesn't mean he murdered Jill Dando.
Imo the perp was either someone who was acquainted with Jill directly or indirectly through a.n other. Or a neighbour who could watch out for her car turning up. Or someone had decided they wanted to murder her and put a tracking device on her car or some personal possession and decided the less risky place to murder her was her home address. What were the other options? BBC - too much surveillance in the vicinity. Alan Farthing's house at Bedford Close, Chiswick?
You can make things up in order to suit your theories and repeat yourself as much as you like, as previously stated, but it won’t change the facts nor bring your argument credibility!
I’m inclined to take note of Nigel Dando’s claims given he was her brother and would no doubt have access to a working set of case files, and more importantly, he wants nothing more than to find out why his sister was murdered.
-
Many things stand out for me including the fact that,
“psychologist Dr Caroline Logan, called by the prosecution, said she believed George feigned illness in the hope of influencing the case.
And Barry George’s history proves he had form for having previously conned the criminal justice system.
I’m of the opinion that he could well be re-tried in the not too distant future.
“........Dr Philip Joseph, another leading psychiatrist who was called by the prosecution, said George was "far more competent" than tests would suggest and capable of lying in police interviews. While some of his behaviour could be attributed to his epilepsy and cognitive impairment, his stalking of women appeared to stem from an "intense anger" caused by rejection, Dr Joseph said.
Read more at: https://www.scotsman.com/news/uk/jill-dando-murder-trial-experts-were-split-on-barry-george-s-behaviour-1-1083223
-
A recent BBC documentary about the murder of Jill Dando:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0003w40/the-murder-of-jill-dando
What has always struck me as odd about this case is the fact Jill Dando spent very little time at her house. Instead spending most of the time at her fiancees house in Chiswick where she spent the night before she was murdered. Then when she left his house that morning she didn't go straight to her house but went shopping. CCTV footage doesn't show any evidence that she was being followed. Later that day she was due to attend a bridal shop for a fitting.
How would anyone, other than those in the know through Jill, her fiancee and those close to her know her movements? The one exception being immediate neighbours.
Jill and Alan were engaged in Feb 1999 and on the day of the murder she was due to attend a bridal shop. Was the perp, either directly or through a hit person, a jealous ex or someone that had desires on Alan Farthing from afar?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Farthing
The docu shows yet another completely male dominated police investigation so once again we only see the case investigated through the male eye!
Many of the participants ask why would anyone want to murder Jill Dando? Jealousy? Here was a woman who appeared to have it all and if the perp had some unhealthy interest in Alan Farthing or was a jealous ex then I would imagine if you were that way inclined it would only be exacerbated by seeing Jill's face on high profile tv programmes like News, Holiday and Crimewatch.
“In the early stages of the murder investigation, a lot of attention – at least in media terms – fell on men who had been romantically linked to Ms Dando.
“TV’s girl next door” had lived with television producer Bob Wheaton, 14 years her senior, before the relationship ended because according to some accounts he tired of her frequent absences as she travelled the world on assignment for the Holiday programme.
Then there had been Simon Basil, a young South African game warden with whom Ms Dando had enjoyed what she described as a “very Lady Chatterley” relationship.
Eventually, on a blind date, she “found the man I love”, the gynaecologist, Alan Farthing. In early 1999, Ms Dando and Mr Farthing announced their engagement at a party attended by Sir Cliff Richard, Nick Ross and Anna Ford, with the first interview being secured by OK! Magazine.
But between these three publicised romances, there had been briefer flings, as police discovered when they started trawling through Ms Dando’s personal diaries
All the men who had romances with Ms Dando were cleared.
So too was an allegedly besotted Russian crimelord who had been the subject of speculation that he had ordered Ms Dando’s killing because she had rejected his advances while filming for the Holiday programme in Cyprus.
The murder investigation provided a good excuse for those kinds of stories about a celebrity’s love life, but no credible evidence has ever emerged to suggest that anyone romantically linked to Ms Dando had anything to do with the murder
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/jill-dando-murder-theories-what-happened-who-barry-george-bbc-documentary-a8851491.html
-
So if BG was responsible he must have struck lucky in that Jill pulled up in her car and he happened to be in the vicinity at the right time with a loaded firearm.
“Police believe George followed Miss Dando on several occasions before he killed her.
Eighteen months before Miss Dando was shot, George told a complete stranger that he had a famous friend, "a very special lady", and pointed out the road where Miss Dando lived.
"He had encountered her before, I am sure. It was not the first time he was in Gowan Avenue. There must have been an element of luck. He did not know she would turn up," said detective superintendent Hamish Campbell, who led the two year murder investigation.
George mingled with mourners in the quiet street where hours earlier he had shot Miss Dando - and even laid a bouquet at the cordon police had set up around the crime scene.
Det Supt Campbell believes George may have shot her because he felt confusion and anger, possibly sparked by her engagement to Mr Farthing.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/jul/02/jilldando
-
No one reported anyone loitering about in the weeks/days leading up to the murder. On the day of the murder there were various conflicting sightings as there always are in these cases. Jill had not reported anyone bothering her.
“Stalking victims can be targeted at least 100 times before they raise the alarm, a police expert has said.
Wiltshire's deputy chief constable Paul Mills, said academic studies indicate the delay is down to individual acts by a stalker seeming unimportant.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-47838538
-
As Jill's cousin said in the docu for this to have happened all the stars would need to align.
The statistical chances of an opportunist stalker happening upon Jill at her home address when her movements were random and unknown who just happened to have a loaded firearm on his/her person would imo be so statistically unlikely I would rule it out.
She had not mentioned to anyone about being stalked.
Where are you getting your “statistics” from exactly? And what’s an opportunist stalker? I don’t recall Barry George being referred to in this way?
-
“Stalking victims can be targeted at least 100 times before they raise the alarm, a police expert has said.
Wiltshire's deputy chief constable Paul Mills, said academic studies indicate the delay is down to individual acts by a stalker seeming unimportant.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-47838538
“Profile of a stalker
Stalking is a crime of power and control. Stalkers tend to obsess about their victim. They may make many plans for the future that involve their victim.
Stalkers tend to have very weak social skills, and see nothing wrong with their behaviour.
Few stalkers see how their actions are hurting others, and they do not believe society’s rules apply to them.
They don’t believe they are threatening, intimidating, or even stalking someone.
Most stalkers see their actions simply as attempts to get closer to their target, help them, or to gain their love
Stalkers often ‘research’ their victims via public records for information or manipulating the victims’ family and friends.
Stalkers often obtain information from the victim’s friends, their workplace and from the victim’s family.
Romantically obsessed stalkers refuse to believe the victim does not want a relationship with them.
Stalking can be a form of retaliation because of some perceived slight. Indeed, many sexual harassment victims report being stalked in retaliation for reporting their harassers.
A stalker may be so subtle that the victim may not even aware that it is happening.
It is not always just the initial victim who is stalked. A stalker may also harass family, friends and fellow workers.
http://www.protectionagainststalking.org/what-is-stalking-2/
-
“........Dr Philip Joseph, another leading psychiatrist who was called by the prosecution, said George was "far more competent" than tests would suggest and capable of lying in police interviews. While some of his behaviour could be attributed to his epilepsy and cognitive impairment, his stalking of women appeared to stem from an "intense anger" caused by rejection, Dr Joseph said.
Read more at: https://www.scotsman.com/news/uk/jill-dando-murder-trial-experts-were-split-on-barry-george-s-behaviour-1-1083223
Can anyone shed any light on this. Was Barry George successful or is he still under MAPPA?
“Mr George, 49, is seeking court orders to stop his movements being closely supervised by the Metropolitan Police and other agencies, including probation service and housing authorities.
Yesterday he accepted substantial undisclosed libel damages at London's Royal Courts of Justice over claims that he had pestered women he was obsessed with.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/6833611/Barry-George-wants-police-off-his-back-court-hears.html
-
“In the early stages of the murder investigation, a lot of attention – at least in media terms – fell on men who had been romantically linked to Ms Dando.
“TV’s girl next door” had lived with television producer Bob Wheaton, 14 years her senior, before the relationship ended because according to some accounts he tired of her frequent absences as she travelled the world on assignment for the Holiday programme.
Then there had been Simon Basil, a young South African game warden with whom Ms Dando had enjoyed what she described as a “very Lady Chatterley” relationship.
Eventually, on a blind date, she “found the man I love”, the gynaecologist, Alan Farthing. In early 1999, Ms Dando and Mr Farthing announced their engagement at a party attended by Sir Cliff Richard, Nick Ross and Anna Ford, with the first interview being secured by OK! Magazine.
But between these three publicised romances, there had been briefer flings, as police discovered when they started trawling through Ms Dando’s personal diaries
All the men who had romances with Ms Dando were cleared.
So too was an allegedly besotted Russian crimelord who had been the subject of speculation that he had ordered Ms Dando’s killing because she had rejected his advances while filming for the Holiday programme in Cyprus.
The murder investigation provided a good excuse for those kinds of stories about a celebrity’s love life, but no credible evidence has ever emerged to suggest that anyone romantically linked to Ms Dando had anything to do with the murder
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/jill-dando-murder-theories-what-happened-who-barry-george-bbc-documentary-a8851491.html
But I can't find any evidence of the same exercise carried out on Alan Farthing? He was/is a physically attractive man imo and many woman find medi doctors attractive even when the doctor is not particularly physically attractive. Maybe someone was obsessed with him? Either someone who had been in a relationship with him or someone who wanted to be in a relationship with him and Jill Dando was seen as standing in the way!? The someone may have carried out the crime or hired a hit person to carry out the deed.
A Google of 'man stalked woman by fitting tracking device to car' throws up numerous cases. I can't find any evidence that Jill's car was examined for a tracking device? This sounds the most plausible explanation imo given cctv shows she was not being followed, she hardly visited her home and had not even entered the property before she was shot.
The fact the cartridge had been tampered with and may have had part of its contents removed to reduce the sound potentially shows some pre-planning. I believe the bullet was hollow nosed which would be lethal with a close contact shot to the head. A silencer may well have been difficult to obtain.
-
Where are you getting your “statistics” from exactly? And what’s an opportunist stalker? I don’t recall Barry George being referred to in this way?
I’m familiar with George being referred to as a “serial stalker.”
“.........that man is Barry George, the serial stalker and social misfit who served eight years for murdering Jill before being acquitted and freed last August after a second trial.
During the interview he gave (or rather sold for £80,000) to a down-market tabloid after his release, George insisted he was never fixated with the 37-year-old star, as the prosecution had alleged
Barry has mentioned visiting the grave a few times,' his spokesman Surjit Singh Clair told me this week.
'It's something he definitely wants to do. He just feels there's a connection between them - they've been tragically brought together.'
George has also discussed his plans with his confidante, his sister, Michelle Diskin.
'Barry spent eight years in jail for a murder he didn't do,' Mr Singh Clair said. 'He's become entwined with her life and she has played a huge part in his. He wants to exorcise Jill's ghost, and say: "I don't want you to think I hold any hard feelings against you."
'If he looks respectable and takes flowers, and perhaps goes with a friend or relative rather than slinking around on his own, then it wouldn't look too bad. It's his personal choice.'
Regrettably, it is. George's spokesman says he might request permission from Jill's family - and if so, he could receive a surprisingly favourable reaction.
For with remarkable magnanimity, Nigel Dando said that he would not object to the visit. 'It might give Mr George cause to ponder and reflect,' he said, when told of George's plans.
Mr Singh Clair is a Midlands-based freelance journalist who was enlisted by the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation (MOJO) to promote George's cause four years ago, when he was battling to overturn his murder conviction.
“In an angry email to me this week, Michelle Diskin claimed her brother was the victim of a media-driven plot designed to smear and intimidate him.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1076331/Obsessed-visiting-Jill-Dandos-grave-acting-erratically-Barry-George-man-edge.html
-
But I can't find any evidence of the same exercise carried out on Alan Farthing? He was/is a physically attractive man imo and many woman find medi doctors attractive even when the doctor is not particularly physically attractive. Maybe someone was obsessed with him? Either someone who had been in a relationship with him or someone who wanted to be in a relationship with him and Jill Dando was seen as standing in the way!? The someone may have carried out the crime or hired a hit person to carry out the deed.
A Google of 'man stalked woman by fitting tracking device to car' throws up numerous cases. I can't find any evidence that Jill's car was examined for a tracking device? This sounds the most plausible explanation imo given cctv shows she was not being followed, she hardly visited her home and had not even entered the property before she was shot.
The fact the cartridge had been tampered with and may have had part of its contents removed to reduce the sound potentially shows some pre-planning. I believe the bullet was hollow nosed which would be lethal with a close contact shot to the head. A silencer may well have been difficult to obtain.
Your circular reasoning doesn’t persuade me in the slightest Holly.
-
I believe the bullet was hollow nosed which would be lethal with a close contact shot to the head. A silencer may well have been difficult to obtain.
Why?
And to obtain by whom?
-
But I can't find any evidence of the same exercise carried out on Alan Farthing? He was/is a physically attractive man imo and many woman find medi doctors attractive even when the doctor is not particularly physically attractive. Maybe someone was obsessed with him? Either someone who had been in a relationship with him or someone who wanted to be in a relationship with him and Jill Dando was seen as standing in the way!? The someone may have carried out the crime or hired a hit person to carry out the deed.
A Google of 'man stalked woman by fitting tracking device to car' throws up numerous cases. I can't find any evidence that Jill's car was examined for a tracking device? This sounds the most plausible explanation imo given cctv shows she was not being followed, she hardly visited her home and had not even entered the property before she was shot.
The fact the cartridge had been tampered with and may have had part of its contents removed to reduce the sound potentially shows some pre-planning. I believe the bullet was hollow nosed which would be lethal with a close contact shot to the head. A silencer may well have been difficult to obtain.
As might be expected Alan Farthing was a suspect in the early stages of the investigation but was quickly eliminated.
Anyway I found the following article which states all Ms Dando's former lovers were traced and interviewed. Also Alan Farthing's patients were investigated as some had apparently developed a strong attachment to him. But one by one they were eliminated. However I still can't find any evidence that Alan Farthing's former wife, Maria, was interviewed/investigated and eliminated and/or any other women he may have had relationships with or were not patients but had some unhealthy interest in him. Maybe Maria Farthing was interviewed/investigated and eliminated like the others. Maybe she ended the marriage. Maybe she was in a relationship with a.n other at the time and happy. But maybe, just maybe, she was an aggrieved former wife who could not stand the thought of her former husband getting engaged and marrying Jill Dando.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/dando-verdict-lines-of-investigation-ranged-from-serb-hitmen-to-jealous-lovers-9148193.html
Timeline:
- 1990 - Alan Farthing married Maria
- 1997 Dec - Alan Farthing is introduced to Jill Dando. He was separated from his wife at the time.
- 1998 late - Alan and Maria Farthing divorce
- 1999 Feb - Alan Farthing and Jill Dando announce their engagement
- 1999 Apr - Jill Dando murdered
- 2000 Oct - Alan Farthing meets actress Helen Hobson at Cliff Richard's 60th Birthday and the pair start a relationship
- 2003 - Alan Farthing meets Dr Janet Stowell
- 2008 - Alan Farthing and Dr Janet Stowell marry
-
As might be expected Alan Farthing was a suspect in the early stages of the investigation but was quickly eliminated.
Anyway I found the following article which states all Ms Dando's former lovers were traced and interviewed.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/dando-verdict-lines-of-investigation-ranged-from-serb-hitmen-to-jealous-lovers-9148193.html
Seems you are playing catch up
“In the early stages of the murder investigation, a lot of attention – at least in media terms – fell on men who had been romantically linked to Ms Dando.
The murder investigation provided a good excuse for those kinds of stories about a celebrity’s love life, but no credible evidence has ever emerged to suggest that anyone romantically linked to Ms Dando had anything to do with the murder
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/jill-dando-murder-theories-what-happened-who-barry-george-bbc-documentary-a8851491.html
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0003w40/the-murder-of-jill-dando
@ 38.42
Barry George lived locally “within the scene, almost.”
The search of Barry George’s residents “revealed some circumstantial connections to the crime scene.”
and so it goes on......
He lied to police during questioning claiming he did not know Miss Jill Dando yet the day after her murder he “laid flowers near the spot where she was shot”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/jun/10/ukcrime
“Barry George told staff at a local help centre that he went to Dando's house in Fulham, west London, the day after she was killed, jurors were told on the second day of his retrial.
The prosecution alleged that George, 48, who suffers from psychological problems and epilepsy, visited the Hammersmith and Fulham disability centre on the day of Dando's death, on April 26 1999, to establish a false alibi.
An appointment with the centre was made for the next day but not kept. The prosecuting counsel, Jonathan Laidlaw QC, said that on April 28 George returned but was "threatening and intimidating in his manner".
"The defendant said he had not kept his appointment of the previous day because he had been laying flowers at Jill Dando's house on behalf of his church," he said.
Laidlaw said that, also on April 28, George had told a journalist his name was Barry Bulsara, a persona the jury has been told he used when passing himself off as the cousin of the Queen singer Freddie Mercury.
George told the reporter he used to see Dando on Crimewatch and "she seemed a lovely lady".
During the week after her death, he went into the local housing department and asked whether they had considered erecting a memorial to Dando, the court heard.
"He also visited a number of nearby shops and sought letters of condolence from them," said Laidlaw.
When he was arrested a year later, George was said to have denied knowing who Dando was until after her death.
"If he had not known anything about Jill Dando before her death, why was he paying so much attention to her memory?" said Laidlaw.
On May 9 1999, George was on a bus when he told a fellow passenger, Vicky Murphy, that he was going to be late for Dando's memorial service, the court heard.
Laidlaw said George "was fiddling with a piece of paper which he claimed he was going to read from at the service".
"He said he did not know Miss Dando well, but that she had interviewed his cousin Freddie Mercury," said the prosecutor.
-
As Jill's cousin said in the docu for this to have happened all the stars would need to align.
The statistical chances of an opportunist stalker happening upon Jill at her home address when her movements were random and unknown who just happened to have a loaded firearm on his/her person would imo be so statistically unlikely I would rule it out.
She had not mentioned to anyone about being stalked.
During the documentary Miss Dando’s cousins comments regarding the murder/Barry George came across as naive, IMO.
Her first comment after stating “the stars would have had to be aligned” was that George “would have had to be seen walking around with a gun?”
Her use of the word “contrived” appears to have been her unconscious psychological proejection. It’s unrealistic to believe the murderer would have had to be seen carrying a gun, is one example.
-
As might be expected Alan Farthing was a suspect in the early stages of the investigation but was quickly eliminated.
Anyway I found the following article which states all Ms Dando's former lovers were traced and interviewed. Also Alan Farthing's patients were investigated as some had apparently developed a strong attachment to him. But one by one they were eliminated. However I still can't find any evidence that Alan Farthing's former wife, Maria, was interviewed/investigated and eliminated and/or any other women he may have had relationships with or were not patients but had some unhealthy interest in him. Maybe Maria Farthing was interviewed/investigated and eliminated like the others. Maybe she ended the marriage. Maybe she was in a relationship with a.n other at the time and happy. But maybe, just maybe, she was an aggrieved former wife who could not stand the thought of her former husband getting engaged and marrying Jill Dando.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/dando-verdict-lines-of-investigation-ranged-from-serb-hitmen-to-jealous-lovers-9148193.html
Timeline:
- 1990 - Alan Farthing married Maria
- 1997 Dec - Alan Farthing is introduced to Jill Dando. He was separated from his wife at the time.
- 1998 late - Alan and Maria Farthing divorce
- 1999 Feb - Alan Farthing and Jill Dando announce their engagement
- 1999 Apr - Jill Dando murdered
- 2000 Oct - Alan Farthing meets actress Helen Hobson at Cliff Richard's 60th Birthday and the pair start a relationship
- 2003 - Alan Farthing meets Dr Janet Stowell
- 2008 - Alan Farthing and Dr Janet Stowell marry
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/414562.stm
I would imagine if your marriage ends when you don't want it to and you then find your former husband is engaged to marry a high profile tv personality it would only compound the situation:
https://www.google.com/search?q=hello+magazine+ok+magazine+jill+dando&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjH0OvPgsjhAhWASBUIHUBLDH4QsAR6BAgJEAE&biw=1680&bih=939#imgrc=TG_m9a2Al-iR8M:
It doesn't appear Alan and Maria Farthing's 7 year marriage produced any children. Maybe there were some infertility problems too.
In the recently produced BBC docu, Jill's cousin asks why would anyone want to murder Jill?! The above MIGHT be a motive!
The fact Alan Farthing refers to the break-up of his marriage as "painful" suggests it wasn't a case that the couple had simply grown apart and agreed to part amicably. If this was the case then what was "painful"?
There are numerous possibilities:
[Edited in accordance with forum rules]
The name Maria is common in southern Europe. Many witnesses described a man of Mediterranean appearance. Mediterranean countries where Catholic religion dominates often see marriage as sacrosanct. Divorce only became legal in Italy during 1970.
-
The following shows an image of Jill's car taken away. I assume for forensic examination.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jill-dando-murder-five-unanswered-7764700
Did the examination include searching for any tracking device? Or it did it only involve looking for any evidence linking the perp to the vehicle?
-
A silencer may well have been difficult to obtain.
http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=10643.msg520261#msg520261
-
http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=10643.msg520261#msg520261
The newspaper article you have quoted is dated 28th Apr 99 ie 2 days after the murder. It is unlikely at this stage the post-mortem and ballistics evidence was available to police let alone reporters. You can look at any number of these cases and find early media reports containing numerous inaccuracies.
A silencer was not used. The officer who led the investigation, Hamish Campbell, explains how this conclusion was reached in a BBC documentary first aired this month ie nearly 20 years after the murder:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0003w40/the-murder-of-jill-dando
-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/414562.stm
I would imagine if your marriage ends when you don't want it to and you then find your former husband is engaged to marry a high profile tv personality it would only compound the situation:
https://www.google.com/search?q=hello+magazine+ok+magazine+jill+dando&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjH0OvPgsjhAhWASBUIHUBLDH4QsAR6BAgJEAE&biw=1680&bih=939#imgrc=TG_m9a2Al-iR8M:
It doesn't appear Alan and Maria Farthing's 7 year marriage produced any children. Maybe there were some infertility problems too.
In the recently produced BBC docu, Jill's cousin asks why would anyone want to murder Jill?! The above MIGHT be a motive!
The fact Alan Farthing refers to the break-up of his marriage as "painful" suggests it wasn't a case that the couple had simply grown apart and agreed to part amicably. If this was the case then what was "painful"?
There are numerous possibilities:
[Edited in accordance with forum rules]
The name Maria is common in southern Europe. Many witnesses described a man of Mediterranean appearance. Mediterranean countries where Catholic religion dominates often see marriage as sacrosanct. Divorce only became legal in Italy during 1970.
I found a press article which quotes Maria's mother, Mrs Sweeney. Sweeney is an Irish/Scottish surname. It seems the Sweeney family was in Chiswick at the time of the murder; same place as Alan Farthing's home where Jill spent her last night.
https://www.thefreelibrary.com/ALAN%27S+AGONY%3B+Grief+of+Jill+Dando%27s+fiance+on+the+day+she+was+to+try...-a060386261
-
A silencer was not used. The officer who led the investigation, Hamish Campbell, explains how this conclusion was reached in a BBC documentary first aired this month ie nearly 20 years after the murder:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0003w40/the-murder-of-jill-dando
Hamish Campbell does not claim 20 years after the murder that a women was responsible for the murder?
I take it you are aware of what he said in the documentary about the actual perpetrator of the crime?
-
I found a press article which quotes Maria's mother, Mrs Sweeney. Sweeney is an Irish/Scottish surname. It seems the Sweeney family was in Chiswick at the time of the murder; same place as Alan Farthing's home where Jill spent her last night.
https://www.thefreelibrary.com/ALAN%27S+AGONY%3B+Grief+of+Jill+Dando%27s+fiance+on+the+day+she+was+to+try...-a060386261
What’s your point?
-
- I'm wrong
I concur!
-
The following shows an image of Jill's car taken away. I assume for forensic examination.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jill-dando-murder-five-unanswered-7764700
Did the examination include searching for any tracking device? Or it did it only involve looking for any evidence linking the perp to the vehicle?
I’d be interested to hear your thoughts about whether or not a search was carried out on the car for a tracking device and also, if one were found, do you think forensics would have linked it to the perp?
-
The following shows an image of Jill's car taken away. I assume for forensic examination.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jill-dando-murder-five-unanswered-7764700
Did the examination include searching for any tracking device? Or it did it only involve looking for any evidence linking the perp to the vehicle?
Not to a local car wash then?
-
13 Apr 2019
“The investigation into BBC presenter Jill Dando’s murder was ‘hampered’ by the police’s ‘scattergun approach’, former co-host Nick Ross has claimed. Miss Dando, 37, then one of the BBC’s highest-profile stars, died after being shot once in the head outside her London home on April 26, 1999. Mr Ross claimed investigators had the ‘foolish’ view her killing was linked to her role on Crimewatch
He told the Daily Mirror: ‘The thing is, and not so much the fault of the senior investigating officer, but top brass, they had this intuitive and, we thought, rather foolish view, it would be to do with Crimewatch.
.......The investigation into the 37-year-old's murder remains opens and Met Police say they will investigate any new information that becomes available
Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2019/04/13/nick-ross-says-jill-dando-murder-investigation-was-hampered-by-foolish-police-9195793/?ito=cbshare
-
“The former Crimewatch host, 71, believed Metropolitan Police officers focused on the wrong lines of enquiry after the presenter was killed.
Jill, 37, was brutally shot dead outside her home in Fulham, London, in April 1999.
Following her murder, officers linked her death to her work on the show as a possible motive for her murder.
Nick said pursuing that line of enquiry was “foolish” before adding it was rare that criminals targeted people involved in justice.
He told The Daily Mirror: “The thing is, and not so much the fault of the senior investigating officer, but top brass, they had this intuitive and, we thought, rather foolish view, it would be to do with Crimewatch.
“And we knew it would not be to do with Crimewatch. In modern times, there has never been a judge attacked for sending someone down, a prosecuting solicitor, or anybody.”
Focus also centred a Range Rover that had been spotted on CCTV near to where Jill had been killed.
Nick added: “Already it was clear that this had such big publicity, the risk was they would get swamped with literally thousands of lines of enquiry.”
It later finished with more than 7,000 lines of enquiry, according to Nick.
While Nick said it would be ridiculous to claim he and the team would know as much about crime as officers, he added the group’s experience of investigating would lead them to follow different lines.
He continued: “We did understand a lot and certainly the editor and I, we would have done it very differently.”
Barry George, 58, was convicted of Jill’s murder in 2001 but was released on appeal in 2008 when the case was quashed.
The Metropolitan Police told Daily Star Online: “The investigation into Ms Dando’s murder remains open, therefore we cannot comment in any detail other than to say we will always explore any new information which may become available.”
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/771869/jill-dando-murder-nick-ross-crimewatch-fulham-london-barry-george-conviction-quashed
-
“Jill's former co-host Nick Ross, 71, has blasted police for what he feels was a "scattergun" approach, and for a line of enquiry he believes was "foolish"
Nick Ross claims police in the Jill Dando murder case made blunders that could have hindered the probe.
The ex-Crimewatch co-host said their TV appeals focused on the wrong lines of enquiry.
He added: “We would have done things differently.”
The 71-year-old accused police hunting Jill Dando’s killer of a “scattergun” approach to their Crimewatch appeals and claimed they focused on the wrong lines of enquiry.
After the TV presenter was shot dead outside her home 20 years ago, detectives singled out her work on the show that Nick co-hosted as a possible motive for the killing.
But Nick branded the idea “foolish” and insisted criminals rarely targeted those trying to bring them to justice.
He also claimed police were wrong to focus on a mystery Range Rover spotted on CCTV near where Jill, 37, was gunned down in West London on April 26, 1999 – a move that swamped Crimewatch staff with calls and which he fears may have hindered the murder investigation.
On the theory that her death was linked to the show, 71-year-old Nick said: “The thing is, and not so much the fault of the senior investigating officer, but top brass, they had this intuitive and, we thought, rather foolish view, it would be to do with Crimewatch.
And we knew it would not be to do with Crimewatch. In modern times, there has never been a judge attacked for sending someone down, a prosecuting solicitor, or anybody.
“It’s just not the way it happens here.
“And when I contacted colleagues in the States, it was as rare as hen’s teeth there.
“The only thing that would have made sense is if you were dealing with a criminal who was not rational about it.
“A lot of the appeals could be frustrating when police had this scattergun approach.”
On the Met’s insistence on leading Jill’s appeals with the Range Rover footage, Nick added: “It was difficult because we had to rely on the way the police wanted to structure it.
“All of us who had spent years on Crimewatch and it may sound absurd to say we know as much about crime as the police, but some of us had been investigating, in a way, longer than some of the detectives.
“We did understand a lot and certainly the editor and I, we would have done it very differently.
“Police were still very much going for witnesses to a Range Rover.
“The Range Rover had in those days a particular association with criminality. But they were looking for a bunch of stuff which was just likely to get a lot of people calling in, but that wasn’t very focused.
“Already it was clear that this had such big publicity, the risk was they would get swamped with literally thousands of lines of enquiry.
“Which is exactly what happened, they finished up with over 7,000 lines of enquiry.”
Nick, who fronted Crimewatch for 23 years, insisted a more focused appeal into his friend’s murder could have been beneficial to the investigation
He pointed to the ones after the murder of James Bulger, two, in 1993.
Nick said a forensic psychologist told him children who had killed cats always lived within 200 yards of where the animal was found.
Crimewatch then drew concentric rings around where James’ body was found to narrow down the search area.
The show helped solve the crime after viewers recognised the toddler’s two 10-year-old killers leading him to his death in Liverpool on CCTV.
Nick added: “It always fascinates me. Why we have this thing that detectives have to be police officers? You don’t need to be a warranted officer and have the powers of arrest to investigate a crime.”
Barry George, 58, was arrested a year after Jill’s death, convicted of her murder and jailed in 2001. But he was released on appeal in 2008 when the case was quashed.
Nick said he pre-recorded the opening of the first Crimewatch show after her killing, such was the struggle to present it.
He added: “It was really difficult, the only time I ever pre-recorded the introduction to Crimewatch.
“I just really liked her and so it was very difficult. I was on Newsnight the night of the murder, trying to calm down.
“When there’s an unsolved crime police, and we journalists tend to say, it’s professional, it’s complicated, and so often it isn’t.
“On Newsnight I remember trying to calm the speculation it was some kind of CIA equivalent. When actually almost all crime turns out to be much more sordid and low grade.”
Nick helped bring Jill to Crimewatch having been impressed with her on other programmes.
He remembered his old friend as an “incredibly skilled” journalist and added: “When people die those around them just say nice things about them and suppress the less pleasant bits.
“The truth is, nobody can think of anything bad to say about her.
“She was just such a generous-hearted, nice, unaffected person. The first time I saw her on TV, I saw this unaffected authority. She was so natural.
“Why I was so keen she should join us on Crimewatch is when she was speaking to the camera you genuinely felt she was speaking to you.
“She really was a star, the biggest on British TV, and yet it didn’t affect her at all. It didn’t matter if you were sweeping the floor or you were the editor of the programme, you were just a colleague.
“She was one of the lads, one of the girls, one of the crew.”
The Met police said: “The investigation into Ms Dando’s murder remains open, therefore we cannot comment in any detail other than to say we will always explore any new information which may become available.”
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jill-dando-murder-police-made-14305108
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
Apr 7
Interesting point of view and perfectly correct, how come most British media couldn’t see through it? Could it be the expediency of it? Barry the cash-cow again! https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1114970628254314496/photo/1
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
Apr 7
Interesting point of view and perfectly correct, how come most British media couldn’t see through it? Could it be the expediency of it? Barry the cash-cow again! https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1114970628254314496/photo/1
I totally disagree with this! It is not “perfectly correct!” Though I understand why Michelle Diskin Bates would feel the need to peddle such nonsense! Not sure about Extra ie’s motive?
-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0003w40/the-murder-of-jill-dando
@ 38.42
Barry George lived locally “within the scene, almost.”
The search of Barry George’s residents “revealed some circumstantial connections to the crime scene.”
and so it goes on.....
“Nick, who fronted Crimewatch for 23 years, insisted a more focused appeal into his friend’s murder could have been beneficial to the investigation
He pointed to the ones after the murder of James Bulger, two, in 1993.
Nick said a forensic psychologist told him children who had killed cats always lived within 200 yards of where the animal was found.
Crimewatch then drew concentric rings around where James’ body was found to narrow down the search area.
The show helped solve the crime after viewers recognised the toddler’s two 10-year-old killers leading him to his death in Liverpool on CCTV.
Nick added: “It always fascinates me. Why we have this thing that detectives have to be police officers? You don’t need to be a warranted officer and have the powers of arrest to investigate a crime.”
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jill-dando-murder-police-made-14305108
Hamish Campbell reminded viewers in the BBC documentary that the police were a year behind Barry George..
-
M489 28 4 99
Message reports of an odd enquiry in which a man attended cab office
Man wanted verification of time at cab office on 26 4 99 & what he was wearing
-
Barry George's uncle Mike Burke said in his book, "The investigation into the disappearance of Madaleine McCann was possibly the only case to receive more attention than Dando's murder."
He goes on to say;
"I was quite annoyed when I read reports of Doctor Michael Kopelmans medical opinion of Barry.it seemed to me that Barry's inappropriate behaviour was being blamed on the overall family. I sent a protest to Jeremy Moore. In my opinion one is responsible for ones own actions. And it is a cop out to try and blame ones bad behaviour on the family.
Following my experience and with what I subsequently learned, IMO this is often motive enough for some family members to defend their guilty family member.
Reasons can differ but fear of being tarred with the same brush or fear of their own “indiscretions” being uncovered are a couple of examples as to why they will go to such lengths.
-
"Michelle Diskin was in the front room at her home in Cork listening to the morning radio when she first heard that her brother Barry George had been charged with Jill Dando's murder.
She says she felt numb - completely numb. 'I thought: "No, no, it can't be." 'I wanted to phone my mother, but she is a very quiet and private person. How do you ring your mother and say: "Mum, has my brother been arrested for murder?" she says.
Michelle, a deeply religious woman, finally decided to phone and ask if she should pray for her brother. It seemed a more gentle way of dealing with the appalling news. 'Mother said: "It's all rubbish. He didn't do it. It will die down". I didn't know what to do and said to myself: "Could Barry have done this?"
'Could I see anything in the Barry I knew that might be guilty of this - and I couldn't. I thought about his behaviour. He can be aggravating. But no, not murder.'
But on July 2, last year, Barry George, 42, an educationally-subnormal fantasist with an IQ of just 76, was found guilty of the murder of BBC TV presenter Jill Dando.
She was killed with a single shot to the head. The gun was pressed so hard against her skull that the imprint of the muzzle remained on her scalp afterwards.
There was, however, not one overwhelming piece of evidence to link George to the crime. In the year since the case ended, no other criminal verdict has excited quite so much interest and there has been an endless debate over whether he was indeed guilty 'beyond reasonable doubt'.
Last month, an appeal against his conviction was rejected by three of the country's most senior judges.
Michelle continues to insist upon her brother's innocence. She is determined to take the case to the House of Lords and, should that fail, to Europe, believing his conviction to be a dreadful miscarriage of justice.
In fairness, she doesn't believe her brother to be an angel, but she insists that does not make him a murderer.
Michelle is a warm, articulate woman with a strong sense of right and wrong. Being in the public eye does not sit easily with her. She is, by nature, a home-builder, a wife and mother to three teenage children.
Their terraced family house near Cork is tidy, comfortable and perfumed with scented candles. It is a tactile household where hugs and kisses are easily exchanged.
Her own London childhood had been tough, often violent. In her late teens, she moved to Ireland to work with mentally disabled children. She had little need to dwell upon her past - until her brother's arrest.
Initially, Michelle believed the courts would clear her brother and she resolved not to speak out on his behalf. Indeed, she didn't want to drag her family into the unholy mess, and, in any case, no direct evidence linked her brother to the crime.
No confession. No apparent motive. No eyewitnesses. No murder weapon was ever found.
There was virtually no scientific evidence, except for minute traces of firearm discharge found in one of George's pockets and described as a 'close match' to particles found in Dando's hair. There was also a risk, acknowledged at the trial, that even this evidence was contaminated.
The prosecution case seemed to be simply that George lived locally and was an oddball with unhealthy obsessions. He was said to be 'fixated' with Princess Diana and to stalk women.
He had been convicted, many years earlier, of attempted rape and impersonating a police officer. He used different names (he was arrested as Barry Bulsara, using the real surname of one of his idols, Freddie Mercury) and lived in a world of fantasy. He was said to be 'obsessed' with guns.
George also happened to be near Dando's Fulham home on the morning of her murder. His own home, a chaotically untidy flat, happened to be just a few streets away. Michelle says: 'Barry was in Belmarsh Prison on remand when I first saw him. I had to see him through a glass screen. It was like being in a confessional box. There was a dark, dingy glass between us and you could hardly hear a thing.
'He looked terribly vulnerable and scared. Almost the first thing he said was: "Shhh, don't talk."
'Then he said: "I have not done what they are saying."
'I was asking questions and he kept telling me to talk to my solicitor. I cried. I think he did too. He said he was sorry that he had put us in this. I couldn't touch him but I wanted him to know he was being supported.
We held up our hands against the glass. I felt utterly overwhelmed that this could be happening to us. At each step along the way I thought it would be stopped. It's unbelievable it wasn't.
'There was no evidence. They just lumped everything up and made out he was one big psycho. Timeframes were forgotten, facts were distorted to make a picture - a very bad picture.
'The police needed somebody, and Barry looked, on the surface, as if he would disappear and nobody would fight for him.
'That's why I have to support him. I have always loved him very much.'
Michelle was the eldest of three children, raised in a cramped highrise flat in White City, West London. The bath was in the kitchen and she shared a bedroom with both her sister, a mentally handicapped epileptic two years her junior, and Barry, the baby of the family.
It was an uneasy household with frequent violent rows. 'Barry and Susan were always very special because I had to look after them when I was small.
'There were a lot of pressures living in such close quarters with people on both sides of you and underneath you. My parents fought all the time so I would take the kids out - sometimes for hours on end.
'It was very difficult. Because Susan had very definite problems that were so big, Barry's were pushed to one side.
'He was a gorgeous baby and, as a boy, was into cars and buildings. He sometimes got into trouble, but he could never seem to understand why.
'He couldn't concentrate for long periods of time and was taken out of school and sent to special school. But his disability didn't become really apparent until he got older.
'Barry has a rigidity of thought. He gets a thought and isn't able to change tack. If you changed the topic of conversation, he wouldn't be able to stop focusing on the first one.'
Michelle was 12 when their parents separated. She says it was a relief, an end to the dreadful rows. Her relationship with her mother was not easy and by the age of 15 she was living with her father.
'My mother was warmer earlier in the marriage,' she says. 'And less warm towards the end of it.'
When Barry asked to move in with his father, he was refused. 'I'm sure Barry saw it as a rejection. Probably the first of many,' she says.
By the age of 18, Michelle was living in Ireland with her grandmother. She kept in contact with her family and her brother visited for a holiday. 'He was 14 and so sweet I didn't want to send him back. I remember he used to hang about this place called Barry's Tea and wanted to work there in the yard but he was too young.
'But he would pester people, so this man sent him home with a letter saying he would take him out as his helper if I said it was OK. He said that he could see Barry needed special attention.
'The man gave Barry some pocket money and he came back with sausages, milk and bread so he could help with his keep.'
Michelle displays a certain pride when she repeats this story. It becomes clear that achievements which most people would take for granted were enormously special when accomplished by Barry.
For example, she tells how he arrived at her wedding 'all by himself' and had 'even hired his own suit so he wouldn't show me up'. She saw him handing out buttonholes to guests and was 'proud'.
By this time, he had started to create fantasies about himself and, intriguingly, she recalls a relative having to steer him away from talking about the SAS.
During their phone calls, Barry would talk of his obsession about being a stuntman. He tried to join the Territorial Army under the name Steve Major.
'It seemed perfectly innocent. He said he'd chosen it because the Six Million Dollar Man had such a name. When he later changed his name to Barry Bulsara, it wasn't something I was happy with. But he said he really loved Freddie Mercury and he was doing it as a tribute.
'He wanted to be a special person. He wanted to have friends. I can only speculate that these inventions were ways of opening a conversation. Let's face it, it's a bit more of a conversation grabber than "I'm classified disabled and I can't do anything".'
The prosecuting lawyers made much of George's fantasies. 'They tried to turn him into the Anti-Christ,' says Michelle. 'They spoke about his so-called obsession with guns after joining the Territorial Army. But the TA realised he had problems and Barry didn't handle guns. The only ones he's had are a starter pistol and a plastic gun that was stolen and broken.
'They said he had an obsession with Diana and stalked and photographed women. It was mentioned that he was discovered by police in Kensington Gardens with a rope and a knife dressed in Army gear. He told me that he was "doing manoeuvres".
'But he was never charged and there are no records of him being in the grounds by Diana's apartment as has been suggested.
'Even being "on manoeuvres" in the park, is not the normal behaviour of a grown person, but still pretty ordinary if you think like a child. He was going through his ex-SAS stage then - and it was almost 20 years ago.
'When police examined his flat they found a pile of 736 newspapers on the floor. Of course, there were some articles about Jill Dando, but there were more about Manchester United, although he's a Fulham supporter.
'There were also never any photos of women pinned up on the wall as has been suggested. The police found rolls of undeveloped film - 2,597 photographs showing 419 women.
'He wasn't using the photographs to satisfy some strange obsession. He was playing a role - that's all to do with the childish part of his life. And he'd just thrown the rolls of film in the corner - as he dropped everything in his flat and forgot about things.
'When Barry was in custody, the police had nothing to charge him with. They knew he'd been convicted of attempted rape in 1983, which he'd owned up to at the time, but he wouldn't admit to Jill Dando's murder.
'They were allowed to keep him for extra time, but still he wouldn't say he was responsible.
'If you know my brother, he's not capable of not caving in under that sort of pressure. But he does know when he's done something wrong and when he hasn't. The next thing that happened was that a particle (of firearm discharge) turned up in a coat - it was the only reason they were able to charge him.
'But the integrity of the coat had been corrupted. It was put in an evidence bag, sealed, carted away from his flat, photographed on a dummy in a police studio with an officer's shirt underneath and put back in the crate before it was examined by forensics.
'And as far as identification is concerned, there was only one person who said she was certain she saw Barry at 7.30am. She said she saw him by a car, but Barry can't drive.
'Barry has been described as a loner. But he's not. He was always out seeing people. He had friends, people who loved him - who accepted Barry with his differences. They didn't know about the attempted rape, but that happened almost 20 years before.
He paid his price to society for what he did and he'd turned his life around. And, despite his disabilities, he had made a life for himself. He discussed his friends and would say: "There's a guy down the road and he's my friend. I wash his car for him." After he was charged, I started piecing things together.
'There was a big, motherly Jamaican woman who lived across the road. When I went to see her, I could see she really loved Barry.
'She was really pleased to see me and said she hadn't known if anyone was going to help him. She was going to get some friends together to stand outside Hammersmith police station with placards saying: "Free Barry Bulsara."
'She's adamant he didn't carry out the crime.'
Michelle gathers strength from such support. She knows her brother, not as a psychopath, but as 'quiet, softly-spoken and wellmannered'.
During medical examinations before his trial, it was discovered that George had suffered severe brain damage from a physical injury while in his 20s. Michelle says he does not know how it occurred, although she conjectures that perhaps it was something to do with his 'Steve Majors' phase.
In the early Eighties, he was registered disabled and suffered increasingly from epileptic fits. If the problem was not properly controlled he would often stumble around.
Michelle is not convinced that he would have had the ability to plan or dexterity to carry out such carefully executed crime and getaway. Indeed, the case confounded police for a year before Barry's arrest.
'I knew right from the beginning, from his whole demeanour that he's innocent. I could tell when I saw him in Belmarsh - through his body language, his eye contact - before and after his conviction.
'He said to me: "They had to have someone. I didn't do this and I don't know why I'm here. But you do realise I am here for the rest of my life?"
'I said he wouldn't be - that the sentence would be reduced and he replied: "Oh no, not for me. I can't ever say I'm sorry for doing it - because I didn't do it."
'At night, things play over and over in my mind. When you realise this is a miscarriage of justice, it becomes enormous. They have grabbed Barry's life and taken it away from him. They have also taken my life.
'It wasn't an easy thing to decide to become vocal. But I have to stand up for Barry's rights. I'm determined to at least do that.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-135212/My-brother-didnt-kill-Jill.html#ixzz5DQUKMFv4
“In fairness, she doesn't believe her brother to be an angel, but she insists that does not make him a murderer
I’d like to hear from Michelle Diskin Bates (and anyone else who uses this term) WHAT makes a murderer!?
-
“The Old Bailey jury heard that George was incapable of planning or carrying out a series of actions without panicking or triggering an epileptic fit.
Nine years after the shooting of TV presenter Jill Dando on her own doorstep, and seven years after he was convicted of the crime, the jury took less than two days to acquit him.
As he walked from court a free man, Miss Dando's family are now facing the probability that her murder will never be solved.
But what the jury were not permitted to hear was the details of his vile attack on Miss Gray as she reached home.
On the stairs of a block of flats, George overpowered her, smothered her screams with his hand over her nose and mouth and ripped down her jeans to rape her.
As he left, he said 'sorry' before making for the nearest underground station and disappearing. He was not caught for a year.
It is hard to equate this glimpse of George the determined sex attacker with the man portrayed in court and by his family as a victim.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1040746/Barry-George-raped-mums-door-said-sorry.html
-
M489 28 4 99
Message reports of an odd enquiry in which a man attended cab office
Man wanted verification of time at cab office on 26 4 99 & what he was wearing
“We has this guy, agitated, hanging around, soon after the murder...
“He (Barry George) left H.A.F.A.D and went to try and get a lift a free lift from a taxi...
“He was trying to get out of the area but he didn’t have any money...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0003w40/the-murder-of-jill-dando
-
“We has this guy, agitated, hanging around, soon after the murder...
“He (Barry George) left H.A.F.A.D and went to try and get a lift a free lift from a taxi...
“He was trying to get out of the area but he didn’t have any money...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0003w40/the-murder-of-jill-dando
@ 35.17 minutes
“This man first entered the enquiry on 28th April 1999 - within two days of the murder of Jill Dando
-
@ 35.17 minutes
“This man first entered the enquiry on 28th April 1999 - within two days of the murder of Jill Dando
Hamish Campbell said, “we are one year behind him”
-
Following my experience and with what I subsequently learned, IMO this is often motive enough for some family members to defend their guilty family member.
Reasons can differ but fear of being tarred with the same brush or fear of their own “indiscretions” being uncovered are a couple of examples as to why they will go to such lengths.
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀 Retweeted
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
8h
Replying to
@DrSusanYoung1
Barry George is on trial again
@DrSusanYoung1
. Of course no one else will be brought to justice...no one is investigating!
✴️Police/media, stop referring to autism in derogatory term...oddball, loner, weirdo! You offend many families with this discrimination, not just Barry.
-
George also raped his Japanese wife Itsuko Toide, who left him after 11 months of a marriage filled with violence and intimidation. In an interview published today, she gives a remarkable insight into the mind of a man filled with rage and hatred of women.
George met Miss Toide after she had suffered a sexual assault herself and was feeling highly vulnerable. They married after a romance lasting four months. Almost immediately he began subjecting her to a series of sexual and physical attacks at the cramped ground-floor council flat that they shared in Crookham Road, Fulham.
The jury was not allowed to know that George had a long history of stalking women in the area where Miss Dando lived, although detectives found clear evidence that he had followed at least 419 women in Fulham, taking 2,597 photographs of them.
The judge also ruled during pre-trial legal argument that the jury should not learn that George had been arrested in 1983 while prowling in the grounds of Kensington Palace, close to the private apartments of the Prince and Princess of Wales, clad in camouflage fatigues and wielding a commando knife.
Despite these revelations, George's defence team announced they were to launching an immediate appeal.
One possible ground for appeal may be the discovery that one of the prosecution witnesses, Charlotte de Rosnay, 29, was involved for a while in a relationship with a member of the murder squad, Detective Constable Peter Bartlett.
-
@ 35.17 minutes
“This man first entered the enquiry on 28th April 1999 - within two days of the murder of Jill Dando
Interesting that Michelle Diskin Bates recently compares the murder of Jill Dando to that of the killing of Veronica Guerin in Dublin!?
-
“The former Crimewatch host, 71, believed Metropolitan Police officers focused on the wrong lines of enquiry after the presenter was killed.
Jill, 37, was brutally shot dead outside her home in Fulham, London, in April 1999.
Following her murder, officers linked her death to her work on the show as a possible motive for her murder.
Nick said pursuing that line of enquiry was “foolish” before adding it was rare that criminals targeted people involved in justice.
He told The Daily Mirror: “The thing is, and not so much the fault of the senior investigating officer, but top brass, they had this intuitive and, we thought, rather foolish view, it would be to do with Crimewatch.
“And we knew it would not be to do with Crimewatch. In modern times, there has never been a judge attacked for sending someone down, a prosecuting solicitor, or anybody.”
Focus also centred a Range Rover that had been spotted on CCTV near to where Jill had been killed.
Nick added: “Already it was clear that this had such big publicity, the risk was they would get swamped with literally thousands of lines of enquiry.”
It later finished with more than 7,000 lines of enquiry, according to Nick.
While Nick said it would be ridiculous to claim he and the team would know as much about crime as officers, he added the group’s experience of investigating would lead them to follow different lines.
He continued: “We did understand a lot and certainly the editor and I, we would have done it very differently.”
Barry George, 58, was convicted of Jill’s murder in 2001 but was released on appeal in 2008 when the case was quashed.
The Metropolitan Police told Daily Star Online: “The investigation into Ms Dando’s murder remains open, therefore we cannot comment in any detail other than to say we will always explore any new information which may become available.”
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/771869/jill-dando-murder-nick-ross-crimewatch-fulham-london-barry-george-conviction-quashed
“Detective constable John Gallagher said after his arrest, George had claimed to have seen a Range Rover “acting suspiciously” on the day Miss Dando was killed.
Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2008/06/23/gun-holster-found-at-dando-suspects-home-207645/?ito=cbshare
-
"Your Lordships, I am not sure of the propriety of writing to you, but you cannot have been blind to the barrage of publicity claiming Barry George is innocent.
Some of the coverage has been openly one-sided, though some - like last week's Panorama which took up George's case - has been even more disturbing.
You, as senior judges, are supposed to be above all this, unimpressed by such non-judicial murmurings.
But you are only human and given the febrile atmosphere surrounding this case it would be remarkable if you had not been influenced in some way.
So allow me to set out something by way of balance. Let me start by saying that while there can never be certainties in cases like this, I remain confident that Barry George killed Jill Dando.
That said, on the basis of the evidence, as it was presented at his original trial, I confess I was surprised that the jury found him guilty.
In particular, I was always unimpressed by a piece of evidence that lies at the heart of his latest appeal: a microscopic fragment of firearm discharge residue that was found in his coat pocket.
Barry George's supporters now claim that this tiny speck underpinned the entire prosecution case, though in fact he had already been charged with Jill's murder before tests on the particle had even been completed.
At George's trial, the prosecution argued that this residue matched samples found on Jill's hair and clothing - as well as the cartridge found at the scene.
The defence had ample opportunity to challenge that evidence. Yet now they say there are "new" grounds to question its significance.
So far as I am concerned, nothing has changed; I am as unconvinced about the particle now as I was then.
Even so, if you, my Lords, agree that this piece of evidence was such a crucial that it alone swung the jury, then it follows that George's conviction was unsafe.
But should you uphold his appeal - and I suspect you may well do so - it does not follow that Barry George is innocent, any more than that everyone who is convicted by the courts is definitely guilty.
The police and prosecution lawyers cannot speak out in public in advance of the appeal.
However, before reaching your judgment I urge you to consider clues that have had much less media prominence than the case for the defence, so that if you deem the original verdict unsafe, at least you'll consider a retrial rather than outright acquittal.
Then at least we will have another chance to review all the evidence, some of which was not admissible at the original trial.
But for the time being, let's stick to what we know already.
Despite all the speculation that Jill Dando must have been killed by a professional hitman, the practical evidence is that her murder was very amateur indeed.
I do not say this with the benefit of hindsight - it was obvious from the start.
Jill was shot outside her home in Gowan Avenue in Fulham, an address well-known to locals but which she went to irregularly because she lived with her fiance.
She had no special plans to visit her home that day and an extensive trawl of West London's CCTV cameras shows she wasn't followed.
So her killer either acted impulsively, or lay in wait - neither course suggestive of sophistication.
According to a neighbour who picked out Barry George at an identity parade, he had been hanging about some hours before the shooting.
In any case, whoever killed Jill had prepared no means of escape.
There was no getaway vehicle, and Gowan Avenue has few side streets, so the killer took a big risk in walking away where he would be visible for some time. (Her fiance's address, on the other hand, was much better shielded for any potential ambush.) This is hardly the signature of a well-planned crime.
Nor did the method of attack show any level of skill. The gun was not a proper firearm (it had been converted from a replica), there was no silencer, the bullet was home-made, and the killer held the muzzle against Jill's head risking forensic evidence transferring on to it - none of which is the hallmark of a professional assassin.
Furthermore, Jill's key was in the lock, and anyone with any sense would have pushed her inside and shot her there to muffle the sound and hide the body.
The killer was really not very proficient.
This is all a bit removed from the conspiracy theories that swirled around and distracted the investigation, including a laughable story that the murder was connected to Serb extremists who were unhappy with one of Jill's charity appeals.
(I know how the rumour originated. It was based on a mild letter of complaint from a viewer, which got more and more exaggerated in the retelling.)
As for the killing being a reprisal for Jill's role on Crimewatch, this would have been as unique as it was improbable.
Judges who sentence criminals, barristers who prosecute them, police who investigate them and prison officers who incarcerate them have rarely been threatened by those they have jailed.
And besides, if anyone was daft enough to go for a Crimewatch presenter they would more likely have gone for me, as I had been with the programme for far longer.
But Jill was glamorous. As I pointed out to the police from the beginning, when you look for a motive you usually look to people who know the victim. And through the medium of television, everyone knew Jill - she was in their homes routinely.
It was clear to me, as it was to the forensic psychologist called in by the detectives, that given the celebrity status of the victim, and given the shambolic nature of the killing, the murderer was likely to be one of those men who have a sexual fixation on a public figure but "who separate their internal world from external reality to such an extent that they need no direct physical contact at all with their target, and - because of their narcissism and absolute belief that their fantasies are real - may not need their victim to see them even as they pull the trigger".
(That was what I wrote to detectives privately early in the investigation.)
In short, the killer was likely to be someone with a personality disorder - someone much like Barry George.
It has been suggested that the police were fixated on Mr George from the start, at the expense of any other line of inquiry, but alas the opposite is true.
It was a year before he came into the frame, and the way he did so is instructive and shows why, on balance, I believe him to be guilty.
Soon after the shooting, the police received calls from two independent sources pointing to Barry George as a suspect.
In both cases he had visited places near Jill's home soon after the killing, and in both cases he had gone back to try to persuade the witnesses that he had been there at a different time and in different clothes.
These witnesses were so alarmed that they rang police repeatedly, and were deeply frustrated that their calls went unheeded.
It was not until a review of the inquiry, 11 months later, that a detective became excited by these leads.
That delay may seem shameful, but you must remember there had been literally tens of thousands of callers to the inquiry.
One of the penalties of headline crimes is that they attract more quantity than quality of information - and most media and public pressure on the investigators had been to discover a criminal plot.
It was only when all the conspiracy theories proved bankrupt that the "lone weirdo" option began to take centre stage.
Some commentators have alleged that, in desperation, the cops just picked on Barry George as "a local nutter".
As we have seen, that is not true; ideally, they would have picked on him the day after the murder.
Besides, even when George did become a suspect, the senior investigating officer remained unconvinced - there seemed to be no hard evidence against him.
But slowly a pattern of apparent coincidences emerged which, for me, is quite convincing.
This was not just a man with the sort of personality disorder one might associate with such a crime, but one who lived locally and had been near the scene before and just after the crime took place.
Here was a man who took photos of female presenters as they appeared on his TV (how many other people do that?).
Here was a man with a history of violence against women. Here was a man who carried knives and had a fixation about guns. Here was a man who lied about his whereabouts on the day.
And, contrary to defence claims that he was mentally incapable of organising anything like a shooting, here was a man who lived out his fantasies daily, following women in the street (sometimes, as with Jill, into their front gardens), getting into the grounds of Kensington Palace wearing a balaclava and armed with rope and a knife when Princess Diana was alive (and didn't she remind you a little of Jill?), and living the life of stunt man.
On one memorable occasion he starred in a daredevil feat shown on local TV in which he roller-skated down a ramp and leaped across a row of buses.
It is true that his mental condition has been deteriorating, and it may well be that he is now incapable of acting as coherently as he once did.
I wish he could be transferred to secure accommodation where he can be cared for, rather than remain in prison. But the evidence of his previous capacity and guile is scattered through his history.
So what about the theory that a fantasist like Barry George might deliberately have put himself into the frame to make himself the centre of attention?
This might explain his attempts to give himself false alibis.
But such calculated behaviour is at odds with everything the defence claims about his mental incompetence.
And in any case, he seems not to have wanted to be the centre of attention.
It is conceivable that he might have set about trying to construct his alibis out of misguided fear, though in successive police interviews he never said he was worried about being picked on for the murder.
Nor did he protest that in the past he had been routinely harassed by the police, as later claimed by the defence.
In fact, he had been spoken to by officers a couple of times over perhaps a decade - not unusual in that part of London, especially for a young man who often behaved strangely.
The first occasion was after a disturbance in a McDonald's restaurant, the second was when he was tailing a woman.
And nor, as his supporters now claim, is there reason to believe he was fearful of being set up for Jill's murder because he had been a suspect for a previous notorious crime - the stabbing of Rachel Nickell on Wimbledon Common.
Yes, it is true that he was one of many hundreds of people routinely interviewed in connection with the case, but though he had been convicted of assaulting a woman and later jailed for attempted rape, he was never accused or even vaguely suspected of the Nickell murder.
In any case, the fact that he can be put in the right place at the right time for Jill's murder is not particularly troubling; but the fact that he tried to confuse the key witnesses about his movements on the day is suspicious, to say the least.
There is much other evidence, too, against Barry George.
Each piece on its own is inconclusive, but not when added together.
It is a regrettable fact that as forensic science has advanced, juries have become more and more dependent on technical evidence and less willing to convict on the basis of indirect corroboration.
Indeed, the very phrase "circumstantial evidence" has become almost pejorative. But how many coincidences does it take before we accept that there is a meaningful pattern to them?
I submit to you, your Lordships, that the accumulation of evidence is compelling, and it is quite a list. I urge you to verify how the early conspiracy theories were demonstrably fatuous.
I ask you to consider how the insistence that Barry George was mentally incapable of such a crime is simply contrary to fact.
How his trail of false alibis and continuing pattern of lies appears manipulative rather than fantastical.
How his personality disorder is plainly not benign (as we know from previous violence and stalking).
How his obsession with guns and female TV presenters is curious. How his availability at the scene is proven, and so on.
Let me put it another way: If Barry George was not responsible for Jill Dando's murder, we would need to invent someone of the same build, same appearance, same behaviour, same infatuations, same mental instability and same location, as well as having to disregard his palpable mendacity.
Finally, let me say this. Jill hated miscarriages of justice. So do I.
And though I was her friend and colleague I have no animosity towards George. In fact, having once worked with people suffering from epilepsy and damaged personalities, I feel sorry for him.
Nor, as a TV presenter so closely associated with Crimewatch, do I relish the idea of imprisoning an innocent and vulnerable person when the consequence must be that a dangerous killer is free.
Yet, on balance, I think that the judicial system got the right man, even if the process was imperfect.
What really matters is that whoever killed Jill Dando should not be at large to do something terrible again.
I wish you well with your deliberations.
Nick Ross
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-491452/Dando-murder-I-know-Barry-George-killed-friend-Jill.html#ixzz5Bazr8W52
”I know Barry George killed my friend Jill
“So allow me to set out something by way of balance. Let me start by saying that while there can never be certainties in cases like this, I remain confident that Barry George killed Jill Dando.
That said, on the basis of the evidence, as it was presented at his original trial, I confess I was surprised that the jury found him guilty.
I agree with Nick Ross!
-
“Detective constable John Gallagher said after his arrest, George had claimed to have seen a Range Rover “acting suspiciously” on the day Miss Dando was killed.
Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2008/06/23/gun-holster-found-at-dando-suspects-home-207645/?ito=cbshare
“The court also heard evidence from Lenita Bailey, a friend of Mr George, who said he "rocked in his chair" and did not respond when she asked him if he committed the crime
Lenita Bailey said she had spoken to Mr George about the crime about a year after the murder.
She told the court she suspected he had lied to the police about seeing a Range Rover on the evening of the murder.
Ms Bailey said she told him he could be a suspect and asked if he had committed the crime.
She told the court: "He was looking at the floor and playing with his hands. He did not say anything, so I asked him again 'Did you do it, did you kill Jill Dando?' I never got a response."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1333889.stm
-
“The court also heard evidence from Lenita Bailey, a friend of Mr George, who said he "rocked in his chair" and did not respond when she asked him if he committed the crime
Lenita Bailey said she had spoken to Mr George about the crime about a year after the murder.
She told the court she suspected he had lied to the police about seeing a Range Rover on the evening of the murder.
Ms Bailey said she told him he could be a suspect and asked if he had committed the crime.
She told the court: "He was looking at the floor and playing with his hands. He did not say anything, so I asked him again 'Did you do it, did you kill Jill Dando?' I never got a response."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1333889.stm
“After his flat had been searched, Mr George told a woman, Lenita Bailey, about the police's interest in him. She asked himif he had done it.
According to Mr Pownall,"The defendant remained silent and stared at the floor. She repeated the question twice more and asked him to look at her. His lips moved as if he was thinking of an answer but none was forthcoming
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/may/05/jilldando.nickhopkins1
-
“After his flat had been searched, Mr George told a woman, Lenita Bailey, about the police's interest in him. She asked himif he had done it.
According to Mr Pownall,"The defendant remained silent and stared at the floor. She repeated the question twice more and asked him to look at her. His lips moved as if he was thinking of an answer but none was forthcoming
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/may/05/jilldando.nickhopkins1
“Undoubtedly, when persons are speaking on even terms and a charge is made, and the person charged says nothing, and expresses no indignation, and does nothing to repel the charge, that is some evidence to show that he admits the charge to be true.
Evidence in Context by Jonathon Doak
7.1 The “even terms” rule.
“Lenita Bailey was a customer at a hairdressers near the accused flat. She knew him and recalled a conversation with him. George came into the salon and claimed police were harassing him over the death of Jill Dando. He complained they had searched his home and his mothers house. Ms Bailey said to him: “Did you do it?” George remained silent and starred at the floor. She repeated the question twice more and asked him to look at her. At trial, she said: “His lips moved as if he were thinking of an answer but none was forthcoming. Her evidence of the discussion, or lack of it, was admitted, and George was convicted.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=JmDLCQAAQBAJ&pg=PT374&lpg=PT374&dq=lenita+bailey+barry+george&source=bl&ots=o2q28Nrf8W&sig=ACfU3U0U6Ar9JmuOb0wlSIVZgNXu2D_peQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiqntajzs_hAhXvVBUIHc3LCmsQ6AEwEXoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=lenita%20bailey%20barry%20george&f=false
-
“Detective constable John Gallagher said after his arrest, George had claimed to have seen a Range Rover “acting suspiciously” on the day Miss Dando was killed.
Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2008/06/23/gun-holster-found-at-dando-suspects-home-207645/?ito=cbshare
“Miss Bailey said she met George in April or May last year at the Jazzy G salon in Fulham, west London, close to where Miss Dando was shot. She had known him for some years and wondered why he seemed so subdued. He told her the police were following him and had taken his TV and video from his house, she said. "He said that it was in connection with the Jill Dando murder."
George told her he had gone to the police as a potential witness, claiming he had seen a Range Rover near Miss Dando's home shortly after she was shot, she said.
"I asked him if he had seen the Range Rover and he said, 'No'. I asked him why he told the police he had, and he said he did not know. I got really fed up with him.
"I thought he was lying, and I wanted him to shut up. I turned round so I was looking straight at him. I asked him if he did it. He was looking at the floor and playing with his hands." She asked him again. "I never got a response... I think I remember him rocking a little in the chair."
She told George to look at her and asked the question for a third time. "His lips were moving but nothing came out."
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/may/17/jilldando.nickhopkins
-
”I know Barry George killed my friend Jill
“So allow me to set out something by way of balance. Let me start by saying that while there can never be certainties in cases like this, I remain confident that Barry George killed Jill Dando.
That said, on the basis of the evidence, as it was presented at his original trial, I confess I was surprised that the jury found him guilty.
I agree with Nick Ross!
Michelle Diskin Bates refers to Nick Ross in her book “Stand against injustice.”
She states on page 64:
“Ross had always intimated that he had insider information from the police that proved the conviction was right, even going so far as to interfere with the due process of the court. He wrote a letter to the three high court judges who were presiding over Barry’s 2007 appeal.
She goes on:
“Personally I cannot conceive of anybody being so disrespectful to the courts, and to three high court judges, that they would seek to blackmail them into seeing things their way. No matter what how upset Ross had been at the killing of his Crimewatch co-presenter, no matter what he thought he knew, he was trying to pervert the course of justice, and the judges were incensed.
-
Michelle Diskin Bates refers to Nick Ross in her book “Stand against injustice.”
She states on page 64:
“Ross had always intimated that he had insider information from the police that proved the conviction was right, even going so far as to interfere with the due process of the court. He wrote a letter to the three high court judges who were presiding over Barry’s 2007 appeal.
She goes on:
“Personally I cannot conceive of anybody being so disrespectful to the courts, and to three high court judges, that they would seek to blackmail them into seeing things their way. No matter what how upset Ross had been at the killing of his Crimewatch co-presenter, no matter what he thought he knew, he was trying to pervert the course of justice, and the judges were incensed.
I find these psychological projections, as I see them, so very interesting for varying reasons....
-
Michelle Bates involvement in the Bamber case is surprising given what we know about the conviction. Jeremy Bamber is certainly no Barry George, the two cases couldn't be more different.
“Michelle Diskin Bates has gone on to become a standard bearer for miscarriages of justice. We don’t need her to misdirect justice, however. Her credibility has recently taken a U turn; she has taken on the “plight” of the mass murderer Jeremy Bamber. She is now a respected “patron” and part of his naïve campaign team. Jeremy Bamber was convicted in 1986 for shooting to death his mother, father, sister and his two 6 year old nephews. Initially an inquest concluded it was his sister, Sheila Caffell who carried out the murders; Bamber had successfully made it look like a murder suicide. He fooled enough people initially but was eventually caught out. Hugely frustrated he has always insisted on his innocence.
http://gunfire-graffiti.co.uk/who-didnt-kill-jill-dando/
-
“Michelle Diskin Bates has gone on to become a standard bearer for miscarriages of justice. We don’t need her to misdirect justice, however. Her credibility has recently taken a U turn; she has taken on the “plight” of the mass murderer Jeremy Bamber. She is now a respected “patron” and part of his naïve campaign team. Jeremy Bamber was convicted in 1986 for shooting to death his mother, father, sister and his two 6 year old nephews. Initially an inquest concluded it was his sister, Sheila Caffell who carried out the murders; Bamber had successfully made it look like a murder suicide. He fooled enough people initially but was eventually caught out. Hugely frustrated he has always insisted on his innocence.
http://gunfire-graffiti.co.uk/who-didnt-kill-jill-dando/
The guy who wrote the above wrote “Gunfire Graffiti - Overlooked Gun crime in the Uk” and Nick Ross wrote the preface for the book https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-NKeSZeOs80C&pg=PR11&lpg=PR11&dq=Matt+Seiber+gun+crime&source=bl&ots=6dDuqnRPbn&sig=ACfU3U3JwPFFs_lyCVSz0R1jKicTysXAZg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiGyqfa_s_hAhWDQxUIHcbkAA84ChDoATAJegQICRAB#v=onepage&q=Matt%20Seiber%20gun%20crime&f=false
“We don’t need her to misdirect justice, however.
-
Michelle Diskin Bates refers to Nick Ross in her book “Stand against injustice.”
She states on page 64:
“Ross had always intimated that he had insider information from the police that proved the conviction was right, even going so far as to interfere with the due process of the court. He wrote a letter to the three high court judges who were presiding over Barry’s 2007 appeal.
She goes on:
“Personally I cannot conceive of anybody being so disrespectful to the courts, and to three high court judges, that they would seek to blackmail them into seeing things their way. No matter what how upset Ross had been at the killing of his Crimewatch co-presenter, no matter what he thought he knew, he was trying to pervert the course of justice, and the judges were incensed.
Sounds to me like Michelle Diskin Bates is intimating SHE had/has insider information with regards the feelings of the high court judges!?
Does anyone actually believe this?
Imo she has always intimated she knows what her brother Barry feels and doesn’t feel when in actual fact it is not possible for her or anyone else to know what he does or doesn’t think or feel!
-
“There is a risk that the objectivity and impartiality of forensic science experts is being undermined by cognitive bias, according to new guidance from the Forensic Science Regulator Dr Gill Tully (pictured). This raises important issues for both prosecutors and defence practitioners.
Cognitive bias – subconscious personal bias – has been seen as a potential issue within criminal justice systems since the 1970s. But it is now being red-flagged after some high-profile cases, including false-positive fingerprint identifications, brought the issue into sharp relief.
Countering the risks has significant consequences for the way experts work with the police and prosecutors. It also opens up potential challenges for defence practitioners, who have been criticised in the past for not challenging expert evidence robustly enough.
The guidance, published as an appendix to the regulator’s codes of practice and conduct, sets out examples of good practice in specific subject areas associated with forensic science examina- tions at crime scenes and within laboratories.
Cognitive bias can take many forms, including confirmation bias, whereby people test hypoth- eses by looking for confirming evidence rather than for potentially conflicting evidence. There are also ‘role effects’, where scientists identify themselves as part of either the prosecution or defence teams.
The ‘most powerful means of safeguarding’ against that, the guidance says, is to ensure that the practitioner conducting the analysis only has information about the case that is relevant to the analysis.
However, it accepts that case assessment, targeting and interpretation may be hampered without relevant information. And it warns that risks are higher when practitioners are inexperi- enced, unmonitored and left to adopt their own approach, and when checking is less rigorous and/or conducted collaboratively.
The leading expert in cognitive bias, Dr Itiel Dror, senior cognitive neuroscience researcher at UCL, has held workshops for senior judges, while laboratories and police forces are starting to provide their forensic examiners with cogni- tive training.
He stresses that this is not an ethical issue – ‘experts are not letting this happen intentionally’ – but they must try to minimise the risk of cognitive contamination as they do physical contamination. ‘By telling an expert there is a suspect, for instance, the expert then works from the suspect to the evidence and not from the evidence to the suspect,’hetoldtherecentBondSolonexpert witness conference.
However, he said lawyers like to give informa- tion to experts. ‘To be honest, they don’t want your opinion, they are building a case and they want to recruit you,’ he said.
‘I did a case where the lawyers wanted me to get involved. I explained why I didn’t want the information but they forgot accidentally and sent me irrelevant information. I didn’t need to know the details of the rape or that the person had been charged before. I am not accusing them of intentionally trying to manipulate me but, regardless, they contaminated me.’
https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/download?ac=15591
-
“There is a risk that the objectivity and impartiality of forensic science experts is being undermined by cognitive bias, according to new guidance from the Forensic Science Regulator Dr Gill Tully (pictured). This raises important issues for both prosecutors and defence practitioners.
Cognitive bias – subconscious personal bias – has been seen as a potential issue within criminal justice systems since the 1970s. But it is now being red-flagged after some high-profile cases, including false-positive fingerprint identifications, brought the issue into sharp relief.
Countering the risks has significant consequences for the way experts work with the police and prosecutors. It also opens up potential challenges for defence practitioners, who have been criticised in the past for not challenging expert evidence robustly enough.
The guidance, published as an appendix to the regulator’s codes of practice and conduct, sets out examples of good practice in specific subject areas associated with forensic science examina- tions at crime scenes and within laboratories.
Cognitive bias can take many forms, including confirmation bias, whereby people test hypoth- eses by looking for confirming evidence rather than for potentially conflicting evidence. There are also ‘role effects’, where scientists identify themselves as part of either the prosecution or defence teams.
The ‘most powerful means of safeguarding’ against that, the guidance says, is to ensure that the practitioner conducting the analysis only has information about the case that is relevant to the analysis.
However, it accepts that case assessment, targeting and interpretation may be hampered without relevant information. And it warns that risks are higher when practitioners are inexperi- enced, unmonitored and left to adopt their own approach, and when checking is less rigorous and/or conducted collaboratively.
The leading expert in cognitive bias, Dr Itiel Dror, senior cognitive neuroscience researcher at UCL, has held workshops for senior judges, while laboratories and police forces are starting to provide their forensic examiners with cogni- tive training.
He stresses that this is not an ethical issue – ‘experts are not letting this happen intentionally’ – but they must try to minimise the risk of cognitive contamination as they do physical contamination. ‘By telling an expert there is a suspect, for instance, the expert then works from the suspect to the evidence and not from the evidence to the suspect,’hetoldtherecentBondSolonexpert witness conference.
However, he said lawyers like to give informa- tion to experts. ‘To be honest, they don’t want your opinion, they are building a case and they want to recruit you,’ he said.
‘I did a case where the lawyers wanted me to get involved. I explained why I didn’t want the information but they forgot accidentally and sent me irrelevant information. I didn’t need to know the details of the rape or that the person had been charged before. I am not accusing them of intentionally trying to manipulate me but, regardless, they contaminated me.’
https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/download?ac=15591
Just as the CCRC have done in many cases they have been involved with imo.
-
“The former Met detective who led the murder inquiry, Hamish Campbell, is resistant to the idea that the police “scapegoated” George or that he was “stitched up” by the police — indeed, he told the BBC documentary makers he finds the suggestion offensive. Campbell was a cautious officer who constantly reminded himself, in his own logs, which I have seen, to “beware of making things fit”.
As far as Campbell was concerned, it was not personal, it was about evidence. There was, he concluded, sufficient circumstantial evidence to arrest George and, on CPS advice, to charge him with murder. After that, it was up to the jury. Campbell accepts the verdict of the retrial. He does not accept that the police were wrong to inquire into George
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/who-killed-jill-dando-the-theories-and-impact-20-years-on-02fbh7vs7
David James Smith appears in the documentary Jill Dando: The Twenty Year Mystery, which will be on ITV at 9pm on April 25
-
“The former Met detective who led the murder inquiry, Hamish Campbell, is resistant to the idea that the police “scapegoated” George or that he was “stitched up” by the police — indeed, he told the BBC documentary makers he finds the suggestion offensive. Campbell was a cautious officer who constantly reminded himself, in his own logs, which I have seen, to “beware of making things fit”.
As far as Campbell was concerned, it was not personal, it was about evidence. There was, he concluded, sufficient circumstantial evidence to arrest George and, on CPS advice, to charge him with murder. After that, it was up to the jury. Campbell accepts the verdict of the retrial. He does not accept that the police were wrong to inquire into George
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/who-killed-jill-dando-the-theories-and-impact-20-years-on-02fbh7vs7
David James Smith appears in the documentary Jill Dando: The Twenty Year Mystery, which will be on ITV at 9pm on April 25
The last thing I want to do is battle with you, Mistress of the Pass Ag, and you are a very clever cookie, but it was a clean, quick execution.
-
Excerpts from Andy Rigsby’s blog
“The image of Barry George when he was released on appeal in 2008 was that of a victim. Slow and lumbering with his movements, his obese frame had an awkwardness. Dependent on help and support from friends, family and his legal team he was the very image of a miscarriage of justice, he certainly did not fit the profile of the murderer who would have swiftly escaped from the scene in 1999. At that time however, 39 year old Barry George was lighter and fitter, he looked completely different.
Despite being diagnosed with a host of disabling mental conditions he was extremely ambitious. Burdened with learning difficulties his schooling was a frustrating and unsuccessful period in his life. To escape this dull reality he moved into his own fantasies adopting pseudonyms associated with glamourous rock stars and masculine real life hero’s which he would to link to fictitious careers
He had unsuccessfully tried to join the police force in 1980 but he passed selection to join the Territorial Army in the same year, (but was released before completing his training in 1981). He would up to that point have received some weapon training. He then tried to pursue a film stunt career. He continued an interest in firearms and shooting and had attempted to secure full membership with a London gun club but was unsuccessful. Clearly his mental illness issues were stopping him from ultimately succeeding but they weren’t preventing him from trying. He had sufficient cognitive aptitude and orientation to focus on and pursue his interests.
When Barry George was convicted in 2001 the jury were unaware that he had a history of extreme violence towards women. In 1981 he was given a suspended sentence for indecent assault. In 1983 he was sentenced to 33 months in prison for attempted rape, he served 18 months. In May 1989 he married a Japanese student, Itsuko Toide; it was a marriage of convenience but 4 months later he was arrested and charged for assaulting his wife. The charge was later dropped. They were divorced in April 1990. Itsuko described their relationship as “violent and terrifying“
I visited Fulham on the 27th February 2019. It was a bright spring like day. The vicinity could be described as a pleasant London suburb. Gowan Avenue in particular, has an elegant exclusive air, the Victorian terraced properties are all well maintained. The Avenue is adorned with a mixture of expensive and tidy vehicles. The relevant neighbouring locations, Crookham Avenue and Greswell Street are surprisingly close. Whilst this was made accurately apparent in media reports, actually being there really does make a difference to your viewpoint.
When Barry George turned up at HAFAD on the morning of the murder he was a wearing a yellow top, blue jeans and carrying a carrier bag full of written material. The perpetrator however was a described as wearing a dark jacket. George’s defence maintained that if he was the killer he would have gone home to Crookham Road, changed, picked up the carrier bag and used a route to Greswell Street sensibly avoiding Gowan Avenue. They decided this would take 28 minutes and that did not include changing clothes. This would mean that if he had committed the murder at 11:30 a.m. he could not have got to the HAFAD at or before 11:50 a.m. On that basis they argued he could not possibly have committed the crime.
I tried the route adding just 1 minute to change a top and pick up a bag. Turning left away from Jill Dando’s property at number 29 and backtracking along the next available right turns, Sidbury Street and Wardo Avenue to sweep back to Crookham Road and then routing back towards Greswell avoiding Gowan took 21.5 minutes. Turning left initially and then turning back along the other side of Gowan Avenue to Crookham Road and then the same avoiding route to Greswell took 18.5 minutes. That was all at a brisk walk with no adrenalin assist and I’m 63 not 39. If George chose to jog at every street crossing, (not an odd action in normal circumstances), the time would be even less. I did exactly this on another visit and completed the full route in 20 mins.
Jill Dando laid dead or dying for at least 5 minutes before she was found. That is a massive amount of time for George to decide on an escape route even if the initial period was a frantic and confused moment in time. It was also merged with an element of pure luck. It could have been completely different. Nobody did a thing for at least 5 MINUTES. A brisk to fast walking pace is 4 mph / 6.5 Km hr. In that time the George could have covered over 500 metres, that is a long way.
A court of appeal and an ordered retrial found him not guilty in 2008 by a unanimous verdict. Could he have done it however. His defence always maintained he didn’t have a motive, desire, a weapon or the physical and mental prowess to execute such a plan. Some years ago, a work colleague of mine, himself an ex-convict turned writer totally convinced me that Barry George could not have been at the HAFAD in Greswell Street at the given time if he had been the perpetrator. I read some narratives supporting this and I firmly believed it. When I physically researched it myself, I found these well courted “hard facts” to be completely false, the routes and timings were entirely possible
This murder remains a cruel mystery, a much loved and admired TV personality brutally slain in front of her property for a reason only known to her killer. Perhaps we convicted the right man, perhaps we didn’t. No one else has ever come into the frame, no hard intelligence, no reliable informers, no twisted political statement, no bloodthirsty underworld warning, no sick perverted claim. Nobody has ever been able to claim the substantial reward; nothing. The press courted with the professional hitman. So many could not accept her death being perpetrated so randomly by a local loner
Michelle Diskin Bates has gone on to become a standard bearer for miscarriages of justice. We don’t need her to misdirect justice, however. Her credibility has recently taken a U turn; she has taken on the “plight” of the mass murderer Jeremy Bamber. She is now a respected “patron” and part of his naïve campaign team. Jeremy Bamber was convicted in 1986 for shooting to death his mother, father, sister and his two 6 year old nephews. Initially an inquest concluded it was his sister, Sheila Caffell who carried out the murders; Bamber had successfully made it look like a murder suicide. He fooled enough people initially but was eventually caught out. Hugely frustrated he has always insisted on his innocence.
If you don’t closely study the circumstances you would feel sorry for this suave, articulate and very convincing psychopath.
Michelle has been drawn in, perhaps a little intoxicated with her well founded reputation. She has accepted the part without reading the script. That is surely dangerous ground. Please see my blog – Murders at Whitehouse Farm.
Towards the end of my first visit to Fulham I walked into Bishops Park to find the small café there. A young man was walking towards me. Sporting a white T- shirt, we could all reflect on the script which read,
“Don’t believe everything you think”.
Read in full here - http://gunfire-graffiti.co.uk/who-didnt-kill-jill-dando/
-
Courtesy of Andy Rigsby’s blog “Who didn’t kill Jill Dando”
“There were no witnesses to the actual murder, but locals and neighbours provided statements linked to a variety of sightings that were thought to be related to what was noticed before and after the killing. Jill Dando was found between 5 -14 minutes, (estimates vary), after she was attacked lying at the foot of her front door by a passer-by
Speculation about a criminal underworld hit or an internationally driven assassination was suggested because of Jill Dando’s association with BBC Crimewatch. The media surmised that it was a “professional hit”.
As the official investigation progressed it was eventually concluded to be the exact opposite, a disjointed opportunity attack
The investigation could not help to be influenced by media speculation which favoured a so called hitman. Like JFK and Princess Diana, an insignificant gunman and an incompetent driver were too simplistic to contemplate, the initial media vacuums groomed conspiracy and wild speculation.
The killer had either waited in ambush on chance and or was frequenting the location as she arrived home. He had no escape route, he merely walked off down Gowan Avenue, no witness can recall seeing anyone get into a car and being driven off. Circumstances could have been different. A witness could have seen the murder take place and come face to face with the killer. He got away not by guile and planning but by swift actions and sheer luck. It would seem the killer had acted alone, and he disappeared into the community streets and avenues. The murder weapon was never recovered.
If Jill Dando was killed by a so called professional who would have been highly mobile, Gowan Avenue was the worst choice of location. Her partners home in Chiswick would have been far easier to identify and log her movement routine. A local, close to Gowan Avenue however and without transport would have the time to loiter and plot for, days, weeks, months. If Jill Dando had been approached by nothing more threatening than a busy autograph hunter where would they have chosen to wait for her.
http://gunfire-graffiti.co.uk/who-didnt-kill-jill-dando/
-
Courtesy of Andy Rigsby’s blog “Who didn’t kill Jill Dando”
“There were no witnesses to the actual murder, but locals and neighbours provided statements linked to a variety of sightings that were thought to be related to what was noticed before and after the killing. Jill Dando was found between 5 -14 minutes, (estimates vary), after she was attacked lying at the foot of her front door by a passer-by
Speculation about a criminal underworld hit or an internationally driven assassination was suggested because of Jill Dando’s association with BBC Crimewatch. The media surmised that it was a “professional hit”.
As the official investigation progressed it was eventually concluded to be the exact opposite, a disjointed opportunity attack
The investigation could not help to be influenced by media speculation which favoured a so called hitman. Like JFK and Princess Diana, an insignificant gunman and an incompetent driver were too simplistic to contemplate, the initial media vacuums groomed conspiracy and wild speculation.
The killer had either waited in ambush on chance and or was frequenting the location as she arrived home. He had no escape route, he merely walked off down Gowan Avenue, no witness can recall seeing anyone get into a car and being driven off. Circumstances could have been different. A witness could have seen the murder take place and come face to face with the killer. He got away not by guile and planning but by swift actions and sheer luck. It would seem the killer had acted alone, and he disappeared into the community streets and avenues. The murder weapon was never recovered.
If Jill Dando was killed by a so called professional who would have been highly mobile, Gowan Avenue was the worst choice of location. Her partners home in Chiswick would have been far easier to identify and log her movement routine. A local, close to Gowan Avenue however and without transport would have the time to loiter and plot for, days, weeks, months. If Jill Dando had been approached by nothing more threatening than a busy autograph hunter where would they have chosen to wait for her.
http://gunfire-graffiti.co.uk/who-didnt-kill-jill-dando/
How can anyone make this comment and expect to be taken seriously when the perp got clean away. A fact the perp no doubt took into account when planning the murder.
I've read a press article which I can't find now, anyway it states Alan Farthing lived in a three-storey property at Bedford Close, Chiswick - see map/image below. Three-storey properties provide vanatge points for viewing over some range and in terms of Bedford Close very limited entry and exit points to enter and flee the soc. Jill's property at Gowan Ave had a tree and hedge in the garden which apparently attracted her to the property in the first place as she thought it afforded privacy. It also provided numerous possibilities in terms of escape routes away from the immediate vicinity and then away from the area.
Plus no doubt most of the time Jill was at Bedford Close Alan was there too. Whereas at Gowan Ave she was mostly there alone.
Given Jill's found position on the doorstep and the fact she was shot behind her left ear it would seem unlikely the perp was waiting inside and opened the door as Jill was about to put her key in. And if this was the case surely forensics would reveal? So the options are:
- Perp waited inside until he/she was alerted to the fact Jill was on her away at which time he left the inside of the property and lie in wait in the front garden?
- Perp entered front garden in anticipation of Jill's arrival shortly before she arrived?
- Perp was walking along Gowan Ave in synch with the arrival of Jill's car and as she was about to put her keys in the door he/she took her by surprise forcing her to the ground?
- The murder wasn't planned and the perp just happened to walk by at the right time and Jill just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?
Police looked through mobile phone data and found nothing to suggest 2 people were communicating her movements eg from Bedford Close to Gown Ave. Was it possible 2 people communicated over shorter distances? I'm inclined to think surveillance was used in terms of phones/properties bugged and cars tracked.
Bedford Close, Chiswick
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4836634,-0.2516459,3a,75y,291.16h,85.88t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sd-hBL1ncMkLL4zk_9gR_Ig!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3Dd-hBL1ncMkLL4zk_9gR_Ig%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D352.46182%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656
29 Gowan Ave, Fulham
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.476734,-0.2113333,3a,37.5y,138.06h,84.54t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sYdhZ1ji2z1XFUAwtww5QGQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
The design of the property changes slightly from those before and affords more privacy around the porch area.
-
Also had the perp been seen by a neighbour actually carrying out the murder he/she would soon leave field of view. Whereas at Bedford Close the perp could potentially have been in field of view for longer.
-
0.4 miles is approximately 704 yards!
“Detectives investigating the killing became increasingly convinced Mr George was the gunman after they discovered he had followed numerous women and taken thousands of pictures of them.
But in an interview, Mr George insisted that at the time Miss Dando was murdered, he was following another woman after leaving a disability centre in Fulham.
Miss Dando was shot dead on her doorstep in Fulham, west London, at around 11.30am on April 26 1999.
Between 10.30am and 12.33pm on the day of the shooting, Mr George insisted, he was either at the centre or walking beside the woman.
"I walked with her for a bit and from her perspective, maybe it was unwanted attention. But she didn't make that clear," he said.
"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.
"That was at 12.33pm. I know because just a minute before I'd made a call from my mobile to check how much credit I had left."
During three weeks of surveillance before his arrest Mr George was seen to approach 38 women and try to make conversation with them.
He said of his history of stalking: "I know I have done wrong in the past and if I could go back in time and change that I would." https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2492744/Jill-Dando-murder-I-was-stalking-another-woman-at-the-time-says-Barry-George.html
Michelle Diskin Bates states in her book Stand Against Injustice:
“On Sunday, the News of the World ran the story and it was a hatchet job. Barry’s piece was fine, except for the headline . . . ‘I couldn’t have done it, I was stalking another woman at the time!’
Barry absolutely did not say this. We’d been there the entire time, we’d gone over everything. Barry told them, “I couldn’t have killed Jill Dando. I was talking with another woman at the time.” Actually, he was wrong. When Ms Dando was killed, Barry was at the HAFAD centre. Barry doesn’t have a concept of time, that’s why he often runs into difficulties. Added to that, all of Barry’s teeth are missing so he speaks with a slight lisp. The News of the World took ‘was-talking’ and made it ‘was-stalking’, but we hadn’t noticed. To this day people still think he said this, and make judgements about him based on it, but he didn’t.
This publication also carried two other articles on the Jill Dando/ Barry George story, making a spread over three pages. Both of these were horrendous. Never have I seen such vitriol aimed at someone who has been found not guilty. Retired Detective Ian Horrocks, one of the original officers on the case, had a whole section devoted entirely to saying that the police did not make a mistake, and many other things that made Barry look guilty. We were dumbstruck by all of this. To my knowledge, it was unprecedented to attack a person in this way when they’ve been exonerated. If the police had had any more evidence against Barry, they would have used it. There was none, therefore he was freed. What would be the gain in keeping Barry incarcerated, with Jill’s killer still walking freely among us?
“From here on, it was open season on Barry George in the press. We were sought out and photographed from afar, untrue stories were emblazoned on front pages with lurid headlines. Many times he was with people who could vouch for him, but no one cared. They were vilifying him, and that would sell papers. We were naïve to think that one article, or even a not guilty verdict, would mean we would ever be left alone.
-
Michelle Diskin Bates states in her book Stand Against Injustice:
“On Sunday, the News of the World ran the story and it was a hatchet job. Barry’s piece was fine, except for the headline . . . ‘I couldn’t have done it, I was stalking another woman at the time!’
Barry absolutely did not say this. We’d been there the entire time, we’d gone over everything. Barry told them, “I couldn’t have killed Jill Dando. I was talking with another woman at the time.” Actually, he was wrong. When Ms Dando was killed, Barry was at the HAFAD centre. Barry doesn’t have a concept of time, that’s why he often runs into difficulties. Added to that, all of Barry’s teeth are missing so he speaks with a slight lisp. The News of the World took ‘was-talking’ and made it ‘was-stalking’, but we hadn’t noticed. To this day people still think he said this, and make judgements about him based on it, but he didn’t.
This publication also carried two other articles on the Jill Dando/ Barry George story, making a spread over three pages. Both of these were horrendous. Never have I seen such vitriol aimed at someone who has been found not guilty. Retired Detective Ian Horrocks, one of the original officers on the case, had a whole section devoted entirely to saying that the police did not make a mistake, and many other things that made Barry look guilty. We were dumbstruck by all of this. To my knowledge, it was unprecedented to attack a person in this way when they’ve been exonerated. If the police had had any more evidence against Barry, they would have used it. There was none, therefore he was freed. What would be the gain in keeping Barry incarcerated, with Jill’s killer still walking freely among us?
From here on, it was open season on Barry George in the press. We were sought out and photographed from afar, untrue stories were emblazoned on front pages with lurid headlines. Many times he was with people who could vouch for him, but no one cared. They were vilifying him, and that would sell papers. We were naïve to think that one article, or even a not guilty verdict, would mean we would ever be left alone.
“Barry George, the man acquitted at a retrial of killing Jill Dando, has won substantial damages and an apology from the publisher of the Sun and News of the World over a series of articles suggesting that he was responsible for the killing and was a stalker.
George was in the high court today to hear his barrister read a statement outlining how the News of the World had made up a quote from him in which he suggested he could not have killed Dando because he was stalking another woman at the time.
Nick Baird, for George, said a confidentiality agreement prevented his client commenting further. Damages are believed to be a six-figure sum.
News Group Newspapers, the News International subsidiary that publishes the Sun and News of the World, further apologised for a series of articles in the two tabloids in which various allegations were made that he had become obsessed with the Sky News presenter Kay Burley, had pestered a woman after answering an advertisement she placed about a dog and had become obsessed with Pam Wright, the fiancee of the Ipswich strangler Steve Wright.
George, speaking after the short hearing before Mr Justice Eady, said: "I am pleased that the matter between me and News Group Newspapers has been amicably settled following successful mediation and without the need for litigation."
He appeared in court with his sister Michelle Diskin, who has supported him since his release from prison last year. He was released after being acquitted at the court of appeal and following a retrial.
George, who has a personality disorder, is now attempting to stop the authorities monitoring his movements since his release.
Gordon Bishop, representing George at the hearing, said the articles were published between 1 August and 20 November 2008.
He added that George had agreed to give an interview to the News of the World and Sky after his release in June last year. "He knew there would be a clamour from the press for his story and he wanted to satisfy the demands of the press ... and be left in peace."
He said an article in the Sun described a number of matters which had been kept from the jury. News Group has now admitted that the articles "would have been understood to mean that there were grounds to suspect Mr George of the murder despite his acquittal. (They) accept that the verdict of the second jury in acquitting Mr George was correct and it apologises to Mr George for any suggestion otherwise."
In his interview with the News of the World, the paper stated that George had told them: "I didn't kill Jill Dando – I was stalking someone else at the time."
News Group now accepts that George never made that statement to them.
Read more here: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2009/dec/16/barry-george-news-of-world
-
Michelle Diskin Bates states in her book Stand Against Injustice:
“On Sunday, the News of the World ran the story and it was a hatchet job. Barry’s piece was fine, except for the headline . . . ‘I couldn’t have done it, I was stalking another woman at the time!’
Barry absolutely did not say this. We’d been there the entire time, we’d gone over everything. Barry told them, “I couldn’t have killed Jill Dando. I was talking with another woman at the time.” Actually, he was wrong. When Ms Dando was killed, Barry was at the HAFAD centre. Barry doesn’t have a concept of time, that’s why he often runs into difficulties. Added to that, all of Barry’s teeth are missing so he speaks with a slight lisp. The News of the World took ‘was-talking’ and made it ‘was-stalking’, but we hadn’t noticed. To this day people still think he said this, and make judgements about him based on it, but he didn’t.
This publication also carried two other articles on the Jill Dando/ Barry George story, making a spread over three pages. Both of these were horrendous. Never have I seen such vitriol aimed at someone who has been found not guilty. Retired Detective Ian Horrocks, one of the original officers on the case, had a whole section devoted entirely to saying that the police did not make a mistake, and many other things that made Barry look guilty. We were dumbstruck by all of this. To my knowledge, it was unprecedented to attack a person in this way when they’ve been exonerated. If the police had had any more evidence against Barry, they would have used it. There was none, therefore he was freed. What would be the gain in keeping Barry incarcerated, with Jill’s killer still walking freely among us?
From here on, it was open season on Barry George in the press. We were sought out and photographed from afar, untrue stories were emblazoned on front pages with lurid headlines. Many times he was with people who could vouch for him, but no one cared. They were vilifying him, and that would sell papers. We were naïve to think that one article, or even a not guilty verdict, would mean we would ever be left alone.
Nothing to do with his previous history then and the evidence found by police when they searched his flat and in the weeks they had him under surveillance?
-
How can anyone make this comment and expect to be taken seriously when the perp got clean away. A fact the perp no doubt took into account when planning the murder.
I've read a press article which I can't find now, anyway it states Alan Farthing lived in a three-storey property at Bedford Close, Chiswick - see map/image below. Three-storey properties provide vanatge points for viewing over some range and in terms of Bedford Close very limited entry and exit points to enter and flee the soc. Jill's property at Gowan Ave had a tree and hedge in the garden which apparently attracted her to the property in the first place as she thought it afforded privacy. It also provided numerous possibilities in terms of escape routes away from the immediate vicinity and then away from the area.
Plus no doubt most of the time Jill was at Bedford Close Alan was there too. Whereas at Gowan Ave she was mostly there alone.
Given Jill's found position on the doorstep and the fact she was shot behind her left ear it would seem unlikely the perp was waiting inside and opened the door as Jill was about to put her key in. And if this was the case surely forensics would reveal? So the options are:
- Perp waited inside until he/she was alerted to the fact Jill was on her away at which time he left the inside of the property and lie in wait in the front garden?
- Perp entered front garden in anticipation of Jill's arrival shortly before she arrived?
- Perp was walking along Gowan Ave in synch with the arrival of Jill's car and as she was about to put her keys in the door he/she took her by surprise forcing her to the ground?
- The murder wasn't planned and the perp just happened to walk by at the right time and Jill just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?
Police looked through mobile phone data and found nothing to suggest 2 people were communicating her movements eg from Bedford Close to Gown Ave. Was it possible 2 people communicated over shorter distances? I'm inclined to think surveillance was used in terms of phones/properties bugged and cars tracked.
Bedford Close, Chiswick
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4836634,-0.2516459,3a,75y,291.16h,85.88t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sd-hBL1ncMkLL4zk_9gR_Ig!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3Dd-hBL1ncMkLL4zk_9gR_Ig%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D352.46182%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656
29 Gowan Ave, Fulham
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.476734,-0.2113333,3a,37.5y,138.06h,84.54t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sYdhZ1ji2z1XFUAwtww5QGQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
The design of the property changes slightly from those before and affords more privacy around the porch area.
Here's an image of 29 Gowan Ave as it was then. Looks to afford the ideal location for what took place. Certainly less riksy than Bedford Close and what were the alternatives given Jill's busy lifestyle in central London?
-
Here's an image of 29 Gowan Ave as it was then. Looks to afford the ideal location for what took place. Certainly less riksy than Bedford Close and what were the alternatives given Jill's busy lifestyle in central London?
I can see a house alarm too so unlikely the perp entered at any time.
-
Michelle Diskin Bates states in her book Stand Against Injustice:
“On Sunday, the News of the World ran the story and it was a hatchet job. Barry’s piece was fine, except for the headline . . . ‘I couldn’t have done it, I was stalking another woman at the time!’
Barry absolutely did not say this. We’d been there the entire time, we’d gone over everything. Barry told them, “I couldn’t have killed Jill Dando. I was talking with another woman at the time.” Actually, he was wrong. When Ms Dando was killed, Barry was at the HAFAD centre. Barry doesn’t have a concept of time, that’s why he often runs into difficulties. Added to that, all of Barry’s teeth are missing so he speaks with a slight lisp. The News of the World took ‘was-talking’ and made it ‘was-stalking’, but we hadn’t noticed. To this day people still think he said this, and make judgements about him based on it, but he didn’t.
This publication also carried two other articles on the Jill Dando/ Barry George story, making a spread over three pages. Both of these were horrendous. Never have I seen such vitriol aimed at someone who has been found not guilty. Retired Detective Ian Horrocks, one of the original officers on the case, had a whole section devoted entirely to saying that the police did not make a mistake, and many other things that made Barry look guilty. We were dumbstruck by all of this. To my knowledge, it was unprecedented to attack a person in this way when they’ve been exonerated. If the police had had any more evidence against Barry, they would have used it. There was none, therefore he was freed. What would be the gain in keeping Barry incarcerated, with Jill’s killer still walking freely among us?
“From here on, it was open season on Barry George in the press. We were sought out and photographed from afar, untrue stories were emblazoned on front pages with lurid headlines. Many times he was with people who could vouch for him, but no one cared. They were vilifying him, and that would sell papers. We were naïve to think that one article, or even a not guilty verdict, would mean we would ever be left alone.
Is it half a dozen of one and half a dozen of another?
The following news headline and subsequent article by Nick Dorman & Mark Williams-Thomas refers to an alleged undercover cop called Sonia and states:
“The female officer, codenamed Sonia, chatted up the loner in the hope he would let slip something incriminating
“Jill Dando murder: Cops tried honeytrap to get Barry George to confess to her murder
“Desperate detectives assigned an attractive undercover policewoman to try to trap Barry George into confessing to Jill Dando’s murder.
The female officer, codenamed Sonia, chatted up the loner in the hope he would let slip something incriminating.
Previously unseen images – part of the round-the-clock police surveillance of George – show him on the streets at the time, including the day in May 2000 when he spoke to Sonia at an internet cafe.
Lead investigator Hamish Campbell knew honeytraps had been discredited during the case of Colin Stagg who was charged with the 1992 murder of Rachel Nickell on Wimbledon Common.
His trial in 1994 collapsed over honeytrap evidence.
Mr Stagg went on to win a police apology and £706,000 compensation from the Home Office.
George was arrested and charged a fortnight after his chat with Sonia. He was then wrongly convicted of murdering the popular 37-year-old TV presenter.
During the hour-long conversation with the undercover officer, George freely admitted he had been linked to Jill’s killing, saying: “I was a witness to a situation and basically pursued as a suspect later.”
He added: “They took a statement as a witness, went to the court, got a search warrant, done our place, just short of ripping the place apart.
"I’m in trouble, you know. They were searching, allegedly, for guns, ammunition, clothes.
“It’s only ’cos we have a place in Fulham... I elaborate even more when I tell you a name, Jill Dando.”
George slated the police, saying: “It seems cruel – you can’t just go round doing that without having some evidence. It’s disgraceful.”
He added he had tried to help officers by reporting he had seen a car going up and down the road around the time of the murder.
The honeytrap had not thrown up any concrete leads.
But the secretly recorded conversation gave weight to the picture of him as an oddball fantasist who was obsessed with celebrities.
George spoke of his interest in the military – a pastime that became part of the case against him.
But he seemed happiest talking about his dream of being part of the showbiz world.
He lied to Sonia that he was rock singer Freddie Mercury’s cousin.
George then used the star’s real surname, Bulsara, in an email address he gave to Sonia so the pair could stay in touch.
The Met police surveillance had revealed he spent hours at internet cafes chatting to strangers online.
Sonia, whose real identity was never disclosed, talked to George in Kensington, West London – less than 500 yards from the incident room where Campbell was running the Dando case.
Jill, who presented BBC show Crimewatch, was shot dead on her doorstep in Fulham, West London, in April 1999.
George, who lived a few minutes from her house, was charged a year later.
And our investigation has uncovered a record card on George, from Met police files, which goes a long way to explaining detectives’ attitudes towards him.
It lists previous convictions including indecent assault. In 1981 he received a suspended three-month jail term for the sex attack.
He was also fined in 1980 for impersonating an officer.
In March 1983 he was jailed for 33 months for attempted rape under another of his aliases – Steve Majors, which he borrowed from TV series The Six Million Dollar Man.
The card noted he used the name Paul Gadd – the real name of pop singer Gary Glitter, later exposed as a paedophile.
Under unusual features, the police record said: “Eyebrows meet... Teeth broken... Talks with a lisp. Simple.”
George had an IQ of 75, well below average.
By calling him “simple”, police show they were aware of his vulnerablity, somebody who perhaps could be trapped into incriminating himself.
Barrister Michael Mansfield, who represented George at his first trial, said the use of a honeytrap raised grave questions over the original police probe.
Mr Mansfield said: “It has all the hallmarks of a desperate investigation.
“Desperate detectives” “Desperate investigation” but what about the “even terms” rule and the evidence of Lenita Bailey, for example?
“Undoubtedly, when persons are speaking on even terms and a charge is made, and the person charged says nothing, and expresses no indignation, and does nothing to repel the charge, that is some evidence to show that he admits the charge to be true.
Evidence in Context by Jonathon Doak
7.1 The “even terms” rule.
“Lenita Bailey was a customer at a hairdressers near the accused flat. She knew him and recalled a conversation with him. George came into the salon and claimed police were harassing him over the death of Jill Dando. He complained they had searched his home and his mothers house. Ms Bailey said to him: “Did you do it?” George remained silent and starred at the floor. She repeated the question twice more and asked him to look at her. At trial, she said: “His lips moved as if he were thinking of an answer but none was forthcoming. Her evidence of the discussion, or lack of it, was admitted, and George was convicted.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=JmDLCQAAQBAJ&pg=PT374&lpg=PT374&dq=lenita+bailey+barry+george&source=bl&ots=o2q28Nrf8W&sig=ACfU3U0U6Ar9JmuOb0wlSIVZgNXu2D_peQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiqntajzs_hAhXvVBUIHc3LCmsQ6AEwEXoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=lenita%20bailey%20barry%20george&f=false
Where does the truth begin and the lies end?
Michelle Diskin Bates claims her brother was concerned he may become a suspect into Miss Dando’s murder because he had been spoken to following the 1992 murder of Rachel Nickell?
This suggests to me Barry George was already considered dangerous by the police.
-
Michelle Diskin Bates goes on: “This was not paranoia. Barry had been pulled in by the police for the 1992 murder of Rachel Nickell, before the police and the Criminal Profiler Paul Britton set their nets for Colin Stagg.
The Telegraph reported:
“Paul Britton said Robert Napper, who last week admitted killing the former model on Wimbledon Common in 1992, would have been arrested "within half an hour" if officers had reacted to clues he provided them into earlier offences committed by the killer.
The psychologist advised police on inquiries into other crimes now known to have been committed by Napper, from Plumstead, south-east London, including the 1993 murder of Samantha Bisset and her four-year-old daughter Jazmine, as well as a series of rapes and sex crimes known as the Green Chain Walk attacks, that dated back to the 1980s.
The profiler, who was the inspiration for Robbie Coltrane's "Cracker" character, said that even before Miss Nickell's death, the insights he had provided about the earlier crimes could have led to Napper's swift arrest.
In the hunt for the Green Chain Walk attacker, he said he advised officers to concentrate on local crime records and speak to beat officers in the area, whom he believed would already be familiar with the attacker as a local "nuisance".
"The local beat officers would have given a name within half an hour," Mr Britton said. "If they had done that Napper would have been in custody."
Mr Britton's work has been widely discredited by the Metropolitan Police's bungled investigation into Miss Nickell's death.
He has been blamed by some for the decision to wrongly pursue Colin Stagg, who lived near Wimbledon Common, over the killing, as he matched an offender profile provided by Mr Britton,
However, the psychologist insisted that after the murder he had urged police to look for links with the Green Chain Walk attacks but that police had ordered him to concentrate on Mr Stagg.
Told that Scotland Yard's Detective Chief Inspector Tony Nash, who led the latest inquiry, said there was "no evidence" that Mr Britton had urged officers to broaden the scope of their 1992 investigation, the psychologist said: "That is delightful, isn't it? What can I say? I did tell them. It was a matter of regret that it was not followed up.
"I'm not going to make accusations against Mr Nash. But I think he should look a little bit harder. It is not because I feel miffed, it is for the women who died who, in my view, should not have."
He said police prevented him from keeping his own records of the case due to security concerns, and urged Scotland Yard to search its files properly for confirmation of his version of events.
His account contradicts a book he wrote 10 years ago, The Jigsaw Man, in which he said there was no link between Miss Nickell's murder and Green Chain Walk attacks, but he now insists he was guided away from his original views at the insistence of senior detectives.
"I took up with the police the psychological characteristics of the Green Chain rapist," Mr Britton said.
"I told them where they would find him and how they would find him. They did not listen. They did not want to know.
"The people on the Nickell inquiry were profoundly unable to accept the linkage between the Green Chain rapes, the Nickell murder and later the Bisset murders."
The profiler, who also helped in the Fred West murders and in the hunt for the killers of James Bulger, said that following the Nickell murder in July 1992 he was told to concentrate Mr Stagg, who has now been proved completely innocent, and to ignore theories linking Miss Nickell's death with other crimes.
"They said to me that I was wrong. They were absolutely adamant that it would be arrogant of me to continue with that view," said Mr Britton.
"That is one overriding recollection and source of concern."
In fact, he said he was told by officers on the Bisset inquiry that Napper had been "positively ID'd out" of the Wimbledon Common crime on his arrest.
During a press conference last week, Scotland Yard officers were quick to point out that Mr Britton's book specifically stated that the various crimes were unconnected, even citing the page number in the paperback volume.
But the psychologist said that after writing the book there was a "turning point" when the Met began re-examining the evidence against Napper in relation to Miss Nickell's murder.
"I thought 'hang on, it looks as though my original view is the correct one'," he said.
Mr Britton insisted that the covert methods used in the Nickell inquiry, which led to Mr Stagg being wrongly accused of the crime after undercover officer Lizzie James began corresponding with him, were still a "splendid investigative technique" providing officers handled it properly.
He called for a "detached, judicial inquiry" into all the Napper murders and the Green Chain Walk investigations.
A Scotland Yard spokesman said there had been wide-ranging improvements to the way murders and sex crimes are investigated over the last 16 years.
He added: "If any third party wants to launch a further inquiry that is entirely their prerogative, if they have the power to do so."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/3867783/Criminal-profiler-says-Rachel-Nickells-killer-could-have-been-arrested-within-half-an-hour.html
-
Nicholas what makes you so sure that BG is the perp?
BG was found guilty at his first trial by a majority verdict 10:1. The sole piece of forensic evidence used at this trial was later found to have been fatally flawed. As such a re-trial was ordered and the jury found him not guilty by a unanimous verdict. Unfortunately we do not know how jurors arrive at verdicts ie what weight, if any, jurors place on the various pieces of evidence. For all we know they may have found BG guilty exclusively on the particle of gunshot residue.
I think it unlikely BG was the perp based on the fact unless he had Jill under surveillance he could not possibly know she was going to arrive at Gowan Ave when she did. Therefore he struck lucky. Also various people claim to have seen what they believe was the perp leaving the soc/vicinity and yet the early e-fit does not appear to depict BG and they were unable to pick out BG during an identity parade. Plus imo the way in which the murder was carried out would appear to involve a highly skilled hit person and there's no evidence BG was capable of operating in such a way.
-
The early e-fit does not appear to depict BG - see attached.
If the e-fit is accurate and depicted BG it could be expected that neighbours and those working in the drop-in centre which BG visited would soon alert police. Maybe the e-fit is not particularly reliable as those claiming to have seen the perp did not get a good enough view or those claiming to have seen the perp were mistaken.
Alternatively the hit person disguised him/herself well and/or he/she was recruited from abroad where publicity would be minimal if at all.
-
Nicholas what makes you so sure that BG is the perp?
BG was found guilty at his first trial by a majority verdict 10:1. The sole piece of forensic evidence used at this trial was later found to have been fatally flawed.
Circumstantial evidence in cases like this, when taken together, still hold weight, whether you like it or not.
Explain what you mean by “fatally flawed”
-
The early e-fit does not appear to depict BG - see attached.
If the e-fit is accurate and depicted BG it could be expected that neighbours and those working in the drop-in centre which BG visited would soon alert police.
.
You say the early e-fit does not appear to depict BG but what are YOU comparing it to?
I presume when you refer to the drop in centre you mean HAFAD, who btw DID alert the police! As did others; which if you had a genuine interest in this case and had done your research, you would know.
-
Alternatively the hit person disguised him/herself well and/or he/she was recruited from abroad where publicity would be minimal if at all.
What did Hamish Campbell say in the recent BBC documentary re the perp?
-
BG was found guilty at his first trial by a majority verdict 10:1. The sole piece of forensic evidence used at this trial was later found to have been fatally flawed. As such a re-trial was ordered and the jury found him not guilty by a unanimous verdict. Unfortunately we do not know how jurors arrive at verdicts ie what weight, if any, jurors place on the various pieces of evidence. For all we know they may have found BG guilty exclusively on the particle of gunshot residue.
N Fenton et al - “When neutral evidence still has probative value: implications from the Barry George case.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1355030613000592?via%3Dihub
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lagnado-lab/publications/lagnado/ScienceAndJustice.pdf
abstract
"The likelihood ratio (LR) is a probabilistic method that has been championed as a ‘simple rule’ for evaluating the probative value of forensic evidence in court. Intuitively, if the LR is greater than one then the evidence supports the prosecution hypothesis; if the LR is less than one it supports the defence hypothesis, and if the LR is equal to one then the evidence favours neither (and so is considered ‘neutral’—having no probative value). It can be shown by Bayes' theorem that this simple relationship only applies to pairs of hypotheses for which one is the negation of the other (i.e. to mutually exclusive and exhaustive hypotheses) and is not applicable otherwise. We show how easy it can be – even for evidence experts – to use pairs of hypotheses that they assume are mutually exclusive and exhaustive but are not, and hence to arrive at erroneous conclusions about the value of evidence using the LR. Furthermore, even when mutually exclusive and exhaustive hypotheses are used there are extreme restrictions as to what can be concluded about the probative value of evidence just from a LR. Most importantly, while the distinction between source-level hypotheses (such as defendant was/was not at the crime scene) and offence-level hypotheses (defendant is/is not guilty) is well known, it is not widely under- stood that a LR for evidence about the former generally has no bearing on the LR of the latter. We show for the first time (using Bayesian networks) the full impact of this problem, and conclude that it is only the LR of the offence level hypotheses that genuinely determines the probative value of the evidence. We investigate common scenarios in which evidence has a LR of one but still has significant probative value (i.e. is not neutral as is commonly assumed). As illustration we consider the ramifications of these points for the case of Barry George. The successful appeal against his conviction for the murder of Jill Dando was based primarily on the argument that the firearm discharge residue (FDR) evidence, assumed to support the prosecution hypothesis at the original trial, actually had a LR equal to one and hence was ‘neutral’. However, our review of the appeal transcript shows numerous examples of the problems with the use of hypotheses identified above. We show that if one were to follow the arguments recorded in the Appeal judgement verbatim, then contrary to the Appeal conclusion, the probative value of the FDR evidence may not have been neutral as was concluded
N Fenton et al "When ‘neutral’ evidence still has probative value (with implications from the Barry George Case)
https://www.scienceandjusticejournal.com/article/S1355-0306(13)00059-2/pdf
-
“Mrs Diskin says: "The trial should never have taken place. I sat there during the trial and listened to it and there is nothing to connect him with (the murder)."
She tells the programme that knowing her brother the way she does, he could not be guilty.
"Everyone who knows Barry knows he is gentle and respectful.
"I've never seen anything in him to suggest he could murder someone. To kill you need to be cold - Barry is warm."
Mrs Diskin also tells the programme that although George was "vulnerable", his "eccentricity" was looked upon fondly by many of the residents in Fulham, where he lived in Crookham Road just 500 metres from Miss Dando's home.
"Barry was the local character in the street for the people of Fulham. It may have been that Barry sometimes bugged them (but) he loved talking to people.
"He (sometimes) wouldn't understand that someone would be trying to get to work, but many people were quite comfortable to chat (to him) for long periods.
"(Barry) didn't have a job, so he liked to stop and chat to people, and go in and out of shops. People thought he was 'different', but different doesn't equal 'murderer'.
"Barry liked to be liked," she says.
Asked by the programme whether she agreed that George's behaviour - which included adopting new names for himself and wearing combat clothing - was harmless eccentricity, Mrs Diskin says it was "very, very childish" and made him vulnerable.
She says George should have been better protected by the health system.
"Barry lived alone but there was never anyone to check that he was OK. He should have been monitored," she says.
Asked about her brother's previous convictions, Mrs Diskin says she believes the exposure they have been given and the way they were portrayed had been taken out of context.
"Only these things (have received attention). The views of the people who liked (Barry) have been glossed over. It wasn't in the media's interest to put these things forward," she says.
"Yes, he's made mistakes, but not everyone has their whole life laid out to look at and judge.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-58143/Wrong-man-convicted-Dando-killing-says-sister.html
-
“Foxtrot Foxtrot” – THE DANDO DISTRACTION blog by Andy Rigsby
“On remand and awaiting trial Knights insisted on speaking to the Jill Dando investigation team. He wasted their time by falsely claiming to know the source of the Dando murder weapon.
http://gunfire-graffiti.co.uk/foxtrot-foxtrot-the-dando-distraction/
“A man accused in connection with a shooting spree in London earlier this year has asked to speak to police about the Jill Dando murder.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/417622.stm
“During one remand hearing after his arrest Knights, who walks with a limp as a result of childhood polio, claimed to have information about the murder of BBC TV presenter Jill Dando
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/697378.stm
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=I0YkDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT334&lpg=PT334&dq=george+knights+jill+dando&source=bl&ots=wry9hu0-5e&sig=ACfU3U0jWMHvD437BATlAtz7_zCNI82CXw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj8veKbuNLhAhWLSBUIHZw3DaY4ChDoATAAegQIBRAB#v=onepage&q=george%20knights%20jill%20dando&f=false
-
“Mrs Diskin says: "The trial should never have taken place. I sat there during the trial and listened to it and there is nothing to connect him with (the murder)."
She tells the programme that knowing her brother the way she does, he could not be guilty.
"Everyone who knows Barry knows he is gentle and respectful.
"I've never seen anything in him to suggest he could murder someone. To kill you need to be cold - Barry is warm."
Mrs Diskin also tells the programme that although George was "vulnerable", his "eccentricity" was looked upon fondly by many of the residents in Fulham, where he lived in Crookham Road just 500 metres from Miss Dando's home.
"Barry was the local character in the street for the people of Fulham. It may have been that Barry sometimes bugged them (but) he loved talking to people.
"He (sometimes) wouldn't understand that someone would be trying to get to work, but many people were quite comfortable to chat (to him) for long periods.
"(Barry) didn't have a job, so he liked to stop and chat to people, and go in and out of shops. People thought he was 'different', but different doesn't equal 'murderer'.
"Barry liked to be liked," she says.
Asked by the programme whether she agreed that George's behaviour - which included adopting new names for himself and wearing combat clothing - was harmless eccentricity, Mrs Diskin says it was "very, very childish" and made him vulnerable.
She says George should have been better protected by the health system.
"Barry lived alone but there was never anyone to check that he was OK. He should have been monitored," she says.
Asked about her brother's previous convictions, Mrs Diskin says she believes the exposure they have been given and the way they were portrayed had been taken out of context.
"Only these things (have received attention). The views of the people who liked (Barry) have been glossed over. It wasn't in the media's interest to put these things forward," she says.
"Yes, he's made mistakes, but not everyone has their whole life laid out to look at and judge.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-58143/Wrong-man-convicted-Dando-killing-says-sister.html
”Everyone who knows Barry knows he is gentle and respectful.
"I've never seen anything in him to suggest he could murder someone. “To kill you need to be cold - Barry is warm”
In her book, Michelle DB writes about being interviewed by Martin Bashir for ITV. She claims that during the interview he posed a question to her about her fathers violence towards her and Barry. She stated she didn’t want the public to think she was refusing to answer a question so she made “a blithe remark about different times and different thoughts on disciplining children.”
It appears from what she writes that Mr Bashir went on to push her several times on the subject but that she refused to answer and became furious with him for daring to ask this question and eventually removed her mike clip and stormed out.
She states in her book she replied: ““I will not continue down this road with you. You will not put the blame for Jill’s death on my father. He has nothing to do with any of this.
I’ll come back to this, however I will say I get the distinct impresssion she is fully aware of the links between adverse childhood experiences and offending behaviour but doesn’t want to entertain a discussion on this, especially where her brother is concerned for obvious reasons, hence why she responded the way she did.
-
Meant to mention you can download the book for free via kindle unlimited by opting for a free trial with Amazon kindle
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stand-Against-Injustice-wrongly-convicted-ebook/dp/B07JFZSF6V/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201550620
-
Circumstantial evidence in cases like this, when taken together, still hold weight, whether you like it or not.
Explain what you mean by “fatally flawed”
Its not a case of whether or not I like it. Its a case of whether or not the jurors liked it at BG's 2008 re-trial and clearly they didn't hence he was found not guilty by a unanimous verdict.
Fatally flawed in that it was unable to withstand forensic scrutiny hence it was no longer available to the prosecution at the 2008 trial.
-
You say the early e-fit does not appear to depict BG but what are YOU comparing it to?
An image of BG taken I assume at the time of his arrest. No one has ever picked out BG on an identity parade.
I presume when you refer to the drop in centre you mean HAFAD, who btw DID alert the police! As did others; which if you had a genuine interest in this case and had done your research, you would know.
Yes I was referring to HAFAD and yes I know HAFAD staff alerted the police eventually but I don't believe it was in the immediate aftermath? If I'm wrong I'm sure you will correct me.
-
An image of BG taken I assume at the time of his arrest. No one has ever picked out BG on an identity parade.
Yes I was referring to HAFAD and yes I know HAFAD staff alerted the police eventually but I don't believe it was in the immediate aftermath? If I'm wrong I'm sure you will correct me.
Nearly a year after the murder then?
The answer you seek is in the bbc documentary.
-
An image of BG taken I assume at the time of his arrest. No one has ever picked out BG on an identity parade.
Yes I was referring to HAFAD and yes I know HAFAD staff alerted the police eventually but I don't believe it was in the immediate aftermath? If I'm wrong I'm sure you will correct me.
It was.
-
”Everyone who knows Barry knows he is gentle and respectful.
"I've never seen anything in him to suggest he could murder someone. “To kill you need to be cold - Barry is warm”
In her book, Michelle DB writes about being interviewed by Martin Bashir for ITV. She claims that during the interview he posed a question to her about her fathers violence towards her and Barry. She stated she didn’t want the public to think she was refusing to answer a question so she made “a blithe remark about different times and different thoughts on disciplining children.”
It appears from what she writes that Mr Bashir went on to push her several times on the subject but that she refused to answer and became furious with him for daring to ask this question and eventually removed her mike clip and stormed out.
She states in her book she replied: ““I will not continue down this road with you. You will not put the blame for Jill’s death on my father. He has nothing to do with any of this.
I’ll come back to this, however I will say I get the distinct impresssion she is fully aware of the links between adverse childhood experiences and offending behaviour but doesn’t want to entertain a discussion on this, especially where her brother is concerned for obvious reasons, hence why she responded the way she did.
I very much doubt Martin Bashir was attempting to blame Barry’s dad for Miss Dando’s death but her response is interesting and indeed imo telling none the less.
Rather than ignore the question about her father being violent towards her and Barry she claims to initially have responded by making excuses for his behaviour. That’s my interpretation of what she says she said. (I’ve not been able to find the recorded interview in order to verify what was actually said and indeed publicised).
However it’s interesting to note the following:
“A defence mechanism is an unconscious psychological mechanism that reduces anxiety arising from unacceptable or potentially harmful stimuli.
Defence mechanisms may result in healthy or unhealthy consequences depending on the circumstances and frequency with which the mechanism is used. In psychoanalytic theory, defence mechanisimns are psychological strategies brought into play by the unconscious mind to manipulate, deny, or distort reality in order to defend against feelings of anxiety and unacceptable impulses and to maintain one's self-schema or other schemas.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_mechanisms
-
I very much doubt Martin Bashir was attempting to blame Barry’s dad for Miss Dando’s death but her response is interesting and indeed imo telling none the less.
Rather than ignore the question about her father being violent towards her and Barry she claims to initially have responded by making excuses for his behaviour. That’s my interpretation of what she says she said. (I’ve not been able to find the recorded interview in order to verify what was actually said and indeed publicised).
However it’s interesting to note the following:
“A defence mechanism is an unconscious psychological mechanism that reduces anxiety arising from unacceptable or potentially harmful stimuli.
Defence mechanisms may result in healthy or unhealthy consequences depending on the circumstances and frequency with which the mechanism is used. In psychoanalytic theory, defence mechanisimns are psychological strategies brought into play by the unconscious mind to manipulate, deny, or distort reality in order to defend against feelings of anxiety and unacceptable impulses and to maintain one's self-schema or other schemas.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_mechanisms
I think the interview took place in 2001?
Michelle Diskin Bates appears to not only be able to remember the exact details of the interview and all that was going on around her but also the word for word conversations she was allegedly having in her head with her god at the time?
Am I persuaded by what she writes? Not in the slightest!
Her quite apparent avoidance of the question leaves me with questions like; what is she hiding? what does she fear?
Her book was her opportunity to set the record straight. If she didn’t want to talk about the violence her and Barry allegedly suffered at the hands of their father, as she found it too upsetting for example, why didn’t she say so?
Why choose to write what she did? I got a sense of one-upmanship.
She claims her brother Barry was “born with mental health issues.” Does she genuinely believe this and has she ever considered his mental health issues may have been born out of childhood trauma for example?
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
41m
Volunteers needed to improve Jill's Garden at Grove Park in Weston-super-Mare before the 20th anniversary of her death | Latest Weston-super-Mare and Somerset news - Weston Mercury
https://www.thewestonmercury.co.uk/news/friends-of-grove-park-is-appealing-for-volunteers-to-improve-jill-dando-s-garden-1-5994043
-
Was Mark Williams Thomas involvement in this case designed to manipulate?
“That nice Mark Williams Thomas seems to be quietly descending into the bowels of Hell; I hear he was so shattered by the two pages about him in HHJ Taylor's ruling when she threw out the prosecution case against me that he booked into hospital; now he finds himself about to appear in front of a Judge regarding Malaysia and has become aware of other aspects of his past life that ITV is not pleased about and even his fan club at The Mirror are distancing themselves from him. I hate to warn him to expect calls wanting to interview him about his behaviour in 2000 and 2001. From very important people. Dear Mark may shortly be needing another haircut. Removing himself from Twitter is probably very wise; he might find it a good idea to remove himself from other aspects of life.
http://www.kingofhits.co.uk/component/option,com_kunena/Itemid,65/func,view/catid,2/id,188017/
-
Its not a case of whether or not I like it. Its a case of whether or not the jurors liked it at BG's 2008 re-trial and clearly they didn't hence he was found not guilty by a unanimous verdict.
Fatally flawed in that it was unable to withstand forensic scrutiny hence it was no longer available to the prosecution at the 2008 trial.
Even though Barry George’s conviction was quashed and the jury came to a unanimous verdict following a re-trial, the single gun shot particle still has probative value [/i].
N Fenton et al: “We show that if one were to follow the arguments recorded in the Appeal judgement verbatim, then contrary to the Appeal conclusion, the probative value of the FDR evidence may not have been neutral as was concluded.
I reiterate what the High court judges said following George’s claim for compensation.
“High Court judges Lord Justice Beatson and Mr Justice Irwin said: "There was indeed a case upon which a reasonable jury properly directed could have convicted the claimant of murder." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21195269
”Erroneous conclusions were reached about the value of the evidence in the Barry George case. The defence arguments have been nothing more that ”diversionary tactics.
N Fenton et al - “When neutral evidence still has probative value: implications from the Barry George case.
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lagnado-lab/publications/lagnado/ScienceAndJustice.pdf
N Fenton et al state:
“The likelihood ratio (LR) is a probabilistic method that has been championed as a ‘simple rule’ for evaluating the probative value of forensic evidence in court. Intuitively, if the LR is greater than one then the evidence supports the prosecution hypothesis; if the LR is less than one it supports the defence hypothesis, and if the LR is equal to one then the evidence favours neither (and so is considered ‘neutral’—having no probative value). It can be shown by Bayes' theorem that this simple relationship only applies to pairs of hypotheses for which one is the negation of the other (i.e. to mutually exclusive and exhaustive hypotheses) and is not applicable otherwise. We show how easy it can be – even for evidence experts – to use pairs of hypotheses that they assume are mutually exclusive and exhaustive but are not, and hence to arrive at erroneous conclusions about the value of evidence using the LR.
You are funny Holly.
That's for a jury to decide based on accurate info.
It has nothing to do with whether I believe anyone is guilty or not guilty. It's to do with whether experts are fit for purpose.
As per N Fenton et al - “When neutral evidence still has probative value: implications from the Barry George case
“Justice is best served when the evidence and hypotheses under consideration are accessible and clear to all parties and are unambiguously defined. In particular, this is the only way to assign correct meanings to the likelihoods provided by expert witnesses. Furthermore, because the probative value of a piece of evidence on source-level hypotheses may be very different from its probative value on offence-level hypotheses, the relationships between source-level and offence-level hypotheses must be made clear. We have demonstrated that an efficient way to achieve such clarity will require the construction of causal models through the aid of tools such as Bayesian networks. This approach helps to improve legal reasoning and by doing so demonstrates how hypotheses can be clarified, related and made precise enough for reliable quantification. Central to this approach is the distinction between hypotheses that are mutually exclusive and exhaustive and those that are not.
We contend that, in order to determine whether evidence has probative value – and therefore whether it should be excluded from proceedings or not – it should be evaluated against offence-level hypotheses. Any diversion from this key principle will carry the risk that evidence might be presented to the jury merely as a diversionary tactic, and persuade it to make decisions based on superfluous source- level hypotheses.
We have demonstrated serious concerns about the Barry George Appeal Court judgement.
Read more here: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lagnado-lab/publications/lagnado/ScienceAndJustice.pdf
-
We have demonstrated serious concerns about the Barry George Appeal Court judgement
Its abundantly clear the Supreme Court Judges saw through all the smoke and mirrors peddled by “Team Barry!” and through the personal agendas and egos of those publicly supporting this quite apparent farce!
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
4h
Good grief...people don’t have enough work to do! #getalife There are more important things to get agitated about than TV presenters https://mobile.twitter.com/EveningStandard/status/1118094287059603456
Helga Speck
@HelgaSpeck
·
3h
Replying to
@EveningStandard
I love Sir David's programmes and he has done so much to make people aware of the planet. Madeley really needs to look at himself, his own misdeeds instead of pointing the finger elsewhere.
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
4h
Good grief...people don’t have enough work to do! #getalife There are more important things to get agitated about than TV presenters https://mobile.twitter.com/EveningStandard/status/1118094287059603456
Helga Speck
@HelgaSpeck
·
3h
Replying to
@EveningStandard
I love Sir David's programmes and he has done so much to make people aware of the planet. Madeley really needs to look at himself, his own misdeeds instead of pointing the finger elsewhere.
Did Helga Specks words hit a nerve maybe?
Michelle Diskin’s Bates points the finger at many in her book but doesn’t back up anything she writes with factual evidence.
Today she tweets “There are more important things to get agitated about than TV presenters *&^^& with the hashtag get a life?!
Could these be her unconscious psychological projections?
“The preconscious contains thoughts and feelings that a person is not currently aware of, but which can easily be brought to consciousness (1924). It exists just below the level of consciousness, before the unconscious mind. The preconscious is like a mental waiting room, in which thoughts remain until they 'succeed in attracting the eye of the conscious' (Freud, 1924, p. 306).
This is what we mean in our everyday usage of the word available memory. For example, you are presently not thinking about your mobile telephone number, but now it is mentioned you can recall it with ease. Mild emotional experiences may be in the preconscious but sometimes traumatic and powerful negative emotions are repressed and hence not available in the preconscious.
Finally, the unconscious mind comprises mental processes that are inaccessible to consciousness but that influence judgements, feelings, or behavior (Wilson, 2002). According to Freud (1915), the unconscious mind is the primary source of human behavior. Like an iceberg, the most important part of the mind is the part you cannot see.
Our feelings, motives and decisions are actually powerfully influenced by our past experiences, and stored in the unconscious.
Freud applied these three systems to his structure of the personality, or psyche – the id, ego and superego. Here the id is regarded as entirely unconscious whilst the ego and superego have conscious, preconscious, and unconscious aspect.
https://www.simplypsychology.org/unconscious-mind.html
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
4h
Good grief...people don’t have enough work to do! #getalife There are more important things to get agitated about than TV presenters https://mobile.twitter.com/EveningStandard/status/1118094287059603456
Helga Speck
@HelgaSpeck
·
3h
Replying to
@EveningStandard
I love Sir David's programmes and he has done so much to make people aware of the planet. Madeley really needs to look at himself, his own misdeeds instead of pointing the finger elsewhere.
Interestingly Helga Speck has today tweeted the following:
Helga Speck
@HelgaSpeck
The Strange Case of the Disappearing "Investigator" Mark Williams Thomas.
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/04/14/the-strange-case-of-the-disappearing-investigator/
Could the above have been perceived by Michelle Diskin Bates as a personal slight?
-
Interestingly Helga Speck has today tweeted the following:
Helga Speck
@HelgaSpeck
The Strange Case of the Disappearing "Investigator" Mark Williams Thomas.
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/04/14/the-strange-case-of-the-disappearing-investigator/
Could the above have been perceived by Michelle Diskin Bates as a personal slight?
Stand Against Injustice by Michelle Diskin Bates
Excerpt
“We have also been working closely with Mark Williams Thomas, investigative journalist, who has shown a keen interest in seeing this case solved. History shows that we must stand up for justice wherever injustice is found. Women in Britain would still not have a say in our society if the Suffragettes and Suffragists had not fought and lobbied, long and hard, for votes for women.
-
The last thing I want to do is battle with you, Mistress of the Pass Ag,
Projecting as usual. *&^^&
Your passive aggression is self evident in your posts http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=8060.msg520787#msg520787
-
Michelle Diskin Bates claims her brother was concerned he may become a suspect into Miss Dando’s murder because he had been spoken to following the 1992 murder of Rachel Nickell?
This suggests to me Barry George was already considered dangerous by the police.
“She tells the programme that knowing her brother the way she does, he could not be guilty.
"Everyone who knows Barry knows he is gentle and respectful.
"I've never seen anything in him to suggest he could murder someone. To kill you need to be cold - Barry is warm."
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-58143/Wrong-man-convicted-Dando-killing-says-sister.html
Excerpt from “Stand Against Injustice by Michelle Diskin Bates (Sister of Barry George)
“On the morning of the murder, Barry awoke, got dressed, picked up a plastic supermarket bag loaded with documents and assorted pieces of paper and made his way on foot to Hammersmith and Fulham Action on Disability (HAFAD), a centre set up to aid people who need assistance with a variety of health and social related information. The office was located on Greswell Street, just off Fulham Palace Road. Arriving without an appointment, Barry was told he could not be seen without one, as this rule was strictly adhered to. Barry, being Barry, resisted this decision and became somewhat agitated. “I really need help with this today, it’s to do with my housing. I’m here now, and I have all of my papers with me. It doesn’t make sense for me to come back tomorrow, surely someone can see me, please?” He continued on, speaking about the problems he was having with a GP and about a legal issue to do with a cycling accident as well. This was not unusual behaviour for Barry. As part of his disability, he could not understand that his needs were not always immediate. If he needed something, then he needed it now! He would persist in seeking to have what he wanted and would use any verbal means to express his upset if thwarted. Appointments and rules just got in the way of him getting his problems sorted. Also, having an impaired short-term memory due to brain damage, he was likely to forget to attend to these documents if he didn’t do it right away,
“Two days after the killing, on the 28th April, Barry retraced his steps and returned to HAFAD and to Traffic Cars, the taxi company that had given him a free ride at 1pm on the day of the murder. He was concerned that he may become a suspect to the police for this killing and wanted to check out his times with them, also checking that they remembered him. This was what the police referred to as him ‘concocting an alibi’, but this was normal behaviour for this mentally disabled man, who was so frequently stopped by the police in the street. Normal behaviour, too, for a man who has no true concept of time as part of the myriad mental disabilities he was born with. Barry knew he would not be able to recall the details of that momentous day and that, as one of the local characters in Fulham, the police would be likely to want to speak with him. This was not paranoia. Barry had been pulled in by the police for the 1992 murder of Rachel Nickell, before the police and the Criminal Profiler Paul Britton set their nets for Colin Stagg.
-
What ‘Making a Murderer’ Reveals About the Justice System and Intellectual Disability
“I can’t stop thinking about Brendan Dassey. Like everyone with a Netflix account, I’ve spent the past few weeks riveted by the true-crime documentary Making a Murderer and its depiction of an outrageously compromised justice system. And though wrongly-convicted-and-then-maybe-wrongly-convicted-again Steve Avery is clearly the main subject of the series, his nephew’s fate is what haunts me. The young man whose confession of a gruesome rape and murder is possibly coerced is described in the series as “learning disabled,” “not very smart,” and “really stupid” (that, chillingly, is Dassey’s self-assessment). When Dassey’s mother asks him what he thinks of his defense attorney, Dassey responds that he knows they both like cats
Dassey’s IQ is said to be around 70, in the “borderline” range — the border, that is, of intellectual disability. Despite the vague language used in the show, this is not about academic underperformance. A generation ago, Dassey would have been diagnosed with mild mental retardation. Two generations before that, he would have been — officially, medically — a “moron.”
These are dehumanizing words — words we rightly no longer use to describe people with cognitive disabilities. I raise them not to impugn Dassey, but rather to point out how implicit, systemic ableism — that is, discrimination against and fear of people with disabilities — has compounded the miscarriage of justice in every step of Dassey’s case. Not only was he subject to techniques that have been known to produce false confessions, but he also was isolated from anyone who could properly safeguard his rights as a person with cognitive disability. His public defender — that is, the person whose legal duty it was to be his advocate — showed neither compassion for nor basic understanding of Dassey’s disability. But hey, at least they both like cats.
“I have a brother whose IQ is a little below Dassey’s. My brother is a kind, moral man in his 40s. He lives in a group home for adults with disabilities. He has a high school diploma; he has held part-time jobs. He likes cats, too. From the documentary, I would guess that he is intellectually more limited than Dassey, but socially more competent. My brother is, I think, a person incapable of willful violence. But I couldn’t help wondering: What would he do if he, like Dassey, were confronted with police officers, investigators and lawyers who kept accusing him of lying? Would he, eventually, tell them what they want to hear? He knows he’s not supposed to lie, but he also desperately wants people to approve of him — for them to treat him like an adult, which they sometimes don’t. Which social imperative would win: the need to tell the truth, or the desire to be treated with dignity?
What strikes me as a strange mercy, in this imaginary, is that unlike Dassey, my brother “looks” disabled. If, God forbid, he were in legal trouble, just about any person with authority could be convinced that he was not entirely capable of advocating for his own best interests or understanding the gravity of the situation.
I recognize the irony here. The same logic that has sometimes led to discrimination and ostracism — the assumption that people with cognitive disabilities are fundamentally “abnormal,” and thus visibly different from people of average intelligence — just might protect my brother through the judicial process.
I wonder, when the judge denies Dassey’s request for a new lawyer in Making a Murderer Episode 4, just what he sees in the child in front of him. Does he take Dassey’s reticence and flat affect as defiance, the sulking of a dangerous teenager? Does he see any glimpse of what I keep seeing: a boy who knows, on a deep level, that he is not capable of the kind of self-assertion the system demands of him?
Of course, Dassey’s cognitive disabilities do not mean he is incapable of committing horrible acts. People with disabilities are not, despite what my grandma said, angels sent to teach “the rest of us” lessons about being kind to one another. Still, Making a Murderer, incisive as it is, barely grazes the legal and moral implications of Dassey’s disability status. Check out The Arc’s list of common responses people with intellectual disabilities might have when suspected of a crime:
Read more here https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-news/what-making-a-murderer-reveals-about-the-justice-system-and-intellectual-disability-74126/
How do people with intellectual disability become victims of crime?
“Factors such as impaired cognitive abilities and judgment, physical disabilities, insufficient adaptive behaviors, constant interactions with "protectors" who exploit them, lack of knowledge on how to protect themselves and living and working in high-risk environments increase the vulnerability to victimization (Luckasson, 1992).
Crimes committed against people with intellectual disability are often labeled as abuse and neglect (rather than assault, rape or murder), which understates the criminal victimization problem. Many victims with intellectual disability may not report crimes because of their dependence on the abuser for basic survival needs. When victims do report crimes, police and court officials may not take the person's allegations seriously or be reluctant to get involved. Additionally, people with intellectual disability often don’t have access to the types of support and resources they need to prosecute.
https://www.thearc.org/what-we-do/resources/fact-sheets/criminal-justice
What disadvantages do people with intellectual disability face in the criminal justice system?
“Considering such extreme disadvantages, it is not surprising that people with intellectual disability are more likely to be arrested, convicted, sentenced to prison and victimized in prison. Once in the criminal justice system, these individuals are less likely to receive probation or parole and tend to serve longer sentences due to an inability to understand or adapt to prison rules. Some common responses from those with intellectual disability that may affect their ability to protect their rights include the following:
As suspects, individuals may:
not want their disability to be recognized (and try to cover it up)
not understand their rights but pretend to understand
not understand commands, instructions, etc.
be overwhelmed by police presence
act upset at being detained and/or try to run away
say what they think officers want to hear
have difficulty describing facts or details of offense
be the first to leave the scene of the crime, and the first to get caught
be confused about who is responsible for the crime and "confess" even though innocent
As victims, individuals may:
be easily victimized and targeted for victimization
be less likely or able to report victimization
be easily influenced by and eager to please others
think that how they have been treated is normal and not realize the victimization is a crime
think the perpetrator is a “friend”
be unaware of how serious or dangerous the situation is
not be considered as credible witnesses, even in situations where such concern is unwarranted
have very few ways to get help, get to a safe place or obtain victim services or counseling
https://www.thearc.org/what-we-do/resources/fact-sheets/criminal-justice
-
”Erroneous conclusions were reached about the value of the evidence in the Barry George case. The defence arguments have been nothing more than ”diversionary tactics.
Interesting how Barry George’s sister thanks the jury and her choice of words - she says “they obviously worked very hard to correctly interpret the circumstantial evidence in this case”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KOigQCQVj-os
-
Psalm 27: 11-14 11. “Teach me your way, Lord; lead me in a straight path because of my oppressors. 12. Do not turn me over to the desire of my foes, for false witnesses rise up against me, spouting malicious accusations. 13. I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. 14. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.
Michelle Diskin Bates uses the above psalm before getting started on chapter 1 of her book. In fact her entire book is littered with quotes from the bible and alleged internal dialogue she has with her god.
Following my experiences and in light of what I’ve learned since, I thought it worthwhile to post this:
3 ways Christians manipulate people without knowing it
"For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God." (John 3:20-21
Christians are told to deal with all things in the light. Simply put, we are to live honest lives, and all our dealings with people are to be characterized by honesty, transparency, and truth. We can't hide anything from God, and thus we should be true.
One of the things that Christians should avoid doing, then, is to manipulate people. Deceiving people for the purpose of acquiring something or having someone do something is a wrong thing to do. God Himself does not manipulate us into doing His will, so why should we?
That said, there are some Christians who manipulate the unsuspecting and the naïve. There are some Christians, on the other hand, who didn't want to manipulate people, but their actions and words still are deceitful and manipulative. Either way, we should be careful with them
“How Christians manipulate others
If you're a Christian who doesn't know if you're already being manipulated, or if you're a Christian serious in making sure you don't manipulate others, here are some common ways Christians manipulate people.
1) Using the name of God to make people believe what you say
If there's one way Christians use God's name in vain, it's to manipulate others. There are some who use God's name to convince people to believe them, or simply listen to them.
When a person keeps saying "God said" or "thus says the Lord" every time he or she starts explaining something, be careful. The Lord Jesus Himself said that many will come in His name, but they are fakes. They don't deserve our ears.
2) Quoting the Bible to back one's claim
Another way Christians manipulate others is by using God's word to back their claim. Peter said these people "twist [Scripture] to their own destruction" (see 2 Peter 3:16).
One common example is when an abusive husband demands that his wife respect and submit to him according to Ephesians 5:22, ignoring verse 25 that says he must love his wife like Christ loved the church. This can also happen the other way around, with an abusive wife.
Greedy ministers are also another example. They keep talking about tithes and offerings (Malachi 3:10) in order to get more money. They also emphasize their authority over the flock (Romans 13:1), forgetting that they are charged to take care of them (1 Peter 5:1-4) and not abuse them (Ezekiel 34:1-10).
3) Acting religious to make people think you're ok
This one is highly self-defeating. Many Christians act religious in an attempt to hide their struggles and failures. Using a language called "Christianese," such believers may or may not know it but they are operating under pride.
When they commit sin, for example, they start talking about grace and God's forgiveness. But when someone else falls, they suddenly focus on holiness and God's judgment. This, my friends, is hypocrisy at its finest.
Such people do this to gain the admiration of the naïve. They do this to get the spotlight. Again, they may or may not know it, but they are actually lying to themselves and to others.
https://www.christiantoday.com/article/3-ways-christians-manipulate-people-without-knowing-it/119819.htm
-
Excerpt from “Stand Against Injustice by Michelle Diskin Bates (Sister of Barry George)
“........ This was not unusual behaviour for Barry. As part of his disability, he could not understand that his needs were not always immediate. If he needed something, then he needed it now! He would persist in seeking to have what he wanted and would use any verbal means to express his upset if thwarted. Appointments and rules just got in the way of him getting his problems sorted. Also, having an impaired short-term memory due to brain damage, he was likely to forget to attend to these documents if he didn’t do it right away,
“Barry had previously been convicted for attempted rape and indecent assault some years earlier, and he lived in the vicinity of Dando’s flat. When I ask Michelle about these serious charges, she doesn’t respond defensively or try to protect her brother; instead she explains, gently, that she too was horrified when she discovered the truth – and told her brother so: “I’m afraid he was given quite a tough time from me; he didn’t enjoy that visit one bit,” she says, briskly. “But I think it needs to be understood that Barry is like a nine-year-old boy living in an adult’s body. These things should not happen, and he knows right from wrong, but at the same time, he has a whole host of disabilities.”
https://www.premierchristianity.com/Past-Issues/2019/April-2019/My-brother-was-wrongly-convicted-of-murdering-Jill-Dando
It wasn’t just “verbal means” Barry George used to get what he wanted.
“As for Michelle, she now attends All Party Parliamentary Groups in parliament to advise on miscarriages of justice and share her story, but she’s humble about her role: “I have never felt that I have enough knowledge to look at somebody’s case and say: ‘Oh, clear miscarriage of justice’, but I will look at somebody’s information and see whether they require support. I am very happy to support families. It’s in a small way, but a small way makes a huge difference. Just to contact someone and say: ‘Keep going, you’re doing well.’ These things are so vital.
https://www.premierchristianity.com/Past-Issues/2019/April-2019/My-brother-was-wrongly-convicted-of-murdering-Jill-Dando
“It was a real shock to hear, sometime later, that the son, Jeremy Bamber, had been arrested for the killings…how was that possible when he was outside during the siege and everyone knew that? I presumed the police knew something we did not; there must have been strong evidence to convict a man of killing his entire family…I pushed my unease aside and got on with motherhood and my own life.
Since then I have revisited the facts of this case in light of so many high-profile miscarriage of justice cases coming to light, including that of my own brother, Barry George, for the murder of Jill Dando. More recently we’ve heard of the lies and cover-ups in the Hillsborough deaths and The Chilcot report exposing the same type of cover ups in the Iraqi war scandal. In the Bamber case I can find no evidence to convince me of the guilt of this man. Nothing that can account for a man languishing in jail for more than thirty years. How did a jury convict a young man without proof?
https://jeremybamber.blogspot.com/2016/08/justice-is-never-served-by-conviction.html
-
Interesting to note Barry George and his sisters were allegedly witness to the Shepherds Bush murders.
“The Shepherd's Bush murders, also known as the Massacre of Braybrook Street, involved the murder of three police officers in London by Harry Roberts and two others in 1966
The officers had stopped to question the three occupants of a car waiting on Braybrook Street, near Wormwood Scrubs prison. Roberts shot dead Temporary Detective Constable David w..bwell and Detective Sergeant Christopher Head, whilst John Duddy, another occupant in the vehicle, shot dead Police Constable Geoffrey Fox.
The three suspects went on the run, initiating a large manhunt. All three were eventually arrested and subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment. Duddy died in prison in 1981. John Witney, the driver of the suspects' vehicle, was also convicted of the murders; he was released from prison in 1991 but was killed in 1999 in an unconnected incident. Roberts became one of the longest-serving prisoners in the country, serving 48 years before his controversial release in 2014.
Public sympathy for the families of the victims resulted in the establishment of the Police Dependants' Trust to assist the welfare of families of British police officers who have died in the line of duty.[2]
“The murders caused outrage in the United Kingdom and there were calls for the reintroduction of the recently abolished death penalty and for an increase in the number of police officers trained to use firearms (British police officers are normally unarmed). The Metropolitan Police Firearms Wing was established soon after the incident.
Six hundred Metropolitan Police officers lined the route of the three victims' funeral procession in Shepherd's Bush and a memorial service in Westminster Abbey was attended by Prime Minister Harold Wilson, Leader of the Opposition Edward Heath and many other dignitaries, as well as thousands of police officers from all over the country. More than one thousand members of the public stood in mourning outside the Abbey. Holiday camp owner Billy Butlin donated £250,000 to a new Police Dependants' Trust, and it had soon raised more than £1 million.
In 1988 the Police Memorial Trust established a stone memorial to the three officers at the site of the incident in Braybrook Street.[9] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepherd%27s_Bush_murders
-
Interesting to note Barry George and his sisters were allegedly witness to the Shepherds Bush murders.
“The Shepherd's Bush murders, also known as the Massacre of Braybrook Street, involved the murder of three police officers in London by Harry Roberts and two others in 1966
The officers had stopped to question the three occupants of a car waiting on Braybrook Street, near Wormwood Scrubs prison. Roberts shot dead Temporary Detective Constable David w..bwell and Detective Sergeant Christopher Head, whilst John Duddy, another occupant in the vehicle, shot dead Police Constable Geoffrey Fox.
The three suspects went on the run, initiating a large manhunt. All three were eventually arrested and subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment. Duddy died in prison in 1981. John Witney, the driver of the suspects' vehicle, was also convicted of the murders; he was released from prison in 1991 but was killed in 1999 in an unconnected incident. Roberts became one of the longest-serving prisoners in the country, serving 48 years before his controversial release in 2014.
Public sympathy for the families of the victims resulted in the establishment of the Police Dependants' Trust to assist the welfare of families of British police officers who have died in the line of duty.[2]
“The murders caused outrage in the United Kingdom and there were calls for the reintroduction of the recently abolished death penalty and for an increase in the number of police officers trained to use firearms (British police officers are normally unarmed). The Metropolitan Police Firearms Wing was established soon after the incident.
Six hundred Metropolitan Police officers lined the route of the three victims' funeral procession in Shepherd's Bush and a memorial service in Westminster Abbey was attended by Prime Minister Harold Wilson, Leader of the Opposition Edward Heath and many other dignitaries, as well as thousands of police officers from all over the country. More than one thousand members of the public stood in mourning outside the Abbey. Holiday camp owner Billy Butlin donated £250,000 to a new Police Dependants' Trust, and it had soon raised more than £1 million.
In 1988 the Police Memorial Trust established a stone memorial to the three officers at the site of the incident in Braybrook Street.[9] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepherd%27s_Bush_murders
Glen Hazel, another witness, who was also aged 11 at the time, appears to have seen the same/similar to what Michelle Diskin Bates describes in her book.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29737668
-
The sole piece of forensic evidence used at this trial was later found to have been fatally flawed.
For all we know they may have found BG guilty exclusively on the particle of gunshot residue
What about the fibre evidence?
-
“Two trials and two appeals later, Barry George has spent eight years in prison.
He spent 12 months in Belmarsh prison, south London, which he described as "hell". Continually stared at and heckled, George said he kept his head down, never spoke to anyone and stayed close to prison wardens. He was frightened when inmates spat in his food. He was also placed on suicide watch in a single cell after attempting to hang himself using rope made from bedsheets. The presence of Jeffrey Archer around the same time, he said, took some of the attention away.
George was transferred in 2002 to HMP Whitemoor, a high-security prison in Cambridgeshire and home to some of the country's most notorious killers including Kenneth Noye and Jeremy Bamber. He became prisoner FF5227, where he occupied a single cell in C-wing and earned the privilege of a television.
In a 2002 Sunday Mirror interview with Don Hale, the journalist who fought to free Stephen Downing, who was wrongly jailed for murder in 1974, Hale said George spent his time reading or watching TV, where his favourite programme was Top of the Pops.
But George was convinced he would die violently in prison. He told Hale: "It is just a matter of time before I am killed ... I think I will die in prison. Somebody will have me done away. I never shot Jill, never did it, but I don't think people in authority want to know. They would rather I die and the whole thing go away. I keep telling them that I didn't do it and that somebody in the underworld was responsible, but they just don't want to know or help me.
"I don't like to let the warders out of my sight ... I feel there is a contract out on my head and one of the prisoners is just waiting for the right time to strike. A few come up to me in the dinner queue and say 'watch your back mate, they are after you'. Lots of the prisoners liked Jill and blamed me for murdering her."
George said sometime later he managed to gain some credibility with prisoners who believed Dando was killed by underworld figures.
"Lots have come up to me and said 'we know you didn't do it, murder Jill'. They believe me now. Before, I was always getting threatened. They used to call me s..m and spit in my tea. Now the other prisoners have been better with me. "
George was transferred back to Belmarsh in November last year, where he placed himself on the "vulnerable prisoner" list at the jail, used to keep track of prisoners who are concerned about their safety or are unwell. His family and sister, Michelle Diskin, could not visit while he was on this list. A family member said at the time: "We don't know why he has placed himself on the list."
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/aug/02/jilldando.ukcrime1
-
“Two trials and two appeals later, Barry George has spent eight years in prison.
He spent 12 months in Belmarsh prison, south London, which he described as "hell". Continually stared at and heckled, George said he kept his head down, never spoke to anyone and stayed close to prison wardens. He was frightened when inmates spat in his food. He was also placed on suicide watch in a single cell after attempting to hang himself using rope made from bedsheets. The presence of Jeffrey Archer around the same time, he said, took some of the attention away.
George was transferred in 2002 to HMP Whitemoor, a high-security prison in Cambridgeshire and home to some of the country's most notorious killers including Kenneth Noye and Jeremy Bamber. He became prisoner FF5227, where he occupied a single cell in C-wing and earned the privilege of a television.
In a 2002 Sunday Mirror interview with Don Hale, the journalist who fought to free Stephen Downing, who was wrongly jailed for murder in 1974, Hale said George spent his time reading or watching TV, where his favourite programme was Top of the Pops.
But George was convinced he would die violently in prison. He told Hale: "It is just a matter of time before I am killed ... I think I will die in prison. Somebody will have me done away. I never shot Jill, never did it, but I don't think people in authority want to know. They would rather I die and the whole thing go away. I keep telling them that I didn't do it and that somebody in the underworld was responsible, but they just don't want to know or help me.
"I don't like to let the warders out of my sight ... I feel there is a contract out on my head and one of the prisoners is just waiting for the right time to strike. A few come up to me in the dinner queue and say 'watch your back mate, they are after you'. Lots of the prisoners liked Jill and blamed me for murdering her."
George said sometime later he managed to gain some credibility with prisoners who believed Dando was killed by underworld figures.
"Lots have come up to me and said 'we know you didn't do it, murder Jill'. They believe me now. Before, I was always getting threatened. They used to call me s..m and spit in my tea. Now the other prisoners have been better with me. "
George was transferred back to Belmarsh in November last year, where he placed himself on the "vulnerable prisoner" list at the jail, used to keep track of prisoners who are concerned about their safety or are unwell. His family and sister, Michelle Diskin, could not visit while he was on this list. A family member said at the time: "We don't know why he has placed himself on the list."
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/aug/02/jilldando.ukcrime1
Michelle Diskin Bates does mention Jeffrey Archer in her book but no mention of her brothers alleged attempted suicide?
There’s also no mention of Don Hale?
“Don Hale, who shot to fame when he helped clear Stephen Downing of the 1973 "Bakewell murder" of Wendy Sewell, says he now has evidence suggesting Barry George, the man convicted of Jill Dando's murder, did not shoot the BBC presenter.
Hale, who was asked by George's family to investigate the case, was visiting the area to speak to journalism students at Salford University last Friday. He explained how he was the only journalist to have visited George in prison, and did not believe he was guilty.
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/local-news/don-digs-deep-to-help-case-1157985
“I was called in after he lost his appeal and pretty much had to start from scratch," he said. "I was the only journalist that was allowed to see Barry and I spent three hours with him.
https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/freedom-bid-man-who-shot-2933917
“Don Hale is undoubtedly best known for his involvement in the cases of wrongly convicted murderers Stephen Downing and Barry George who were both released after the tireless work of Don and others in over-turning a gross miscarriage of justice
http://www.donhale.co.uk/
-
Don Hale OBE
@perryscope21
·
Apr 4
Hamish Campbell said on TV that the tall dark man seen walking away from Jill's home by a neighbour was her probable killer - yet he arrests Barry George who was the complete opposite of this description. Many leads ignored.
Quote Tweet
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
· Apr 4
Replying to @perryscope21
Thank you Don. No ‘right of reply’ either. They spoke with me on courtesy calls, but no warning as to the content. The only thing they did was to NOT describe Barry’s autism in disparaging terms...oddball, weirdo. They obviously couldn’t find a better word for Loner though 😡
Don Hale OBE
@perryscope21
·
Apr 4
It was interesting to note that many of Jill Dando's family and friends never thought Barry George was responsible for her murder. Some of his team allegedly had reservations too and believed he was about to arrest a neighbour before Barry's name cropped up.
Quote Tweet
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
· Apr 4
Replying to @perryscope21
The programme shocked me, it was outrageous that they gave an ex cop, of a failed investigation a huge platform, then used leading questions to reach their objective. They knew my book outlines the flaws in the investigation, but chose to sideline that.
Don Hale OBE
@perryscope21
·
Apr 4
The documentary was very biased and one sided. Nothing new. No interview with Barry George and his family, no acknowledgement Campbell made a complete hash of the police inquiry and no apology to an innocent man.
Quote Tweet
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
· Apr 3
“...undeveloped film, and a collection of cuttings about Dando.”
Is it only Hamish Campbell who doesn’t know this is a lie? Two trials both knew there were no cuttings, underlining or other markings on the magazines. Campbell saw cuttings?
(link: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/apr/02/the-murder-of-jill-dando-review) theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2…
https://mobile.twitter.com/perryscope21?lang=en
-
Sept 2006
“A row has broken out over the basis of information used in a Panorama documentary about the murder of television presenter Jill Dando.
Award-winning journalist Don Hale has accused Raphael Rowe, the presenter of the programme, of using old material, a claim which Rowe strongly denies.
Hale told Press Gazette: "I'm accusing him of plagiarism to a certain extent. It's a 100 per cent lift of the information that was presented to the Criminal Cases Review Commission on 5 November, 2002.
"It gave the impression that Raphael and the BBC team had come up with this new evidence completely on their own, which is not the case."
The Panorama special, Jill Dando's Murder — The New Evidence, featured forensic analysis which questioned the only piece of scientific evidence against Barry George, the man jailed for murdering Dando.
In the programme, which attracted 4.6m viewers on Tuesday night, Rowe investigated if there was new relevant evidence that should have been heard by a jury, and gained exclusive access to case documents and exhibits.
Rowe told Press Gazette: "We as investigative journalists went out there and spoke to the most crucial witnesses, explored the most crucial elements of the case –— the scientific elements of the case as well as other pieces of evidence.
"We didn't do a paper exercise investigation, we spoke to people, we got to the heart of the issues surrounding the evidence."
According to Rowe, the only issue that was raised at the Court of Appeal was identification. The issue of contamination was also mentioned, but no new evidence was brought.
He said that the jury members and other witnesses who were also important to the trial told him they had not been approached by anybody since the case was first heard.
Hale was part of the team with MOJO [Miscarriages of Justice Organisation] that had conducted a lot of work on the case long before Raphael Rowe began investigating the murder two years ago. He said: "There was no acknowledgement or reference at all to the work that we had done as a team in preparation for this."
However, Rowe argued that the capability of MOJO was overestimated.
He said: "They gave us no information that was included in the programme. The information that the organisation MOJO gave us could not be stood up."
https://pressgazette.co.uk/hale-hits-out-over-dando-special/
-
“BARRY George claimed he knew who killed Jill Dando in an exclusive interview with the Sunday Mercury.
The former Midland stuntman was sensationally freed from a life sentence on Friday after a jury overturned his conviction for murdering the TV presenter.
But in his only interview from behind bars, George protested his innocence and told the Sunday Mercury he knew who really shot the BBC star.
‘‘Someone in the underworld was responsible for Jill Dando’s murder,” he said. ‘‘They don’t want the case re-opened.
Barry George told the Sunday Mercury he knew who killed Jill Dando in his one and only jail interview.
The former Midland stuntman was freed on Friday after an Old Bailey jury overturned his conviction for the murder of the much loved BBC TV presenter.
He spoke to award-winning former Mercury journalist Don Hale in 2002 and said he was convinced a professional hitman was to blame for the shooting – and feared he was next.
George, 48, said: “Someone in the underworld was probably responsible for Jill Dando’s murder. Now they want to keep me quiet.
‘‘I think someone wants to do me in. They don’t want the case re-opened.”
Our reporter interviewed George in Whitemoor jail, Cambridgeshire, as he served a life sentence for the murder of the Crimewatch star.
Journalist Jill, who also fronted the BBC’s Holiday programme, was shot dead on the doorstep of her Fulham home, West London, just three months after becoming engaged to Alan Farthing.
George was later jailed on mainly circumstantial evidence and had always claimed that he was at the Hammersmith & Fulham Action for Disability office at the time of the murder in April 1999.
“They let me in and I spoke with about four people there. I was there for about two hours,’’ George told the Sunday Mercury.
“The only witness (for the prosecution) said she saw me at 7am but I was still in bed. I don’t get up till 9am.
“I was wearing a bright yellow fluorescent T-shirt. People should have remembered that but some of them said I was wearing a coat.”
Police launched a huge operation after the death of the TV star, but initially had few leads.
Near-neighbour George was eventually arrested and convicted of her murder in 2001.
But the Court of Appeal ordered a retrial last year and his conviction was ruled unsafe on Friday afternoon as the original trial jury was misled about a speck of brearms discharge residue found in his coat pocket.
The residue was allegedly matched to Jill’s shooting but experts later said it could have come from another source.
Crucially, the evidence was not allowed at the retrial and the prosecution relied on sightings of a man like George near the presenter’s home.
The retrial jury of eight women and four men returned the not guilty verdict after deliberating for a day and a half.
George, who lived half a mile from Jill, reportedly said after the decision: “I am overwhelmed.”
Jurors were not told that George had convictions for rape and indecent assault, had an obsession with Jill look-alike Princess Diana and once tried to break into Kensington Palace with a dagger and rope.
The former stuntman has strong links with the Midlands. In 2001, we revealed details of his bizarre relationship with Black Country teenager Margo Bovell in the early 1980s. Calling himself Steve Majors, George used to meet Margo at Walsall College of Arts and Technology and the former Rollerdrome where the two would go skating.
George, then aged 20, cheekily chatted up Margo after spotting her in the street while she was visiting her sister in London in 1980.
The naive 17-year-old was swept off her feet and they were soon having steamy sex sessions.
But her family and friends became unnerved at George’s strange behaviour when he visited her home town of Bloxwich.
The Londoner would turn up out of the blue on roller skates – claiming he was in training for his job as a stuntman. On dates in Birmingham and Wolverhampton, he often put Margo on the bus home then showed off by zooming alongside on his skates.
As well as calling himself Steve Majors – a cross between the names of actor Lee Majors and his Bionic Man screen character Steve Austin, the Million Dollar Man – George was also known as Barry Bulsara.
This was the surname of the late rock star Freddie Mercury, who he falsely claimed to be related to.
George also called himself Paul Gadd, the real name of disgraced pop singer Gary Glitter, and he also pretended he was a British karate champion.
Then in 1982, George appeared on Margo’s doorstep dressed from head-to-toe in camouflage battle fatigues and wearing the green beret of the Royal Marine Commandos
He claimed he was on leave from the Falklands War which was raging at the time. After the incident, the couple drifted apart and Margo moved to London.
Last night, police and Crown Prosecution lawyers insisted that they were right to prosecute George and said the case will now be reviewed.
But senior detectives said it was extremely unlikely a new investigation will be launched unless further information comes to light.
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/local-news/i-know-who-killed-jill-dando-233533
-
Barry uncle states in his book Mike’s Story - The battle to clear Barry George of the Jill Dando murder:
“On October 13th the Sunday Mirror published an exclusive article by journalist Don Hale giving an account of a special visit with Paddy Hill to see Barry. It was titled “the first prison interview” and cast very serious doubt on Barry’s ability to be the cool calculating hit man.
I thought it was a very good article, but Barry was furious as he believed he had been portrayed as a bumbling idiot. Barry can be very unforgiving so he would never let Paddy or Don visit him again.
I could appreciate how he felt even though I thought it was a very positive article.
.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ltgorwROQfwC&pg=PA111&lpg=PA111&dq=don+hale+barry+george&source=bl&ots=Osy88My2fJ&sig=ACfU3U2gnjmRc1WL2Hu3HdD7GO6Rm-3Zrg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwinw4SaodjhAhVP3KQKHf4iAls4FBDoATAAegQICRAB#v=onepage&q=don%20hale%20barry%20george&f=false
-
Michael Burke continues:
"I thought of the allegation Michelle has made and felt a little uneasy.
.. but it made me think that what Michelle had said was not very wise. She was safely at home in Cork, while my family had to live in London, and I would be travelling over and back alone for the foreseeable future.
Relations between some members of my family became strained as most felt that as Barry was convicted and appealed we should leave it as that. But I was convinced the conviction was unsafe.
I accepted that there was a possibility that Barry was the man, but the evidence used to convict him was unconvincing.
In late October I sent a strongly worded letter to MOJO complaining about their tactics. By now the website was taking shape, and I was involved in a struggle as to what direction it should take. The webmaster Mick Lynch wanted to portray Barry as innocent but I insisted we should question the safety of the conviction, rather than call it a Miscarriage of Justice. I wanted people to judge for themselves and in the end I won out.
What tactics?
-
What tactics?
Tactics to publicly portray Barry George as a “bumbling idiot.”
Excerpt from Mike’s Story (Barry George’s Uncle)
“On October 13th the Sunday Mirror published an exclusive article by journalist Don Hale giving an account of a special visit with Paddy Hill to see Barry. It was titled ‘The First Prison Interview’ and cast very serious doubt on Barry’s ability to be the cool calculating hit man. I thought it was a very good article, but Barry was furious as he believed he had been portrayed as a bumbling idiot. Barry can be very unforgiving and so he would never let Paddy or Don visit him again. I could appreciate how he felt even though I thought it was a very positive article. In late October I sent a strongly worded letter to MOJO complaining about their tactics.
-
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mikes-Story-Battle-George-murder/dp/1907163441
This paperback by Mike Burke is a true diary account of events, following the conviction of his nephew Barry George, for the murder of Jill Dando. It covers a number of years from Barry’s arrest until his eventual release, the quashing of his conviction and a retrial. It is an emotional and very personal journey and is entirely his own work.
“In early May 2000 I visited my sister Margaret in London as part of my summer holidays. Her son Barry had called to see me on the day I arrived, but had left before I got there. Later I mentioned that to one of my brothers who explained that Barry was a little uptight as he was getting a bit of hassle from the police over the Jill Dando murder. I was puzzled, why would the police be interested in him, surely he wasn’t involved? Could he have done it? ‘No no of course not, but the silly prat has been going around talking about the murder and has got the attention of the police’. A couple of days later Margaret told me that the police had recently questioned Barry in her presence and had also searched her house. I felt glad that I hadn’t been there. Barry called around in the evening before Coronation Street ended. Margaret’s lifelong friend Annie was chatting away as she does while I was engrossed in Corrie. After a time I realised that something had changed and then I realised that Annie had stopped talking. I looked over to her and was a little surprised to see her sitting in silence, which is unusual. Barry had a meal and watched a film on Channel 5, a rather nasty film about a woman who was trapped with a murderous psychotic gunman in a camper van. At one stage she managed to get hold of a gun but could not bring herself to shoot the man in the back. ‘She knows what to do but she can’t do it’ said Barry. That sent a shiver down my spine and I stole a sideways glance at him wondering for a moment would he be able to do it, was I sitting next to a murderer?
-
Mike Bourke:
“As we walked through the fields I wondered what I should do, it was fight or flight time. I chose fight, deciding that I would not bury my head in the sand. I would try to support Barry in the assumption that he was innocent. It was to be an unpopular decision but Barry is a relative and as deserving of my support as any other. I also knew that he would not have any great family support beyond sympathy and he would need help. I can’t say that I felt greatly sympathetic towards him in an emotional way though for a time I would wake up early in the morning trying to make sense of it all.
In early ’83 his mother told me that he was in prison on remand. At his trial in the Old Bailey he pleaded guilty to a serious offence in February 1982 and got thirty months in prison. As Barry is once again trying to get on with his life I have decided not to go into the details which have received much press coverage but I do recall reading in a newspaper at the time that he initially denied it but that the detective tripped him up by asking him if he spoke any German. Barry replied ‘Ich Verstain’, (I understand). It appears that he used the same expression to the unfortunate victim who was a student studying German. So it would seem that a clever detective had no trouble in tripping him up and getting to the truth. He served his time in Wormwood Scrubbs, Brixton and Grendon Underwood prisons. I visited him a couple of times along with his mother and Eddie. He was free again by Christmas 1984 and he seemed to settle down after that. He never spoke to me about the crime and I never asked but I read her own account in 2001 following his conviction for Jill Dando’s murder, and again in 2008 when she wrote that she doubted if Barry was a killer.
-
The man accused of murdering Jill Dando told staff at a health centre that he was worried because he looked like the prime suspect and had been intimidated by the police on another occasion, the Old Bailey heard yesterday.
Barry George, 41, went to Hammersmith and Fulham Action for Disability (Hafad) on the day Ms Dando died in April 1999 and returned there two days later. On the first occasion, he turned up at the centre without an appointment and seemed highly agitated, the jury was told.
Elaine Hutton, the finance director of Hafad, said she had listened to parts of a conversation between George and her colleague Susan Bicknell at the office, in Greswell Street, Fulham, west London.
"I was not listening to the exact wording of the conversation between them. He was quite agitated. I was aware I might need to step in and help," said Ms Hutton.
She said George had a carrier bag of letters expressing dissatisfaction for some of the services he had received from the medical profession in general. She said her colleague had tried to stay calm and focused. She could not deal with him that day and was eventually able to placate him.
George was given an appointment for the following day, but then failed to show. However, he appeared on Wednesday April 28, two days after Ms Dando was shot.
"He said he had... gone to lay flowers at Jill's place on behalf of the church and that she was well respected in the borough," said Ms Hutton.
She said George had wanted to know the exact time of his visit to Hafad on the day Ms Dando had died. She had been unsure of the time but George had pressed her to be specific and was unhappy with her estimate. He had been agitated, saying the description of the Dando suspect matched him but that "it could be anyone".
Mrs Bicknell said George had been to the centre at 11.50am on the day Ms Dando died, 20 minutes after the shooting.
The prosecution allege that George shot Ms Dando, then changed his clothes and went to Hafad to establish an alibi. He has denied murder.
Julia Moorhouse, another witness, told the court about a chance encounter with a man that the prosecution allege was George.
Mrs Moorhouse said she had been standing on the corner of a street close to the murder scene at 12.30pm on April 26 when a man approached and started talking to her about the helicopters hovering overhead. "He said they were police helicopters. He gave details of what kind they were. He appeared to have technical knowledge... I turned to go. He came with me. I did not expect that.
"The whole situation struck me as slightly odd. He mentioned the Territorial Army. I think he may have said he had done training or was associated with it... either as an instructor or something."
The prosecution has alleged that George was obsessed with the army and weapons.
Michael Mansfield, QC, defending, said the man Mrs Moorhouse had spoken to was not George.
The trial continues. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2001/may/15/broadcasting.jilldando
-
Mike Bourke: Excerpts taken from the book - Mike’s Story The battle to clear Barry George of the Jill Dando murder.
“The Crown’s skeleton case was that Barry George was seen hanging around Jill Dando’s Gowan Avenue house on the morning of her murder. That he shot her shortly after 11.30 and then in order to remove the gun and any blood evidence he returned to his home a mere 600 yards away. He then changed his clothes and made his way to HAFAD, stopping to talk to a woman Julia Moorhouse, at about 12.30. He also made a mobile phone call to his service provider at 12.32. It was claimed that a blurred yellow figure caught on CCTV at 12.48 was Barry as he passed Fulham football ground on the way to the HAFAD disability advice centre, where he stopped briefly before going on to the Traffic Cars minicab office arriving there at about 13.00. He then managed to get a free cab ride at 13.15. It was claimed that Barry’s visits to HAFAD and Traffic Cars was to seek sanctuary and to create a false alibi. It was also claimed that when questioned he lied to police about his movements on the morning of the murder, that a witness identified him in Gowan Avenue prior to the murder, and that firearms discharge residue (FDR) was found in an inside pocket of a coat which he said he could have been wearing on the day of the murder.
The four main points on which the prosecution based its case were the alleged false alibi, lies told to police during questioning, the FDR, and witness identification. The defence claimed that nobody saw Barry hanging around Gowan Avenue in the half hour prior to the murder. No one identified him at the scene of the crime at the time of the crime. He could not have done the crime as he would not have had time to go home and change his clothes, having committed the crime at 11.30 and be at HAFAD at 11.50 or 12 noon. He did not possess a gun and had no access to weapons. His flat was filthy and there was no sign of any recent cleaning, for example no areas of the carpet seemed to have been cleaned.
Susan Coombe lived at an address which Barry also lived at in 1985. She described how he had replica guns which he showed to people. But she also said that there was a silver gun which he kept concealed in a shoebox. She claimed that he admitted to her that he followed women to see if they were single. Susan also confirmed that the photo of the man posing with the gun and gasmask was taken inside Barry’s home.
Richard Hughes worked from home trading in Far East stocks and shares using his home computer. He lived in the house next to Jill Dando’s. He was upstairs about to take a shower when he heard Jill’s car alarm zap and her footsteps as she walked to her door. He described her scream which he likened to somebody being surprised by someone they knew, rather than a cry of alarm. He then heard Jill’s gate clink shut and he looked out the window to see a man calmly leaving. He got a look at the side of the man’s face. The man was holding something in his hand, maybe a mobile phone, or it could have been a gun. Richard finished his shower and shortly afterwards hearing women’s voices he went downstairs and saw Jill slumped at her doorstep. Richard did not identify anybody at the live I.D. parade.
The man seen by witnesses was described as Mediterranean in appearance, dark haired with heavy eyebrows, late 30s or early 40s, approx five foot ten, stocky. There were variations in descriptions of height and skin but on the face of it there appeared to be a general consensus. I became very uneasy as I felt that the descriptions of the man described could have fitted Barry.
On Friday he was ill allegedly as a result of mistreatment by prison officers in the courts holding room. That caused long delays, to the frustration of Mr Justice Gage, who wanted to move things along. As Pownall was leaving the room during the lengthy delay he passed a private remark ‘matron is with the beleaguered’. Michelle was furious and I had to persuade her not to challenge Pownall. I was afraid we might be forced up into the public gallery if there was a scene, and the press would have loved it. But I can appreciate her anger at the pompous comment. Doctor Susan Young was surprised at Barry’s apparent mistreatment.
For the rest of May I followed the case on the news and in phone calls to Michelle who attended court every day. Barry was ill at times, suffering various ailments including apparent blindness which caused amusement amongst the press reporters who believed that he was faking. I found it hard to believe also until some years later when I experienced a nasty migraine attack which gave me an incredible fright thinking I was going blind. So perhaps his attack was genuine brought on by stress.
Barry was portrayed as a man who was familiar with firearms. He had been with the Territorial Army, had attempted to join a gun-club, and he had written details of handguns including a Bruni in his flat. The police had found advertisements in his flat for deactivated weapons showing where they could be bought but there was no evidence that he had the tools or skills to alter guns. A photograph of him wearing a gasmask and holding a handgun, finger on trigger was found by police. There was a break in the gun exposing a spring. That was said to show that he had an interest in altering guns. Barry denied during police questioning that it was him in the photograph, and claimed the gun; a blank firing replica was stolen by his friend David Dobbins. In evidence David Dobbins described an incident where Barry discharged a blank firing pistol at David’s mother’s house, frightening him. David admitted that following his frightening experience he chatted with Barry, his friend, for about an hour.
When searching Barry’s flat on 17 April 2000 Police Constable Cain had found a coat and handed it to Detective Constable Isaacs who sealed it in an exhibits bag and it was sent to a police station. Both officers gave evidence of the precautions they had taken in relation to the surgical gloves and clothing worn by them. On 24 April the coat was taken to Amelia Street Police Photographic Studio where it was removed from the sealed bag and photographed. On May 2 it was taken to the Forensic Science Laboratory. There Mr Robin Keeley, a Senior Forensic Officer specialising in FDR examined the coat. In an inside pocket he found a single particle of firearms discharge residue, 11.5 microns in size. Two FDR particles which matched each other had also been found on Jill Dando’s hair and raincoat. Keeley compared those particles with the one found in Barry’s coat and they matched. Tests were carried out to exclude other sources for the particle. In evidence Keeley said that the particle could have come from the ammunition which had killed Jill Dando or from similar ammunition. The residue would remain in a pocket indefinitely, unless the garment was disturbed. The residue would not decay evaporate or dissolve. He was asked if it was significant that only one particle was found. He replied that there was no significance; it just meant that firearms residue was present. It would identify where it came from but not how it got there.
The overall impression given was that the FDR came from the same gun which killed Jill. The only question seemed to be how it got to be in Barry’s coat pocket. That evidence would take up to three days as Mansfield grilled the police and scientists.
On the day of the murder Barry visited the Hammersmith and Fulham Advice centre, or HAFAD. He also called to a taxi cab office where he managed to cadge a free trip to the Rickett Street Colon Cancer Clinic. Two days later he re-visited HAFAD and the taxi office, asking staff to recall what he had been wearing on the previous visit. That strange behaviour was reported to the police. Barry at first told the police he did not know at what time he visited HAFAD but staff put the time at or before 12.00. Barry then claimed an alibi based on those times. If he had visited at or before 12.00 he would be ruled out as the killer, as the clothes he had on then did not match the clothes seen on the fleeing man in Gowan Avenue. He would not have had time to kill Jill at 11.30 and return home to change and still arrive at HAFAD for 12.00. Under cross examination some of the staff revised their estimate of the time of Barry’s visit but one, Susan Bicknell, was absolutely adamant that he had been there at 12.00. To counteract the HAFAD alibi the police produced Julia Moorhouse who had reported being spoken to by a man matching Barry’s description at about 12.30 on the day of the crime. Ms Moorhouse was not asked to attend an I.D. parade.
I was back at the Old Bailey on Wednesday 13th at 11.00 and I recorded it in my diary as a boring day. By now I would travel from Margaret’s alone, ahead of Michelle as I liked to get in early before the cameramen were alert. I noticed that Michelle was by now quite blasé about them but I never liked their attention.
Pownall began his closing address to the jury on Wednesday, after Mr Justice Gage ruled that the case no longer depended on the single particle of FDR residue but that it could provide support for the identification. The goalposts seemed to have been changed in the middle of the match and I thought that was very unfair. The particle was the ‘compelling evidence’ and it had formed one of the three main planks on which the case rested. I.e. witness identification, the single particle, and at what time Barry visited HAFAD on the day of the murder. It would now merely assist the jury in reaching their decision.
-
“After the Clonakilty affair the unity amongst Barry’s family supporters was fragmented and Michelle and I followed our independent paths for the rest of his incarceration and beyond. Michelle stayed within the MOJO camp which she found to be a source of help and support, and me outside but still in touch. After Barry’s conviction we were not in a position to visit him for some time and he did not contact us. I would write to him but he never replied. I had used up most of my holidays and quite a bit of special unpaid leave. Michelle had spent the whole of the trial away from her family while she attended court, and Margaret was not in a position to make the trip alone. I do not know at first-hand how he dealt with his conviction.
In his PRISON DIARY Jeffrey Archer records on Friday 20 July seeing a prisoner on exercise that looked totally lost. A fellow prisoner Gordon told Archer that it was Barry George. ‘No one in here believes he did it, including the screws’ Gordon said. Archer revealed that while his own trial was in progress he was surprised that so many senior lawyers and laymen told him that they were disturbed by the verdict. Later a prison officer revealed to Archer that he didn’t believe that Barry had shot Jill Dando. ‘He’s just too stupid’ the officer said. A prisoner called Pat told Archer how a year earlier Barry had fallen over while running in the prison sports day. Pat described Barry as a bit of a pervert but believed that he was not a murderer.
Belmarsh is a holding prison for prisoners awaiting trial so shortly after his conviction Barry was moved to HMP Whitemoor, in Cambridgeshire. We were relieved that he was not moved too far away from London. During August it was reported that David Dobbins, a friend of Barry’s who became a prosecution witness had hanged himself, preceded by his brother. I was told that David was depressed but I do not know if his giving evidence against Barry contributed to his unfortunate death. Finally on September 2nd a visiting order arrived.
A witness in the Jill Dando trial who gave important evidence against Barry George, the man convicted of the murder of the television presenter, has been found hanged at his home, it emerged yesterday.
August 2001
“David Dobbins, 30, was discovered by a relative on Thursday at his flat in Fulham, south-west London. It is understood he had been suffering from depression.
He had given evidence which showed that George was a fantasist who owned weapons which he liked to show to local children. During tense moments at the Old Bailey, he told the court how George had stormed into his home one evening dressed in combat gear and then fired at the ceiling with a pistol.
Mr Dobbins befriended George in the mid-1980s when they lived in the Stanhope Gardens Hotel, a bed and breakfast hostel in Kensington, west London. At the time Mr Dobbins was 13. George had just been released from prison after a conviction for attempted rape.
Mr Dobbins had told the trial that he knew George as Thomas Palmer, the name of an SAS soldier involved in the rescue of hostages from the Iranian embassy siege of 1980.
He told the jury that George owned an imitation Heckler and Koch MP5 machine gun, and a blank-firing handgun, as well as "a few knives".
Mr Dobbins's family moved to another address in 1986, but George continued to see them. Mr Dobbins had recalled how he heard a noise outside the basement flat and opened the door to investigate. "I saw Mr Palmer. He pushed his way in with a handgun and he discharged a shot. It was pretty scary. It was like he was trying to frighten us."
George was wearing a combat jacket, military belt and jeans, and put the gun into his belt after he fired it. The prosecution case relied on evidence that George, 41, was "obsessed" with guns and the military.
Police do not believe there are suspicious circumstances to Mr Dobbins's death, but an inquest will be held at West London coroner's court.
Scotland Yard confirmed yesterday that a body was found in a Fulham flat last week. "We are not prepared to say any more at this stage," a spokesman said.
George is appealing against his conviction.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2001/aug/21/broadcasting.jilldando
-
Mike’s Story The battle to clear Barry George of the Jill Dando murder.
“Appeal 2002 One day in early July an angry Paddy Hill told me that he was finished supporting Barry, but later Moneypenny phoned to say that MOJO would still support him. I returned to work on the 5th and within the first ten minutes my vehicle lights were broken by Hurley wielding thugs. It was back to normal for me on the mean streets of Limerick. The following day Margaret told me that Barry wanted a suit for his appeal. But it was too late as the appeal was just a week away. He had to wear the clothes Margaret and Michelle provided, and he was rather cruelly described by the press as being dressed like a schoolboy.
Excerpt from Michelle Diskin Bates book Stand Against Injustice
“Before Mum’s breakdown, we had discussed buying a new outfit for Barry to deflect further misinformation being spread by unscrupulous journalists. These people exhibited absolutely no compassion for all those caught in the crossfire. Our family were terribly offended by the suggestion that Barry was some kind of oddity or vagabond. And anyway, how did this image sit with the description given of a well-dressed man seen in Gowan Avenue around the time that Jill was killed? It seemed the police wanted it both ways, and were suggesting that this criminal mastermind dressed like a tramp most of the time, but when he wanted to kill somebody, he put on his best bib and tucker and his woollen greatcoat to carry out the crime! With the thirty pounds I had left, I needed to buy food, rail travel to and from the prison, my flight back home, and also Barry’s court suit and shoes. In short, impossible. It was definitely time for prayer. Putting the banknotes on a table, I turned my attention to my Saviour, Jesus. Dear Lord Jesus, First, I come to you in praise and thanksgiving for all of the blessings you bestow upon me. I know you will always provide for my needs. I know, too, that you know the difficulties I’m facing here and I ask for your help to make the right choices. If I buy the clothes for Barry, I won’t be able to buy him shoes or buy food for myself. If I keep the money for food and train fares, I can’t dress Barry for court or buy my flight home. I can’t solve this predicament by myself, but I know you can. There is nothing you can’t do. I put my trust firmly in you. Please, Lord, give me your wisdom and guidance.
The £ 30 I had trustingly spent on Barry was returned to me fourfold! Now, not only could I get home to my family, but I could buy a small gift for my best friend and great supporter, Marianne. I would also be able to buy some of those little chocolates that the children loved so much, and for Pat, a large box of Jelly Babies, his favourite. Thirty pounds, four times over. When God provides, He does so in abundance. This was no set of coincidences, this was an example of God-incidences. ‘He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets prisoners free.’ (Psalm 146: 7)
-
“Later in the evening we had a drink with David Perrin and James Cohen. We managed to persuade Michelle not to take part in a late night talk radio show. David threw an example of a question she might face if she took part. ‘Michelle, do you accept that a rapist can graduate to murder?’ That decided the matter for Michelle and she took Margaret home. Later I became a little disturbed by something that James said. He asked me what I thought of the madness in the family.
“On Tuesday November 5th I was tempted to run from East Acton station to Margaret’s as rockets and bangers exploded all around the place. It was Guy Fawkes Day, and it felt like a battle zone. Michelle was in Birmingham with MOJO presenting their submission to the CCRC. Margaret and I met her in HMP Whitemoor the next day. Barry was very upset with Michelle because of press reports and the CCRC submission. He said that it should have been left to his solicitor to make the submission, and he feared that his prospects might now have been damaged. He said that he thought the visit by Don Hale and Paddy Hill was a private visit and he felt betrayed that it had been reported. It was a difficult visit where Barry threatened to have Michelle jailed if she did not respect his views. He no longer wanted MOJO to be involved in his situation. In time he would threaten to have us all jailed, which probably was a reflection of his frustration at not being in control of the things which concerned him.
That evening I met David Perrin in a Shepherds Bush pub where we had a nice pint of Guinness. We discussed the website and he gave me some advice on that saying that I should look at Susan May’s website. He then said that Barry’s supporters seemed to be fragmented, and suggested that it would be more effective if there was a combined united push for Barry. Good advice I thought. On Thursday Michelle and Margaret took Sheba the cat to the vet, as she had a sore mouth. In the evening I told Michelle about the planned website, and about David’s suggestion of a united front. She did not seem to be very interested. Later Hazel Keirle from MOJO phoned Michelle to make arrangements for Michelle’s next TV appearance, on SKY News. Michelle wanted them to show the videotape which I had loaned her, showing the man who was supposed to be Barry at Princess Diana’s vigil. She wanted to show how inaccurate identification can be.
I went to London on December 12 and met Pat Reynolds, the IBRG Chairman, at Margaret’s house. We discussed a campaign plan, and agreed to think things over. Pat then spoke to Michelle on the phone, but she was now tied up with MOJO and told Pat that Barry already had their support. The campaign was hampered from the word go but I was determined to push ahead and managed to persuade Pat to remain on board. Margaret and I made our Christmas
-
but it was a clean, quick execution.
Mere speculation!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-46217/Jills-death-instant.html
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-46217/Jills-death-instant.html
“Taxi firm manager Ramesh Paul told the court that two days after Miss Dando's murder George came into his cab office and started talking about the killing.
"He was talking to himself and to me, saying he did not want the blame," said Mr Paul, who added: "I came to the conclusion he was in his own world."
He told the jury that on the day of the murder the same man had arrived at 1pm and asked him for a cab but said he had no money.
"I laughed - it is not me, it's the drivers, £4 is like £400 to them," Mr Paul said.
The man stayed in the waiting area looking out of the window, he said, adding: "He seemed in a bit of a hurry to go somewhere but he had no money to go there."
By a stroke of luck, Mr Paul said he received a call asking for a package to be collected from near where the customer wanted to go and told a driver to take him on the journey for free.
He saw the man again a day or two later, Mr Paul said, adding: "He came into the office. I was talking on the phone. He was asking stupid questions.
"He asked me if I remembered him, what time he came here, what he looked like, what he was wearing. I asked if I should remember. He said Yes. He was adamant."
Mr Paul said he remembered the fare and told him 1.15pm. The man asked if he could remember what he was wearing on April 26.
"When I could not remember, he started giving me colours. He told me to look up at the sky. I said blue. He said no, that was the wrong colour. Look up again.
"He kept going on about the colour of his shirt and asking what colour was the sun. I said orange or red he still said no, look again."
When Mr Paul said yellow, the man said "Yes".
Mr Paul said the man wanted him to write down the time he was at the cab office on the 26th on a card.
"I rarely do that but I was interested in answering the phone at this stage so I wrote down details and passed it through the glass," he said.
"He looked happy that I remembered the yellow shirt. He went to shake my hand but could not through the glass."
The trial was adjourned until tomorrow
-
Excerpt’s taken from Mike’s Story The battle to clear Barry George of the Jill Dando murder
“Sunday was rather wet and windy. In the morning I met David James Smith in Mario’s café in East Acton. We had a good chat and David shared many of my doubts surrounding Barry’s conviction. However he felt that Barry was guilty as he had spoken with Hamish Campbell and found him to be convincing.
“The Case of Barry George by Scott Lomax was published on the 27th, and he sent me a signed copy. He argued the case for Barry’s innocence well and I thought it was a very positive development. The book had a photo of Barry on the cover which I had lent to Scott with permission to use. On June 26th the Daily Express did a two page spread on Scott’s book. A couple of days later Michelle featured in an Irish evening paper, and appeared to dismiss the value of Scott’s book, saying that a book would not get Barry out. I was disappointed at the dismissal of what was a very well argued case by a young writer who was supportive of Barry, who needed all the support he could get.
“On September 5th I read an e-mail from Scott Lomax telling me about a BBC reporter, Raphael Rowe, who hoped to make a programme about Barry. I made some discreet enquiries and I was told that ‘He is a good guy, genuine’. I was happy with that recommendation and decided to contact him. I phoned him the next day and we had a good long chat. He was quite up to speed having looked at the websites and appeal court links. I agreed to contact Barry and his solicitor to see if they might cooperate with a TV programme. I later spoke to Pat Reynolds who was very enthusiastic when I mentioned Panorama, saying that Panorama could be seen as a turning point, the beginning of the end. I next visited Barry on Friday October 8th. I was suffering from a heavy cold, and family tensions were again running high, otherwise the visit went ok. On the way back to East Acton I saw on the headlines that the hostage Ken Bigley had been killed in Iraq. I got fish and chips and had quiet a miserable evening. ‘Why the hell am I doing this?’ I wondered, not for the first time.
“That evening I met David James Smith at Starbucks in Hammersmith, where we discussed aspects of Jill Dando’s murder which concerned me. David believed that I was on the wrong track but I was convinced that more people could have known of Jill’s intention to visit her house on the day of her murder than we were led to believe. I also wondered how many people might have had keys to her house.
-
You cannot say that someone isn't innocent enough just because you don't like him.
Until proven otherwise, I firmly believe the Barry George campaign to be a total farce just like Simon Hall’s turned out to be!
-
“There is a risk that the objectivity and impartiality of forensic science experts is being undermined by cognitive bias, according to new guidance from the Forensic Science Regulator Dr Gill Tully (pictured). This raises important issues for both prosecutors and defence practitioners.
Cognitive bias – subconscious personal bias – has been seen as a potential issue within criminal justice systems since the 1970s. But it is now being red-flagged after some high-profile cases, including false-positive fingerprint identifications, brought the issue into sharp relief.
Countering the risks has significant consequences for the way experts work with the police and prosecutors. It also opens up potential challenges for defence practitioners, who have been criticised in the past for not challenging expert evidence robustly enough.
The guidance, published as an appendix to the regulator’s codes of practice and conduct, sets out examples of good practice in specific subject areas associated with forensic science examina- tions at crime scenes and within laboratories.
Cognitive bias can take many forms, including confirmation bias, whereby people test hypoth- eses by looking for confirming evidence rather than for potentially conflicting evidence. There are also ‘role effects’, where scientists identify themselves as part of either the prosecution or defence teams.
The ‘most powerful means of safeguarding’ against that, the guidance says, is to ensure that the practitioner conducting the analysis only has information about the case that is relevant to the analysis.
However, it accepts that case assessment, targeting and interpretation may be hampered without relevant information. And it warns that risks are higher when practitioners are inexperi- enced, unmonitored and left to adopt their own approach, and when checking is less rigorous and/or conducted collaboratively.
The leading expert in cognitive bias, Dr Itiel Dror, senior cognitive neuroscience researcher at UCL, has held workshops for senior judges, while laboratories and police forces are starting to provide their forensic examiners with cogni- tive training.
He stresses that this is not an ethical issue – ‘experts are not letting this happen intentionally’ – but they must try to minimise the risk of cognitive contamination as they do physical contamination. ‘By telling an expert there is a suspect, for instance, the expert then works from the suspect to the evidence and not from the evidence to the suspect,’hetoldtherecentBondSolonexpert witness conference.
However, he said lawyers like to give informa- tion to experts. ‘To be honest, they don’t want your opinion, they are building a case and they want to recruit you,’ he said.
‘I did a case where the lawyers wanted me to get involved. I explained why I didn’t want the information but they forgot accidentally and sent me irrelevant information. I didn’t need to know the details of the rape or that the person had been charged before. I am not accusing them of intentionally trying to manipulate me but, regardless, they contaminated me.’
https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/download?ac=15591
Barry George’s legal team clearly recruited their medical experts to help portray George the way they did. I’m not convinced by anything I’ve read to suggest George incapable of murder because these experts would have quite obviously been contaminated by confirmation bias. There was nothing in place to ensure this didn’t happen. And what’s the betting the CCRC’s brief to these so called experts proves this to be so.
-
Several of my earlier posts on this thread have been removed and/or edited however it’s clear to me now as it was back then that lessons have not been learned following the unravelling of Simon Hall’s factual guilt for the murder of Joan Albert.
Excerpt taken from Forward by Dr Michael Naughton - Stand Against Injustice by Michelle Diskin Bates
“In terms of the comprehensive chronology of Barry George’s wrongful conviction, it provides a rare insight into the workings of the criminal justice system that lays bare how its operating notion of “justice” jars with the widely held belief (myth) that the core function of the criminal justice system is to protect the public from the harm of acts labelled crime, by convicting the factually guilty (i.e. those who actually committed the offence), whilst guarding against the wrongful conviction of the factually innocent (i.e. ensuring that those who did not commit the offence are not convicted).
The only person who knows whether or not Barry George is factually innocent is Barry George! As I see it, given his history there’s no reason to suggest him incapable of murder.
This thread, along with Michelle Diskin Bates book should be re-titled “The Emancipation of Barry George!
She claims in her book Barry has never really been free and I’m inclined to agree but for differing reasons.
-
Barry George’s legal team clearly recruited their medical experts to help portray George the way they did. I’m not convinced by anything I’ve read to suggest George incapable of murder because these experts would have quite obviously been contaminated by confirmation bias. There was nothing in place to ensure this didn’t happen. And what’s the betting the CCRC’s brief to these so called experts proves this to be so.
November 01, 2015
Cognitive Bias and Its Impact on Expert Witnesses and the Court
By Itiel E. Dror, Justice Bridget M. McCormack, and Jules Epstein
Disclaimer: This article reflects the position of the authors and does not reflect or represent any government office, agency or other institution.
“Courts rely on expert witnesses and mostly assume that they provide impartial and objective evidence. Yet cognitive science shows that even the most dedicated and committed experts are influenced, without even realizing it, by factors unrelated to the data relevant to form their expert conclusion. For example, it has been demonstrated that experts’ conclusions on whether crime scene evidence was left by a specific person were influenced by whether they were told that the suspect confessed or, alternatively, that the suspect could not have committed the crime because of a rock-solid alibi. Because juries and judges often depend on reports and testimony from experts it is important to understand the limits and potential vulnerabilities of those witnesses. At the same time it is critical to find ways to increase and improve the contribution experts make to the fact-finding process.
“One set of concerns relates to experts who may overstate the evidence. This can occur for two main reasons: First, experts may be over confident and overestimate their own abilities. This results from meta-cognition: The ability to ‘know what you know and know what you do not know’ – which is an area that humans are not especially good at. Second, although experts share an understanding that it is their duty to be independent and uninfluenced by the exigencies of litigation, and to be objective and unbiased, experts are most often recruited by one side of the adversarial system, and work within the team and objectives of that side. This places many experts in a non-neutral environment and posture, and can subconsciously influence their perception and judgments.
Another set of concerns is that in most domains expert evidence is simply not purely objective and scientific. For example, the domain may not have sufficiently detailed methodologies and objective quantification instrumentation. Therefore most “expert” evidence relies on interpretation and judgment, and includes subjective elements.
https://www.americanbar.org/groups/judicial/publications/judges_journal/2015/fall/cognitive_bias_and_its_impact_on_expert_witnesses_and_the_court/
-
Alison Hoad encountered George in 1997 when he offered to show her the way to audition premises where she was taking her young son.
On the way he said he had been to court to sort out the will of Freddie Mercury, she said.
"He talked at length about things he had done with Freddie Mercury. He described parties he had been to with him. He said he ran the Queen fan club."
Mrs Hoad said he offered to show her the club offices which he said were nearby, the court was told. Mrs Hoad declined.
As they walked up Munster Avenue in Fulham - near where Miss Dando lived - "he said he had a friend who lived in one of the roads, a very special lady. He intimated she was well-known."
Mrs Hoad said she thought he was inviting questions, but because she felt uncomfortable in his presence she did not pursue it.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-46575/Dando-accused-said-hed-help-police-solve-murder.html
-
Team Barry 2008 by Mike Bourke, Uncle of Barry George - taken from “Mike’s Story the battle to clear Barry George of the Jill Dando murder https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mikes-Story-Battle-George-murder/dp/1907163441
“Jill Dando was one of their own, and it would be naïve for anybody to think that the media would ever forgive Barry for the crime, which he had been charged, convicted, and ultimately cleared of, unless perhaps the real killer was identified as in the Rachel Nickell case. If some of Barry’s supporters expected a sympathetic reaction from them then they were sadly mistaken, and the immediate selling of his story to News International to the exclusion of others would not have helped matters. On Saturday August 2nd the Daily Mail reported that a ‘police source’ claimed that Alan Farthing and the Dando family wanted the murder case to remain closed. I thought that a little puzzling, if true. Barry’s 1982 victim’s story was again published, 26 years after the event, for which Barry paid the price handed down by the courts. The Telegraph claimed that a feud had erupted between Barry’s supporters and Scotland Yard. William Clegg QC accused the police of ‘closing their minds’ to other suspects. He said the police and CPS needed to keep an open mind. ‘I think they did close their minds after the arrest of Barry George, yes’. Detectives were reported to be livid at the criticism. A Scotland Yard source said it was to be expected that people connected with George were now coming out to attack the police. Commander Simon Foy, head of the Met’s Homicide Command said ‘We are disappointed by today’s verdict… however we respect the verdict of the court’. I was quoted as saying that Barry would be like a fish out of water if he were to live in Ireland, and that he would not return to Fulham. Some East Acton neighbours said that they would be happy if he were to live with his mother there. I do not agree that there is a feud with the police but I do believe that they missed something vital in the early days of the investigation. They may have placed too much reliance on the computer HOLMES rather then spending a little more time at the crime scene interviewing witnesses, preserving evidence, following up leads and kicking down doors without undue delay. I would call that constructive criticism. It was pointed out by John McVicar that under Scottish law the jury would have had the option of a ‘not proven’ verdict. ‘Not Proven’ is basically an acquittal and was described in 1824 by novelist and Sheriff Sir Walter Scott as ‘That b........ verdict, not proven’. I feel it was a little mean of McVicar to try and muddy the waters with such tripe, which has no relevance in English law. Barry was found Not Guilty. What could be clearer? In the afternoon I met Scott for the last time in Victoria where we had an afternoon drink in the Shakespeare pub. At about 15.00 Michelle phoned me from the hotel saying that they had just finished the interviews and asked me what I was doing. I said I was with Scott but we could not talk further as the line went dead. At about 22.00 she again phoned me and asked if I knew that Scott had written an article for the Sunday Mirror. I explained that Scott was a writer and so it was to be expected that he might write something as he was also outside the Old Bailey when she and MOJO were speaking to the media. She said that Barry could lose money as a result and in the background I could hear him speaking quietly. But nobody had requested that I or Scott should remain silent. I later heard that there was consternation at the News of the World when it was realised that the Sunday Mirror was running a Barry George story ahead of their ‘World Exclusive’. I had to laugh at that remembering the Clonakilty affair of July 2001. It wasn’t revenge but it felt sweet nonetheless. On Sunday morning I was listening to the radio and heard that just a few weeks prior to Jill Dando’s death her agent Jon Roseman had finished writing a novel about a showbusiness agent whose male clients are murdered causing the agent to turn detective. The police interviewed Jon and the book titled GOOD MEN DIE LIKE DOGS was never published. I thought that was one weird story, stranger than fiction. I went to a café with a couple of friends for breakfast, and bought a few newspapers. The headlines hit me like a slap in the face. The News of the World article was prefaced with the warnings, OUR LAWYERS ARE WATCHING’. They described Barry as a ‘BUG-EYED ODD-BALL.’ They claimed he confessed: ‘’ I didn’t kill Jill Dando-because I was stalking ANOTHER woman.’’ He was shown posing with the horrible prison issue plastic bag which I had concealed when entering the hotel. In their ‘World Exclusive’ he was quoted as saying ‘After leaving HAFAD I bumped into a woman who was later a prosecution witness and said I was stalking her… That was at 12.33pm…’ That was obviously a reference to Julia Moorhouse who he had always denied meeting. He denied being the man in the photo wearing a gas mask and brandishing a gun. At one time he had told me that it was him in the photo and at another he denied it. The police said that he had admitted to them during questioning that it was him and I accept that it was. He claimed to be a Leeds United fan since 1972 and I recall him saying to Eddie in the mid ‘70s that they were his favourite team. Eddie had laughed then thinking that he was a fan just because Leeds were then the league champions. Under the headline ‘We didn’t just nab the local nutter’ retired detective inspector Ian Horrocks who was second in command of the murder investigation said he accepted the result of the retrial, but that he had agreed with the first jury’s verdict. He claimed that they had carried out a thorough investigation and eliminated all suspects apart from one-Barry George. The article then claimed that there was an uncomfortable incident at the hotel where Barry allegedly acted in a potentially indecent manner targeting Susan Young. (Dr Young would later confirm to me that she never once felt threatened or unsafe with Barry) In an article by Lucy Panton Susan was reported as being convinced that he was not capable of carrying out an execution killing. As I looked over the papers I felt nauseous, broke out in a sweat and had to push my breakfast away, I felt quite ill and it was not Guinness related. Our great victory now seemed hollow and I later said to David James Smith that it seemed like we had won the battle but lost the war. The Sunday Mirror ‘Exclusive’ had the independent article by Scott Lomax which was much more sympathetic towards Barry, though perhaps not entirely accurate. I was later told that there were threats of legal action over the article and I let it be known that if so I would be a witness for the defendants. Fortunately that Pandora’s Box was never opened. In the Mail on Sunday Jon Roseman revealed that he had never believed that Barry was the killer, instead thinking that Jill was shot by the Serbs. Overall much of the press coverage seemed to insinuate that Barry got away with it, but that he was really guilty. That would seem to reflect the police response. I saw just a little of the SKY News interview interview but I was not impressed by what I saw and heard. It seemed to me as if Barry was reciting from a script. I almost laughed as he earnestly said that he couldn’t begin to understand what the Dando family was going through. It just didn’t sound like something which he would say without being prompted, I felt they were not his words. I thought of the ‘idiot cards’ used by the BBC to prompt their interviewers on live shows such as ’Wogan’ back in the mid ‘80s. David James Smith later described the interview as cringe making and I have to agree. Kay Burley appeared kind and sympathetic while Michelle smiled sweetly as Barry struggled to find the word ‘foreman’, prompted gently by Kay. I felt that those media interviews were a mistake and damaged his chances of attaining public acceptance. Within two days he had been transformed from tragic miscarriage of justice victim deserving of some sympathy into something much less savoury. When I opened the JfB e-mails I saw nasty derogatory messages which were intended for Michelle, something which had rarely ever happened up to this. One told her to take her lovely brother to Ireland and to keep him there. That is the sanitised version. It was quite a contrast from the reaction which followed his 2007 victory in the appeal court. I felt quite down in the dumps at the way things had suddenly turned around, and what should have been a joyful period at the successful end of the struggle instead seemed to have become sordid, unpleasant. Later on that dreary Sunday I called around to Margaret’s but she hadn’t returned home. I dropped in a letter for Barry with some advice and offering him the opportunity of cooperating with this book but he never responded, I do not know if he even got to see it. Later another relative told me that Michelle Margaret and Barry were going away for a while to an undisclosed location. That night I endured a horrible ear bashing from a person on the outer fringes of the family who said that the latest jury’s verdict did not convince him. It was with a sense of relief that I left London to go home on Monday, with 48 trips to the UK including 36 prison visits behind me. I was pleased to read along the way that there would be a police review of the case by the Met but I would have preferred if an outside force were to conduct it. After I got home I read in some paper that Barry and family were on the Isle of Wight where Michelle introduced him to Sion Jenkins. The IPCC needed to know if I wanted to pursue my complaint but I did not now wish to have any further involvement and so I dropped it. Eaten bread is quickly forgotten and neither I nor my fellow supporters would see or hear from Barry again. I felt quite bitter about it for a long while, and I was not alone in feeling like that. Some people put their professional reputations on the line and got no thanks for their efforts. Scott later told me that JfB’s website had received 978 hits on August 1st, 533 on the 2nd, and 369 on the 3rd. On October 1st I shut it down. It was now open season on Barry and the press set about destroying any hope of him settling into any kind of normal life in his home city of London. I watched dispassionately as his reputation, such as it was, nosedived over the last days of 2008 under a welter of tabloid fantasy. They ran stories on what he ate, what bookshops he visited, his temporary accommodation. They claimed incorrectly that he was stalking a nurse, that Sky’s Kay Burley was frightened sick by him, that he was interested in Cheryl Cole of X Factor, that he was involved with the partner of a convicted killer etc. To make things even better a ‘spokesman’ for him allegedly confirmed some of those manufactured stories. Pat Reynolds said to me one day: ‘with friends like those who needs enemies?’ It was a little sad to see the end results of the long hard battle and one day a despairing Margaret said to me that it was now worse than when he was in prison. In an October 10 feature in the Daily Mail David Jones summed up the whole sorry state of affairs. He described how Jill’s grave had been a haven of peace for Jack Dando, aged 90, and her brother Nigel, but that now Barry was planning to visit it. Singh Clair, described as Barry’s spokesman confirmed that. Nigel Dando said that he would not object to the visit: ‘It might give Mr George cause to ponder and reflect’, he said. The article described how others in ‘Team Barry’ included his sister, his mother, friend Robert Charig, and Sion Jenkins was described as a fringe member. Then there was the body charged with monitoring Barry and smoothing his path back into society under a Multi Agency Public Protection Agreement. (MAPPA)
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ltgorwROQfwC&pg=PA212&lpg=PA212&dq=Then+there+was+the+body+charged+with+monitoring+Barry+and+smoothing+his+path+back+into+society+under+a+Multi+Agency+Public+Protection+Agreement&source=bl&ots=Osy89OF-cJ&sig=ACfU3U0zgkLRZxktkcCyj-B_-VTf-1st0Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjP_uOK-dvhAhWssKQKHT4IBzYQ6AEwAHoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=Then%20there%20was%20the%20body%20charged%20with%20monitoring%20Barry%20and%20smoothing%20his%20path%20back%20into%20society%20under%20a%20Multi%20Agency%20Public%20Protection%20Agreement&f=false
-
September 10, 2013 at 10:04 am
“As a family member of a terrible miscarriage of justice, the victim being Barry George, convicted of the murder of Jill Dando; the Simon Hall confession is a concern because it is already so difficult for true MOJs to be believed by the public; this confession damages the credibility of all those still fighting for justice. https://www.thejusticegap.com/simon-hall-confession-a-time-to-take-stock/
“Michelle Diskin Bates has gone on to become a standard bearer for miscarriages of justice. We don’t need her to misdirect justice, however. Her credibility has recently taken a U turn; she has taken on the “plight” of the mass murderer Jeremy Bamber. She is now a respected “patron” and part of his naïve campaign team.
http://gunfire-graffiti.co.uk/who-didnt-kill-jill-dando/
-
”Julie Etchingham looks into the murder of Jill Dando, who was shot dead on her doorstep in April 1999 – a case that has baffled police for two decades
“On 26 April 1999, journalist and TV presenter Jill Dando was shot dead in broad daylight on the doorstep of her Fulham home in London.
A neighbour with learning difficulties, Barry George, was wrongfully imprisoned for her murder for seven years.
After his release the case was reopened but there have been no new arrests since then.
Her death shocked and saddened the nation, yet, 20 years later, who pulled the trigger, and why, remains a mystery.
This film, presented by Julie Etchingham, revisits the crime scene, and talks to people who knew Jill well. Featuring new and exclusive interviews with one of Jill Dando’s best friends, Sir Cliff Richard, as well as Barry George and his sister Michelle, the programme also reveals new information found in boxes of evidence from the first trial.
Cliff Richard provides a vivid insight into his friend, who he met after discovering she was a fan. The legendary singer was helping her plan her upcoming wedding to doctor Alan Farthing.
Read more at https://www.whatsontv.co.uk/events/jill-dando-the-20-year-mystery-25-april-19/#fliSFi4EIS2qlPkI.99
-
”Julie Etchingham looks into the murder of Jill Dando, who was shot dead on her doorstep in April 1999 – a case that has baffled police for two decades
“On 26 April 1999, journalist and TV presenter Jill Dando was shot dead in broad daylight on the doorstep of her Fulham home in London.
A neighbour with learning difficulties, Barry George, was wrongfully imprisoned for her murder for seven years.
After his release the case was reopened but there have been no new arrests since then.
Her death shocked and saddened the nation, yet, 20 years later, who pulled the trigger, and why, remains a mystery.
This film, presented by Julie Etchingham, revisits the crime scene, and talks to people who knew Jill well. Featuring new and exclusive interviews with one of Jill Dando’s best friends, Sir Cliff Richard, as well as Barry George and his sister Michelle, the programme also reveals new information found in boxes of evidence from the first trial.
Cliff Richard provides a vivid insight into his friend, who he met after discovering she was a fan. The legendary singer was helping her plan her upcoming wedding to doctor Alan Farthing.
Read more at https://www.whatsontv.co.uk/events/jill-dando-the-20-year-mystery-25-april-19/#fliSFi4EIS2qlPkI.99
Do they mean wrongly convicted?
Barry George has yet to prove beyond all reasonable doubt he was wrongly imprisoned.
In an interview with Radio 5 live Breakfast, Mr George's sister Michelle Bates said: "In the British justice system you are innocent until proven guilty.
"To say that Barry should prove his innocence after his conviction was quashed is ridiculous. There is no court in the land where you can prove your innocence.
"When you've had your whole life ripped to shreds, and you have been so hugely damaged just from being in the environment of a prison, you come out and there is no assistance given to you, no counselling. What about Susan Young?
"You have to find a way to build a life from the ashes of what you had."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31578422
Speaking from her Cork home, Michelle Diskin said: “We have thought
about it and taken medical advice but we have been told a lie test
wouldn’t work properly because of the condition he is in.
He has suffered brain damage as a result of his years of having
epilepsy and it was main reason why he didn’t take the stand in his own
defence at his trail.
https://randomirishnews.com/2006/04/21/jill-dando-killer-barry-george-too-sick-for-lie-test/
"During medical examinations before his trial, it was discovered that George had suffered severe brain damage from a physical injury while in his 20s. Michelle says he does not know how it occurred, although she conjectures that perhaps it was something to do with his 'Steve Majors' phase
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-135212/My-brother-didnt-kill-Jill.html#ixzz5DQUKMFv4
-
Do they mean wrongly convicted?
Barry George has yet to prove beyond all reasonable doubt he was wrongly imprisoned.
In an interview with Radio 5 live Breakfast, Mr George's sister Michelle Bates said: "In the British justice system you are innocent until proven guilty.
"To say that Barry should prove his innocence after his conviction was quashed is ridiculous. There is no court in the land where you can prove your innocence.
"When you've had your whole life ripped to shreds, and you have been so hugely damaged just from being in the environment of a prison, you come out and there is no assistance given to you, no counselling. What about Susan Young?
"You have to find a way to build a life from the ashes of what you had."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31578422
It has to be seen in context,' Young said. 'He had complex problems. He was clearly an isolated, lonely man who would wander around the streets of Fulham without human contact. His days were spent interacting with clinics, hospitals, housing associations, the council and libraries. By claiming to be ill he would feel cared for and feel someone was giving him attention.'
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/aug/03/jilldando.mentalhealth
-
It has to be seen in context,' Young said. 'He had complex problems. He was clearly an isolated, lonely man who would wander around the streets of Fulham without human contact. His days were spent interacting with clinics, hospitals, housing associations, the council and libraries. By claiming to be ill he would feel cared for and feel someone was giving him attention.'
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/aug/03/jilldando.mentalhealth
I’d be interested to hear if the experts ever discussed Barry George and perspecticide
-
So it does indeed appear that after all his hard work, Barry George’s uncle was dropped like a lead weight following the moment his nephew was released from custody.
The notorious photograph taken of Barry George and Susan Young in the black taxi doesn’t show that uncle Mike was sat opposite.
Following her brothers release, Michelle Diskin Bates claims in her book to have had a discussion with the family on what to do next. This isn’t actually quite true, she omits to tell her readers that she totally blanked her uncle Mike and withheld the trip to the Isle of Wight.
Mike Bourke states:
‘After I got home I read in some paper that Barry and family were on the Isle of Wight where Michelle introduced him to Sion Jenkins. Eaten bread is quickly forgotten and neither I nor my fellow supporters would see or hear from Barry again. I felt quite bitter about it for a long while, and I was not alone in feeling like that. Some people put their professional reputations on the line and got no thanks for their efforts. The IPCC needed to know if I wanted to pursue my complaint but I did not now wish to have any further involvement and so I dropped it
http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?board=39.0
-
“Barry George, who was cleared of murdering TV presenter Jill Dando, accepted substantial undisclosed libel damages today over claims that he had pestered women he was obsessed with.
Mr George, who was acquitted of the crime after a retrial in August last year, was at London's High Court with his sister Michelle Diskin, who led the campaign to prove his innocence after his 2001 conviction, for the brief hearing before Mr Justice Eady.
He said afterwards: "I am pleased that the matter between myself and News Group Newspapers has been amicably settled following a successful mediation without the need for litigation."
His counsel, Gordon Bishop, told the court that Mr George had brought the action over a number of articles in The Sun and the News of the World between August and November last year.
He said that News Group had withdrawn the "false allegations" and apologised for making them.
It had agreed to pay him substantial damages and all his legal costs.
Mr Bishop said that immediately after his acquittal, Mr George was interviewed by News of the World reporters and the following day by Kay Burley for Sky TV.
"Mr George agreed to give those interviews because he knew there would be a clamour from the press for his story and he wanted to satisfy the demands of the press as quickly as possible in the hope that he would then be left in peace to move on with his private life."
On August 2 2008, The Sun published articles about the retrial and Mr George, which described a number of matters that had been kept from the jury during the retrial.
Counsel said that News Group now recognised that those articles would have been understood to mean that there were grounds to suspect Mr George of the murder despite his acquittal.
"The defendant accepts that the verdict of the second jury in acquitting Mr George was correct and it apologises to Mr George for any suggestion otherwise."
The following day, the News of the World carried a report of the interviews given by Mr George in which he stated that at the time of the murder he was in a disability centre.
Mr Bishop said: "He also said that an hour later he was in conversation with a woman in the street who became a prosecution witness.
"Although he accepted he was paying possibly unwanted attention to her, she never expressed that to him.
"The headline for the article was 'I didn't kill Jill Dando... I was stalking someone else at the time". The defendant accepts that Mr George never made that statement."
Mr Bishop said various allegations were made in both newspapers in October 2008.
These included that Mr George had become obsessed with Kay Burley, that he pestered a woman whose advert about a dog he had answered, and that he became obsessed with Pam Wright, fiancee of Steve Wright, the Suffolk Strangler.
"The defendant now accepts that, although on one occasion Mr George did cycle to Sky TV studios to try to collect a tape of his interview with Kay Burley, Mr George did not pose a threat and was not obsessed with her, nor did he pester any woman who had a dog for sale, nor did he become obsessed with Pam Wright."
News Group's solicitor Ben Beabey said: "The defendant takes this oppportunity to correct matters and to apologise to Mr George for any hurt and distress he has felt."
Ms Diskin said outside court: "The war was won last August. There may be a few battles to come, but the war has been won. We are happy about that."
Her brother has launched separate High Court proceedings challenging the continued surveillance of his movements, despite his acquittal.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/barry-george-accepts-libel-damages-6779775.html
-
In contrast to Michelle Diskin Bates book, I have found Michael Bourke’s account far more accurate and objective.
He comes across as a genuine individual. Was sad to read about Shannon in the epilogue
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
Apr 17
NOTICE: I do not ask for a speaking engagement fee, but for a donation to MOJO. This is to say thanks for all the work they did, at no cost to us, when we were battling miscarriage of justice.
Need a speaker? See flyer on my profile page
What about Mike and all the work he did?
-
He comes across as a genuine individual. Was sad to read about Shannon in the epilogue
Mike Bourke:
“On the 21st my brother who first informed me of Barry’s involvement died. That was a sad event but it was good that he saw the shame of the murder conviction at least partly lifted from our family.
-
“Four million people tuned into BBC One last night for a documentary, 20 years on, looking at the murder of TV presenter and newsreader Jill Dando.
Dando, who was known for her work on Crimewatch, was shot and killed on the doorstep of her home in the middle of the day in April 1999.
It remains one of Britain's most high-profile unsolved killings.
Early reviews have described the documentary as "sensitive" and "powerful" but lacking answers.
The Independent gave the show the full five stars, saying it was "sensitively produced" and was "a fitting and balanced tribute."
It adds the documentary "explains the pessimism of detective Hamish Campbell - who doesn't think the mystery will ever be solved - with the help of interviews with Dando's friends and family, and original police decision logs."
The Telegraph (behind a pay wall) gave the show four stars, describing it as "a powerful re-examination" but suggesting "a distinct lack of answers."
Notable by its absence was an interview with Barry George, who spent eight years in jail for her murder before having his conviction overturned in 2008.
Explaining why, a BBC spokesperson said: "Barry George's arrest, conviction, appeal, retrial and acquittal are addressed in the film with archive footage to recount the events.
"It was not necessary to have a present day interview with Mr George as this film set out to tell the wider context of Jill's death and the fact her murder remains unsolved.
"Barry George has been kept informed of the nature of the film and transmission."
The Guardian wrote the film was "more moving for its spareness, leaving the talking to Dando's friends and family."
In its review, The Times opted for four stars but said the show contained "no sensational revelations, just sad frustration."
Ahead of the show airing, the much-loved late presenter's brother, Nigel Dando - who learned of his younger sister's death 20 years ago from a TV news bulletin - told BBC Bristol he remains hopeful that one day the case will be solved.
Mr Dando said: "I will eventually find answers... no matter how long it takes.
"At the moment these questions are still open-ended and still haven't been answered."
He added that he wanted to ask the killer, if he or she was ever found, why they did it.
"It's such a pointless thing to have happened.
"I believe there was no reason, it was just an act of random brutality and Jill was in the wrong place at the wrong time."
The Murder of Jill Dando is now available on iPlayer.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-47798970
-
“Four million people tuned into BBC One last night for a documentary, 20 years on, looking at the murder of TV presenter and newsreader Jill Dando.
Dando, who was known for her work on Crimewatch, was shot and killed on the doorstep of her home in the middle of the day in April 1999.
It remains one of Britain's most high-profile unsolved killings.
Early reviews have described the documentary as "sensitive" and "powerful" but lacking answers.
The Independent gave the show the full five stars, saying it was "sensitively produced" and was "a fitting and balanced tribute."
It adds the documentary "explains the pessimism of detective Hamish Campbell - who doesn't think the mystery will ever be solved - with the help of interviews with Dando's friends and family, and original police decision logs."
The Telegraph (behind a pay wall) gave the show four stars, describing it as "a powerful re-examination" but suggesting "a distinct lack of answers."
Notable by its absence was an interview with Barry George, who spent eight years in jail for her murder before having his conviction overturned in 2008.
Explaining why, a BBC spokesperson said: "Barry George's arrest, conviction, appeal, retrial and acquittal are addressed in the film with archive footage to recount the events.
"It was not necessary to have a present day interview with Mr George as this film set out to tell the wider context of Jill's death and the fact her murder remains unsolved.
"Barry George has been kept informed of the nature of the film and transmission."
The Guardian wrote the film was "more moving for its spareness, leaving the talking to Dando's friends and family."
In its review, The Times opted for four stars but said the show contained "no sensational revelations, just sad frustration."
Ahead of the show airing, the much-loved late presenter's brother, Nigel Dando - who learned of his younger sister's death 20 years ago from a TV news bulletin - told BBC Bristol he remains hopeful that one day the case will be solved.
Mr Dando said: "I will eventually find answers... no matter how long it takes.
"At the moment these questions are still open-ended and still haven't been answered."
He added that he wanted to ask the killer, if he or she was ever found, why they did it.
"It's such a pointless thing to have happened.
"I believe there was no reason, it was just an act of random brutality and Jill was in the wrong place at the wrong time."
The Murder of Jill Dando is now available on iPlayer.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-47798970
The Murder of Jill Dando, BBC1
“The Murder of Jill Dando took us – quietly, carefully and unsensationally – through what remains an extraordinary, and unsolved, case. The programme wisely decided to keep out of the way and gave us an hour that was all the more moving for its spareness.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian
“An anti-sensationalist retelling of a story that has provoked no end of sensationalism. If the film did anything, even with its sober recap of the twists and turns of the inquiry, it was simply to remind us how this murder case was as deeply strange as it was shocking.”
James Jackson, The Times
“The strength of the film was in director Marcus Plowright’s sensitive interviews with friends, colleagues and family, as well as with the oft-criticised and clearly still rankled detectives. Given that the film had to serve as both tribute and re-examination of the crime, it was lucid and powerful. But there remained an impression that there was more to say.”
Chris Harvey, The Telegraph
“This was a deeply frustrating documentary. Nothing was offered in the way of new evidence. All the show achieved was to remind us what a marvellous broadcaster she was — and how she has never really been replaced.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail
https://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/tv-critics/the-murder-of-jill-dando/5138260.article
-
Boyd Hilton.
“It's 20 years this week since the death of TV presenter Jill Dando, so it's no wonder ITV is following on from BBC1’s recent The Murder of Jill Dandowith its own documentary. Where the BBC programme meticulously avoided any kind of sensationalist tone, this one has some fairly melodramatic music and narration, but nevertheless has new access to the case files, and catches up with Barry George, who was wrongly convicted of the crime, as well as some of Jill’s close friends, including Sir Cliff Richard.
Julie Etchingham who knew Dando when they worked together at the bbc does a good job of putting the truly shocking story in context.
Thursday 25/04/19
Jill Dando: The 20 Year Mystery (ITV, 9pm)
Richard Jones
“Tomorrow marks the 20-year anniversary of Jill Dando’s death. But two decades on, the murder of the much-loved TV presenter remains unsolved, and her killer is still at large.
Following on from the BBC film earlier this month, this documentary, the latest in ITV’s Crime and Punishment season, sees reporter Julie Etchingham look deeper into one of the highest-profile murder cases of modern times.
Jill, from Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, was one of the best-known faces on British television during the 1990s.
She presented the news, and from 1995 onwards, was the host of Crimewatch. In 1997, she was awarded the BBC Personality of the Year.
On April 26, 1999, Jill was shot dead on the doorstep of her home in Fulham, West London. She was 37 years old.
Her body was discovered by neighbour Helen Doble, and forensic studies showed she was killed by a single shot to her temple fired from a 9mm semi-automatic pistol.
Neighbours did not hear the gunshot and the only confirmed sighting of the killer was by Jill’s next-door neighbour Richard Hughes, who described a six-foot-tall white man aged around 40 walking away from the scene.
Within six months of the murder, more than 2,500 people had been spoken to and police had taken more than 1,000 statements.
Eventually, attention was focused on a man who lived about half a mile from her home, who had a history of stalking women and sexual offences.
Following a trial at the Old Bailey, Barry George was convicted of the crime, however, after eight years in prison, he was acquitted.
The case was reopened, but there have been no new arrests since then.
Now with access to hundreds of documents and photos, Etchingham reveals the theories and leads related to the case which have mystified the police for two decades.
The programme includes interviews with one of Jill’s best friends, as well as George and his sister Michelle.
One of the first theories to gain traction focused on Dando’s job presenting Crimewatch.
Some speculated that her visible role on a show that had led to countless criminals ending up behind bars made her a target.
In 1996 Kenneth Noye was sentenced to life in prison for a road rage killing with the help of a Crimewatch appeal.
According to a report from the now defunct National Criminal Intelligence Service, a barman called Joe owed Noye money and may have opted to settle his debts by killing Dando.
Another theory again argues that Jill was targeted for her Crimewatch job, but the establishment did track down the killer.
Wayne Aird, who was serving a life sentence in prison for killing a man two months after Dando’s shooting, reportedly confessed to being part of what he said was an "establishment cover-up".
Other possible explanations have related to Dando’s attempts to expose a VIP paedophile ring at the BBC, and the scenario that an obsessed member of her fanbase was responsible for her death.
Finally, in the days and weeks leading up to Dando’s assassination, Nato forces were bombing Serbia as part of the Kosovo War.
A man with an Eastern European accent called the BBC the day after the shooting and claimed that it was a revenge killing.
Over the past two decades, it has become increasingly doubtful that Jill’s killer will be brought to justice.
As her brother Nigel Dando said in an interview on Lorraine a few weeks ago: "I doubt we will ever know now because of the passage of time."
Although the years may have decreased the chances of the police catching the killer, this programme and its BBC predecessor has proven that the impact of and public interest in this tragic case is as strong as ever.
https://www.bromleyboroughnews.co.uk/article.cfm?id=130700&headline=TV%20highlights%20from%20Saturday%20April%2020§ionIs=news&searchyear=2019
-
“Barry George, who was cleared of murdering TV presenter Jill Dando, accepted substantial undisclosed libel damages today over claims that he had pestered women he was obsessed with.
Mr George, who was acquitted of the crime after a retrial in August last year, was at London's High Court with his sister Michelle Diskin, who led the campaign to prove his innocence after his 2001 conviction, for the brief hearing before Mr Justice Eady.
He said afterwards: "I am pleased that the matter between myself and News Group Newspapers has been amicably settled following a successful mediation without the need for litigation."
His counsel, Gordon Bishop, told the court that Mr George had brought the action over a number of articles in The Sun and the News of the World between August and November last year.
He said that News Group had withdrawn the "false allegations" and apologised for making them.
It had agreed to pay him substantial damages and all his legal costs.
Mr Bishop said that immediately after his acquittal, Mr George was interviewed by News of the World reporters and the following day by Kay Burley for Sky TV.
"Mr George agreed to give those interviews because he knew there would be a clamour from the press for his story and he wanted to satisfy the demands of the press as quickly as possible in the hope that he would then be left in peace to move on with his private life."
On August 2 2008, The Sun published articles about the retrial and Mr George, which described a number of matters that had been kept from the jury during the retrial.
Counsel said that News Group now recognised that those articles would have been understood to mean that there were grounds to suspect Mr George of the murder despite his acquittal.
"The defendant accepts that the verdict of the second jury in acquitting Mr George was correct and it apologises to Mr George for any suggestion otherwise."
The following day, the News of the World carried a report of the interviews given by Mr George in which he stated that at the time of the murder he was in a disability centre.
Mr Bishop said: "He also said that an hour later he was in conversation with a woman in the street who became a prosecution witness.
"Although he accepted he was paying possibly unwanted attention to her, she never expressed that to him.
"The headline for the article was 'I didn't kill Jill Dando... I was stalking someone else at the time". The defendant accepts that Mr George never made that statement."
Mr Bishop said various allegations were made in both newspapers in October 2008.
These included that Mr George had become obsessed with Kay Burley, that he pestered a woman whose advert about a dog he had answered, and that he became obsessed with Pam Wright, fiancee of Steve Wright, the Suffolk Strangler.
"The defendant now accepts that, although on one occasion Mr George did cycle to Sky TV studios to try to collect a tape of his interview with Kay Burley, Mr George did not pose a threat and was not obsessed with her, nor did he pester any woman who had a dog for sale, nor did he become obsessed with Pam Wright."
News Group's solicitor Ben Beabey said: "The defendant takes this oppportunity to correct matters and to apologise to Mr George for any hurt and distress he has felt."
Ms Diskin said outside court: "The war was won last August. There may be a few battles to come, but the war has been won. We are happy about that."
Her brother has launched separate High Court proceedings challenging the continued surveillance of his movements, despite his acquittal.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/barry-george-accepts-libel-damages-6779775.html
Interesting to note Kay Burley and Julie Etchingham worked together at Sky News.
-
“Now with access to hundreds of documents and photos, Etchingham reveals the theories and leads related to the case which have mystified the police for two decades.
The programme includes interviews with one of Jill’s best friends, as well as George and his sister Michelle.
One of the first theories to gain traction focused on Dando’s job presenting Crimewatch.
Some speculated that her visible role on a show that had led to countless criminals ending up behind bars made her a target.
In 1996 Kenneth Noye was sentenced to life in prison for a road rage killing with the help of a Crimewatch appeal.
According to a report from the now defunct National Criminal Intelligence Service, a barman called Joe owed Noye money and may have opted to settle his debts by killing Dando.
Another theory again argues that Jill was targeted for her Crimewatch job, but the establishment did track down the killer.
Wayne Aird, who was serving a life sentence in prison for killing a man two months after Dando’s shooting, reportedly confessed to being part of what he said was an "establishment cover-up".
Other possible explanations have related to Dando’s attempts to expose a VIP paedophile ring at the BBC, and the scenario that an obsessed member of her fanbase was responsible for her death.
Finally, in the days and weeks leading up to Dando’s assassination, Nato forces were bombing Serbia as part of the Kosovo War.
A man with an Eastern European accent called the BBC the day after the shooting and claimed that it was a revenge killing.
https://www.bromleyboroughnews.co.uk/article.cfm?id=130700&headline=TV%20highlights%20from%20Saturday%20April%2020§ionIs=news&searchyear=2019
Hundreds of documents and photos the police have already followed up on and eliminated!
“The letter was from Wayne Aird, who wrote from HMP Wakefield where he is serving life for the murder of a man he committed two months after Dando’s death.
He claimed that senior paramilitaries chose her as a target because of her links to police through her work presenting Crimewatch, and that IRA involvement was being covered up so as not to harm the Northern Ireland peace process.
His letter stated that he was part of a four-man IRA hit squad that shot Ms Dando with a 9mm bullet before escaping in Land Rovers to a safe house.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1107535/jill-dando-bbc-documentary-murder-ira-who-killed-jill-dando-spt
“Another theory finds further motivation for the killer in Dando's Crimewatch work.
In 1996 Kenneth Noye was sentenced to life in prison for a 1996 road rage killing with the help of a Crimewatch appeal.
According to a report from the now defunct National Criminal Intelligence Service, a barman called Joe owed Noye money and may have opted to settle his debts by targeting Dando.
The report said: “Joe runs a bar in Tenerife, frequented by leading ex-pat criminals. He's described as a frustrated gangster reputed to owe money to Kenny Noye. There’s been talk Joe has been keen to rehabilitate his reputation with gangster creditors.”
It does not seem that Joe was ever traced.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/jill-dando-killing-six-theories-14212094
-
“The prosecution case in the Jill Dando trial was attacked yesterday by Michael Mansfield QC, who claimed there was no conclusive proof that Barry George was in the street where the television presenter lived on the day of her murder.
He countered allegations that the defendant had produced a false alibi to cover his tracks and claimed that the police search of his home was "higgledy piggledy". Mr Mansfield also said that residue which the prosecution alleged was from a firearm could have come from accidental contamination. A fibre found on Ms Dando's coat proved nothing.
George, 41, of Fulham, west London denies murdering the Crimewatch presenter who was shot through the head with a single bullet on the doorstep of her Fulham home in April 1999.
On the second day of his closing speech, Mr Mansfield said the prosecution had tried to blend a number of sightings to form a whole. But descriptions given by witnesses did not add up. "There is no unity of clothing, complexion or hairstyle."
Only one of 13 witnesses had provided any kind of basis for saying George had been in Gowan Avenue where Ms Dando lived. "Do you feel it is fair to say there is an unassailable bond between this defendant and the murder?"
Mr Mansfield considered a suggestion from the prosecution that George had tried to create an alibi by going to the Hammersmith and Fulham Action for Disability. The prosecution claimed that George returned home after the shooting and then went to the centre.
He said: "You do have to ask yourself the question, first of all, if he is the gunman having gone home, why go out at all?"
On the forensic evidence, Mr Mansfield said the prosecution has claimed that a particle found in George's coat pocket was residue caused by the discharge of a firearm.
But the coat could have easily been contaminated by any unsuspecting officer as the search procedure was "higgledy piggledy".
Mr Mansfield added this was the first time any prosecution had relied on the evidence of a single particle found a year after the event. "We hope, members of the jury, it will be the last."
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/jun/23/jilldando.stevenmorris
“Jurors who convicted the man accused of murdering Jill Dando reached a safe conclusion after reviewing compelling circumstantial evidence that left "no basis whatsoever" for the court of appeal to tamper with the verdict, a hearing heard yesterday.
Orlando Pownall, QC, said at the appeal court that last year's trial of Barry George, 42, was conducted fairly and criticisms of Mr Justice Gage were without foundation.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/jul/17/jilldando.nickhopkins
-
"But his Irish sister – who recently launched an appeal for witnesses to
help her brother – said last night that although the family had
investigated the possibility of him doing one, they have been advised by
doctors against it.
Speaking from her Cork home, Michelle Diskin said: “We have thought
about it and taken medical advice but we have been told a lie test
wouldn’t work properly because of the condition he is in.
“He has suffered brain damage as a result of his years of having
epilepsy and it was main reason why he didn’t take the stand in his own
defence at his trail.
“It’s not so much that a lie test wouldn’t work, but it’s more that it
would have a better chance of not working properly because of his
condition and then Barry would just end up in a worse position than he
already is.
https://randomirishnews.com/2006/04/21/jill-dando-killer-barry-george-too-sick-for-lie-test/
"During medical examinations before his trial, it was discovered that George had suffered severe brain damage from a physical injury while in his 20s. Michelle says he does not know how it occurred, although she conjectures that perhaps it was something to do with his 'Steve Majors' phase
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-135212/My-brother-didnt-kill-Jill.html#ixzz5DQUKMFv4
Michelle Diskin Bates visited her brother in prison following his conviction for sexual related offences but did not see him again for another 12 years until she heard on the news he had been arrested for the murder of Jill Dando.
-
Excerpts from Michelle Diskin Bates book Stand Against Injustice re Surj Singh Clair.
“The News of the World had relented and decided they would pay Barry his full fee, thanks to the Trojan efforts of Surj Singh Clair. Barry’s own solicitor had been unable to do anything to help Barry, though he still received his fifteen percent. Surj, of course, did not earn a penny from Barry for his efforts, because he was representing MOJO and not himself.
“Surj Singh Clair came when he could. He had his own business in PR, but volunteered those skills to MOJO, pro bono.
-
George's agent Surjit Singh Clair said: "We have been approached by Devon Films. I can't confirm Barry's cut but it will easily run into six figures."
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/lights--camera--cash-in-1656288
'Barry has mentioned visiting the grave a few times,' his spokesman Surjit Singh Clair told me this week.
'It's something he definitely wants to do. He just feels there's a connection between them - they've been tragically brought together.'
George has also discussed his plans with his confidante, his sister, Michelle Diskin.
'Barry spent eight years in jail for a murder he didn't do,' Mr Singh Clair said. 'He's become entwined with her life and she has played a huge part in his. He wants to exorcise Jill's ghost, and say: "I don't want you to think I hold any hard feelings against you."
'If he looks respectable and takes flowers, and perhaps goes with a friend or relative rather than slinking around on his own, then it wouldn't look too bad. It's his personal choice.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1076331/Obsessed-visiting-Jill-Dandos-grave-acting-erratically-Barry-George-man-edge.html
“Referring to George’s stalking past, his spokesman Surjit Singh Clair said: “He won’t be doing that kind of thing again.”
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/46472/50k-a-year-to-guard-Jill-misfit
“Barry George, the man acquitted last week of killing presenter Jill Dando, is being represented by freelance publicist Surjit Singh Clair. Singh Clair has also represented the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation.
https://www.prweek.com/article/837937/the-week
“Surjit Singh Clair said Mr George, 48, acquitted last week of murdering TV presenter Jill Dando, now realised his past stalking and pestering of women was wrong.
He said: "It was inappropriate. He was lonely at the time and that was the only way he knew to communicate. But he said he has learnt from that and he won't be doing that kind of thing again.
"It's a case of self-policing for Barry. He now realises it is wrong."
Mr Clair was speaking after it emerged officials want to keep a close eye on Mr George amid fears over his former lifestyle. Police, prison and probation staff are discussing whether they can put in place special supervision arrangements.
https://www.express.co.uk/celebrity-news/55418/Cleared-George-no-danger-to-women
”Surjit Singh Clair, George's spokesman, said yesterday: 'Barry has still got to decide if he is going to go on a council's housing list or whether he is going to find private accommodation.
'The one thing he won't do is hide. He's a free man and he'll be happy to show his face in public.'
Mr Clair said 'early discussions' were also under way for George to take a lie detector test, which he has insisted he wants to do
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/taxpayers-fork-out-50000-a-year-to-keep-tabs-on-barry-george-6817373.html
-
“Why did the police pick on George when the evidence against him was so weak? His sister, Michelle Diskin put forward a plausible reason after the trial:
My feeling is that Barry looked disposable. They thought he could disappear and no one would notice. They thought it was just him and his elderly mum. They didn’t realise he had a large family network.
(Daily Telegraph 3/7/01)
Michelle Diskin Bates visited her brother in prison following his conviction for sexual related offences but did not see him again for another 12 years until she heard on the news he had been arrested for the murder of Jill Dando.
The police also found two notes in George’s handwriting in his flat. These read:
“Although I did not know Jill Dando personally, my cousin Freddy Mercury was interviewed by her back in 1986.
“I was present with him, so for this reason I feel it’s poignant to express together the situation of Jill’s death and my coming to Christ. (Daily Telegraph 5/5/01)
-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02n7rgj
“Michelle Bates believes the circumstances which lead to her brother Barry George's wrongful conviction for the murder of Jill Dando should be investigated because they were not "standard practice". Michelle Bates' brother Barry was convicted of murdering Jill Dando in 2001 but was acquitted at a retrial in 2008. His lawyers are demanding an inquiry following a series of reports in The Mirror that claim Mr George could have been cleared earlier if psychological reports had been given to his defence team. The Crown Prosecution Service has said that the any information given to Michelle Bates was given in "good faith" and The Metropolitan Police say they "fully investigated the circumstances into the murder of Jill Dando". This clip is originally from 5 live Breakfast on April 1 2015.
-
“Michelle Bates believes the circumstances which lead to her brother Barry George's wrongful conviction for the murder of Jill Dando should be investigated because they were not "standard practice". Michelle Bates' brother Barry was convicted of murdering Jill Dando in 2001 but was acquitted at a retrial in 2008. His lawyers are demanding an inquiry following a series of reports in The Mirror that claim Mr George could have been cleared earlier if psychological reports had been given to his defence team. The Crown Prosecution Service has said that the any information given to Michelle Bates was given in "good faith" and The Metropolitan Police say they "fully investigated the circumstances into the murder of Jill Dando". This clip is originally from 5 live Breakfast on April 1 2015.
4th April 2015
“Jill Dando murder documentary: Watch Mark Williams-Thomas' explosive film in full after year-long investigation
The compelling 47-minute film came after the double award-winning investigative reporter pored over more than 52,000 documents, plus hours of previously unseen footage
“Mark, honoured by the Royal Television Society for his Exposure film unmasking Jimmy Savile as a predatory paedophile, worked alongside a Mirror team.
The documentary features full interviews with experts connected with the case who raise grave fears the original police investigation into Jill’s 1999 murder was flawed.
Mark explores in detail why potentially key lines of enquiry may have been missed, as police concentrated their efforts on nailing Jill’s neighbour Barry Georg
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jill-dando-murder-documentary-watch-5460623
-
BG was found guilty at his first trial by a majority verdict 10:1. The sole piece of forensic evidence used at this trial was later found to have been fatally flawed. As such a re-trial was ordered and the jury found him not guilty by a unanimous verdict. Unfortunately we do not know how jurors arrive at verdicts ie what weight, if any, jurors place on the various pieces of evidence. For all we know they may have found BG guilty exclusively on the particle of gunshot residue.
I think it unlikely BG was the perp based on the fact unless he had Jill under surveillance he could not possibly know she was going to arrive at Gowan Ave when she did. Therefore he struck lucky. Also various people claim to have seen what they believe was the perp leaving the soc/vicinity and yet the early e-fit does not appear to depict BG and they were unable to pick out BG during an identity parade. Plus imo the way in which the murder was carried out would appear to involve a highly skilled hit person and there's no evidence BG was capable of operating in such a way.
Its not a case of whether or not I like it. Its a case of whether or not the jurors liked it at BG's 2008 re-trial and clearly they didn't hence he was found not guilty by a unanimous verdict.
Fatally flawed in that it was unable to withstand forensic scrutiny hence it was no longer available to the prosecution at the 2008 trial.
N Fenton et al - “When neutral evidence still has probative value: implications from the Barry George case
Read more here: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lagnado-lab/publications/lagnado/ScienceAndJustice.pdf
“Barry George’s first appeal (on the basis of identification) in 2002 was unsuccessful. In the mean time Dr Ian Evett, who worked for the Forensic Science Service (FSS), became concerned about the way the FDR evidence was used. Evett is a pioneer of a technique called Case Assessment and Interpretation (CAI) that stresses the need to consider both the prosecution and defence likelihoods for any piece of forensic evidence to determine its probative value [24][25]. Evett was concerned that only the defence likelihood had been discussed at the trial. In his view the evidence of a very low probability that the FDR in the coat pocket could have been caused by contamination was essentially a statement about the defence likelihood. Specifically, that P(E | Hd) was ‘very low’ where E is the FDR evidence and Hd is the defence hypothesis “BG did not fire the gun that shot JD”.
Hence, Evett argued that P(E | Hd) had been presented to the jury without also presenting P(E | Hp), where Hp is the prosecution hypothesis “BG fired the gun that shot JD”. A low value for P(E | Hd), when presented in isolation, can easily be wrongly interpreted as implying a low value for P(Hd) – a problem that is exacerbated by the prosecutor’s fallacy [17]. Evett, therefore, asked Mr Keeley to provide probabilities for both P(E | Hd) and P(E | Hp). Keeley estimated that both P(E | Hd) and P(E | Hp) were equal to 1/100. Since Hp and Hd are mutually exclusive and exhaustive hypotheses it would follow correctly that the evidence had no probative value.
Evett took no action in relation to his conclusions, but in 2006 the FSS introduced new guidelines for reporting single particles and low level FDR [1]. Subsequently, in response to a request from the Criminal Cases Review Commission, the FSS reappraised the FDR evidence in the original trial and concluded that:
“The significance of the FDR findings in this case can be put into context by considering two alternative propositions:
Mr George is the man who shot Ms Dando
Mr George had nothing to do with the incident.
In our opinion the probability of finding a single particle of discharge residue in Mr George's coat pocket would have been the same, regardless of which of the above propositions was true. The FDR evidence is thus inconclusive. In our opinion it provides no assistance to anyone asked to judge which proposition is true.”
-
“Barry George’s first appeal (on the basis of identification) in 2002 was unsuccessful. In the mean time Dr Ian Evett, who worked for the Forensic Science Service (FSS), became concerned about the way the FDR evidence was used. Evett is a pioneer of a technique called Case Assessment and Interpretation (CAI) that stresses the need to consider both the prosecution and defence likelihoods for any piece of forensic evidence to determine its probative value [24][25]. Evett was concerned that only the defence likelihood had been discussed at the trial. In his view the evidence of a very low probability that the FDR in the coat pocket could have been caused by contamination was essentially a statement about the defence likelihood. Specifically, that P(E | Hd) was ‘very low’ where E is the FDR evidence and Hd is the defence hypothesis “BG did not fire the gun that shot JD”.
Hence, Evett argued that P(E | Hd) had been presented to the jury without also presenting P(E | Hp), where Hp is the prosecution hypothesis “BG fired the gun that shot JD”. A low value for P(E | Hd), when presented in isolation, can easily be wrongly interpreted as implying a low value for P(Hd) – a problem that is exacerbated by the prosecutor’s fallacy [17]. Evett, therefore, asked Mr Keeley to provide probabilities for both P(E | Hd) and P(E | Hp). Keeley estimated that both P(E | Hd) and P(E | Hp) were equal to 1/100. Since Hp and Hd are mutually exclusive and exhaustive hypotheses it would follow correctly that the evidence had no probative value.
Evett took no action in relation to his conclusions, but in 2006 the FSS introduced new guidelines for reporting single particles and low level FDR [1]. Subsequently, in response to a request from the Criminal Cases Review Commission, the FSS reappraised the FDR evidence in the original trial and concluded that:
“The significance of the FDR findings in this case can be put into context by considering two alternative propositions:
Mr George is the man who shot Ms Dando
Mr George had nothing to do with the incident.
In our opinion the probability of finding a single particle of discharge residue in Mr George's coat pocket would have been the same, regardless of which of the above propositions was true. The FDR evidence is thus inconclusive. In our opinion it provides no assistance to anyone asked to judge which proposition is true.”
5.2.3 Failure to properly identify multiple different hypotheses and their relationships
Most of the above problems and confusions would have been avoided by a clearly stated set of hypotheses and evidence so that every explicit (or implicit) statement of conditional probability could have been clearly stated as P(A | B) where A and B were unambiguous.
But the problems go much deeper because it is clear that there are many different hypotheses being considered in the evidence (and often these are being confused) and that it is inconceivable that the experts could have provided all of the appropriate likelihoods to come to the conclusions that they did. Here are examples of just some of the pairs of different prosecution and defence hypotheses that are mentioned in the Appeal ruling (although we accept that some of these are semantically equivalent) [1]:
1. Para 18:
Prosecution: FDR came from gun that killed victim
Defence: FDR came from some extraneous source
2. Para 22:
Prosecution: FDR recovered from BG’s coat pocket, as he was the killer of the victim
Defence: FDR recovered from BG’s coat pocket, but he was not the killer of the victim
3. Para 23:
Prosecution: BG is the man who shot victim
Defence: BG had nothing to do with the incident
4. Para 26 (i):
Prosecution: FDR came from a gun fired by BG
Defence: FDR came from some other source
5. Para 26 (ii):
Prosecution: The wearer of the coat fired the gun
Defence: The wearer of the coat did not fire the gun (the defence hypothesis is unspecified in the appeal report, but this is one possibility.)
6. Para 27:
Prosecution: FDR came from a gun fired at the time of the victim’s murder
Defence: FDR came from some other source
7. Para 28:
Prosecution: FDR found as a result of BG firing a gun
Defence: FDR found as a result of secondary contamination
8. Para 32:
Prosecution: The particle is FDR
Defence: The particle is not FDR
9. Para 33:
Prosecution: FDR came from ammunition that killed the victim
Defence: FDR came from any other ammunition that had that kind of percussion primer
10. Para 37:
Prosecution: FDR did not come from secondary contamination
Defence: FDR came from secondary contamination
11. Para 38:
Prosecution: FDR came from the cartridge that killed the victim
Defence: FDR came from some innocent source
12. Para 50:
Prosecution: FDR was deposited on the coat other than innocently
Defence: FDR was deposited on the coat innocently
That there must be far more hypotheses involved is evident from the fact that numerous probabilistic and quasi-probabilistic statements mentioned in the trial are not encapsulated by the grossly simple original Hp, Hd and E alone
[1]. A full set of is provided in supplement [38] Section 11.
http://www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/~ahsu/papers/BarryGeorge.pdf
-
BARRY GEORGE and NEWS GROUP NEWSPAPERS LIMITED
STATEMENT IN OPEN COURT
Counsel for the Claimant (Gordon Bishop)
“My Lord, the Claimant, Mr Barry George, has brought this action for libel against the Defendant, News Group Newspapers Limited, in respect of a number of articles which were published about him in The Sun and the News of the World between 1st August and 30th November 2008.
Mr George has the misfortune of being well known because of his wrongful conviction in July 2001 (by a majority verdict of 10-1) of the murder of the TV presenter Jill Dando, who had been shot dead on the front steps of her London home in April 1999. Mr George was sentenced to life imprisonment. In July 2002 the Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal. In November 2007, after a long campaign to prove his innocence led by his sister, Michelle Diskin, the Court of Appeal set aside his conviction and ordered a retrial. On 9 June 2008 the retrial started at the Old Bailey and on 1 August the jury by a unanimous verdict found him not guilty.
Immediately after his acquittal Mr George was interviewed by News of the World reporters and the following day by Kay Burley for Sky TV. Mr George agreed to give those interviews because he knew there would be a clamour from the press for his story and he wanted to satisfy the demands of the press as quickly as possible in the hope that that he would then be left in peace to move on with his private life.
On Saturday the 2 August 2008 the Sun published articles about the retrial and Mr George, which described a number of matters which had been kept from the jury during the retrial. The Defendant now recognises that those articles would have been understood to mean that there were grounds to suspect Mr George of the murder despite his acquittal. The Defendant accepts that the verdict of the second jury in acquitting Mr George was correct and it apologises to Mr George for any suggestion otherwise.
On Sunday the 3rd August 2008 the News of the World carried a report of the interviews given by Mr George in which he stated that at the time of the murder he was in a disability centre. He also said that an hour later he was in conversation with a woman in the street who became a prosecution witness. Although he accepted he was paying possibly unwanted attention to her she never expressed that to him. The headline for the article was “I didn’t kill Jill Dando ... I was stalking someone else at the time”; the Defendant accepts that Mr George never made that statement.
A number of other articles about Mr George were published in both The Sun and the News of the World in October 2008. Various allegations were made including that he had become obsessed with Kay Burley, that he had pestered a woman whose advert about a dog he had answered and that he had become obsessed with Pam Wright, the fiancée of Steve Wright, the Suffolk Strangler. The Defendant now accepts that, although on one occasion Mr George did cycle to Sky TV studios to try to collect a tape of his interview with Kay Burley, Mr George did not pose a threat and was not obsessed with her nor did he pester any woman who had a dog for sale nor did he become obsessed with Pam Wright.
The Defendant is here today by its solicitor to withdraw publicly the false allegations it made and to apologise to Mr George for making them. It has also agreed to pay him substantial damages and all his legal costs.
Defendant’s solicitor (Ben Beabey of Farrers)
On behalf of News Group Newspapers I confirm what my learned friend says and the Defendant takes this opportunity to correct matters and to apologise to Mr George for any hurt and distress he has felt.
https://www.5rb.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/George-v-News-Group-SIOC-16-Dec-2009.pdf
-
“A Statement in Open Court was read yesterday on behalf of Barry George in respect of his claims for libel against News Group Newspapers. Mr George was acquitted in August 2008 of murdering Jill Dando, after spending seven years in prison awaiting a retrial.
Mr George had brought claims against articles in both The Sun and the News of the World. Allegations included that there were grounds to suspect him of the murder despite his acquittal, and that he had become obsessed and pestered other women.
“Speaking after the short hearing before Mr Justice Eady, Mr George said: “I am pleased that the matter between me and News Group Newspapers has been amicably settled following successful mediation and without the need for litigation.”
5RB‘s Gordon Bishop acted for Mr George and continues to act for him in his claim against Mirror Group Newspapers.
See here https://www.5rb.com/news/barry-george-wins-apology/
“The settlement of Mr George’s libel claim against MGN Ltd, Tina Weaver and David Jeffs was announced in a Statement in Open Court before Mr Justice Eady today.
https://www.5rb.com/news/barry-george-wins-libel-damages/
-
“As she publishes a moving memoir, Stand Against Injustice, Michelle Diskin Bates, sister of Barry George, tells Ivan Little of the nightmare that began with her brother's arrest and the family's enduring struggle to cope with the events that engulfed them
A sister of Barry George, the man who was wrongly convicted of the murder of BBC TV presenter Jill Dando nearly 20 years ago, has revealed that she received 'invaluable' support for her fight for justice for him from Paddy Hill of the Birmingham Six and Gerry Conlon of the Guildford Four.
And Michelle Diskin Bates says that she and her brother attended the west Belfast funeral of their 'dear friend' Gerry Conlon, but their presence went unreported by local media at the time in June 2014.
In a new book, Stand Against Injustice, Michelle says her brother is now living in the Republic after he was "hounded" out of England by tabloid newspapers.
In a high profile trial George was found guilty of killing Ms Dando, who was shot dead on the doorstep of her home in the fashionable Chelsea district of London in April 1999.
Michelle says her brother, who lived in nearby Fulham, had been in the Chelsea area on the day of the murder, making a series of complaints to a disability centre who after the killing reported him to police but they didn't arrest him for another 12 months.
He was jailed for life the following year but the conviction was ruled unsafe by the Court of Appeal who ordered a re-trial and he was acquitted in 2008 after fresh doubts were cast on the reliability of gunshot residue evidence.
Despite the acquittal, George's claim for compensation for wrongful arrest was dismissed by judges who said that "there was a case upon where a reasonable jury, properly directed, could have convicted the claimant".
Michelle says that the judges had in effect ruled that George "wasn't innocent enough".
New legislation had meant that compensation would only be paid when a court quashed a conviction because a new fact had emerged to show beyond reasonable doubt that the applicant didn't commit the offence.
Michelle says the old presumption of innocence until proven guilty had been stood on its head to the point where people like her brother had to prove their innocence to get compensation.
And Michelle, who throughout her brother's trial and eight years behind bars never gave up on her battle to clear his name, suddenly had a new fight on her hands which features heavily in her book.
But the publication also looks back over all of the 18 years of legal struggles on behalf of her brother who before the murder was widely seen as something of a Walter Mitty character in London.
He constantly adopted false personas to represent himself variously as a policeman, a karate champion, a stuntman and a session musician with the Electric Light Orchestra.
Among the names he used was Bulsara, the real surname of Queen singer Freddie Mercury. He also apparently claimed at a wedding in Ireland that he was an SAS soldier.
In court it was said he was a "local nutter" with a personality disorder but his family said he was a "naive eccentric".
Michelle's book doesn't focus entirely on her brother's case. She says she also wrote it to inform the public about "what the justice system is doing" and she has also highlighted a number of other cases of miscarriage of justice which concern her.
Michelle, an Englishwoman who lived in Limerick and Cork for 40 years before moving back across the water, also writes about how Paddy Hill, one of the Birmingham Six who were wrongly convicted of pub bombings in the city in 1974, has been an invaluable source of guidance and support for her along with his Miscarriages of Justice Organisation (MOJO), who also counted the late Guildford Four member Gerry Conlon among their numbers.
She says that Paddy Hill approached her and offered to do whatever he could to help her and her brother.
She adds: "The organisation had all this legal stuff that I had no idea of. They gave me advice about how appeals might go. Up until then we'd had no one to turn to. No road-maps, nothing about what you should do when something like this happens."
Michelle says Gerry Conlon had a soft spot for Barry and knew he was an innocent man. In June 2014, she received a phone call telling her that the Belfast man was terminally ill. She says that she wrote to him but she didn't get to see him before he died.
Michelle says that she and her brother travelled to Belfast for the funeral in St Peter's Cathedral because they felt it was important to say goodbye to him.
No reports of the funeral mention the presence of Barry George or her.
After the burial at Milltown cemetery, Michelle and her brother went to a bar to meet up with other mourners. She says that the pub had no windows and its entrance was not at the front, adding: "Once inside somebody explained that as the pub was often fired at in drive-by shootings during the Troubles, it was safer to block off the windows and to offset the entrance for security purposes."
Michelle uses the examples in her book of the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven to illustrate the far reaching fall-out from miscarriages of justice.
"Seventeen people wrongfully convicted, 17 lives wounded beyond repair but the reality is much, much worse. For each wrongly convicted person, there is a ripple effect of damage... on the lives of parents, spouses, children, friends work colleagues, neighbours and more," she writes.
In Gerry Conlon's case, she writes, he didn't just lose his liberty but his father too, adding "Giuseppe Conlon died in prison for a crime neither he nor his son committed".
Michelle says that even though Barry George was eventually acquitted of Ms Dando's murder, elements of the British press vilified him. "It was like open season," she says. "And that's why he was rescued from the country of his birth because I had to get him out of England."
He lived in an apartment in Cork and a nephew moved in with him but his uncle eventually told him he found it too difficult to live with someone else.
In Michelle's book, the nephew says it "makes me mad" that his uncle had to go through eight years in jail when it was "obvious he wasn't guilty".
He adds: "He's been badly affected by it and I am not sure he can ever fully recover."
Michelle agrees and describes her brother as a "released" man, not a "free" man.
She says: "Barry's never been free since he was released from prison. The persecution of him by the newspapers thankfully stopped after he was awarded substantial damages against them. That made the bullies back off.
"But all he can think of now is being told that he hadn't proven his innocence. At night he goes to bed with the case on his mind and when he wakes up in the morning it's the same as he wonders how he can prove that he didn't do anything wrong even though a court of law has already proven it.
"For Barry it never goes away."
Michelle says her brother goes out of his apartment every day in an effort to meet people.
She adds: "He's often described as a loner but he's never chosen to be alone. The disability that he h as makes communication a very different thing. But he goes to the shops and chats with people and he does research on his case to see if there is anything that he has missed that he could use to get back into court with his compensation claim."
It's clear that Michelle has no plans to give up her campaigning for her brother or for other families affected by miscarriages of justice.
She says: "It's a responsibility that I have - to stand in front of people and say 'you can do it, don't lose heart'.
"It is such a painful and lonely place to be that I just feel I have to go and talk to them and write my book so that their stories might be seen.
"My story is their story."
Michelle says she takes comfort from the support she has received from lawyers for her call for issues surrounding cases of miscarriage of justice to be addressed.
"There are a lot of lawyers working tirelessly right now on a pro bono basis to help people who have fallen foul of the justice system. They give me great hope," she says.
"There will always be mistakes but when there are as many as there are right now, it means that the justice system is broken and it needs to be fixed."
Michelle is a committed Christian and she says what has happened to her brother hasn't dented her faith.
"Not in the slightest," she insists. "My faith was always strong and God has really been there for me and my family. When Barry was convicted we realised we were very small people battling against a huge Goliath of a legal system but God made good out of a very bad situation."
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/life/books/why-barry-george-is-still-haunted-by-his-wrongful-conviction-of-jill-dandos-murder-and-how-he-joined-mourners-in-belfast-to-say-farewell-to-gerry-conlon-37567516.html
-
Mike Bourke states in Mike’s Story the battle to clear Barry George...
“The headlines hit me like a slap in the face. The News of the World article was prefaced with the warnings, OUR LAWYERS ARE WATCHING’. They described Barry as a ‘BUG-EYED ODD-BALL.’ They claimed he confessed: ‘’ I didn’t kill Jill Dando-because I was stalking ANOTHER woman.’’ He was shown posing with the horrible prison issue plastic bag which I had concealed when entering the hotel. In their ‘World Exclusive’ he was quoted as saying ‘After leaving HAFAD I bumped into a woman who was later a prosecution witness and said I was stalking her… That was at 12.33pm…’ That was obviously a reference to Julia Moorhouse who he had always denied meeting.
-
Mike Bourke states in Mike’s Story the battle to clear Barry George...
“The headlines hit me like a slap in the face. The News of the World article was prefaced with the warnings, OUR LAWYERS ARE WATCHING’. They described Barry as a ‘BUG-EYED ODD-BALL.’ They claimed he confessed: ‘’ I didn’t kill Jill Dando-because I was stalking ANOTHER woman.’’ He was shown posing with the horrible prison issue plastic bag which I had concealed when entering the hotel. In their ‘World Exclusive’ he was quoted as saying ‘After leaving HAFAD I bumped into a woman who was later a prosecution witness and said I was stalking her… That was at 12.33pm…’ That was obviously a reference to Julia Moorhouse who he had always denied meeting.
Mike Bourke:
“Next day Margaret Michelle and I visited Belmarsh. I decided to ask Barry about Julia Moorhouse but he replied ‘no comment’. I assumed the role of interrogator. ‘Now you are making me suspicious, did you see helicopters while speaking to the woman?’ He replied ‘everybody in Fulham would have seen them’. ‘Did you see them’ I persisted. ‘I just told you that I did’. ‘Yes or no, answer the question’. ‘Yes’ he finally said. ‘That is all I need’, I ended. That confirmed to me that he had met Julia in the street near HAFAD at about 12.30, she recalled the man speaking about the circling helicopters. But it was unclear if he was on his way to HAFAD, or had he already been there.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ltgorwROQfwC&pg=PA191&lpg=PA191&dq=julia+moorhoise+barry+george&source=bl&ots=Osy93KB1cB&sig=ACfU3U0FTXfq_4eMlR8wsXOK6kqzD1zjZQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiNlMqAqObhAhXbURUIHaD5DjkQ6AEwA3oECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=julia%20moorhoise%20barry%20george&f=false
Note: The ONLY Julia Michelle Diskin Bates refers to is Julia Roberts!
-
“The man cleared of murdering TV presenter Jill Dando after spending seven years in jail has won undisclosed libel damages from a newspaper group.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8682512.stm
Barry George didn’t win his libel case per se.
“On Saturday the 2 August 2008 the Sun published articles about the retrial and Mr George, which described a number of matters which had been kept from the jury during the retrial. The Defendant now recognises that those articles would have been understood to mean that there were grounds to suspect Mr George of the murder despite his acquittal.
https://www.5rb.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/George-v-News-Group-SIOC-16-Dec-2009.pdf
“Following Wednesday's brief hearing, Mr George said: "I am pleased that the matter between myself and News Group Newspapers has been amicably settled following a successful mediation without the need for litigation."
He was at London's High Court with his sister, Michelle Diskin, who led the campaign to prove his innocence.
His counsel, Gordon Bishop, told the court he had brought the action over a number of articles in The Sun and the News of the World between August and November 2008.
He said News Group had withdrawn the "false allegations" and apologised for making them.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8415772.stm
“The 52-year-old's claim for damages for lost earnings and wrongful imprisonment was rejected by the Ministry of Justice on the grounds that he was not legally entitled to compensation.
Gordon Bishop, appearing for Mr George, from Fulham, west London, told Mr Justice Irwin his client was "very happy" that his case should go forward as a lead case.
He was still waiting to hear whether he had been granted legal aid to fight his case.
Mr Bishop said if his application was refused, he would seek a "protected costs order" to cap the amount he would have to pay if he lost.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/barry-george-wrongly-convicted-of-jill-dando-murder-in-fight-for-compensation-7766381.html
-
Excerpts from the book Stand Against Injustice by Michelle Diskin Bates
“The News of the World were refusing to pay Barry his fee for the interview! Why? We had all worked so hard on this once-and-for-all piece. I couldn’t get my head around what was happening. Apparently the driver had been told to get us to Portsmouth, then just to drop us wherever we wanted to go, because they were finished with us. What we did or where we went was up to us, they didn’t care.
“My heart was pumping furiously, and my head was filled with that whirring, buzzing sound that often precedes fainting. I took the handset, and once again went in to battle for Barry, and against injustice. How? Why would they do this to him, to us?
““What’s happening here, what’s the problem?” I tried to sound calm and unruffled, even though I again felt that the world was spinning out of control. I had to be able to get this sorted out. It was inconceivable that Barry should lose his fee. What would he use to set up his life again if he didn’t have this?
“He needed this money to feed and clothe himself in the coming months, to buy the essentials to live, to pay rent. I couldn’t fund all of this!
“Stay calm, Michelle, it can’t possibly be as bad as it seems . . . just check out what they’re saying and correct them. Legally they have to pay, otherwise they are breaking the contract. Take a deep breath . .
““Barry has broken the contract he signed with us and has given an exclusive interview to the Sunday Mirror,” the voice informed. “Therefore, we are not paying him the fee. The driver will leave you in Portsmouth, we’re not involved with you anymore.” This was announced in a peremptory tone by the caller from the News of the World. Then silence, as they waited for my response. “Don’t be ridiculous, of course he hasn’t. How could he have done that? He hasn’t been out of your sight!” “The Sunday Mirror have announced they have the exclusive, so he must have
“The journalist for the Sunday Mirror is a Scott Lomax, do you know him?” Scott Lomax? Of course I knew him. He was the man who had worked with Mike on the ‘Justice For Barry’ website for years. He had written two books about the case: Who Killed Jill Dando?: The Case of Barry George, A Shocking Miscarriage of Justice and The Case Of Barry George.
“Barry had spoken with him briefly after Scott rang Mike on his mobile, and Scott had asked if he could congratulate Barry, just after we’d arrived at the hotel. Barry, of course, was anxious to thank Scott for all the work he’d done for him. Scott wouldn’t pull a stunt like this, why would he? There had to be another explanation. I told the voice on the phone as much. “There’s no mistake, and it doesn’t matter to us. It’s a breach of contract, and we’re not paying. The story will not be pulled, either. We’re running it.” The line went dead.
“What now? What do I do? This had to be a huge, ghastly mistake. I know, I’ll ring Surj, he’ll know what to do. I relayed the story. “I’ll get on to them and sort this out, Michelle, you just relax. I’ll ring you back in a while.”
“This went on, back and forth, until we reached Portsmouth. It had been agreed that the News of the World would still put us up at the hotel, and would review the whole situation overnight, but the story would still run.
-
“The brother of murdered BBC presenter Jill Dando has said he will find out who killed her "no matter how long it takes".
Nigel Dando learned of his younger sister's death 20 years ago from a TV news bulletin.
Barry George was convicted of her murder and spent eight years in jail before being acquitted at a retrial.
Mr Dando said: "I will eventually find answers... no matter how long it takes."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-47779606
“I tend to think it wasn't a professional hit. I think you can rule out the Serbian hitman, which was a popular theory that was doing the rounds at the time,' said Nigel, whose sister was murdered aged 37. 'For what it's worth, my belief is that it was just a misguided individual on the street on the day, with a firearm, who knew where Jill lived, and who just 'struck lucky'. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-6876353/Jill-Dandos-brother-believes-misguided-person-blame-murder-TWENTY-years-ago.html
-
“One of the jurors in the Jill Dando murder trial has spoken out for the first time about her doubts over the conviction of Barry George, saying she felt "outraged" after leaving the court.
Janet Herbert said she believed she had been "tricked" and that she felt compelled to go public with her concerns about the case because "I couldn't live with myself if I didn't".
Ms Herbert was speaking as part of a new BBC documentary on the popular television presenter's murder, which claims to have unearthed new evidence casting doubt on George's conviction.
The programme contains an interview with a second, unidentified juror, who alleges that jury members discussed the case outside the jury room, despite the directions of the judge.
It also features analysis by an expert on firearms discharge residue which casts doubt on a crucial element of forensic evidence used to prosecute George.
The documentary further claims that one witness discussed the case with a detective on the inquiry team, with whom she was having an affair, before she gave evidence in court. George, 46, was sentenced to life in July 2001 after being found guilty by a majority of 10 to one of shooting the 37-year-old BBC News, Crimewatch and Holiday presenter on the steps of her home in Fulham, south-west London, in April 1999.
George, who claims his conviction is unsafe, lost an appeal in July 2002. The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) is currently considering whether to refer his case back to the court of appeal and will announce its decision soon.
The centrepiece of the BBC Panorama documentary, Jill Dando - The New Evidence, is an interview with one of the jurors - an extremely rare occurrence as there are strict laws about what jurors can say post-trial.
Speaking about her concerns over George's conviction, Ms Herbert said: "I just felt shocked that on that little evidence, anybody could be locked away for the rest of their life. How can you say it was him? It might have been him, don't get me wrong, but you have to reach a verdict on the evidence."
Ms Herbert telephoned the Old Bailey, late on the day the trial ended, and left a message on the court's answering machine. "I couldn't think who else to talk to," she told the programme. "I just needed to say to somebody, 'This is how I feel, surely I shouldn't came back like this, surely I should come back thinking I've done my duty, I can go off and live my life'. But I didn't feel any of that.
"I was very, very, very angry when I left that court. I was almost outraged. That's how I felt. I felt tricked really."
The jury spent part of the weekend before they delivered their verdict, in a hotel together. In the documentary, another juror, who speaks anonymously, admitted there was "chat" about the case away from the jury room.
"To expect a jury not to discuss what they've been doing for the last eight weeks while they're at (a) hotel or whatever, is, I think, unreasonable, so I couldn't put my hand on my heart and say there wasn't discussions about what had gone on, but there certainly wasn't deliberations," he said.
George's solicitor, Jeremy Moore, tells the programme that they will be asking the CCRC for a "full investigation" of what went on during the jury's deliberations.
The documentary also consults a forensics expert on the tiny particle of gunshot residue found in George's coat pocket.
Professor Marco Morin claims the particle could have originated from another source and that on its own, it was not sufficient to link him to the murder.
Another expert, Janine Arvizu, a forensic quality auditor in the Unites States, said firearms discharge residue was "not reliable" evidence and suggested it could have got on George's coat through contamination.
The programme also features an interview with a welfare rights adviser, Susan Bicknell, who claims she saw George at a disability rights centre on the morning of Miss Dando's murder, just 19 minutes after she was shot. This apparently would have meant he could not have carried out the killing.
However, the programme is likely to attract controversy as it is presented by a man, Raphael Rowe, who himself is a victim of a miscarriage of justice. Mr Rowe was jailed for life, along with two other men for a series of crimes, including the murder of hairdresser Peter Hurburgh and several robberies near the M25 on the night of December 15 1988.
His first appeal was dismissed, but after the case was referred back to the court of appeal in 1999 by the CCRC, his conviction was quashed. The programme makes no mention of this.
Asked if his experiences might have affected his objectivity, Mr Rowe, now a reporter on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, said: "I refute that. I would say my experience and knowledge brings something fresh to something as sensitive as this."
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2006/sep/05/crime.television
-
Analysis: Twists and turns that enabled Barry George to walk free
By John McVicar
10:46PM BST 02 Aug 20 2008
“Mr George’s uncle, Michael Bourke, expected the worst. I spoke to Michael immediately after the verdict. He said: “We thought it was going to be guilty and when we saw the jury’s faces, not one of them showing they were for him, we just…” He hunched his shoulders to illustrate how they flinched.
When the “not guilty” came, Michelle Diskin, Mr George’s sister, was the only one of the three to show any emotion – she slammed the bench that was actually right behind where I was sitting and shouted an exultant, but still surprised, “Yes”.
Meanwhile, Mr George stood there in a daze as the jury filed out. He was a free man and could have walked out of the dock but he stood there waiting. When the jury had left and the press were in pandemonium mode, the judge noticed him and said, almost as an afterthought, “You are free to go now.” Mr George went down to the cells with Dr Young.
Predictably, there was a lot of talk afterwards from the supporters of Mr George about his innocence and how the police should now look for the real killer.
Whether they have any other leads after all these years remains to be seen. It is not likely they will re-open their investigation.
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
-
Mike Bourke
“I felt that those media interviews were a mistake and damaged his chances of attaining public acceptance. Within two days he had been transformed from tragic miscarriage of justice victim deserving of some sympathy into something much less savoury. When I opened the JfB e-mails I saw nasty derogatory messages which were intended for Michelle, something which had rarely ever happened up to this. One told her to take her lovely brother to Ireland and to keep him there. That is the sanitised version. It was quite a contrast from the reaction which followed his 2007 victory in the appeal court. I felt quite down in the dumps at the way things had suddenly turned around, and what should have been a joyful period at the successful end of the struggle instead seemed to have become sordid, unpleasant. Later on that dreary Sunday I called around to Margaret’s but she hadn’t returned home. I dropped in a letter for Barry with some advice and offering him the opportunity of cooperating with this book but he never responded, I do not know if he even got to see it. Later another relative told me that Michelle Margaret and Barry were going away for a while to an undisclosed location. That night I endured a horrible ear bashing from a person on the outer fringes of the family who said that the latest jury’s verdict did not convince him.
Eaten bread is quickly forgotten and neither I nor my fellow supporters would see or hear from Barry again. I felt quite bitter about it for a long while, and I was not alone in feeling like that. Some people put their professional reputations on the line and got no thanks for their efforts.
After I got home I read in some paper that Barry and family were on the Isle of Wight where Michelle introduced him to Sion Jenkins. The IPCC needed to know if I wanted to pursue my complaint but I did not now wish to have any further involvement and so I dropped it.
Scott later told me that JfB’s website had received 978 hits on August 1st, 533 on the 2nd, and 369 on the 3rd. On October 1st I shut it down.
It was now open season on Barry and the press set about destroying any hope of him settling into any kind of normal life in his home city of London. I watched dispassionately as his reputation, such as it was, nosedived over the last days of 2008 under a welter of tabloid fantasy. They ran stories on what he ate, what bookshops he visited, his temporary accommodation. They claimed incorrectly that he was stalking a nurse, that Sky’s Kay Burley was frightened sick by him, that he was interested in Cheryl Cole of X Factor, that he was involved with the partner of a convicted killer etc.
To make things even better a ‘spokesman’ for him allegedly confirmed some of those manufactured stories. Pat Reynolds said to me one day: ‘with friends like those who needs enemies?’ It was a little sad to see the end results of the long hard battle and one day a despairing Margaret said to me that it was now worse than when he was in prison.
-
I have taken the time to edit this thread back several weeks and in doing so have found far too much repetition in much of the content. This has now been expunged. Repeated posting of such content will see this thread closed down or even removed.
Anyone still interested in this case will form their own conclusions as to what occurred and who if anyone was to blame for this perceived miscarriage of justice. All anyone requires are the facts.
-
Senior investigator Hamish Campbell admitted there was a slim chance of nailing the murderer
“Jill Dando’s murderer will only be caught if the gun which was used to kill her is found, according to the policeman who investigated the crime.
Hamish Campbell was the officer in charge after the Crimewatch host, 37, was shot 20 years ago this month.
He said: “What remains outstanding is the handgun.
“If that were to be discovered, and could be directly attributed to a person, and that person’s timeline determined for April 1999, then perhaps matters could progress.
“But after two decades, it becomes a remote possibility.
“The Dando investigation is clear on what evidence it has at a forensic level, and what the witnesses said they saw or heard or knew in 1999. They remain unchanged.”
Jill was gunned down on her London doorstep on April 26, 1999.
Barry George, now 59, was jailed for the murder in 2001 but the conviction was quashed in 2008.
TV investigator Mark Williams-Thomas last year claimed he had been given the name of the killer.
But Mr Campbell said all “new leads” that crop up as years go by should be questioned.
“Especially when persons state the theories through the media or TV, and not the police,” he said.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jill-dandos-killer-only-caught-14446069
-
Jill Dando murder: Friend's harrowing 999 call after finding TV presenter's body
This is the harrowing 999 call made by Jill Dando's neighbour and friend after she discovered the TV presenter's blood-soaked body on the doorstep of her Fulham home.
In the frantic call to emergency services friend Helen Doble can be heard sobbing after coming across Jill's body moments after she was shot dead.
Struggling to stay calm, she says: "I'm walking along Gowan Avenue. It looks like there is somebody collapsed... Confidentially it looks like it's Jill Dando and she’s collapsed.
"There’s a lot of blood."
The operator asks her calmly: "Can you just approach and check that the lady's breathing for me."
Miss Doble replies: "She doesn't look as though she's breathing. She's got blood coming from her nose. Her arms are blue."
The operator tells her: "I just need to find out if she's breathing. Is the lady's chest going up and down?"
Sobbing and breaking down Miss Doble says: "Oh my God, no, I don’t think she’s alive. I’m sorry."
The call was featured as part of the BBC1 documentary The Murder of Jill Dando which aired this evening.
In the programme Helen retraces her steps on that tragic day.
TV favourite Jill was gunned down in the middle of the day on her doorstep, in a crime that shocked the nation, on April 26 1999.
Barry George, now 58, was found guilty of her murder in 2001.
He spent seven years in prison before his acquittal in 2008.
Speaking about the moment she found Jill's body, Miss Doble said at the time: "It was just incredible that with one step everything changes.
“I was going about my business, anticipating seeing Jill being at home. To suddenly encounter such a violent scene was completely horrific.
“It took me a few seconds to realise it was Jill because of the way she looked. It was clear to me she was dead.”
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jill-dando-murder-friends-harrowing-14224926
-
Anyone still interested in this case will form their own conclusions as to what occurred and who if anyone was to blame for this perceived miscarriage of justice. All anyone requires are the facts.
I presume you mean wrongful conviction? Barry George is NOT a victim of a miscarriage of justice. I’ve posted about this repeatedly.
The facts are these:
”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.
-
“The expression ‘wrongful convictions’ is not a legal term of art and it has no settled meaning. Plainly the expression includes the conviction of those who are innocent of the crime of which they have been convicted. But in ordinary parlance the expression would, I think, be extended to those who, whether guilty or not, should clearly not have been convicted at their trials. It is impossible and unnecessary to identify the manifold reasons why a defendant may be convicted when he should not have been. It may be because the evidence against him was fabricated or perjured. It may be because flawed expert evidence was relied on to secure conviction. It may be because evidence helpful to the defence was concealed or withheld. It may be because the jury was the subject of malicious interference. It may be because of judicial unfairness or misdirection. In cases of this kind, it may, or more often may not, be possible to say that a defendant is innocent, but it is possible to say that he has been wrongly convicted. The common factor in such cases is that something has gone seriously wrong in the investigation of the offence or the conduct of the trial, resulting in the conviction of someone who should not have been convicted.
https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2010-0046-judgment.pdf
-
Re Barry George
80. One might have thought at first sight that, when applications for compensation were made to the Secretary of State, such simple wording could be applied to each case without much difficulty. But that has proved not to be the case, as can be seen from the speeches in R (Mullen) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2005] 1 AC 1, where the meaning of the words “miscarriage of justice” was under scrutiny. Lord Bingham said that he would hesitate to accept the submission of the Secretary of State that section 133 obliged him to pay compensation only when a defendant, finally acquitted in the circumstances satisfying the statutory conditions, is shown beyond reasonable doubt to be innocent of the crime of which he had been convicted: para 9. Lord Steyn, on the other hand, said that the words “miscarriage of justice” extend only to cases where the person concerned is acknowledged to be clearly innocent: para 56.
A fresh analysis
96. If one accepts, as I would do, Lord Bingham’s reasons for doubting whether Lord Steyn was right to find support for his reading of article 14(6) in the French text and in para 25 of the explanatory committee’s report on article 3 of the Seventh Protocol, one is driven back to the language of the article itself as to what the words “miscarriage of justice” mean. Taken by itself this phrase can have a wide meaning. It is the sole ground on which convictions can be brought under review of the High Court of Justiciary in Scotland: Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995, section 106(3). But the fact that these words are linked to what is shown “conclusively” by a new or newly discovered fact clearly excludes cases where there may have been a wrongful conviction and the court is persuaded on this ground only that it is unsafe. It clearly includes cases where the innocence of the defendant is clearly demonstrated. But the article does not state in terms that the only criterion is innocence. Indeed, the test of “innocence” had appeared in previous drafts but it was not adopted. I would hold, in agreement with Lord Phillips (see para 55 above) that it includes also cases where the new or newly discovered fact shows that the evidence against the defendant has been so undermined that no conviction could possibly be based upon it. In that situation it will have been shown conclusively that the defendant had no case to answer, so the prosecution should not have been brought in the first place
97. There is an important difference between these two categories. It is one thing to be able to assert that the defendant is clearly innocent. Cases of that kind
Page 34
have become more common and much more easily recognised since the introduction into the criminal courts, long after article 14(6) of the ICCPR was ratified in 1976, of DNA evidence. It seems unlikely that the possibility of demonstrating innocence in this way was contemplated when the test in article 14(6) was being formulated. Watson and Crick published their discovery of the double helix in 1951, but DNA profiling was not developed until 1984 and it was not until 1988 that it was used to convict Colin Pitchfork and to clear the prime suspect in the Enderby Murders case. The state should not, of course, subject those who are clearly innocent to punishment and it is clearly right that they should be compensated if it does so. But it is just as clear that it should not subject to the criminal process those against whom a prosecution would be bound to fail because the evidence was so undermined that no conviction could possibly be based upon it. If the new or newly discovered fact shows conclusively that the case was of that kind, it would seem right in principle that compensation should be payable even though it is not possible to say that the defendant was clearly innocent. I do not think that the wording of article 14(6) excludes this, and it seems to me that its narrowly circumscribed language permits it.
98. The range of cases that will fall into the category that I have just described is limited by the requirement that directs attention only to the evidence which was the basis for the conviction and asks whether the new or newly discovered fact has completely undermined that evidence. It is limited also by the fact that the new or newly discovered fact must be the reason for reversing the conviction. This suggests that it must be the sole reason, but I do not see the fact that the appellate court may have given several reasons for reversing the conviction as presenting a difficulty. All the other reasons that it has given will have to be disregarded. The question will be whether the new or newly discovered fact, taken by itself, was enough to show conclusively that there was a miscarriage of justice because no conviction could possibly have been based on the evidence which was used to obtain it.
99. For these reasons it is plain that category 1 in Dyson LJ’s list (see para 83, above) falls within the scope of section 133. I think that it is equally plain that category 4 (Lord Bingham’s second limb) does not, as it is taken from para 4 of Lord Bingham’s speech in Mullen where he was discussing what was included within the phrase “wrongful convictions”, not what was meant by section 133. This leaves category 2, where the “fresh evidence” shows that the defendant was wrongly convicted in the sense that, had the fresh evidence been available, no reasonable jury could properly have convicted; and category 3, where the “fresh evidence” is such that the conviction cannot be regarded as safe, but the court cannot say that no fair-minded jury could properly convict if there were to be a trial which included the fresh evidence. Bearing in mind that we must form our own view as to what section 133 means, can the wording of that section on a correct understanding of article 14(6) include either or both of these categories?
100. I have put the words “fresh evidence”, which of course echo the wording of section 23 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968 (see also section 106(3) of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995), into inverted commas because they depart from the words of section 133. The statute, like article 14(6), refers to a new, or newly discovered “fact”, not to fresh evidence. And it must be a fact which shows beyond reasonable doubt, or “conclusively”, that there was a miscarriage of justice. Fresh evidence does not attain that status until the matter to which it relates has been proved or has been admitted to be true. Fresh evidence that justifies the conclusion referred to in category 3 will usually not be, and certainly need not be, of that character. If it shows that the conviction is merely unsafe, the court may order a retrial. Under our system of trial by jury there will be no way of knowing, beyond reasonable doubt, whether it was a new or newly discovered fact that led to the acquittal. For these reasons I would exclude category 3 from the scope of section 133.
https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2010-0046-judgment.pdf
-
Anyone still interested in this case will form their own conclusions as to what occurred and who if anyone was to blame for this perceived miscarriage of justice. All anyone requires are the facts.
248. The requirement is that a “miscarriage of justice” must be demonstrated “beyond reasonable doubt”. In my view the use of this phrase was deliberate and significant. The phrase is not relevant to the evidential question whether the conviction has been reversed and it is not directed to any individual feature or aspect of the investigation or trial processes. If the reversal of the conviction alone were sufficient, that fact would be proved beyond reasonable doubt by the court record, and if any specific feature of the investigation or trial processes were relevant, appropriate provision could readily have been made in section 133 itself. Instead the phrase describes the characteristics or attributes of the “miscarriage of justice” which must be established. The word “conclusively” in article 14(6) was not repeated. Rather the familiar description of the standard of proof in criminal cases and, significantly in the context of a claim for the payment of compensation (normally a civil claim), the standard normally applied to the prosecution in the criminal justice process was imposed on the defendant. For this purpose the balance of probabilities was expressly ignored. Accordingly, for section 133 to apply, following a conviction of an offence which was proved beyond reasonable doubt, the emergence of a new or newly discovered fact should demonstrate not only that the conviction was unsafe, or that the investigative or trial processes were defective, but that justice had surely miscarried. In the present context, the ultimate and sure miscarriage of justice is the conviction and incarceration of the truly innocent.
https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2010-0046-judgment.pdf
-
248. The requirement is that a “miscarriage of justice” must be demonstrated “beyond reasonable doubt”. In my view the use of this phrase was deliberate and significant. The phrase is not relevant to the evidential question whether the conviction has been reversed and it is not directed to any individual feature or aspect of the investigation or trial processes. If the reversal of the conviction alone were sufficient, that fact would be proved beyond reasonable doubt by the court record, and if any specific feature of the investigation or trial processes were relevant, appropriate provision could readily have been made in section 133 itself. Instead the phrase describes the characteristics or attributes of the “miscarriage of justice” which must be established. The word “conclusively” in article 14(6) was not repeated. Rather the familiar description of the standard of proof in criminal cases and, significantly in the context of a claim for the payment of compensation (normally a civil claim), the standard normally applied to the prosecution in the criminal justice process was imposed on the defendant. For this purpose the balance of probabilities was expressly ignored. Accordingly, for section 133 to apply, following a conviction of an offence which was proved beyond reasonable doubt, the emergence of a new or newly discovered fact should demonstrate not only that the conviction was unsafe, or that the investigative or trial processes were defective, but that justice had surely miscarried. In the present context, the ultimate and sure miscarriage of justice is the conviction and incarceration of the truly innocent.
https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2010-0046-judgment.pdf
In the case of Barry George there has never been an emergence of a new or newly discovered fact to demonstrate his original conviction was unsafe, or that the investigative or trial processes were defective, nor that justice had surely miscarried.
This was not a malicious prosecution as has been asserted by his sister Michelle Diskin Bates.
There is no evidence whatsoever to demonstrate something was seriously wrong in the police investigation nor of the conduct of the trial.
What there has been however is a quite apparent, cleverly crafted, self serving, smoke and mirrors “innocence campaign” running - designed to deceive, confuse and manipulate the unsuspecting public (including some media outlets).
My opinions and my observations!
-
Where is Barry George in 2019?
“George gave an interview to the Mirror in July 2018. The newspaper reports that George had been living in Hackney, in East London, after his release, when a "chilling threat" was made against him. George told the Mirror: "When I was in emergency accommodation in Hackney, I was stood in a long hallway and I had a gun put to my head and was told ‘Watch your back’." After this incident, George "fled to live in Ireland in 2009, saying he feared for his life and was being subjected to police harassment," the Mirror writes.
George's sister Michelle Diskin Bates published her book Stand Against Justice in October 2018, in which she revealed that her brother was still living in Ireland, due to "constant hounding from the tabloids” according to the Irish Telegraph.
https://www.bustle.com/p/where-is-barry-george-in-2019-after-his-conviction-was-overturned-he-left-the-uk-17001469
-
”A Huddersfield crime expert has defended detectives who have been unable to solve the Jill Dando murder mystery. April 2019
......But Dr Jason Roach, director of Huddersfield University's Applied Criminology and Policing Centre, said British police were possibly the best in the world at tracking down murderers.
When police investigations into horrific crimes, such as the murder of television presenter Jill Dando 20 years ago, do not produce a satisfactory outcome then the likely media and public reaction is to blame the police investigation in some way.
"I don’t think this is fair. As I said at the beginning, some crimes are just impossible to solve, however that annoys us viewers and readers of fictional crime."
https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-news/huddersfield-crime-expert-defends-jill-16071389
Link to Dr Roach of the University of Huddersfield blog
http://blogs.hud.ac.uk/academics/2019/march/jilldandomurdercasewillneverbesolvedsaysdetective/
And this is worth a read - also by Dr Roach; The Psychology behind solving cold case homicides
https://www.hud.ac.uk/news/2019/march/cold-case-psychology-roach-huddersfield/
-
In the case of Barry George there has never been an emergence of a new or newly discovered fact to demonstrate his original conviction was unsafe, or that the investigative or trial processes were defective, nor that justice had surely miscarried.
This was not a malicious prosecution as has been asserted by his sister Michelle Diskin Bates.
There is no evidence whatsoever to demonstrate something was seriously wrong in the police investigation nor of the conduct of the trial.
What there has been however is a quite apparent, cleverly crafted, self serving, smoke and mirrors “innocence campaign” running - designed to deceive, confuse and manipulate the unsuspecting public (including some media outlets).
My opinions and my observations!
From the archives
“Justice for Barry George
To all those who oppose wrongful convictions,
I am Michelle, sister of Barry George and, as you are probable aware, he was recently convicted for the murder of Jill Dando. Barry's family and friends are convinced of his innocence and are strongly campaigning to have this conviction overturned.
His appeal against this Miscarriage of Justice will be heard in the Court of Appeal on the 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th of July 2002. Barry has asked me to contact any persons/organisations with experience in the field of Miscarriages of Justice, and to this end I write to ask if you can offer support to Barry at this time.
There has been a concerted effort on the part of some of the media to actively campaign against Barry, even though he was convicted on the flimsiest of circumstantial evidence. Lies and innuendo have dogged him. None of which had anything to do with the crime he is convicted of.
Barry needs all the support we can give him, otherwise he could well spend the rest of his life in prison for a crime he did not commit. Barry will never qualify for parole because he can never say he is guilty of this crime, therefore he cannot be repentant.
As the date of Barry George's appeal draws nearer, we, Barry's family and friends, wish to reiterate our confidence in Barry's innocence and unwavering support for him at this time.
The main thrust and focus of the appeal is identification. This point has implications for every case in the future where identification is in issue. The Prosecution and police in Barry's case have sought to turn non-identifications into positive identifications, thus turning totally negative evidence into positive evidence. The appeal will deal with this approach by the Prosecution conflicting with the background-of safeguards provided by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 procedures for parades; and the Codes of Practice governing them.
Further, we would like to take this opportunity to address the issue of the alleged taped confessions, recently referred to in the media.
It is our understanding that the Crown, after analysing these tapes,_does not intend to rely on them at the appeal in any way, shape or form.
We have never accepted there was any truth to these alleged confessions. They form part of a campaign to discredit Barry and to force a change in public opinion. The media have printed numerous articles about Barry designed to add force and credence to a murder conviction. These stories are totally unrelated to the trial and, we believe, are being used to shore up the weaknesses in this case and its lack of evidence against Barry.
The second focus of the appeal will be the scientific evidence; and the question of the requisite quality and provenance of such evidence before it can properly go before a jury. It will deal with the issues of contamination and that the police procedures in this case have led to the integrity of the vital exhibit, the coat being corrupted.
Barry's conviction is a miscarriage of justice, one of many we have seen recently, and we look forward to the day that his conviction will be overturned and his liberty restored.
Michelle Diskin
http://www.mojuk.org.uk/bulletins/barry.html
-
In the case of Barry George there has never been an emergence of a new or newly discovered fact to demonstrate his original conviction was unsafe, or that the investigative or trial processes were defective, nor that justice had surely miscarried.
This was not a malicious prosecution as has been asserted by his sister Michelle Diskin Bates.
There is no evidence whatsoever to demonstrate something was seriously wrong in the police investigation nor of the conduct of the trial.
What there has been however is a quite apparent, cleverly crafted, self serving, smoke and mirrors “innocence campaign” running - designed to deceive, confuse and manipulate the unsuspecting public (including some media outlets).
My opinions and my observations!
July 2002
“Lawyers acting for the man convicted of murdering TV presenter Jill Dando will make sweeping criticisms of the trial judge at the appeal court on Monday, claiming crucial evidence should not have been put before the jury and that the guilty verdict is unsafe.
Michael Mansfield, QC, will argue that Mr Justice Gage, who presided over last year's Old Bailey trial, should not have allowed the prosecution to include forensic material or the testimony of four witnesses who partially identified the defendant Barry George at video ID parades.
The appeal against conviction is based on legal and procedural grounds rather than fresh evidence and could lead to George being freed or a retrial.
“Since George has been in jail he has been recorded at length by two other inmates talking about the murder. During one conversation, he confesses to being at the scene in Fulham, south-west London, when the shooting happened - he claimed at the trial he was at home and had never heard of Jill Dando.
However, the crown prosecution service has decided not to include the tapes in its submissions to the lord chief justice, Lord Woolf, who will be sitting with Lord Justice Henriques and Lord Justice Curtis.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/jul/13/jilldando.nickhopkins
Barry George made the same omission to his uncle, see here - http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=9318.msg522313#msg522313
Omission (law) An omission is a failure to act, which generally attracts different legal consequences from positive conduct. In the criminal law, an omission will constitute an actus reus and give rise to liability only when the law imposes a duty to act and the defendant is in breach of that duty. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omission_(law)
-
My own view of this case is that SY and the CPS should rightly be embarrassed by what went on. George spent eight miserable years in prison for what was an appalling miscarriage of justice and when he was ultimately found NOT GUILTY at his retrial the State refused to pay him compensation. This was an insult to the man and an absolute disgrace.
George has had mental health issues since sustaining a head injury in his twenties, he was a bit of a dare devil back then. Laterally however, he involving himself in stalking which led to some really nasty conduct towards women which must be rightly deplored, his sister's attempts to play down those incidents was wrong IMO.
That doesn't in any way make him a murderer however, the jury at his retrial was right to find him not guilty IMO.
-
I have taken the time to edit this thread back several weeks and in doing so have found far too much repetition in much of the content. This has now been expunged. Repeated posting of such content will see this thread closed down or even removed.
Cull away John, your forum your rules. It’s a shame however this case hasn’t been allowed it’s own board and varying threads. It’s difficult, as I’m sure you know, to go searching through pages and pages of previous posts.
I have attempted to start new threads in the past but moderation has dictated otherwise. Posters have been interested in this thread, as can be seen by the page views and a few posters have made comments.
Maybe it’s something you will consider?
-
My own view of this case is that SY and the CPS should rightly be embarrassed by what went on. disgrace.
Why should SY and the CPS be embarrassed? Can you give examples to explain what you mean by disgrace?
-
George has had mental health issues since sustaining a head injury in his twenties, he was a bit of a dare devil back then.
There is no factual evidence he suffered a head injury in his 20’s, just speculation - even from the experts.
-
George spent eight miserable years in prison for what was an appalling miscarriage of justice
.
You really ought read and absorb the supreme courts rulings regarding this
-
Cull away John, your forum your rules. It’s a shame however this case hasn’t been allowed it’s own board and varying threads. It’s difficult, as I’m sure you know, to go searching through pages and pages of previous posts.
I have attempted to start new threads in the past but moderation has dictated otherwise. Posters have been interested in this thread, as can be seen by the page views and a few posters have made comments.
Maybe it’s something you will consider?
If there is sufficient interest in the case then it can be upgraded to its own board.
-
Laterally however, he involving himself in stalking which led to some really nasty conduct towards women which must be rightly deplored, his sister's attempts to play down those incidents was wrong IMO.
Why do you think his sister makes excuses for and plays down her brothers deplorable behaviours?
-
Why do you think his sister makes excuses for and plays down her brothers deplorable behaviours?
As his sister, Michelle is naturally protective towards him given his mental disabilities.
-
As his sister, Michelle is naturally protective towards him given his mental disabilities.
So it’s quite plausible then she’s covering for him?
-
Laterally however, he involving himself in stalking which led to some really nasty conduct towards women which must be rightly deplored, his sister's attempts to play down those incidents was wrong IMO.
Could the motive for the murder have stemmed in some way from Barry George’s irrational deep seated hatred of women?
-
“Miscarriages of Justice Organisation - the Appeal of Barry George
The Appeal of Barry George, convicted last July of the murder of TV Presenter Jill Dando, will be heard on Monday July 15th, in Court 4 at Royal Courts of Justice. The Lord Chief Justice will preside over the Appeal proceedings.
MOJO has grave concerns over the safety of the conviction of Mr. George, having supported Barry and his family throughout the trial process and through to this Appeal.
Mr. Georges defence team, led by Michael Mansfield QC will challenge the identification and scientific evidence which was presented by the Crown at the trial.
The prosecution sought to turn non-identifications into positive identifications thereby turning totally negative evidence into positive evidence - an approach which conflicts with the background of the safeguards of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act procedures for identification parades, and the Codes of Practice governing them.
This will be an important principle for future cases where similar identification evidence becomes an issue. An important fact to bear in mind is always the inherent danger that this type of evidence greatly increases the real risk of a miscarriage of justice.
Similarly, the appeal will look closeley at the scientific issues and question the provenance of such evidence going before a jury. Contamination, police exhibit procedures and the integrity of the vital exhibit will be re-examined.
This Appeal will reveal the pollution of justice that has ocurred in this case and will demonstrate the exceptional efforts that have been made to identify them. Anyone who has a genuine interest in the administration of fair justice should follow the Appeal closely. There are lessons to be learned, MOJO has been educated and we consider we have been privileged to be able to offer our service and support to Mr. George, his family and the defence team.
As with all similar cases, our thoughts must also lie at this time, with the family of Jill Dando for whom these proceedings will be a painful reminder of their tragic loss. "Justice for Jill" is important to everyone.
Miscarriages of Justice Organisation
http://mojo.freehosting.net/
http://www.mojuk.org.uk/bulletins/barry.html
Barry George’s uncle states:
“I was quite correctly described as being estranged from the main George camp for suggesting that the MOJO outfit might be self-serving.
-
Where is Barry George in 2019?
“George gave an interview to the Mirror in July 2018. The newspaper reports that George had been living in Hackney, in East London, after his release, when a "chilling threat" was made against him. George told the Mirror: "When I was in emergency accommodation in Hackney, I was stood in a long hallway and I had a gun put to my head and was told ‘Watch your back’." After this incident, George "fled to live in Ireland in 2009, saying he feared for his life and was being subjected to police harassment," the Mirror writes.
George's sister Michelle Diskin Bates published her book Stand Against Justice in October 2018, in which she revealed that her brother was still living in Ireland, due to "constant hounding from the tabloids” according to the Irish Telegraph.
https://www.bustle.com/p/where-is-barry-george-in-2019-after-his-conviction-was-overturned-he-left-the-uk-17001469
Previously however, Michael Bourke states that Michelle said in an email to David, “that Barry was the victim of a media-driven plot designed to smear and intimidate him.
Delusions of grandeur maybe or a simple case of paranoia?
-
Laterally however, he involving himself in stalking which led to some really nasty conduct towards women which must be rightly deplored, his sister's attempts to play down those incidents was wrong IMO..
What do you make of all those individuals (And organisations) who have involved themselves in this case - or given their opinion via media outlets, and who clearly at one time or another have their own personal agendas; other than showing bias?
Here’s one for example:
Charles Shoebridge
“In any criminal trial the prosecution must prove its case beyond reasonable doubt - the jury has to be sure of guilt. While Michael Mansfield's suggestion of the evidence against his client being non-existent was not completely true, it was surely true enough to create the doubt necessary for an acquittal.
“Immediately following the original trial, the crown prosecution service (CPS) described the verdict as having vindicated their prosecution decision. While correct, such a statement suggested that, even within the CPS, doubts had existed as to whether the case should been brought to trial at all.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/jul/29/jilldando1
“Sky News yesterday denied that it had cowered under pressure from the police by pulling a high profile security expert off the air, who claims he was the target of a victimisation campaign by the Metropolitan police.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2005/mar/17/tvnews.broadcasting
Where’s Charles Shoebridge got this from? “such a statement suggested that, even within the CPS, doubts had existed as to whether the case should been brought to trial at all
-
Previously however, Michael Bourke states that Michelle said in an email to David, “that Barry was the victim of a media-driven plot designed to smear and intimidate him.
Delusions of grandeur maybe or a simple case of paranoia?
”media driven plot designed to smear and intimidate
Interesting projection
-
@Nicholas
You still appear to believe that Barry George was capable of shooting someone and being clever enough to get away with it despite no evidence whatsoever that he was in any way involved. Can I ask why?
-
@Nicholas
despite no evidence whatsoever that he was in any way involved.
Explain what you mean by “no evidence whatsoever?”
-
@Nicholas
You still appear to believe that Barry George was capable of shooting someone
I once wrongly believed him incapable of the murder
-
@Nicholas
You still appear to believe that Barry George was capable of shooting someone and being clever enough to get away with it
He didn’t get away with it. He was eventually apprehended and convicted.
-
Where is Barry George in 2019?
“George gave an interview to the Mirror in July 2018. The newspaper reports that George had been living in Hackney, in East London, after his release, when a "chilling threat" was made against him. George told the Mirror: "When I was in emergency accommodation in Hackney, I was stood in a long hallway and I had a gun put to my head and was told ‘Watch your back’." After this incident, George "fled to live in Ireland in 2009, saying he feared for his life and was being subjected to police harassment," the Mirror writes.
George's sister Michelle Diskin Bates published her book Stand Against Justice in October 2018, in which she revealed that her brother was still living in Ireland, due to "constant hounding from the tabloids” according to the Irish Telegraph.
https://www.bustle.com/p/where-is-barry-george-in-2019-after-his-conviction-was-overturned-he-left-the-uk-17001469
Scott Lomax:
“When Miss Dando was shot less than half a mile from where he lived, and when the police provided a description of the man they were hunting that matched the appearance of George, then he expected the police to turn up at his home at any time. He told people that he feared ‘they’ would blame him for Miss Dando’s murder. After all, this would explain why George felt he had to verify his movements on the day of the murder. He told the police “I went back there basically to account for my movements so if a situation did come up, I could address it to my solicitor.” The jury no doubt wondered why a man could be worried that the police would approach him. However, they were not at all aware of his paranoia and the fact that he had been interviewed in connection with a murder he had no involvement in. http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/legan/legan040.htm
Michelle Diskin Bates:
“This was not paranoia. Barry had been pulled in by the police for the 1992 murder of Rachel Nickell, before the police and the Criminal Profiler Paul Britton set their nets for Colin Stagg.
“Barry knew he would not be able to recall the details of that momentous day and that, as one of the local characters in Fulham, the police would be likely to want to speak with him.
“The Gerry Ryan Show wasn’t the only interview I agreed to do during this aftermath period. There were two documentaries produced for Channel 4 television, both of which discredited the evidence that had been used to convict Barry. I took part in the first of these, which was made shortly after Barry’s conviction and when I was still terrified of the media and the power it could wield. Add to that Barry’s paranoia, and his angry protests that I should not speak to anyone, TV or otherwise, it’s understandable that I had to be persuaded over and over that this was in Barry’s interest and not against him before I would co-operate.
The second was made by the same producer, James Cohen and his team, to coincide with Barry’s second appeal in 2007. BBC’s Panorama with Raphael Rowe also made a documentary at this time, managing to get admonished by the judiciary for their timing; it aired before the court sitting! These were all very important documentary works clearly pointing to a miscarriage of justice in Barry’s case.
”Spin is a form of propaganda, achieved through knowingly providing a biased interpretation of an event or campaigning to persuade public opinion in favor or against some organization or public figure.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_(propaganda)
-
My own view of this case is that SY and the CPS should rightly be embarrassed by what went on.
Who was the media’s source for the stories?
June 2006
"Exclusive: Dando evidence hyped up," said the Mirror. The Mail on Sunday revealed "the 100-page report that could set Jill Dando 'killer' free". And the Express offered: "We reveal why the disturbed loner could have been jailed for a crime committed by a Serbian gunman."
How times change. The Mirror's headline on 3 July 2001, after Barry George was convicted of murdering the BBC presenter, was a full-blooded "Jill's mad assassin"; the Mail went for "Beauty and the Beast" and the Sun gave us "He tried to kill Di too". Oops.
Of course, it is not the fault of the newspapers if the courts can’t be trusted to get decisions right. They just did what papers do. Having dutifully sat on some lurid (if ancient) material about George right through the trial, they unleashed it the moment the jury said “guilty” - photos of him with guns and a gas mask, a 20-year-old attempted rape conviction, an arrest outside Kensington Palace and more.
Today, though, the case seems to have the makings of one of those Private Eye apologies: "Any impression we may have given in the past that Mr George was anything other than a law-abiding citizen unjustifiably caught up in a web of flimsy circumstantial evidence was entirely unintentional . . ."
But there is more to this than watching tabloids trip up. If George wins the second appeal he has been granted (and for legal reasons the odds are probably still against him), there will be strong grounds for looking closely at the contribution the media made to a notoriously dubious conviction. And the contribution of his campaign team !
This included the most flagrant breaches of the Contempt of Court Act - breaches that government law officers blithely ignored. The law says that no information which might prejudice a future jury against a suspect is supposed to be published once legal proceedings are active - for example, after an arrest has been made. What about the Panorama programme, MOJO, Michelle Diskin’s interviews etc?
Yet for three days after George was taken into custody in May 2000, papers were pumping out material about the weird loner and hypochondriac who lived in squalor, supposedly idolised Princess Diana and pretended alternately that he was an SAS veteran and Freddie Mercury’s cousin. The vilification only stopped after he was charged.
This was damaging enough for a man accused of killing one of the most famous and popular women in the country, but the context made the impact on George’s defence all the greater.
Just a month before the arrest, the BBC's Crimewatch UK (on which Dando had worked) had interviewed the detective in charge of the investigation, Chief Inspector Hamish Campbell.
More than he had ever done in the year since the murder, Campbell focused in this interview on the likelihood that the killer was “someone who is emotionally isolated”, someone with an “obsession with women” and someone who knew about guns.
Not rocket science, you may say, except that the official picture had always previously been clouded by the evidence of professionalism in the killing - the apparent knowledge of Dando's complex movements, the single shot to the head and the swift escape all seemed to imply coolness rather than obsession. In that live Crimewatch interview on 19 April 2000 (which took place just one day after his officers had conducted their first search of Barry George's home), Campbell finally ceased to keep all his options open and instead put his money on the killer being an obsessed loner with a knowledge of guns.
A month later George was in custody and the press was pumping out evidence that he was a loner fixated on celebrities such as Diana, and claiming a military past - in other words, exactly the sort of man we had been told the police were looking for.
The legal test for a contempt of court is that there must be “a substantial risk of serious prejudice”. Three senior judges, at trial and appeal, have ruled that there was no such risk in the Barry George case. I find that baffling.
https://www.newstatesman.com/media/2007/06/barry-george-loner-conviction
-
Laterally however, he involving himself in stalking which led to some really nasty conduct towards women which must be rightly deplored, his sister's attempts to play down those incidents was wrong IMO..
“Asked about his record of violence against women including convictions for indecent assault and attempted rape, she said: 'I said, "How on earth could you do such a thing, you have a mother, you have a sister, how could you think that that was acceptable?" It was not acceptable. And he just knew.
'He couldn't go to each person and say it to them, but he did apologise.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6957439/My-conscience-clear-Jill-Dandos-murder-says-Barry-George.html
WHY did he do it?
WHAT triggered him to act this way? Not once but several times? WHAT were the risk factors?
-
“Asked about his record of violence against women including convictions for indecent assault and attempted rape, she said: 'I said, "How on earth could you do such a thing, you have a mother, you have a sister, how could you think that that was acceptable?" It was not acceptable. And he just knew.
'He couldn't go to each person and say it to them, but he did apologise.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6957439/My-conscience-clear-Jill-Dandos-murder-says-Barry-George.html
WHY did he do it?
WHAT triggered him to act this way? Not once but several times that we know of. WHAT were the risk factors?
“Asked if he thinks there are people out there who still think he is responsible for the television presenter's murder, George said: 'There are probably a select few people who may think, "Okay, he's been through the case. He's got off on a technicality, probably, or whatever." But my conscience was clear - I knew I hadn't done it.'
WHAT level of consciousness does he posses; if any? WHAT did his brain scans show? What are his alleged 2 personality disorders?
From Stand Against Injustice:
“It was during this period that Barry was finally diagnosed with a spectrum of disabling conditions, thanks to the skills of this team of professionals. Along with Attention Deficit Disorder–he was no longer hyperactive–it was found that he has Asperger’s Syndrome, acquired frontal-lobe brain damage affecting his short-term memory, as well as a learning difficulty and two personality disorders.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18162637
https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/were-only-human/the-cluelessness-of-the-psychopath.html
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/blame-the-amygdala/201605/anosognosia-psychopathy-and-the-conscience
https://psychcentral.com/lib/neuroscience-sheds-light-on-why-people-with-aspergers-syndrome-lack-empathy/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3826592/#!po=57.4074
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6957439/My-conscience-clear-Jill-Dandos-murder-says-Barry-George.html#v-6505669544067155711
Interestingly, Tom Stone, the producer of “Jill Dando: the 20 year mystery, also produced “The Jimmy Savile Investigation: Exposure Update, ITV
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/jimmy-savile/9694258/The-Jimmy-Savile-Investigation-Exposure-Update-ITV1-review.html
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UfCY2PRbEjI
-
As his sister, Michelle is naturally protective towards him given his mental disabilities.
From my observations, she doesn’t appear to understand her brothers mental disabilities; the case against him; the justice system or that 20 years marks Jill Dando’s death! NOT 19 years ago when her brother was arrested!
https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/sister-acquitted-jill-dando-murder-14578144
https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/1118666/ITV-Good-Morning-Britain-Susanna-Reid-Jill-Dando-murder-Barry-George-Michelle-Diskin-GMB
-
@Nicholas
@ Angelo222
What do you make of Dr Michael Naughton’s forward for Stand Against Injustice?, given your comment here?
http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=8088.msg522241#msg522241
http://michaeljnaughton.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Foreword-for-Stand-Against-Injustice-Michelle-Diskin-Bates.pdf
-
George has had mental health issues since sustaining a head injury in his twenties, he was a bit of a dare devil back then.
He still appears to be a bit of a dare devil imo - no cycle helmet?! Which reminds me of that old expression, “Just like Riding a Bike,” often used to describe something that comes second nature and should be easy to do. It implies that we know everything about an activity and can take off where we left off
https://www.piratefm.co.uk/content/video/3744/my-conscience-was-clear-barry-george-speaks-about-jill-dandos-murder-20-years-on/
-
As his sister, Michelle is naturally protective towards him given his mental disabilities.
“The sister of the man wrongly convicted of Jill Dando's murder says he was incapable of the killing because "he would have had an epileptic seizure out of shock".
Speaking 20 years on from the shooting of the TV favourite outside her West London home, Michelle Diskin Bates insists her brother "was not capable of doing such a thing".
"He would probably have just fallen down," she says.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/barry-george-would-epileptic-fit-14558209
Yet more false narratives *&^^&
https://erinbrownconroy.blog/2017/06/02/why-false-narrative-is-your-worst-enemy/
-
Explain what you mean by “no evidence whatsoever?”
It's a simple observation. There is no evidence whatsoever which could in any way point to Barry George as being the culprit. The single speck of GSR which the FSS claim was found in a coat pocket is meaningless. Whoever targeted Jill Dando was a professional hitman imo and knew what he was doing. George was a patsy whom police believed was such a loner that nobody would care if he was banged up.
-
The single speck of GSR which the FSS claim was found in a coat pocket is meaningless.
Experts have since claimed; the single speck of GSR, when taken with the circumstantial evidence, still has probative value.
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lagnado-lab/publications/lagnado/ScienceAndJustice.pdf
Norman Fenton et al: When ‘neutral’ evidence still has probative value (with implications from the Barry George Case)
”We contend that, in order to determine whether evidence has probative value – and therefore whether it should be excluded from proceedings or not – it should be evaluated against offence-level hypotheses. Any diversion from this key principle will carry the risk that evidence might be presented to the jury merely as a diversionary tactic, and persuade it to make decisions based on superfluous source- level hypotheses.
It's a simple observation.
I’d say
-
George was a patsy whom police believed was such a loner that nobody would care if he was banged up.
Scott Lomax:
“When Miss Dando was shot less than half a mile from where he lived, and when the police provided a description of the man they were hunting that matched the appearance of George, then he expected the police to turn up at his home at any time. He told people that he feared ‘they’ would blame him for Miss Dando’s murder. After all, this would explain why George felt he had to verify his movements on the day of the murder. He told the police “I went back there basically to account for my movements so if a situation did come up, I could address it to my solicitor.”http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/legan/legan040.htm
He can hardly be described as a patsy according to Barry George; his thoughts went straight to a solicitor!? That doesn’t sound to me like someone who’s easily taken advantage of!
There's always been the view, in the media and elsewhere, that the police chose Barry George somehow as a scapegoat and for want of a better word, a patsy, for the investigation team because we couldn't solve it," Campbell continued.
"That is somewhat insulting and completely untrue, and wrong. If none of the things [about Barry] had emerged, he would never have been charged at all."
http://www.pretty52.com/news/tv-and-film-jill-dando-murder-detective-believes-the-killer-will-never-be-caught-20190329
-
It's a simple observation. There is no evidence whatsoever which could in any way point to Barry George as being the culprit. The single speck of GSR which the FSS claim was found in a coat pocket is meaningless. Whoever targeted Jill Dando was a professional hitman imo and knew what he was doing. George was a patsy whom police believed was such a loner that nobody would care if he was banged up.
In the days following the murder, do you not think it possible Barry George had already raised his concerns with his mother - that the police may be interested in him; who in turn may have told his sister?
I don’t believe Michelle Diskin Bates claims around the time of her brothers arrest that she, “was never comfortable as materfamilias. According to her book, and elsewhere, she appears to have taken on this role from a young age.
-
Experts have since claimed; the single speck of GSR, when taken with the circumstantial evidence, still has probative value.
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lagnado-lab/publications/lagnado/ScienceAndJustice.pdf
Norman Fenton et al: When ‘neutral’ evidence still has probative value (with implications from the Barry George Case)
”We contend that, in order to determine whether evidence has probative value – and therefore whether it should be excluded from proceedings or not – it should be evaluated against offence-level hypotheses. Any diversion from this key principle will carry the risk that evidence might be presented to the jury merely as a diversionary tactic, and persuade it to make decisions based on superfluous source- level hypotheses.
I’d say
Another factor is when GSR particles are found. In the case of BG the particle was found a year later. As forensic scientist Angela Shaw said in the recent douc the particle found in BG's coat pocket a year later could not link him to the shooting. She estimates 1 in a 100 people will inadvertently pick up a particle.
-
Another factor is when GSR particles are found. In the case of BG the particle was found a year later. As forensic scientist Angela Shaw said in the recent douc the particle found in BG's coat pocket a year later could not link him to the shooting. She estimates 1 in a 100 people will inadvertently pick up a particle.
Good to hear from you Holly. Your post is spot on, the alleged particle has no evidential value whatsoever. For all we know it was a FSS stitch-up as particles had already been obtained from Miss Dando.
-
If there is sufficient interest in the case then it can be upgraded to its own board.
Given the publicity surrounding the 20th anniversary it might be an idea to have a thread 'The unsolved murder of Jill Dando' or something similar rather than the emphasis on Barry George? I would prefer to look at all theories.
I'm not sure if this has been mentioned on the thread but there's another docu this evening on ITV at 9pm.
-
Good to hear from you Holly. Your post is spot on, the alleged particle has no evidential value whatsoever. For all we know it was a FSS stitch-up as particles had already been obtained from Miss Dando.
Thanks 8((()*/
I would be interested in knowing what others think of the following:
At 36.45 min in DCI Hamish Campbell states "That's when I authorised the search warrant" but during this sentence he falters and appears to stop himself saying something else *%87
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0003w40/the-murder-of-jill-dando
-
Thanks 8((()*/
I would be interested in knowing what others think of the following:
At 36.45 min in DCI Hamish Campbell states "That's when I authorised the search warrant" but during this sentence he falters and appears to stop himself saying something else *%87
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0003w40/the-murder-of-jill-dando
Barry George had a criminal history, he was well known to the local cops as a bit of an oddball. The moment he came under suspicion was the moment the police stopped looking elsewhere. He was the perfect patsy, a fantasist with an unhealthy interest in women.
He has been living in a bedsit in Cork, Ireland, for a number of years. This is concerning imo as such conduct doesn't just go away because the perp relocates overseas.
-
Another factor is when GSR particles are found.
What’s the first factor?
-
In the case of BG the particle was found a year later.
Plenty of time then for hundreds, thousands etc of particles to have dropped off and deposited elsewhere then
-
As forensic scientist Angela Shaw said in the recent douc the particle found in BG's coat pocket a year later could not link him to the shooting. She estimates 1 in a 100 people will inadvertently pick up a particle.
Are you familiar with probability fallacies Holly?
-
What’s the first factor?
Is there a first?
-
There's a few recent interesting stories about him online.
https://popularcrime.com/2019/04/25/what-happened-to-barry-george-did-he-go-to-prison-for-killing-jill-dando-and-did-he-receive-compensation/
https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/sister-acquitted-jill-dando-murder-14578144.amp#click=https://t.co/xyiO85vNqE
https://www.itv.com/news/2019-04-25/jill-dando-barry-george-murder-documentary/
-
Is there a first?
Another factor is when GSR particles are found. In the case of BG the particle was found a year later. As forensic scientist Angela Shaw said in the recent douc the particle found in BG's coat pocket a year later could not link him to the shooting. She estimates 1 in a 100 people will inadvertently pick up a particle.
You tell me
-
Another factor is when GSR particles are found. In the case of BG the particle was found a year later. As forensic scientist Angela Shaw said in the recent douc the particle found in BG's coat pocket a year later could not link him to the shooting. She estimates 1 in a 100 people will inadvertently pick up a particle.
How can Angela Shaws probability fallacy not be contaminated by confirmation bias given she knows about the Barry George case evidence?
-
Plenty of time then for hundreds, thousands etc of particles to have dropped off and deposited elsewhere then
I'm not sure how they would drop out of a coat pocket?
I've never read anything about the history of this coat ie where it was purchased from? Was it purchased new or second-hand? It looks fairly shabby in the pics I've seen and not shabby chic! Was it ever washed/dry cleaned?
I wouldn't rule out contamination in police custody or FSS?
-
Still awaiting your guilty evidence Nicholas?
-
Another factor is when GSR particles are found. In the case of BG the particle was found a year later. As forensic scientist Angela Shaw said in the recent douc the particle found in BG's coat pocket a year later could not link him to the shooting. She estimates 1 in a 100 people will inadvertently pick up a particle.
Treating dependent evidence as independent evidence is explained by Norman Fenton et al.
Angela Shaws comment during the BBC did not factor in the other circumstantial evidence of the case against Barry George!
Ergo it was bias
-
I'm not sure how they would drop out of a coat pocket?
What are pockets on a coat for?
-
Are you familiar with probability fallacies Holly?
I understand the basics of probability. Forensic Scientist Angela Shaw explained how they (scientists) estimate that 1 in 100 people will inadvertently pick up a single gsr particle.
-
I wouldn't rule out contamination in police custody or FSS?
What were the arguments put forward re contamination?
-
Treating dependent evidence as independent evidence is explained by Norman Fenton et al.
Angela Shaws comment during the BBC did not factor in the other circumstantial evidence of the case against Barry George!
Ergo it was bias
But jurors at BG's second trial heard all the other circumstantial evidence of the case against Barry George and the verdict was a unanimous not guilty.
-
I understand the basics of probability.
What do you understand of Norman Fenton et al’ research?
-
But jurors at BG's second trial heard all the other circumstantial evidence of the case against Barry George and the verdict was a unanimous not guilty.
Did they?
-
I've never read anything about the history of this coat ie where it was purchased from? Was it purchased new or second-hand? It looks fairly shabby in the pics I've seen and not shabby chic! Was it ever washed/dry cleaned?
What was said during the trial?
-
What were the arguments put forward re contamination?
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/jun/23/jilldando.stevenmorris
I think also in one of the docus I listened to MM also mentioned cross contamination at the lab too.
-
Forensic Scientist Angela Shaw explained how they (scientists) estimate that 1 in 100 people will inadvertently pick up a single gsr particle.
Angela Shaw referred to a probability fallacy
-
What was said during the trial?
As I said I haven't heard anything about the coats history.
-
Angela Shaw referred to a probability fallacy
In what context?
-
There's a few recent interesting stories about him online.
https://popularcrime.com/2019/04/25/what-happened-to-barry-george-did-he-go-to-prison-for-killing-jill-dando-and-did-he-receive-compensation/
https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/sister-acquitted-jill-dando-murder-14578144.amp#click=https://t.co/xyiO85vNqE
https://www.itv.com/news/2019-04-25/jill-dando-barry-george-murder-documentary/
I know he has a previous conviction for attempted rape but the article refers to sexual offences plural?
Was he actually stalking women? I know he was following women around and photographing them in the street but if he was actually stalking women to the degree they felt uncomfortable then surely at least one or two would have reported to the police? Did the prosecution call any witnesses at trial to this effect?
-
How can Angela Shaws probability fallacy not be contaminated by confirmation bias given she knows about the Barry George case evidence?
Dr Ian Evett would have also been contaminated by confirmation bias given he sat through Barry George’s first trial and his notes were picked up on in 2006 by the CCRC.
-
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/jun/23/jilldando.stevenmorris
I think also in one of the docus I listened to MM also mentioned cross contamination at the lab too.
What was put forward during trial?
-
As I said I haven't heard anything about the coats history.
Quite possible then that each time Barry George put his hand in his coat pocket, gun shot residue was removed and deposited elsewhere?
-
In what context?
What context do you think?
-
Dr Ian Evett would have also been contaminated by confirmation bias given he sat through Barry George’s first trial and his notes were picked up on in 2006 by the CCRC.
And what more evidence of proof of contamination of confirmation bias is there than this:
“The scientist who helped convict Barry George of the murder of Jill Dando said yesterday that "with hindsight" he would have testified differently at George's trial, since at that time he was unaware of the likely consequence of his evidence.
Robin Keeley worked for the Forensic Science Service (FSS) for more than 30 years and pioneered the identifying of firearms discharge residue.
Yesterday he acknowledged to the appeal court that, by itself, a particle of residue he had identified in the pocket of George's coat, when he was arrested almost a year after the TV presenter was shot, in no way linked George to her killing.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/nov/07/ukcrime.jilldando
-
And what more evidence of proof of contamination of confirmation bias is there than this:
“The scientist who helped convict Barry George of the murder of Jill Dando said yesterday that "with hindsight" he would have testified differently at George's trial, since at that time he was unaware of the likely consequence of his evidence.
Robin Keeley worked for the Forensic Science Service (FSS) for more than 30 years and pioneered the identifying of firearms discharge residue.
Yesterday he acknowledged to the appeal court that, by itself, a particle of residue he had identified in the pocket of George's coat, when he was arrested almost a year after the TV presenter was shot, in no way linked George to her killing.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/nov/07/ukcrime.jilldando
Then factor in the work of Norman Fenton et al - When neutral evidence still has probative value (Barry George case)
-
Quite possible then that each time Barry George put his hand in his coat pocket, gun shot residue was removed and deposited elsewhere?
Leaving only one behind
What number did Hamish Campbell rate the GSR?
-
And what more evidence of proof of contamination of confirmation bias is there than this:
“The scientist who helped convict Barry George of the murder of Jill Dando said yesterday that "with hindsight" he would have testified differently at George's trial, since at that time he was unaware of the likely consequence of his evidence.
Robin Keeley worked for the Forensic Science Service (FSS) for more than 30 years and pioneered the identifying of firearms discharge residue.
Yesterday he acknowledged to the appeal court that, by itself, a particle of residue he had identified in the pocket of George's coat, when he was arrested almost a year after the TV presenter was shot, in no way linked George to her killing.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/nov/07/ukcrime.jilldando
Is this allowed?
The news article is dated the 7th November 2007, the Court of Appeal reserved judgement and didn’t announce the quashing of the conviction until the 15 November 2007.
-
Is this allowed?
I have to agree that it is very odd that a particle of gun shot residue (GSR) allegedly found in Barry George's coat pocket was 'identical' to others found on the head and clothing of the victim Jill Dando. Sounds very much like contamination to me?
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2001/may/09/broadcasting.jilldando
-
“Mr Keeley, who has recently left the FSS but is still working as a scientist, told the appeal court he had answered all questions put to him as an expert witness in the trial. "I did my best at the time," he said. "I was in the witness box for a long time." Asked by William Clegg QC, for George, if, with hindsight, he might have made it clearer that evidence of the firearms residue was "neutral" and "inconclusive", Mr Keeley said: "If it led to a misunderstanding, with hindsight I say I would have done it differently."
While agreeing the "neutrality" of the evidence was not present "in terms" in his witness statement, he added: "What I wrote there was what I believed. I wasn't led in any way ... In hindsight, if it any way it caused misunderstanding or confusion, of course I would have done it differently. I wasn't aware it would have consequences such as it has had in recent reports." He said it was "unlikely but possible" the particle could have survived in George's pocket for a year.
Seems to me Mr Keeley’s evidence was clearly contaminated by confirmation bias.
-
I understand the basics of probability. Forensic Scientist Angela Shaw explained how they (scientists) estimate that 1 in 100 people will inadvertently pick up a single gsr particle.
How did she reach this conclusion? What methods did she use?
-
“Mr Keeley, who has recently left the FSS but is still working as a scientist, told the appeal court he had answered all questions put to him as an expert witness in the trial. "I did my best at the time," he said. "I was in the witness box for a long time." Asked by William Clegg QC, for George, if, with hindsight, he might have made it clearer that evidence of the firearms residue was "neutral" and "inconclusive", Mr Keeley said: "If it led to a misunderstanding, with hindsight I say I would have done it differently."
While agreeing the "neutrality" of the evidence was not present "in terms" in his witness statement, he added: "What I wrote there was what I believed. I wasn't led in any way ... In hindsight, if it any way it caused misunderstanding or confusion, of course I would have done it differently. I wasn't aware it would have consequences such as it has had in recent reports." He said it was "unlikely but possible" the particle could have survived in George's pocket for a year.
“I wasn’t led in anyway” this suggests to me he was?!
-
“Mr Keeley, who has recently left the FSS but is still working as a scientist, told the appeal court he had answered all questions put to him as an expert witness in the trial. "I did my best at the time," he said. "I was in the witness box for a long time." Asked by William Clegg QC, for George, if, with hindsight, he might have made it clearer that evidence of the firearms residue was "neutral" and "inconclusive", Mr Keeley said: "If it led to a misunderstanding, with hindsight I say I would have done it differently."
While agreeing the "neutrality" of the evidence was not present "in terms" in his witness statement, he added: "What I wrote there was what I believed. I wasn't led in any way ... In hindsight, if it any way it caused misunderstanding or confusion, of course I would have done it differently. I wasn't aware it would have consequences such as it has had in recent reports." He said it was "unlikely but possible" the particle could have survived in George's pocket for a year.
Seems to me Mr Keeley’s evidence was clearly contaminated by his confirmation bias.
“Mr Keeley agreed that, after the trial, he had a conversation with a colleague, Ian Evett, and agreed the residue evidence was "neutral". The court has already heard that FSS colleagues were concerned undue weight had been given to the evidence.
Orlando Pownall QC, for the crown, told the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips, Lord Justice Leveson and Mr Justice Simon, that the firearms evidence had been presented to the jury "not as a foundation stone of the crown's case".
There had been also been identification evidence which placed George at least three times in the street on which the murder took place. The residue evidence, he said, was never suggested to be freestanding and conclusive in itself. "There was other evidence in abundance."
-
“Mr Keeley agreed that, after the trial, he had a conversation with a colleague, Ian Evett, and agreed the residue evidence was "neutral". The court has already heard that FSS colleagues were concerned undue weight had been given to the evidence.
And this proves to me he was
-
And this proves to me he was
And the fact Dr Ian Evett gave evidence during the retrial cements by belief
-
“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.
-
“Mr Keeley, who has recently left the FSS but is still working as a scientist, told the appeal court he had answered all questions put to him as an expert witness in the trial. "I did my best at the time," he said. "I was in the witness box for a long time." Asked by William Clegg QC, for George, if, with hindsight, he might have made it clearer that evidence of the firearms residue was "neutral" and "inconclusive", Mr Keeley said: "If it led to a misunderstanding, with hindsight I say I would have done it differently."
While agreeing the "neutrality" of the evidence was not present "in terms" in his witness statement, he added: "What I wrote there was what I believed. I wasn't led in any way ... In hindsight, if it any way it caused misunderstanding or confusion, of course I would have done it differently. I wasn't aware it would have consequences such as it has had in recent reports." He said it was "unlikely but possible" the particle could have survived in George's pocket for a year.
Seems to me Mr Keeley’s evidence was clearly contaminated by confirmation bias.
What’s more is the original submissions made to the CCRC referred to paint particles or something or other?
Ergo the whole referral was a fluke as Simon Hall once referred to his case.
The egos of the experts in this case clouded their objectivity imo.
Bayes' theorem
“In probability theory and statistics, Bayes' theorem (alternatively Bayes' law or Bayes' rule) describes the probability of an event, based on prior knowledge of conditions that might be related to the event. ... When applied, the probabilities involved in Bayes' theorem may have different probability interpretations.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes%27_theorem
-
“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
-
Given the publicity surrounding the 20th anniversary it might be an idea to have a thread 'The unsolved murder of Jill Dando' or something similar rather than the emphasis on Barry George? I would prefer to look at all theories..
Barry George supporters rely on some sort of conspiracy in order to deflect attention.
No professional assassin would choose somewhere like Gowan Avenue (Which is a straight road) with no way of getting out without being seen.
-
There's a few recent interesting stories about him online.
https://popularcrime.com/2019/04/25/what-happened-to-barry-george-did-he-go-to-prison-for-killing-jill-dando-and-did-he-receive-compensation/
https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/sister-acquitted-jill-dando-murder-14578144.amp#click=https://t.co/xyiO85vNqE
https://www.itv.com/news/2019-04-25/jill-dando-barry-george-murder-documentary/
http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=9318.0;attach=15487
Is that an IPad he’s got in his arm? Thought he was meant to be “all fingers and thumbs?” Seems to be having no problem using that tiny mobile phone.
-
Another factor is when GSR particles are found. In the case of BG the particle was found a year later. As forensic scientist Angela Shaw said in the recent douc the particle found in BG's coat pocket a year later could not link him to the shooting. She estimates 1 in a 100 people will inadvertently pick up a particle.
She omitted to say -
“The Criminal Case Review Commission (CCRC) in 2006 requested a review of the oral and written evidence in relation to the significance of the single particle and the way in which the case would have been reported today. While employed at the FSS I carried out this review in conjunction with a colleague. We concluded that the GSR evidence was inconclusive; it was no more likely that the particle had originated from the shooting of Ms Dando than it had come from another source. This was based on the information that the coat in which the particle had been found was not recovered until a year after the shooting. The CCRC referred the case to the Court of Appeal stating that the GSR particle that was given great significance by the Prosecution at the trial in 2001 was, in reality of no probative value. The Appeal Court ruled that it was impossible to know what weight, if any, the jury attached to the particle and as such the verdict was ruled unsafe and the conviction quashed. In a retrial in 2008 at the Central Criminal Court the GSR evidence was ruled inadmissible prior to the commencement of the trial. Mr George was acquitted.
This case has generated much discussion among GSR experts around the world and in the main in the UK no significance is placed on the finding of a single particle. The decision on whether or not to admit single GSR particles as evidence rests with the court. In this case both arguments were put before the court but in some jurisdictions single particles are reported as supporting the contention that a suspect has either handled or fired a gun. Additionally in these jurisdictions prosecution experts offer no interpretation to assist the court or jury and do not include an assessment of the possibility of contamination
http://forensicfirearmsconsultancy.com/gunshot-residue-evidence-loose-canon/
-
Another factor is when GSR particles are found. In the case of BG the particle was found a year later. As forensic scientist Angela Shaw said in the recent douc the particle found in BG's coat pocket a year later could not link him to the shooting. She estimates 1 in a 100 people will inadvertently pick up a particle.
She also omits to highlight the quite apparent controversy surrounding the single particle of GSR in the Barry George case and the subsequent empirical research carried out by the scientific community.
-
Given the publicity surrounding the 20th anniversary
Barry George was not in the frame 20 years ago!
I find it telling that he and his sister Michelle Diskin Bates have chosen to give interviews at this time in a blatant attempt to draw attention to them and away from the Anniversary date. *&^^&
-
.
I'm not sure if this has been mentioned on the thread but there's another docu this evening on ITV at 9pm.
Which, according to reviews, is a re hash of previous conspiracy theories.
-
Barry George was not in the frame 20 years ago!
I find it telling that he and his sister Michelle Diskin Bates have chosen to give interviews at this time in a blatant attempt to draw attention to them and away from the Anniversary date. *&^^&
They are exploiting media platforms in an attempt to further promote fake news in the hope the public still cannot see the wood through the trees. The same media platforms I might add they have condemned over the years.
-
Barry George supporters rely on some sort of conspiracy in order to deflect attention.
No professional assassin would choose somewhere like Gowan Avenue (Which is a straight road) with no way of getting out without being seen.
He wasn't seen so there goes that theory.
-
Given the publicity surrounding the 20th anniversary it might be an idea to have a thread 'The unsolved murder of Jill Dando' or something similar rather than the emphasis on Barry George? I would prefer to look at all theories.
I'm not sure if this has been mentioned on the thread but there's another docu this evening on ITV at 9pm.
Reminded me of Simon and Lynne Hall on the Beebs Rough Justice doc.
As already pointed out, Barry George was a different man 20 years ago. Pathological individuals are capable of feigning illness and all sorts, they are chameleons.
His sister blew her interview this morning.
She repeated the same behaviour on ITV
-
The e-fit is eerie
-
“......As he tried to resuscitate her, an ambulance arrived and then a helicopter crew....
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/policeman-tells-court-of-attempts-to-revive-dando-after-doorstep-shooting-7784756.html
“Julia Moorhouse, another witness, told the court about a chance encounter with a man that the prosecution allege was George.
Mrs Moorhouse said she had been standing on the corner of a street close to the murder scene at 12.30pm on April 26 when a man approached and started talking to her about the helicopters hovering overhead. "He said they were police helicopters. He gave details of what kind they were. He appeared to have technical knowledge... I turned to go. He came with me. I did not expect that.
"The whole situation struck me as slightly odd. He mentioned the Territorial Army. I think he may have said he had done training or was associated with it... either as an instructor or something."
The prosecution has alleged that George was obsessed with the army and weapons.
Michael Mansfield, QC, defending, said the man Mrs Moorhouse had spoken to was not George.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2001/may/15/broadcasting.jilldando
-
Scott Lomax:
“When Miss Dando was shot less than half a mile from where he lived, and when the police provided a description of the man they were hunting that matched the appearance of George, then he expected the police to turn up at his home at any time. He told people that he feared ‘they’ would blame him for Miss Dando’s murder. After all, this would explain why George felt he had to verify his movements on the day of the murder. He told the police “I went back there basically to account for my movements so if a situation did come up, I could address it to my solicitor.” The jury no doubt wondered why a man could be worried that the police would approach him. However, they were not at all aware of his paranoia and the fact that he had been interviewed in connection with a murder he had no involvement in. http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/legan/legan040.htm
“Mrs Hutton said Mr George was "highly agitated" during this visit. "He wanted to know exactly what time he had been at Hafad on the Monday," she recalled. "I said I was not here, but I was not going to get away with that answer. So eventually I said 11am. He was not happy with that answer and wanted to know exactly what time. “He said he had not kept the appointment the previous day and it was his fault, as he had gone to lay flowers at Jill's place on behalf of the church and that she was well respected in the borough." Mrs Hutton said Mr George told her he had been intimidated by police before and wanted to know what time he attended that Monday as he was going to see his solicitor that afternoon. He said the description of the suspect matched him but that it could be anyone.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/policeman-tells-court-of-attempts-to-revive-dando-after-doorstep-shooting-7784756.html
-
It's a simple observation.
https://blogs.psychcentral.com/psychology-self/2018/07/narcissist-delusion/
“Narcissists only surround themselves with people who are either so charmed by them that they blindly believe every word they say is true or people who have learned that it’s easier to keep their mouths shut rather than reap the wrath of expressing an opposing opinion
“Anyone in a narcissist’s life that doesn’t fall into one of the two categories of Enablers or Tongue Biters will certainly be given the boot. But first the narcissist will discipline you with their collection of manipulation tactics, so when they do give you the boot, you will be sure to go out believing the reasons for your dismissal were all your fault.
https://thoughtcatalog.com/bree-bonchay/2016/12/the-8-most-common-narc-sadistic-conversation-control-tactics/
-
Reminded me of Simon and Lynne Hall on the Beebs Rough Justice doc.
As already pointed out, Barry George was a different man 20 years ago. Pathological individuals are capable of feigning illness and all sorts, they are chameleons.
His sister blew her interview this morning.
She repeated the same behaviour on ITV
TOPIC SWITCHEROO
“Here’s how this works. You and your narcissist are in the middle of a conversation; it’s going well until you disagree or present facts that contradict the narcissist’s point of view. The narcissist knows that your facts are indisputable and you have the upper-hand, so to gain control of the conversation and win the argument, the narcissist will deviate into a tangent of verbal vomit attempting to hoodwink you and pull the ole’ topic switcheroo. Before you know it, you’re discussing something totally unrelated to the original conversation, and you find yourself in defensive mode about some issue the two of you disagreed on last year.
THE BLAME GAME
Blame shifting is usually a tactic used subsequently to the Topic Switcheroo. The narcissist, like a magician, successfully changes the topic and diverts your attention by pointing the finger at you, and you suddenly find yourself on the defensive end of the conversation stick. The narcissist will raise questions about any and all of your real or perceived faults and pummel you. You, in turn, instinctively defend yourself, and the narcissist, just like Houdini, makes the original topic of their bad behavior disappear and escapes having to take any accountability for their actions. Meanwhile, you’re tricked into taking on the defensive position and accused and blamed for creating problems and drama in the relationship.
3. PROJECTION
Hypocrisy is the narcissist’s middle name. What they say and do when no one is watching is drastically different from what they say and do in the presence of others. Since they are all about maintaining their false persona they use projection to rid the unwanted traits in their character. But since they are the emotional equivalent of a five-year-old, they magically disown the parts of themselves that reflect negatively on their personas and accuse you of the exact things they’re guilty of doing. Did you ever notice how they will accuse the most generous person of being selfish or having a hidden agenda behind their generosity? The most honest person is accused of being a liar. Their faithful partner is accused of cheating? The narcissist’s projections are really confessions that reveal what the narcissist is guilty of and/ or believes about himself/herself.
GASLIGHTING
“Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse so insidious that many articles have been written about it. Narcissists use this tactic in conversations by purposely altering or not sharing information and replacing it with false information. This tactic is designed to systematically dismantle the victim’s ability to trust their own judgement and undermine their confidence to the point where they begin to doubt their own memories and judgements, thus rendering them highly suggestible to the narcissist’s opinion
Read more here:
https://thoughtcatalog.com/bree-bonchay/2016/12/the-8-most-common-narc-sadistic-conversation-control-tactics/
-
He wasn't seen so there goes that theory.
He was!
-
I know he has a previous conviction for attempted rape but the article refers to sexual offences plural?
Was he actually stalking women? I know he was following women around and photographing them in the street but if he was actually stalking women to the degree they felt uncomfortable then surely at least one or two would have reported to the police? Did the prosecution call any witnesses at trial to this effect?
WHY did Barry George behave this way towards women?
Might be worthwhile for you to read up on stalking, the victims of stalkers and the statistics..
-
I know he has a previous conviction for attempted rape but the article refers to sexual offences plural?
Was he actually stalking women? I know he was following women around and photographing them in the street but if he was actually stalking women to the degree they felt uncomfortable then surely at least one or two would have reported to the police? Did the prosecution call any witnesses at trial to this effect?
And, was he rehabilitated prior to the murder?
HOW are these types of criminals rehabilitated?
-
Given the publicity surrounding the 20th anniversary it might be an idea to have a thread 'The unsolved murder of Jill Dando' or something similar rather than the emphasis on Barry George? I would prefer to look at all theories.
I'm not sure if this has been mentioned on the thread but there's another docu this evening on ITV at 9pm.
Did the documentary remind you of Mike Tesco and his theories regarding the Bamber case?
-
Given the publicity surrounding the 20th anniversary it might be an idea to have a thread 'The unsolved murder of Jill Dando' or something similar rather than the emphasis on Barry George? I would prefer to look at all theories.
I'm not sure if this has been mentioned on the thread but there's another docu this evening on ITV at 9pm.
Why would you prefer to look at all the conspiracy theories when Barry George confessed to the murder?
“George, whose obsession with celebrity and guns is said to have lain behind the crime, replies:
‘Why? Because I... I was the person who committed the murder.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-108543/Prison-cell-confession-killer-Jill-Dando.html
-
As his sister, Michelle is naturally protective towards him given his mental disabilities.
His sister strikes me as a highly narcissistic individual who has created a false reality for herself and her brother.
She appears to be lacking in insight.
I’ve met his sister and communicated with her many times, therefore my observations and opinions aren’t just based on what is in the public domain.
“A narcissist can be a great storyteller. They captivate you with tales of personal triumphs, heroism, even selflessness. But it’s when you look behind the curtain that you discover they’ve rewritten history. Not only are they living in a fantasy, you believed all their self-mythology.
Narcissists are overly occupied with themselves. They exaggerate their achievements and use clever tactics to make themselves feel superior. Ever entitled, they tend to manipulate and exploit others, then rationalize their actions to shirk responsibility or blame. If a narcissist isn’t currently being praised, they are planning or waiting for the next moment when they will be praised.
https://psychcentral.com/blog/separating-the-narcissists-delusion-from-reality/
-
Michelle Bates involvement in the Bamber case is surprising given what we know about the conviction. Jeremy Bamber is certainly no Barry George, the two cases couldn't be more different.
It’s all linked in with the false reality she’s created.
My opinion & my observations.
-
Michelle Bates involvement in the Bamber case is surprising given what we know about the conviction. Jeremy Bamber is certainly no Barry George, the two cases couldn't be more different.
Is she in denial or is she knowingly deceiving others?
-
Why would you prefer to look at all the conspiracy theories when Barry George confessed to the murder?
“George, whose obsession with celebrity and guns is said to have lain behind the crime, replies:
‘Why? Because I... I was the person who committed the murder.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-108543/Prison-cell-confession-killer-Jill-Dando.html
Why do you think Michelle Diskin Bates was so keen to move on following Simon Hall’s confession?
“As a family member of a terrible miscarriage of justice, the victim being Barry George, convicted of the murder of Jill Dando; the Simon Hall confession is a concern because it is already so difficult for true MOJs to be believed by the public; this confession damages the credibility of all those still fighting for justice.
But this is just one case. The British Justice System makes many, many more errors when it choses to build its cases around a person, rather than on the actual evidence. One confession is not a comfortable situation for those fighting miscarriages of justice, but is it worse than keeping hundreds of innocents locked up for crimes they did not commit? All of us who choose to stand up for justice need to take this on the chin, and move on…back to those who deserve to have their cases reviewed and quashed.
https://www.thejusticegap.com/simon-hall-confession-a-time-to-take-stock/
What lessons did she learn following the confession?
The guilty walk in the footsteps of the innocent.
-
There is no evidence whatsoever which could in any way point to Barry George as being the culprit.
“The FDR evidence was not the foundation of the prosecution’s case against the appellant. Without pre-judging what might follow, in the absence of the FDR evidence there was circumstantial evidence capable of implicating the appellant; that much is clear from the detailed consideration given to the other aspects of the case by the Court of Appeal hearing the first appeal. Mr Clegg has accepted that proposition by conceding that, if this appeal succeeds, there should be a re-trial.
http://netk.net.au/UK/George.asp
-
We can fulfil Jill Dando’s legacy by ensuring crime science keeps up with the pace of change
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/we-can-fulfil-jill-dando-s-legacy-by-ensuring-crime-science-keeps-up-with-the-pace-of-change-m9mnshjwd
Appliance of science
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2001/jan/10/guardiansocietysupplement11
-
Senior investigator Hamish Campbell admitted there was a slim chance of nailing the murderer
“Jill Dando’s murderer will only be caught if the gun which was used to kill her is found, according to the policeman who investigated the crime.
Hamish Campbell was the officer in charge after the Crimewatch host, 37, was shot 20 years ago this month.
He said: “What remains outstanding is the handgun.
“If that were to be discovered, and could be directly attributed to a person, and that person’s timeline determined for April 1999, then perhaps matters could progress.
“But after two decades, it becomes a remote possibility.
“The Dando investigation is clear on what evidence it has at a forensic level, and what the witnesses said they saw or heard or knew in 1999. They remain unchanged.”
Jill was gunned down on her London doorstep on April 26, 1999.
Barry George, now 59, was jailed for the murder in 2001 but the conviction was quashed in 2008.
TV investigator Mark Williams-Thomas last year claimed he had been given the name of the killer.
But Mr Campbell said all “new leads” that crop up as years go by should be questioned.
“Especially when persons state the theories through the media or TV, and not the police,” he said.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jill-dandos-killer-only-caught-14446069
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/04/26/the-empire-struck-back/
-
"Barry George had a gun pressed to his head and was told “watch your back” shortly after he was acquitted of BBC star Jill Dando’s murder.
He believes the threat came from somebody linked to the killing of the Crimewatch presenter in 1999.
Making a rare return to the street where he was living at the time, Barry, 58, adds that after one wrongful conviction he fears police will arrest him for something else he did not do.
Despite being acquitted 10 years ago he says he does “not feel free” and is “looking over my shoulder”.
After being found guilty in 2001 of murdering Jill, Barry was cleared at a retrial in 2008.
He was living in Hackney, East London, the following year when the chilling threat was made.
Barry says: “When I was in emergency accommodation in Hackney, I was stood in a long hallway and I had a gun put to my head and was told ‘Watch your back
“I went to the police station and told them and they gave me lip service. I was living in fear.
“There were two things in my mind: I’ve been acquitted of this crime and then I get a gun to my head.
“There was talk of a Serbian hit team involved in Jill’s killing.
“We think it must have been someone who had a link to the murder. It’s too much of a coincidence.” He added: “I didn’t get a look at them.”
The Met police confirmed a man then in his 40s reported an incident in Hackney in May 2009, but were unable to give full details of the probe.
David Wells, a criminal defence specialist at Wells Burcombe Solicitors, accompanied Barry to the police station to report the threat.
David said: “He was incredibly distressed... sweating, out of breath and in quite a state.
“I’d seen Barry on many occasions and I had never seen him this distressed.
“Barry repeated that someone pointed a gun at him and made a threat – he appeared highly credible.
"He was very afraid. It could well have been someone linked to the murder of Jill Dando.
“It does seem unlikely someone would randomly select Barry out of millions in London and threaten him and put a gun to his head after his acquittal...
"If indeed it was rated as a serious complaint and investigated by police, nothing came of it
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/gunman-told-barry-george-watch-12932133
Maybe Barry George’s conscience had been pricked?
Troll exposure blog
“However, this manipulation of families and stories for his own benefit raises some other questions too: like have other stories been manipulated, anonymous sources created on a hush-hush basis for the promise of monies in return.
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/04/27/auctorem-inquisitor/
Michelle Diskin Bates states:
“It was quite an eye-opener when I became aware of the extent of the symbiotic relationship between the police and the media. However, the releasing of information to the media in the case against Barry clearly emphasised the practice.
Yet Barry George and his sister Michelle Diskin Bates have been in the same such mutually beneficial relationships.
And commended such:
“A great great teaming. Miscarriage of justice victims need strong support and experienced, structured assistance to fight their convictions. Good luck with the new venture.
Michelle
(Barry George’s sister)
https://insidetime.org/are-you-a-victim-of-a-genuine-miscarriage-of-justice/
-
There's a few recent interesting stories about him online.
https://popularcrime.com/2019/04/25/what-happened-to-barry-george-did-he-go-to-prison-for-killing-jill-dando-and-did-he-receive-compensation/
https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/sister-acquitted-jill-dando-murder-14578144.amp#click=https://t.co/xyiO85vNqE
https://www.itv.com/news/2019-04-25/jill-dando-barry-george-murder-documentary/
Bsrry George’s sister claims,“his physical coordination is clumsy and graceless
Yet he appears to have no problem on a push bike.
-
Maybe Barry George’s conscience had been pricked?
Troll exposure blog
“However, this manipulation of families and stories for his own benefit raises some other questions too: like have other stories been manipulated, anonymous sources created on a hush-hush basis for the promise of monies in return.
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/04/27/auctorem-inquisitor/
Michelle Diskin Bates states:
“It was quite an eye-opener when I became aware of the extent of the symbiotic relationship between the police and the media. However, the releasing of information to the media in the case against Barry clearly emphasised the practice.
Yet Barry George and his sister Michelle Diskin Bates have been in the same such mutually beneficial relationships.
And commended such:
“A great great teaming. Miscarriage of justice victims need strong support and experienced, structured assistance to fight their convictions. Good luck with the new venture.
Michelle
(Barry George’s sister)
https://insidetime.org/are-you-a-victim-of-a-genuine-miscarriage-of-justice/
Troll exposure states:
“It is my firm view that Williams-Thomas should, if he isn’t already, be under criminal investigation for his role in Operation Yewtree and his faciilitation of “victims” to it. He should also be investigated for the provenance of the faked letter claiming to be from Surrey Police, he should certainly be under investigation for that 2001 News of the World list, and should also be under investigation for the document in which he provides a very weak defence above.
WHY did Barry George and his sister choose to join forces with Mark Williams Thomas? And especially given their history with the News of the World. (You can read Barry George’s sisters version of events in her book - Stand Against Injustice).
-
Troll exposure states:
“It is my firm view that Williams-Thomas should, if he isn’t already, be under criminal investigation for his role in Operation Yewtree and his faciilitation of “victims” to it. He should also be investigated for the provenance of the faked letter claiming to be from Surrey Police, he should certainly be under investigation for that 2001 News of the World list, and should also be under investigation for the document in which he provides a very weak defence above.
WHY did Barry George and his sister choose to join forces with Mark Williams Thomas?
And especially given their history with the News of the World. (You can read Barry George’s sisters version of events in her book - Stand Against Injustice).
2002
“Michelle Diskin was in the front room at her home in Cork listening to the morning radio when she first heard that her brother Barry George had been charged with Jill Dando's murder.
“Barry has been described as a loner. But he's not. He was always out seeing people. He had friends, people who loved him - who accepted Barry with his differences. They didn't know about the attempted rape, but that happened almost 20 years before.
“He paid his price to society for what he did and he'd turned his life around. And, despite his disabilities, he had made a life for himself. He discussed his friends and would say: ”There's a guy down the road and he's my friend. I wash his car for him." After he was charged, I started piecing things together.
“I wash his car for him”
Feasible then to conclude IT WAS Barry George seen washing the windscreen of the car (Or pretending to wash the windscreen) witnessed on the morning of the murder?
-
Michelle Diskin Bates
At night, things play over and over in my mind. When you realise this is a miscarriage of justice, it becomes enormous. They have grabbed Barry's life and taken it away from him. They have also taken my life.
'It wasn't an easy thing to decide to become vocal. But I have to stand up for Barry's rights. I'm determined to at least do that.
“In tonight's new hour-long ITV documentary, Jill Dando: The 20 Year Mystery, presenter Julie Etchingham examines the evidence but viewers should not expect any major new revelations.
Michelle Diskin Bates, the sister of Barry George, appears alongside him.
She is critical of a BBC documentary, aired earlier this month, which she says effectively put her brother on trial for the third time.
Neither she nor her brother was interviewed for the BBC programme: "I feel balance has been partially restored by ITV's investigation."
Mr George will travel from his home in Cork to watch it with his sister and they will appear on the Good Morning show today to discuss the case.
Although an Old Bailey jury cleared him of murder, Mr George's name is still, ten years on, dragged into speculation about the death, says Michelle.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1118649/Jill-Dando-murder-Pop-legend-Sir-Cliff-Richard-tribute
“Michelle says it’s “very likely” that the police’s pursuit of George meant the real killer slipped through the net.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/barry-george-would-epileptic-fit-14558209
WHY use the words very likely, IF, as she claims, she knows her brother is innocent? This suggests doubt or imo, deception - based on all her other faux pas or slip ups over the years.
-
Michelle Diskin Bates
“In tonight's new hour-long ITV documentary, Jill Dando: The 20 Year Mystery, presenter Julie Etchingham examines the evidence but viewers should not expect any major new revelations.
Michelle Diskin Bates, the sister of Barry George, appears alongside him.
She is critical of a BBC documentary, aired earlier this month, which she says effectively put her brother on trial for the third time.
Neither she nor her brother was interviewed for the BBC programme: "I feel balance has been partially restored by ITV's investigation."
Mr George will travel from his home in Cork to watch it with his sister and they will appear on the Good Morning show today to discuss the case.
Although an Old Bailey jury cleared him of murder, Mr George's name is still, ten years on, dragged into speculation about the death, says Michelle.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1118649/Jill-Dando-murder-Pop-legend-Sir-Cliff-Richard-tribute
“Michelle says it’s “very likely” that the police’s pursuit of George meant the real killer slipped through the net.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/barry-george-would-epileptic-fit-14558209
WHY use the words very likely, IF, as she claims, she knows her brother is innocent? This suggests doubt, or imo, deception - based on all her other faux pars or slip ups.
WHY did Barry George not appear alongside his sister on GMB? WHY did he drop out at the last minute?
-
Naughty beats picked up on this faux pas - https://beat102103.com/news/sister-of-man-acquitted-of-jill-dando-murder-says-life-has-never-been-the-same-since/
December 2018
“I was getting ready to go to a ladies bible study being held in Ballincollig. I thought, ‘I will turn the radio on and just have a few minutes of a listen and I will go.’ And the news came on and they said that somebody had been arrested for Jill Dando’s murder.
My initial thought was ‘thank goodness for that. That poor family.’ The next sentence was his name. That instant my life took a total change and it has never been the same since.
Michelle called her mother who told her to pray for her brother. Those words she said heralded in years of turmoil and pain.
Ms Diskin said that Jill Dando was a “one-off” broadcaster of immense talent and that police were naturally keen to solve her murder.
“A whole year after her death they didn’t have anybody. They had a phonecall from a local disability centre. Barry had gone to one of those that morning.
“He was anxious and he wanted to be seen and he thought he would be seen immediately. That got him agitated. Barry has Asperger’s syndrome which is a type of autism. He wasn’t acting outside what was normal for him.
“The disability centre probably wouldn’t have taken any notice at all only Jill Dando was killed that day. They reported their misgivings about his behaviour and a year later the police decided to check him out. There was no evidence against Barry.”
https://beat102103.com/news/sister-of-man-acquitted-of-jill-dando-murder-says-life-has-never-been-the-same-since/
-
Maybe Barry George’s conscience had been pricked?
Troll exposure blog
“However, this manipulation of families and stories for his own benefit raises some other questions too: like have other stories been manipulated, anonymous sources created on a hush-hush basis for the promise of monies in return.
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/04/27/auctorem-inquisitor/
Michelle Diskin Bates states:
“It was quite an eye-opener when I became aware of the extent of the symbiotic relationship between the police and the media. However, the releasing of information to the media in the case against Barry clearly emphasised the practice.
Yet Barry George and his sister Michelle Diskin Bates have been in the same such mutually beneficial relationships.
And commended such:
“A great great teaming. Miscarriage of justice victims need strong support and experienced, structured assistance to fight their convictions. Good luck with the new venture.
Michelle
(Barry George’s sister)
https://insidetime.org/are-you-a-victim-of-a-genuine-miscarriage-of-justice/
“Barry George has accepted "substantial" damages over claims he was stalking women and articles suggesting he murdered Jill Dando.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8415772.stm
-
“I wash his car for him”
Feasible then to conclude IT WAS Barry George seen washing the windscreen of the car (Or pretending to wash the windscreen) witnessed on the morning of the murder?
Michelle Diskin Bates narrative changes over the years. If she were telling the truth the narrative would remain the same. It doesn’t.
In 2002 she claimed “After he was charged I started piecing things together”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-135212/My-brother-didnt-kill-Jill.html#ixzz5DQUKMFv4
-
Maybe Barry George’s conscience had been pricked?
Troll exposure blog
“However, this manipulation of families and stories for his own benefit raises some other questions too: like have other stories been manipulated, anonymous sources created on a hush-hush basis for the promise of monies in return.
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/04/27/auctorem-inquisitor/
Michelle Diskin Bates states:
“It was quite an eye-opener when I became aware of the extent of the symbiotic relationship between the police and the media. However, the releasing of information to the media in the case against Barry clearly emphasised the practice.
Yet Barry George and his sister Michelle Diskin Bates have been in the same such mutually beneficial relationships.
And commended such:
“A great great teaming. Miscarriage of justice victims need strong support and experienced, structured assistance to fight their convictions. Good luck with the new venture.
Michelle
(Barry George’s sister)
https://insidetime.org/are-you-a-victim-of-a-genuine-miscarriage-of-justice/
Is Barry George’s sister oblivious to Mark Williams Thomas’s behaviour?
Troll exposure blog
“Greed, self promotion and a complete lack of self awareness.
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/04/27/auctorem-inquisitor/
Would be interesting to find out what she thinks about the way he behaves, in light of what she’s claimed in her book and elsewhere over the years.
How did Mark Williams Thomas become involved with Barry George’s case in the first place? Who approached who?
-
Troll exposure states:
“It is my firm view that Williams-Thomas should, if he isn’t already, be under criminal investigation for his role in Operation Yewtree and his faciilitation of “victims” to it. He should also be investigated for the provenance of the faked letter claiming to be from Surrey Police, he should certainly be under investigation for that 2001 News of the World list, and should also be under investigation for the document in which he provides a very weak defence above.
WHY did Barry George and his sister choose to join forces with Mark Williams Thomas? And especially given their history with the News of the World. (You can read Barry George’s sisters version of events in her book - Stand Against Injustice).
“Mark, who uncovered the Jimmy Savile scandal, revealed that he had also spoken to the witness who found Jill dead, and she too agreed that "it all looked very professional".
This Morning host Phillip Schofield asked Mark if he was any closer to finding out why Jill was shot. Mark said he believed it had "something to do with her work on Crimewatch". He explained: "There are some very nasty horrible people out there – criminals – and the crucial element, from their point of view, is that they may perceive that Crimewatch puts criminals away, therefore putting their friends and colleagues away, and I think that was the reason."
Mark has submitted his report of findings to the police, who have agreed to act upon the new information. Mark said that police need to reopen the case and look at it with a fresh pair of eyes. "I would go back over the file, get a cold case team looking at it, start to do those inquiries that were never followed up," he said. "Crucially Barry George was fully acquitted, so it's now an unsolved case." Jill Dando was fatally shot outside her Fulham home in April 1999. A local man, Barry George, was convicted and jailed for the murder but was later acquitted after an appeal and retrial.
https://www.hellomagazine.com/celebrities/2019040271572/jill-dando-crimewatch-killer-revealed-hitman/
-
Is Barry George’s sister oblivious to Mark Williams Thomas’s behaviour?
Troll exposure blog
“Greed, self promotion and a complete lack of self awareness.
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/04/27/auctorem-inquisitor/
Would be interesting to find out what she thinks about the way he behaves, in light of what she’s claimed in her book and elsewhere over the years.
How did Mark Williams Thomas become involved with Barry George’s case in the first place? Who approached who?
Mark Williams Thomas became involved with the Jeremy Bamber case via Jackie Preece allegedly. What motivated her to get someone like him involved? More importantly what motivated Michelle Diskin Bates and Barry George and how did Mark Williams Thomas gain access to the case files?
-
Mark Williams Thomas became involved with the Jeremy Bamber case via Jackie Preece allegedly. What motivated her to get someone like him involved? More importantly what motivated Michelle Diskin Bates and Barry George and how did Mark Williams Thomas gain access to the case files?
4th April 2015 - Jill Dando murder documentary: Watch Mark Williams-Thomas' explosive film in full after year-long investigation
“The compelling 47-minute film came after the double award-winning investigative reporter pored over more than 52,000 documents, plus hours of previously unseen footage
An exclusive documentary revealing the secrets of the Jill Dando murder case can be watched in full for the first time today - ONLY on our website.
The compelling 47-minute film is the result of a year-long probe by double award-winning investigative reporter Mark Williams-Thomas.
During his forensic review, former detective Mark pored over more than 52,000 documents, plus hours of previously unseen footage.
Mark, honoured by the Royal Television Society for his Exposure film unmasking Jimmy Savile as a predatory paedophile, worked alongside a Mirror team.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jill-dando-murder-documentary-watch-5460623
The above article’s author was Nick Dorman
This article dated 21st March 2015 https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ex-cop-claims-royal-paedophile-ring-5379159 is by both Mark Williams Thomas & Nick Dorman
“An ITV documentary on the case in 2017 saw ex-policeman Mark Williams-Thomas speaking to a hitman who stated they knew who murdered her, but wouldn’t speak out due to fear of retaliation. In a later interview on This Morning, Williams-Thomas stated: ‘I am very confident the killer or the person who organised the killing is in that inquiry team database
Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2019/03/29/inside-jill-dando-murder-conspiracies-9057800/?ito=cbshare
-
4th April 2015 - Jill Dando murder documentary: Watch Mark Williams-Thomas' explosive film in full after year-long investigation
“The compelling 47-minute film came after the double award-winning investigative reporter pored over more than 52,000 documents, plus hours of previously unseen footage
An exclusive documentary revealing the secrets of the Jill Dando murder case can be watched in full for the first time today - ONLY on our website.
The compelling 47-minute film is the result of a year-long probe by double award-winning investigative reporter Mark Williams-Thomas.
During his forensic review, former detective Mark pored over more than 52,000 documents, plus hours of previously unseen footage.
Mark, honoured by the Royal Television Society for his Exposure film unmasking Jimmy Savile as a predatory paedophile, worked alongside a Mirror team.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jill-dando-murder-documentary-watch-5460623
The above article’s author was Nick Dorman
This article dated 21st March 2015 https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ex-cop-claims-royal-paedophile-ring-5379159 is by both Mark Williams Thomas & Nick Dorman
“An ITV documentary on the case in 2017 saw ex-policeman Mark Williams-Thomas speaking to a hitman who stated they knew who murdered her, but wouldn’t speak out due to fear of retaliation. In a later interview on This Morning, Williams-Thomas stated: ‘I am very confident the killer or the person who organised the killing is in that inquiry team database
Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2019/03/29/inside-jill-dando-murder-conspiracies-9057800/?ito=cbshare
John Carr July 2014 - Jill Dando raised alarm about ‘paedophile ring at BBC’
“MURDERED television presenter Jill Dando tried to alert her bosses to a paedophile ring at the BBC involving “big name” stars, claims a former colleague.
The friend and retired BBC worker said the late Crimewatch host was told DJs, celebrities and other staff were involved in organised abuse.
But the anonymous source says “no one wanted to know” when Miss Dando raised concerns about the alleged ring and other sexual abuse claims at the BBC.
She is said to have passed a file to senior management in the mid-1990s, but they never carried out an investigation.
The 37-year-old TV presenter was shot dead on April 26, 1999, on the doorstep of her home in west London. The crime remains unsolved.
The source said: “I don’t recall the names of all the stars now and don’t want to implicate anyone, but Jill said they were surprisingly big names.
“I think she was quite shocked when told about images of children and that information on how to join this horrible paedophile ring was freely available.
“Jill said others had complained to her about sexual matters and that some female workmates also claimed they had been groped or assaulted.
“Nothing had been done and there seemed to be a policy of turning a blind eye.”
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/490169/Dando-alarm-paedophile-ring-BBC
Who is John Carr’s source? Linked to Mark Williams Thomas maybe?
-
Mark Williams Thomas became involved with the Jeremy Bamber case via Jackie Preece allegedly. What motivated her to get someone like him involved? More importantly what motivated Michelle Diskin Bates and Barry George and how did Mark Williams Thomas gain access to the case files?
https://mobile.twitter.com/mwilliamsthomas/status/1024947488153907201
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
2 Aug 2018
Thank you Diane. If Barry was in prison for this crime the killer was free...why do people not think of that implication? THE KILLER WAS FREE!
2
Yet another slip up *&^^&
-
“I wash his car for him”
Feasible then to conclude IT WAS Barry George seen washing the windscreen of the car (Or pretending to wash the windscreen) witnessed on the morning of the murder?
July 2002
“THE trial of Barry George, the man jailed for life for the murder of TV presenter Jill Dando, should have been halted because identification evidence against him was inadmissible, the Court of Appeal heard yesterday.
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/george-conviction-unsafe-qc-tells-1977354
“Her own London childhood had been tough, often violent. In her late teens, she moved to Ireland to work with mentally disabled children. She had little need to dwell upon her past - until her brother's arrest.
Initially, Michelle believed the courts would clear her brother and she resolved not to speak out on his behalf. Indeed, she didn't want to drag her family into the unholy mess, and, in any case, no direct evidence linked her brother to the crime.
No confession. No apparent motive. No eyewitnesses. No murder weapon was ever found.
'There were a lot of pressures living in such close quarters with people on both sides of you and underneath you. My parents fought all the time so I would take the kids out - sometimes for hours on end.
'It was very difficult. Because Susan had very definite problems that were so big, Barry's were pushed to one side.
'He was a gorgeous baby and, as a boy, was into cars and buildings. He sometimes got into trouble, but he could never seem to understand why.
'He couldn't concentrate for long periods of time and was taken out of school and sent to special school. But his disability didn't become really apparent until he got older.
'Barry has a rigidity of thought. He gets a thought and isn't able to change tack. If you changed the topic of conversation, he wouldn't be able to stop focusing on the first one.'
Michelle was 12 when their parents separated. She says it was a relief, an end to the dreadful rows. Her relationship with her mother was not easy and by the age of 15 she was living with her father.
'My mother was warmer earlier in the marriage,' she says. 'And less warm towards the end of it.'
When Barry asked to move in with his father, he was refused. 'I'm sure Barry saw it as a rejection. Probably the first of many,' she says.
'He wanted to be a special person. He wanted to have friends. I can only speculate that these inventions were ways of opening a conversation. Let's face it, it's a bit more of a conversation grabber than "I'm classified disabled and I can't do anything".'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-135212/My-brother-didnt-kill-Jill.html#ixzz5DQUKMFv4
-
“Narcissists only surround themselves with people who are either so charmed by them that they blindly believe every word they say is true or people who have learned that it’s easier to keep their mouths shut rather than reap the wrath of expressing an opposing opinion
https://thoughtcatalog.com/bree-bonchay/2016/12/the-8-most-common-narc-sadistic-conversation-control-tactics/
“Narcissists use this tactic in conversations by purposely altering or not sharing information and replacing it with false information. This tactic is designed to systematically dismantle the victim’s ability to trust their own judgement and undermine their confidence to the point where they begin to doubt their own memories and judgements, thus rendering them highly suggestible to the narcissist’s opinion.
For example, a narcissist may casually but consistently suggest how their memory is superior to yours, especially if you ever admit to being forgetful about anything. They may even go so far as hiding or rearranging your belongings, intentionally tricking you into believing your memory is faulty. Then when a difference in opinion arises or you expose a discrepancy in their story, the narcissist, with absolute conviction, will use your faulty memory as evidence to make you doubt what you heard or saw and second guess yourself, causing you to ultimately accept the narcissist’s rendition of the truth.
Before publishing her book, it may have helped Michelle Diskin Bates to have gone back to the beginning and been reminded of what she’d previously stated.
“The prosecuting lawyers made much of George's fantasies. 'They tried to turn him into the Anti-Christ,' says Michelle. 'They spoke about his so-called obsession with guns after joining the Territorial Army. But the TA realised he had problems and Barry didn't handle guns. The only ones he's had are a starter pistol and a plastic gun that was stolen and broken.
'They said he had an obsession with Diana and stalked and photographed women. It was mentioned that he was discovered by police in Kensington Gardens with a rope and a knife dressed in Army gear. He told me that he was "doing manoeuvres".
'But he was never charged and there are no records of him being in the grounds by Diana's apartment as has been suggested.
'Even being "on manoeuvres" in the park, is not the normal behaviour of a grown person, but still pretty ordinary if you think like a child. He was going through his ex-SAS stage then - and it was almost 20 years ago
So when Barry George was arrested for sexual offences and convicted, he was thinking like a child?
-
“Narcissists use this tactic in conversations by purposely altering or not sharing information and replacing it with false information
Regarding her published book she does claim ”...it has been written from my perspective and from my memory. Of course, I do understand that other’s recollections may differ from mine; that is the nature of memory, it is not infallible.
In others words, she’s right and anyone’s story that differs to hers is wrong.
-
“Narcissists use this tactic in conversations by purposely altering or not sharing information and replacing it with false information. This tactic is designed to systematically dismantle the victim’s ability to trust their own judgement and undermine their confidence to the point where they begin to doubt their own memories and judgements, thus rendering them highly suggestible to the narcissist’s opinion.
For example, a narcissist may casually but consistently suggest how their memory is superior to yours, especially if you ever admit to being forgetful about anything. They may even go so far as hiding or rearranging your belongings, intentionally tricking you into believing your memory is faulty. Then when a difference in opinion arises or you expose a discrepancy in their story, the narcissist, with absolute conviction, will use your faulty memory as evidence to make you doubt what you heard or saw and second guess yourself, causing you to ultimately accept the narcissist’s rendition of the truth.
“And as far as identification is concerned, there was only one person who said she was certain she saw Barry at 7.30am. She said she saw him by a car, but Barry can't drive.
He CAN wash cars though! or be seen to wash a car windscreen in Gowen avenue on the day of the murder.
”Barry has been described as a loner. But he's not. He was always out seeing people. He had friends, people who loved him - who accepted Barry with his differences. They didn't know about the attempted rape, but that happened almost 20 years before.
He paid his price to society for what he did and he'd turned his life around. And, despite his disabilities, he had made a life for himself. He discussed his friends and would say: "There's a guy down the road and he's my friend. I wash his car for him." After he was charged, I started piecing things together.
Even being "on manoeuvres" in the park, is not the normal behaviour of a grown person, but still pretty ordinary if you think like a child. He was going through his ex-SAS stage then - and it was almost 20 years ago
-
“Conversations with a narcissist, especially if you hold opinions about anything that contradict with their opinion of what is the gospel truth, are jam-packed with a barrage of covert manipulation tactics that are intrinsic to the narcissist and entrenched in their personality. They will make you wish you never disagreed with them in the first place and regret that you had ever dared to express your point of view. A simple disagreement will often incite a full-fledged attack on you. Somehow, they manage to twist the conservation, so you wind up feeling like the bad guy/girl, while they assume the role of the innocent victim – of you.
Reminds me of the Martin Bashir interview.
“Thank you for the interview, Michelle,” he said, pumping my hand. “And remind me never to have an argument with you!” was his parting quip.
-
“Her own London childhood had been tough, often violent. In her late teens, she moved to Ireland to work with mentally disabled children. She had little need to dwell upon her past - until her brother's arrest.
Initially, Michelle believed the courts would clear her brother and she resolved not to speak out on his behalf. Indeed, she didn't want to drag her family into the unholy mess, and, in any case, no direct evidence linked her brother to the crime.
No confession. No apparent motive. No eyewitnesses. No murder weapon was ever found.
'There were a lot of pressures living in such close quarters with people on both sides of you and underneath you. My parents fought all the time so I would take the kids out - sometimes for hours on end.
'It was very difficult. Because Susan had very definite problems that were so big, Barry's were pushed to one side.
'He was a gorgeous baby and, as a boy, was into cars and buildings. He sometimes got into trouble, but he could never seem to understand why.
'He couldn't concentrate for long periods of time and was taken out of school and sent to special school. But his disability didn't become really apparent until he got older.
'Barry has a rigidity of thought. He gets a thought and isn't able to change tack. If you changed the topic of conversation, he wouldn't be able to stop focusing on the first one.'
Michelle was 12 when their parents separated. She says it was a relief, an end to the dreadful rows. Her relationship with her mother was not easy and by the age of 15 she was living with her father.
'My mother was warmer earlier in the marriage,' she says. 'And less warm towards the end of it.'
When Barry asked to move in with his father, he was refused. 'I'm sure Barry saw it as a rejection. Probably the first of many,' she says.
'He wanted to be a special person. He wanted to have friends. I can only speculate that these inventions were ways of opening a conversation. Let's face it, it's a bit more of a conversation grabber than "I'm classified disabled and I can't do anything".'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-135212/My-brother-didnt-kill-Jill.html#ixzz5DQUKMFv4
No mention of this in her book, where she describes her previous work?
-
“In the early Eighties, he was registered disabled and suffered increasingly from epileptic fits. If the problem was not properly controlled he would often stumble around.
“The sister of the man wrongly convicted of Jill Dando's murder says he was incapable of the killing because "he would have had an epileptic seizure out of shock".
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/barry-george-would-epileptic-fit-14558209
But wouldn’t and didn’t have an epileptic fit out of shock when stalking, harassing and sexually assaulting women?
-
Mark Williams Thomas became involved with the Jeremy Bamber case via Jackie Preece allegedly. What motivated her to get someone like him involved? More importantly what motivated Michelle Diskin Bates and Barry George and how did Mark Williams Thomas gain access to the case files?
WHY did Barry George and his sister hand confidential case files to Mark Williams Thomas?
WHAT were their motivations?
And did any of them gain financially following the published news stories and hour long documentary, TV appearances etc?
“Mr Williams-Thomas said: 'I have now been given the name of the killer and that is my focus - on that individual.'
Shocked at the claim, presenter Ruth Langsford asked: 'You have a name?'
Mr Williams-Thomas responded: 'I do. And that is my focus now - to try and finally solve this investigation because there is no doubt that Jill was murdered, assassinated, by a professional hit-man.
'For an individual to get away with [it] for nearly 20 years... for an individual to have remained completely under the radar.
'The gun has never been recovered, nothing else has come into circulation. That shows you the quality of this person
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6019207/Former-detective-claims-knows-hired-assassin-killed-Jill-Dando.html
-
Troll exposure blog
“However, this manipulation of families and stories for his own benefit raises some other questions too: like have other stories been manipulated, anonymous sources created on a hush-hush basis for the promise of monies in return.
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/04/27/auctorem-inquisitor/
Michelle Diskin Bates states:
“It was quite an eye-opener when I became aware of the extent of the symbiotic relationship between the police and the media. However, the releasing of information to the media in the case against Barry clearly emphasised the practice.
Who manipulated who?
Michelle Diskin Bates states:
“The hacking into the text messages on Millie Dowler’s mobile phone seems to have led to the public exposure of this practice. It was highly insensitive, and pointed to the belief that Millie may actually still be alive for some time after she had been murdered. It was the highlighting of disgusting behaviour like this which eventually led to the closing of one particularly salacious Sunday newspaper, The News of the World, part of the Rupert Murdoch empire. Those of us who had suffered at the printing press of this publication’s deceits breathed a huge sigh of relief when it finally closed for good. This disgraceful conduct was also clearly evident in the reporting of the 2010 murder of landscape gardener Joanna Yates in Bristol....
“However, the releasing of information to the media in the case against Barry clearly emphasised the practice
WHY then did her and her brother choose to allow EX POLICE OFFICER Mark Williams Thomas (Of all people) access to sensitive case papers and allow him free reign to do with them what he wanted - as it appears to me.
“Propaganda, known today euphemistically as ‘public relations’, is the manufacturing of consent. Propaganda is the act of deliberately spreading false or deceptive information, ideas, rumors, doctrines or principles propagated by an organization or movement to help or harm a target person, group of people, movement, institution, nation, etc. It’s the distortion of information to suit a particular agenda. Along with its ‘proper’ use comes the ability to control the masses and mold the collective mind.
Propaganda is so pervasive in our culture, we have trouble discerning what information is real and what is not. It’s become increasingly difficult to tell the truth from the lies, even with the power of the internet. Time has given these mind manipulators lots of practice to hone their skills. It’s important to realize the magnitude of manipulation that is being perpetrated against mankind. https://wakeup-world.com/2015/11/16/propaganda-mind-manipulation-and-manufacturing-consent/
-
“Propaganda, known today euphemistically as ‘public relations’, is the manufacturing of consent. Propaganda is the act of deliberately spreading false or deceptive information, ideas, rumors, doctrines or principles propagated by an organization or movement to help or harm a target person, group of people, movement, institution, nation, etc. It’s the distortion of information to suit a particular agenda. Along with its ‘proper’ use comes the ability to control the masses and mold the collective mind.
Propaganda is so pervasive in our culture, we have trouble discerning what information is real and what is not. It’s become increasingly difficult to tell the truth from the lies, even with the power of the internet. Time has given these mind manipulators lots of practice to hone their skills. It’s important to realize the magnitude of manipulation that is being perpetrated against mankind. https://wakeup-world.com/2015/11/16/propaganda-mind-manipulation-and-manufacturing-consent/
Michelle Diskin Bates book is filled with propaganda and mind manipulative tactics that the naive, gullible and no doubt vulnerable readers will get sucked into, as I once did.
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
8h
I’ll be speaking about miscarriage of justice and the Dando case, and my friend, Trudi Benjamin, will also be here. So come along for the workshops in the morning and the speakers in the afternoon. Join us for a cuppa and a natter in the breaks 🤗
The “Dando case” not the Barry George case?! *&^^&
Another slip up maybe or her true colours and contempt shining through? Who is the unworthy one beneath consideration?
My opinions. My observations.
-
Troll exposure blog
“However, this manipulation of families and stories for his own benefit raises some other questions too: like have other stories been manipulated, anonymous sources created on a hush-hush basis for the promise of monies in return.
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/04/27/auctorem-inquisitor/
Michelle Diskin Bates states:
“It was quite an eye-opener when I became aware of the extent of the symbiotic relationship between the police and the media. However, the releasing of information to the media in the case against Barry clearly emphasised the practice.
Yet Barry George and his sister Michelle Diskin Bates have been in the same such mutually beneficial relationships.
And commended such:
“A great great teaming. Miscarriage of justice victims need strong support and experienced, structured assistance to fight their convictions. Good luck with the new venture.
Michelle
(Barry George’s sister)
https://insidetime.org/are-you-a-victim-of-a-genuine-miscarriage-of-justice/
“As a former Detective and with a high profile Mark receives almost daily contact from people asking for help . Sadly Mark is just not able to take on every case, but will take on as many case as he can . He is normally working on 6 or more serious cases at any one time.
Mark has decided alongside his TV investigations to turn some of his these into Podcasts - his fist podcast will be released in 2019.
Recent investigations:
Mark and lawyer David Wells were commissioned by the family of 18 year old Ivana Smit to undertake an investigation into her suspicious death in Kuala Lumpur in 2018.
Mark recently teamed up with Peter Faulding from Specialist Group International using the latest in search technology to re-investigate three unsolved murders : Nicola Payne aged 18 years who was last seen on the 14th December 1991, Sarah Benford aged 14 who was last seen on the 6th April 2000 and lee Boxall aged 15 years who was last seen on the 10th September 1998.
Mark has previously visited Srinagar, Kashmir a number of times to investigate the murder of Sarah Grove. On the 6th April 2013 Sarah viciously attacked in the bedroom of her house boat and stabbed over 40 times by her killer . My investigation uncovered new evidence and got an exclusive interview with the main suspect. This case remains ongoing with very slow progress through the Indian criminal justice system, the main suspect Richard De Wit is still on trial for her murder.
If you think Mark can help you with an unsolved case or a missing person please get in touch.
Mark also runs a Specialists Investigations company - working for private clients and companies on very sensitive investigations. http://www.williams-thomas.co.uk/thismorning
March 2018
“The story had it all: sex, drugs and a stunning teenage model who plunged, naked, 14 floors to her death from the home of an American cryptocurrency tycoon and his glamorous wife in the booming Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur. As news of the violent end of Ivana Smit, 18, flashed around the world, it grew in the telling, spawning claims the Dutch citizen had been murdered, and that her killers were being protected by corrupt police.
Adding fuel to the fire was a British former policeman and TV celebrity, Mark Williams-Thomas, who made the 2012 TV documentary which exposed the crimes of Jimmy Savile. Working with UK lawyer David Wells, he travelled to KL and compiled – at a cost of £8,000 – an unofficial report for Ivana’s family. Last week Wells issued a press release, headlined: ‘Model’s fatal fall was no accident, conclude St Albans solicitor and private investigator duo.’ They say they have ‘no doubt’ that in Britain, Ivana’s death would be treated as homicide.
But was it? Absent from every account so far of Ivana’s death on December 7 is a single word from the last people who saw her alive, and from whose 20th floor balcony she plunged: Alex Johnson, 44, and his Kazakh wife, Luna, 31. Last week, they gave their first interview to The Mail on Sunday.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5565257/Riddle-death-plunge-model.html
“Model's fatal fall was no accident conclude St Albans solicitor and private investigator duo | Wells Burcombe LLP
https://www.wellsburcombe.co.uk › mod...
29 Mar 2018 · St Albans crime lawyer, David Wells has been working with award-winning crime investigator, Mark Williams-Thomas, in Kuala Lumpur to uncover the truth surrounding the death of 18-year-old model ...
-
Who manipulated who?
Michelle Diskin Bates states:
“The hacking into the text messages on Millie Dowler’s mobile phone seems to have led to the public exposure of this practice. It was highly insensitive, and pointed to the belief that Millie may actually still be alive for some time after she had been murdered. It was the highlighting of disgusting behaviour like this which eventually led to the closing of one particularly salacious Sunday newspaper, The News of the World, part of the Rupert Murdoch empire. Those of us who had suffered at the printing press of this publication’s deceits breathed a huge sigh of relief when it finally closed for good. This disgraceful conduct was also clearly evident in the reporting of the 2010 murder of landscape gardener Joanna Yates in Bristol....
“However, the releasing of information to the media in the case against Barry clearly emphasised the practice
WHY then did her and her brother choose to allow EX POLICE OFFICER Mark Williams Thomas (Of all people) access to sensitive case papers and allow him free reign to do with them what he wanted - as it appears to me.
“Propaganda, known today euphemistically as ‘public relations’, is the manufacturing of consent. Propaganda is the act of deliberately spreading false or deceptive information, ideas, rumors, doctrines or principles propagated by an organization or movement to help or harm a target person, group of people, movement, institution, nation, etc. It’s the distortion of information to suit a particular agenda. Along with its ‘proper’ use comes the ability to control the masses and mold the collective mind.
Propaganda is so pervasive in our culture, we have trouble discerning what information is real and what is not. It’s become increasingly difficult to tell the truth from the lies, even with the power of the internet. Time has given these mind manipulators lots of practice to hone their skills. It’s important to realize the magnitude of manipulation that is being perpetrated against mankind. https://wakeup-world.com/2015/11/16/propaganda-mind-manipulation-and-manufacturing-consent/
“According to The Mirror, George said: “When I was in emergency accommodation in Hackney, I was stood in a long hallway and I had a gun put to my head. “I went to the police station and told them and they gave me lip service. I was living in fear. There were two things in my mind: I’ve been acquitted of this crime and then I get a gun to my head.
There was talk of a Serbian hit team involved in Jill’s killing.
“We think it must have been someone who had a link. It’s too much of a coincidence.”
The Met Office police confirmed that George had informed them of the incident at the time it happened, but appeared in a state of shock upon arrival and couldn’t give concrete details about what he had witnessed.
Criminal report specialist David Wells had joined George to report the crime and told The Mirror: “He was incredibly distressed… sweating, out of breath and in quite a state. I’d seen Barry on many occasions and I had never seen him this distressed. Barry repeated that someone pointed a gun at him and made a threat – he appeared highly credible. He was very afraid. It could well have been someone linked to the murder of Jill Dando.
“It does seem unlikely someone would randomly select Barry out of millions in London and threaten him and put a gun to his head after his acquittal. If indeed it was rated as a serious complaint and investigated by police, nothing came of it.” http://igvofficial.com/case-solved-mark-williams-thomas-reveals-news-about-jill-dandos-killer/
-
“As a former Detective and with a high profile Mark receives almost daily contact from people asking for help . Sadly Mark is just not able to take on every case, but will take on as many case as he can . He is normally working on 6 or more serious cases at any one time.
Mark has decided alongside his TV investigations to turn some of his these into Podcasts - his fist podcast will be released in 2019.
Recent investigations:
Mark and lawyer David Wells were commissioned by the family of 18 year old Ivana Smit to undertake an investigation into her suspicious death in Kuala Lumpur in 2018.
Mark recently teamed up with Peter Faulding from Specialist Group International using the latest in search technology to re-investigate three unsolved murders : Nicola Payne aged 18 years who was last seen on the 14th December 1991, Sarah Benford aged 14 who was last seen on the 6th April 2000 and lee Boxall aged 15 years who was last seen on the 10th September 1998.
Mark has previously visited Srinagar, Kashmir a number of times to investigate the murder of Sarah Grove. On the 6th April 2013 Sarah viciously attacked in the bedroom of her house boat and stabbed over 40 times by her killer . My investigation uncovered new evidence and got an exclusive interview with the main suspect. This case remains ongoing with very slow progress through the Indian criminal justice system, the main suspect Richard De Wit is still on trial for her murder.
If you think Mark can help you with an unsolved case or a missing person please get in touch.
Mark also runs a Specialists Investigations company - working for private clients and companies on very sensitive investigations. http://www.williams-thomas.co.uk/thismorning
March 2018
“The story had it all: sex, drugs and a stunning teenage model who plunged, naked, 14 floors to her death from the home of an American cryptocurrency tycoon and his glamorous wife in the booming Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur. As news of the violent end of Ivana Smit, 18, flashed around the world, it grew in the telling, spawning claims the Dutch citizen had been murdered, and that her killers were being protected by corrupt police.
Adding fuel to the fire was a British former policeman and TV celebrity, Mark Williams-Thomas, who made the 2012 TV documentary which exposed the crimes of Jimmy Savile. Working with UK lawyer David Wells, he travelled to KL and compiled – at a cost of £8,000 – an unofficial report for Ivana’s family. Last week Wells issued a press release, headlined: ‘Model’s fatal fall was no accident, conclude St Albans solicitor and private investigator duo.’ They say they have ‘no doubt’ that in Britain, Ivana’s death would be treated as homicide.
But was it? Absent from every account so far of Ivana’s death on December 7 is a single word from the last people who saw her alive, and from whose 20th floor balcony she plunged: Alex Johnson, 44, and his Kazakh wife, Luna, 31. Last week, they gave their first interview to The Mail on Sunday.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5565257/Riddle-death-plunge-model.html
“Model's fatal fall was no accident conclude St Albans solicitor and private investigator duo | Wells Burcombe LLP
https://www.wellsburcombe.co.uk › mod...
29 Mar 2018 · St Albans crime lawyer, David Wells has been working with award-winning crime investigator, Mark Williams-Thomas, in Kuala Lumpur to uncover the truth surrounding the death of 18-year-old model ...
“Intervener (Barry George)
Ian Glen QC
Gordon Bishop (Instructed by Wells Burcombe)
https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2010-0046-judgment.pdf
https://www.wellsburcombe.co.uk/employees/david-wells/
“Ian Glen had been a puzzle to me. When I had first googled him he had come up as a QC specialising in "serious crime" cases; there seemed no linkage between him and sex cases of any sort - rape or abuse. I was puzzled at why this QC had been selected by Williams-Thomas, but having no reason to dig deeper I just put it down to his being handy and affordable to hire, without there being any reason in particular. When I read todays' professional journalism about the Savile matters, something made me decide to go back and take a closer look at the QC from Exposure. That 'something' was when the Telegraph appeared to climb onto the bus commisioned by the Mail on Sunday today
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/jimmy-savile/11172622/Police-launch-fraud-probe-into-claim-for-compensation-by-alleged-victim-of-Jimmy-Savile.html Finding that Telegraph article led me back to a much older one. It was the article the Telegraph had published when reviewing Exposure - in 2012.
Of course, Savile is now dead, and cannot put his side of the story in response to any of these allegations. But Williams-Thomas’s case against Savile convinced a QC, Ian Glen, that there is enough evidence for Savile to be arrested if he were still alive. Glen’s contribution made the programme feel even more authoritative.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/tv-and-radio-reviews/9585422/Jimmy-Savile-Exposure-ITV1-review.html
I had never thought that deeply about the QC's contribution but Mark Williams-Thomas obviously knew which journalistic buttons needed pressing when he made his TV show.
“Once we had collected the evidence it was important to test it, and for this reason I showed it to a leading barrister, Ian Glen QC. His verdict was the evidence amounted to a pattern of offending that the complainants were speaking about.” http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/reporter-describes-investigation-harrowing-jimmy-2497131
I wondered how the leading barrister felt now that it has become obvious that all of Williams-Thomas' complainants have one by one, been demonstrated to be bogus
http://jimcannotfixthis.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/root-vegetable.html
They do say in this blogging game that the secret is to join the dots and see where they lead, so I did. The first time I found Ian Glen was in the Daily Mail of all places! It was just a matter of a few weeks ago! That was just a coincidence obviously. He seemed not very sympatico with his own profession
Ian Glen QC told a legal magazine that "liberal advertising regulations" and "micro specialisation" had encouraged "self-promotion". He said, in an interview with Counsel magazine, that changes had only helped those who "outpace the rest in getting their noses into the trough". And "worst of all", some barristers seemed to believe their own publicity and measured success in money terms, he said. Mr Glen, a barrister for 35 years, said that had led to "exaggerated claims" on the legal aid fund. Interviewers, who compiled a profile of Mr Glen for the latest edition of the magazine, asked what changes he had seen "for the worst". "Worst of all has been the decline of humility," said Mr Glen. "Advocacy is not about the advocate ." Mr Glen - who has been a QC, or "silk", for 18 years - was also asked where he saw himself in five years' time. "Most of us are contemplating doing something completely different without knowing quite what it is," he said. "I have considered the discreet advert 'Disillusioned senior silk with bags of life experience seeks new challenge' but I can't decide where to place it. Any ideas?" http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-2722691/Barrister-hits-noses-trough.html
I ventured in my own mind that he might fancy a career as a TV pundit. The next place I found the QC was in the pages of the Telegraph! What a line of dots it was turning out to be! This reference went back a few years though, all the way to 2008 and when I realised the QC wanted to be a DJ, you could have knocked me down with a feather, guys n gals
Once upon a time when a Queen's counsel heard the initials DJ, it would be a signal to swap his silk gown for a dinner jacket. Not any more."I'm going to DJ at Glastonbury," says Ian Glen QC. "I've played at the Grosvenor House hotel before, but never at Glastonbury. I play a mixture of house and reggae."Glen, 56, will be "on the decks" when the nightclub Chinawhite takes over the festival's Left Field Stage. The event will raise money for the Miscarriage of Justice Organisation, of which he is a trustee.The barrister knows the owner of Chinawhite through his licensing work. Although he also represents Spearmint Rhino, thankfully he assures me that he has no plans to perform a pole dance.
However it was that last dot - that last piece of information that really led to me making this Blogpost. As soon as I read Spearmint Rhino, my data antennae were twitching. There was something I remembered. Here it is:
Read more here:
http://jimcannotfixthis.blogspot.com/2014/10/keeping-my-own-counsel.html
https://annaraccoon.com/2013/07/24/the-other-side-of-exposure-the-real-victims-of-the-jimmy-savile-story/
-
Troll exposure blog
“Our criminal justice system has been warped, warped by people who should’ve known better. Warped by an agenda, not to get justice for genuine victims but to feed statistics and other artificial needs. It has become from top down one which was perverting the presumption of innocence
The culture is what needs to change. The mentality of making an allegation stick instead of pursuing actual evidence which either proves OR disproves the allegation.
Questions like whether our criminal justice system is really totally broken by corruption and personal agendas.
If such agendas stretch up as far as the former principal legal adviser to the head of the CPS (DPP) then questions about how far such matters have infiltrated our legal system should be asked and answered.
Then add in the exploitation of the media in such… and it becomes a veritable Masterchef recipe for witchhunts.
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/04/27/tonight-matthew/
-
Michelle Diskin Bates book is filled with propaganda and mind manipulative tactics that the naive, gullible and no doubt vulnerable readers will get sucked into, as I once did.
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
8h
I’ll be speaking about miscarriage of justice and the Dando case, and my friend, Trudi Benjamin, will also be here. So come along for the workshops in the morning and the speakers in the afternoon. Join us for a cuppa and a natter in the breaks 🤗
The “Dando case” not the Barry George case?! *&^^&
Another slip up maybe or her true colours and contempt shining through? Who is the unworthy one beneath consideration?
My opinions. My observations.
Hannah
@hannahjames40
·
23h
I was having a discussion with my son earlier (he mentioned handing in his homework on Religious Studies).
We discussed how religion is important when it encourages good family values, structures and general decency.
Who would oppose that?
1
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
23h
That’s probably morality. Not a bad thing of course 🤗
1
1
Hannah
@hannahjames40
Replying to
@Michelle_Diskin
Agreed.
Some of the scientific and moralistic views in scripture are a force for good.
10:57 PM · Apr 26, 2019 · Twitter for Android
*&^^&
-
Hannah
@hannahjames40
·
23h
I was having a discussion with my son earlier (he mentioned handing in his homework on Religious Studies).
We discussed how religion is important when it encourages good family values, structures and general decency.
Who would oppose that?
1
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
23h
That’s probably morality. Not a bad thing of course 🤗
1
1
Hannah
@hannahjames40
Replying to
@Michelle_Diskin
Agreed.
Some of the scientific and moralistic views in scripture are a force for good.
10:57 PM · Apr 26, 2019 · Twitter for Android
*&^^&
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@HelgaSpeck
Police denied it was a hit because no one claimed it. Well someone did...3 times, the first just three hours after she was killed. I knew of the second two, programme found the all important first in Barry’s evidence boxes! More than credible now...covered up?
Very likely 😡
What complete and utter BS!
-
“As a former Detective and with a high profile Mark receives almost daily contact from people asking for help . Sadly Mark is just not able to take on every case, but will take on as many case as he can . He is normally working on 6 or more serious cases at any one time.
Mark has decided alongside his TV investigations to turn some of his these into Podcasts - his fist podcast will be released in 2019.
Recent investigations:
Mark and lawyer David Wells were commissioned by the family of 18 year old Ivana Smit to undertake an investigation into her suspicious death in Kuala Lumpur in 2018.
Mark recently teamed up with Peter Faulding from Specialist Group International using the latest in search technology to re-investigate three unsolved murders : Nicola Payne aged 18 years who was last seen on the 14th December 1991, Sarah Benford aged 14 who was last seen on the 6th April 2000 and lee Boxall aged 15 years who was last seen on the 10th September 1998.
Mark has previously visited Srinagar, Kashmir a number of times to investigate the murder of Sarah Grove. On the 6th April 2013 Sarah viciously attacked in the bedroom of her house boat and stabbed over 40 times by her killer . My investigation uncovered new evidence and got an exclusive interview with the main suspect. This case remains ongoing with very slow progress through the Indian criminal justice system, the main suspect Richard De Wit is still on trial for her murder.
If you think Mark can help you with an unsolved case or a missing person please get in touch.
Mark also runs a Specialists Investigations company - working for private clients and companies on very sensitive investigations. http://www.williams-thomas.co.uk/thismorning
March 2018
“The story had it all: sex, drugs and a stunning teenage model who plunged, naked, 14 floors to her death from the home of an American cryptocurrency tycoon and his glamorous wife in the booming Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur. As news of the violent end of Ivana Smit, 18, flashed around the world, it grew in the telling, spawning claims the Dutch citizen had been murdered, and that her killers were being protected by corrupt police.
Adding fuel to the fire was a British former policeman and TV celebrity, Mark Williams-Thomas, who made the 2012 TV documentary which exposed the crimes of Jimmy Savile. Working with UK lawyer David Wells, he travelled to KL and compiled – at a cost of £8,000 – an unofficial report for Ivana’s family. Last week Wells issued a press release, headlined: ‘Model’s fatal fall was no accident, conclude St Albans solicitor and private investigator duo.’ They say they have ‘no doubt’ that in Britain, Ivana’s death would be treated as homicide.
But was it? Absent from every account so far of Ivana’s death on December 7 is a single word from the last people who saw her alive, and from whose 20th floor balcony she plunged: Alex Johnson, 44, and his Kazakh wife, Luna, 31. Last week, they gave their first interview to The Mail on Sunday.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5565257/Riddle-death-plunge-model.html
“Model's fatal fall was no accident conclude St Albans solicitor and private investigator duo | Wells Burcombe LLP
https://www.wellsburcombe.co.uk › mod...
29 Mar 2018 · St Albans crime lawyer, David Wells has been working with award-winning crime investigator, Mark Williams-Thomas, in Kuala Lumpur to uncover the truth surrounding the death of 18-year-old model ...
“Miscarriages of Justice/Wrongful Convictions
Overturning a conviction is not easy, but it can be achieved.
The team at ‘Specialist Investigations’ have reviewed some of the countries most high profile criminal convictions, such as the tragic case of Barry George, the so called ‘Essex Boys’ murders (a case which is now before the criminal cases review commission requesting a fresh appeal), and the case of a British Dentist which is currently under extensive review and is considered a genuine miscarriage of Justice
https://specialistinvestigations.com/services/
So do they not consider the other two to be “genuine?”
-
“Ian Glen had been a puzzle to me. When I had first googled him he had come up as a QC specialising in "serious crime" cases; there seemed no linkage between him and sex cases of any sort - rape or abuse. I was puzzled at why this QC had been selected by Williams-Thomas, but having no reason to dig deeper I just put it down to his being handy and affordable to hire, without there being any reason in particular. When I read todays' professional journalism about the Savile matters, something made me decide to go back and take a closer look at the QC from Exposure. That 'something' was when the Telegraph appeared to climb onto the bus commisioned by the Mail on Sunday today
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/jimmy-savile/11172622/Police-launch-fraud-probe-into-claim-for-compensation-by-alleged-victim-of-Jimmy-Savile.html Finding that Telegraph article led me back to a much older one. It was the article the Telegraph had published when reviewing Exposure - in 2012.
Of course, Savile is now dead, and cannot put his side of the story in response to any of these allegations. But Williams-Thomas’s case against Savile convinced a QC, Ian Glen, that there is enough evidence for Savile to be arrested if he were still alive. Glen’s contribution made the programme feel even more authoritative.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/tv-and-radio-reviews/9585422/Jimmy-Savile-Exposure-ITV1-review.html
I had never thought that deeply about the QC's contribution but Mark Williams-Thomas obviously knew which journalistic buttons needed pressing when he made his TV show.
“Once we had collected the evidence it was important to test it, and for this reason I showed it to a leading barrister, Ian Glen QC. His verdict was the evidence amounted to a pattern of offending that the complainants were speaking about.” http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/reporter-describes-investigation-harrowing-jimmy-2497131
I wondered how the leading barrister felt now that it has become obvious that all of Williams-Thomas' complainants have one by one, been demonstrated to be bogus
http://jimcannotfixthis.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/root-vegetable.html
They do say in this blogging game that the secret is to join the dots and see where they lead, so I did. The first time I found Ian Glen was in the Daily Mail of all places! It was just a matter of a few weeks ago! That was just a coincidence obviously. He seemed not very sympatico with his own profession
Ian Glen QC told a legal magazine that "liberal advertising regulations" and "micro specialisation" had encouraged "self-promotion". He said, in an interview with Counsel magazine, that changes had only helped those who "outpace the rest in getting their noses into the trough". And "worst of all", some barristers seemed to believe their own publicity and measured success in money terms, he said. Mr Glen, a barrister for 35 years, said that had led to "exaggerated claims" on the legal aid fund. Interviewers, who compiled a profile of Mr Glen for the latest edition of the magazine, asked what changes he had seen "for the worst". "Worst of all has been the decline of humility," said Mr Glen. "Advocacy is not about the advocate ." Mr Glen - who has been a QC, or "silk", for 18 years - was also asked where he saw himself in five years' time. "Most of us are contemplating doing something completely different without knowing quite what it is," he said. "I have considered the discreet advert 'Disillusioned senior silk with bags of life experience seeks new challenge' but I can't decide where to place it. Any ideas?" http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-2722691/Barrister-hits-noses-trough.html
I ventured in my own mind that he might fancy a career as a TV pundit. The next place I found the QC was in the pages of the Telegraph! What a line of dots it was turning out to be! This reference went back a few years though, all the way to 2008 and when I realised the QC wanted to be a DJ, you could have knocked me down with a feather, guys n gals
Once upon a time when a Queen's counsel heard the initials DJ, it would be a signal to swap his silk gown for a dinner jacket. Not any more."I'm going to DJ at Glastonbury," says Ian Glen QC. "I've played at the Grosvenor House hotel before, but never at Glastonbury. I play a mixture of house and reggae."Glen, 56, will be "on the decks" when the nightclub Chinawhite takes over the festival's Left Field Stage. The event will raise money for the Miscarriage of Justice Organisation, of which he is a trustee.The barrister knows the owner of Chinawhite through his licensing work. Although he also represents Spearmint Rhino, thankfully he assures me that he has no plans to perform a pole dance.
However it was that last dot - that last piece of information that really led to me making this Blogpost. As soon as I read Spearmint Rhino, my data antennae were twitching. There was something I remembered. Here it is:
Read more here:
http://jimcannotfixthis.blogspot.com/2014/10/keeping-my-own-counsel.html
QC DJ on the decks at Glastonbury - Mar 2008
“Once upon a time when a Queen's counsel heard the initials DJ, it would be a signal to swap his silk gown for a dinner jacket. Not any more.
"I'm going to DJ at Glastonbury," says Ian Glen QC. "I've played at the Grosvenor House hotel before, but never at Glastonbury. I play a mixture of house and reggae."
Glen, 56, will be "on the decks" when the nightclub Chinawhite takes over the festival's Left Field Stage. The event will raise money for the Miscarriage of Justice Organisation, of which he is a trustee.
The barrister knows the owner of Chinawhite through his licensing work. Although he also represents Spearmint Rhino, thankfully he assures me that he has no plans to perform a pole dance.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1582598/QC-DJ-on-the-decks-at-Glastonbury.html
October 2012
“Barry George today launched a test case bid to overturn a ''defective'' decision denying him compensation after he wrongly imprisoned for the murder of Jill Dando.
Mr George, 52, who was cleared after a retrial in 2008, is seeking a High Court ruling that could open the way for him to claim an award of up to £500,000.
His case is one of five test cases assembled for senior judges to decide who is now entitled to payments in ''miscarriages of justice'' cases following a landmark decision by the Supreme Court in May 2011.
Mr George's claim for damages for lost earnings and wrongful imprisonment was rejected by the Ministry of Justice on the grounds that he was not legally entitled to compensation.
That decision is being defended by Justice Secretary Chris Grayling in a three-day hearing at London's High Court.
Ian Glen QC, appearing for Mr George, is asking Mr Justice Beatson and Mr Justice Irwin to rule the decision to deny compensation ''defective and contrary to natural justice'' and a breach of the right to a fair trial under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The proceedings follow the Supreme Court's redefinition of the legal meaning of what constitutes a ''miscarriage of justice'' after debating when compensation should be paid to people wrongly convicted of crime.
Miss Dando was shot dead outside her home in Fulham in April 1999.
After his conviction in 2001, Mr George, of Fulham, west London, was acquitted of killing the 37-year-old BBC presenter at the 2008 retrial.
The case was referred to by one of the panel of nine Supreme Court justices who gave the landmark miscarriage of justice ruling.
Lord Hope described how a particle of ''firearms discharge'' matching particles found in the cartridge case of the bullet which killed Miss Dando, had been found in a pocket of a coat worn by Mr George.
Evidence about the ''firearms discharge'' particle and its significance were called into question following a review and Mr George's conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal in 2007 and the retrial ordered.
When found not guilty in 2008, the Crown Prosecution Service said he ''had the right to be regarded as innocent''.
In the Supreme Court ruling, the then president Lord Phillips said that the ''mere quashing'' of a conviction could not be a ''trigger for compensation''.
He said a ''miscarriage of justice'' occurred when a new fact ''so undermined'' prosecution evidence that no conviction could ''possibly be based upon it''.
He said the new ''test'' would not guarantee that all those entitled to compensation were ''in fact innocent''.
But it would ensure that when innocent defendants were convicted on discredited evidence they were not ''precluded'' from obtaining compensation because they could not prove their innocence beyond reasonable doubt.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9614673/Barry-George-battles-over-compensation-for-Jill-Dando-conviction.html
-
Whilst Barry George's "odd" behaviour may not make him a murderer, doubts still remain.
Investigative journalist Mark Williams Thomas looked again at the the case and presented his findings which appeared to point away from George. But how do any of us know whether he had been influenced in any way by his bias?
Barry George is not innocent enough for compensation!
High Court judges ruled “There was indeed a case upon which a reasonable jury, properly directed, could have convicted the claimant of murder."
To what evidence were the judges referring?
386
Ian Glen QC passed away in 2016
The only mention of this fact in Michelle Diskin Bates book is in brackets stating “now sadly deceased”
No mention of her and Barry George attending his funeral, like their is of Gerry Conlon? However he is referred to as a friend?
All the mention he gets is “now sadly deceased?”
“East Anglian Chambers regrets to announce the death yesterday of door tenant Ian Glen QC. Aged 65, he had been suffering from cancer. https://www.ealaw.co.uk/ian-glen-qc/
According to Michelle Diskin Bates, Barry George was stopped and searched in London one day whilst meeting up with Ian Glen QC. Apparently her brother wasn’t doing anything when he was stopped and wasn’t behaving in a worrying or threatening way and the police left when Barry pointed Ian out to them.
Do you think the police recognised Ian Glen QC? Do you think the police recognised Barry George?
-
Ian Glen QC passed away in 2016
The only mention of this fact in Michelle Diskin Bates book is in brackets stating “now sadly deceased”
No mention of her and Barry George attending his funeral, like their is of Gerry Conlon? However he is referred to as a friend?
All the mention he gets is “now sadly deceased?”
“East Anglian Chambers regrets to announce the death yesterday of door tenant Ian Glen QC. Aged 65, he had been suffering from cancer. https://www.ealaw.co.uk/ian-glen-qc/
According to Michelle Diskin Bates, Barry George was stopped and searched in London one day whilst meeting up with Ian Glen QC. Apparently her brother wasn’t doing anything when he was stopped and wasn’t behaving in a worrying or threatening way and the police left when Barry pointed Ian out to them.
Do you think the police recognised Ian Glen QC? Do you think the police recognised Barry George?
Also according to Michelle Diskin Bates, Ian Glen QC coined the phrase “not innocent enough!” It’s all there in black and white in her book.
My brother, who was wrongly convicted of the murder of TV presenter, Jill Dando, has never been awarded any compensation for the years he spent incarcerated for this killing. His conviction was quashed in 2007, and he was then released in 2008, when the jury at his second trial unanimously found him not guilty. Since then, we have tried every avenue we could think of to get this government to correct the wrong, and to make recompense for all that he has lost.’
Michelle Bates
http://www.thejusticegap.com/2015/12/2015-a-year-in-the-justice-gap/
Maybe it's finally time for Michelle Bates to be transparent in order to convince those of us who believe him to not be innocent enough.
And maybe she would be open and honest enough to publicise the total sum of money her brother accrued since his conviction was over turned?
All I'm witnessing is greed; which has nothing to do with truth or justice.
-
Also according to Michelle Diskin Bates, Ian Glen QC coined the phrase “not innocent enough!” It’s all there in black and white in her book.
Do you think she is mistaken?
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/barry-george-not-innocent-enough-for-compensation-after-jill-dando-murder-conviction-29022810.html
According to this article the traits of conceited individuals, are arrogance, narcissism and megalomania.
https://exploringyourmind.com/conceited-people-traits-and-behaviors/
From my observations of Michelle Diskin Bates she has all three!
Again, my observations, my opinions.
I witnessed Michelle Diskin Bates uncontrollable arrogance in her recent TV interviews, I’ve witnessed it as far back as 2010!
And it features heavenly in her book.
“Conceited people with megalomaniac tendencies think that they’re very socially important. They consider themselves capable of performing great deeds and holders of enormous wealth. However, these beliefs are both irrational and overestimated
“Their lack of modesty and humility makes these individuals believe they’re always right simply because they’re them. Thus, they often use positions of false power or authority to defend and impose their perspective onto others.
It part of the reason some people have been unable to see through the facade.
-
Team Barry 2008 by Mike Bourke, Uncle of Barry George - taken from “Mike’s Story the battle to clear Barry George of the Jill Dando murder https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mikes-Story-Battle-George-murder/dp/1907163441
“To make things even better a ‘spokesman’ for him allegedly confirmed some of those manufactured stories. Pat Reynolds said to me one day: ‘with friends like those who needs enemies?’ It was a little sad to see the end results of the long hard battle and one day a despairing Margaret said to me that it was now worse than when he was in prison. In an October 10 feature in the Daily Mail David Jones summed up the whole sorry state of affairs. He described how Jill’s grave had been a haven of peace for Jack Dando, aged 90, and her brother Nigel, but that now Barry was planning to visit it. Singh Clair, described as Barry’s spokesman confirmed that. Nigel Dando said that he would not object to the visit: ‘It might give Mr George cause to ponder and reflect’, he said. The article described how others in ‘Team Barry’ included his sister, his mother, friend Robert Charig, and Sion Jenkins was described as a fringe member. Then there was the body charged with monitoring Barry and smoothing his path back into society under a Multi Agency Public Protection Agreement. (MAPPA)
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ltgorwROQfwC&pg=PA212&lpg=PA212&dq=Then+there+was+the+body+charged+with+monitoring+Barry+and+smoothing+his+path+back+into+society+under+a+Multi+Agency+Public+Protection+Agreement&source=bl&ots=Osy89OF-cJ&sig=ACfU3U0zgkLRZxktkcCyj-B_-VTf-1st0Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjP_uOK-dvhAhWssKQKHT4IBzYQ6AEwAHoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=Then%20there%20was%20the%20body%20charged%20with%20monitoring%20Barry%20and%20smoothing%20his%20path%20back%20into%20society%20under%20a%20Multi%20Agency%20Public%20Protection%20Agreement&f=false
So it would appear, at least since the time the book Stand Against Injustice was published last year, Barry George is still being monitored under MAPPA.
According to his sister, he took a case against this decision but lost, having to pay all the costs himself.
-
So it would appear, at least since the time the book Stand Against Injustice was published last year, Barry George is still being monitored under MAPPA.
According to his sister, he took a case against this decision but lost, having to pay all the costs himself.
Barry George was initially assessed as showing signs of “histrionics, paranoia and narcissism, and had a personality disorder.
“George's lawyers also brought in evidence from a neuropsychiatrist to dispute prosecution suggestions that he showed signs of "histrionics, paranoia and narcissism" and had a personality disorder.
Prof Michael Kopelman implied that George could not have been as calculating as alleged. "[He] described to me that he can be aware of what's going on around him but just can't respond," the professor said.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/aug/01/jilldando.ukcrime2
Much of the assessments carried out on Barry George would have meant relying on what he chose to tell those who were assessing him at the time. It was then up to them to form an opinion.
The FACT Barry George is still under MAPPA suggests all is not as it seems with regards his dangerousness to himself, others and the public.
-
Do you think she is mistaken?
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/barry-george-not-innocent-enough-for-compensation-after-jill-dando-murder-conviction-29022810.html
According to this article the traits of conceited individuals, are arrogance, narcissism and megalomania.
https://exploringyourmind.com/conceited-people-traits-and-behaviors/
From my observations of Michelle Diskin Bates she has all three!
Again, my observations, my opinions.
I witnessed Michelle Diskin Bates uncontrollable arrogance in her recent TV interviews, I’ve witnessed it as far back as 2010!
And it features heavenly in her book.
“Conceited people with megalomaniac tendencies think that they’re very socially important. They consider themselves capable of performing great deeds and holders of enormous wealth. However, these beliefs are both irrational and overestimated
“Their lack of modesty and humility makes these individuals believe they’re always right simply because they’re them. Thus, they often use positions of false power or authority to defend and impose their perspective onto others.
It part of the reason some people have been unable to see through the facade.
Michelle Diskin Bates claimed in 2018:
“If Barry had been a dangerous offender recently released, I would have been right behind this monitoring of his movements by the police. Indeed, I would have never fought for his freedom from the sentence in the first place. If you do the crime, you must do the time.
WHAT, if anything, did she learn following the confession of Simon Hall?
Based on my opinions and observations and her lack of insight I question her judgement regarding her brother, his arrest, conviction and all that followed. Supported by the fact she was estranged from him some 12 years leading up to the murder.
WHAT were the reasons for the estrangement?
It’s clear, not only from reading what her uncle says but from information on the World Wide Web that Michelle Diskin Bates has made poor decisions. Her attempts at covering them up are see through, which again leaves me questioning her credibility and integrity.
Her grandiose sense of self, as I see it, is also of concern.
My opinions my observations.
“Michelle Diskin-Bates will address this year’s conference, copies of her book Stand Against Injustice will be available.
Michelle is a woman of integrity and dignity and we are honoured to have her as a patron of United Against Injustice.
On April 26, 1999, BBC TV presenter Jill Dando was murdered outside her home in London. Barry George was convicted and imprisoned for the murder but was later acquitted after an appeal and retrial. Stand Against Injustice is the powerful memoir of the sister of Barry George. For the first time, Michelle Diskin tells her story, the human side and truth behind one of recent history's most high profile and damaging miscarriages of justice whose life is inextricably interwoven in the drama, the trauma, the conspiracy and the fight for justice. A self-confessed "ordinary housewife," Michelle’s voice weaves the personal everyday struggles that bring depth, colour, and passion into what is an extraordinary account. https://www.unitedagainstinjustice.com/patrons
-
“Michelle Diskin-Bates will address this year’s conference, copies of her book Stand Against Injustice will be available.
Michelle is a woman of integrity and dignity and we are honoured to have her as a patron of United Against Injustice.
On April 26, 1999, BBC TV presenter Jill Dando was murdered outside her home in London. Barry George was convicted and imprisoned for the murder but was later acquitted after an appeal and retrial. Stand Against Injustice is the powerful memoir of the sister of Barry George. For the first time, Michelle Diskin tells her story, the human side and truth behind one of recent history's most high profile and damaging miscarriages of justice whose life is inextricably interwoven in the drama, the trauma, the conspiracy and the fight for justice. A self-confessed "ordinary housewife," Michelle’s voice weaves the personal everyday struggles that bring depth, colour, and passion into what is an extraordinary account. https://www.unitedagainstinjustice.com/patrons
WHY does it still appear some people refuse to question her credibility and integrity?
Maybe if they did they would recognise what is hidden in plain sight, as the police, family and others clearly have.
“Reality is the state of being real or actual, whereas an illusion is a mental misinterpretation of what is believed to be true. Illusions often prevent people from perceiving reality and objective truths, which consequently results in delusions, and in some cases, tragedies.
-
So it would appear, at least since the time the book Stand Against Injustice was published last year, Barry George is still being monitored under MAPPA.
According to his sister, he took a case against this decision but lost, having to pay all the costs himself.
“Under MAPPA, offenders are managed at one of 3 levels. These levels reflect the level of multi-agency co-operation required to implement the individual offender’s risk management plan effectively. Offenders may be moved up or down the levels to reflect changes in the level of risk that they present or the action required to manage their risk
• Level 1 – The agency that has the lead in supervising the offender applies the usual arrangements to manage the offender at this level. Relevant agencies, especially the police and probation, will usually exchange information about offenders between them. However, the agencies do not hold formal multi-agency meetings to discuss an offender’s case. Offenders will be managed at Level 1 in most cases.
• Level 2 – The risk management plans for these offenders require the active involvement of several agencies via regular multi-agency public protection meetings.
• Level 3 – As with offenders managed at Level 2, the active involvement of several agencies is required; however, the risks presented by offenders managed at this level are such that senior staff from the agencies involved are required to authorise the use of additional resources, such as specialised accommodation.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/751006/mappa-annual-report-2017-18.pdf
Michelle Diskin Bates, asks re MAPPA; “Why was he under one after said conviction had been quashed?
She claims; “Being under this MAPPA order has seriously affected Barry’s ability to access help for his PTSD. He would not attend anywhere for counselling because he was convinced they would have to tell the police everything he said, and he was afraid of the police, with good reason.
These excuses are Red Flags.
Where is the evidence Barry George has PTSD, more importantly WHY has Barry George and his sister chosen to hide the facts of WHY he is still under MAPPA?
If they had nothing to hide they would be transparent.
-
“Under MAPPA, offenders are managed at one of 3 levels. These levels reflect the level of multi-agency co-operation required to implement the individual offender’s risk management plan effectively. Offenders may be moved up or down the levels to reflect changes in the level of risk that they present or the action required to manage their risk
• Level 1 – The agency that has the lead in supervising the offender applies the usual arrangements to manage the offender at this level. Relevant agencies, especially the police and probation, will usually exchange information about offenders between them. However, the agencies do not hold formal multi-agency meetings to discuss an offender’s case. Offenders will be managed at Level 1 in most cases.
• Level 2 – The risk management plans for these offenders require the active involvement of several agencies via regular multi-agency public protection meetings.
• Level 3 – As with offenders managed at Level 2, the active involvement of several agencies is required; however, the risks presented by offenders managed at this level are such that senior staff from the agencies involved are required to authorise the use of additional resources, such as specialised accommodation.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/751006/mappa-annual-report-2017-18.pdf
Michelle Diskin Bates, asks re MAPPA; “Why was he under one after said conviction had been quashed?
She claims; “Being under this MAPPA order has seriously affected Barry’s ability to access help for his PTSD. He would not attend anywhere for counselling because he was convinced they would have to tell the police everything he said, and he was afraid of the police, with good reason.
These excuses are Red Flags.
Where is the evidence Barry George has PTSD, more importantly WHY has Barry George and his sister chosen to hide the facts of WHY he is still under MAPPA?
If they had nothing to hide they would be transparent.
Also according to Michelle Diskin Bates her brother was never registered as a sex offender. I imagine with legislation changes over the years things would be very different now for Barry George if he committed those offences today.
What a conundrum they have found themselves in, not dissimilar in my opinion, to the conundrum Simon Hall found himself in.
The problem as I see it; Barry George and his sister are surrounded by individuals with differing agendas and it’s unlikely from my experiences these conundrums are being pointed out to them. It’s also unlikely they are even recognised due to the overwhelming and vulnerable situations of some of said individuals. Many of the so called experts in their field and other professionals won’t be asking the right questions either as many of them are too busy self promoting.
When you see past the smoke and mirrors of the past 20 year campaign for Barry George, you start to recognise the tell tale signs of deception.
I don’t suppose many people have questioned their authenticity because they too have been taken in by all the falsehoods.
-
I find this an extremely naive and gullible move by Michael Naughton https://www.bristol.ac.uk/law/news/2018/dr-michael-naughton-introduces-new-book.html
The need for due diligence isn’t needed solely whilst using Twitter. http://michaeljnaughton.com/?p=1542
Michael Naughton claims;
“Earlier this month (August 2017), a row erupted on my Twitter timeline of the like I have not previously witnessed amongst what might loosely be called the ‘prison reform community’, comprised of former prisoners, family members of currently serving and former prisoners, prison lawyers, students and academics.
But that’s not entirely true is it Dr Naughton? You were once very familiar with the fallings out of the varying ‘prison reform community’, comprised of former prisoners, family members of currently serving and former prisoners, prison lawyers, students and academics. and were once yourself very much caught up in it.
Remember this https://www.theguardian.com/law/2011/jan/09/innocence-project-conviction-hilary-swank - the Higham burglary, the knife, Campbell Malone, Lynn Hall, Shaun Hall, Steffie Bon, Sandra Lean, Billy Middleton, Mike O’Brien, etc?
Barry George’s campaign has been blighted with similar such experiences but there has been a conscience attempt at covering up these rows, which are glaringly obvious when you compare and contrast Michelle Diskin Bates book with that of her uncle Mike’s and begin to read between the lines of the many newspaper articles and other mediums used to promote the fallacies.
Michael Naughton goes on:
“I immediately put his name into Google on my phone to very quickly find that he was convicted of a highly publicised and most pernicious and disturbing gendered crime against a young woman, the like of which would certainly make most (particularly women) want to steer clear of him altogether.
WHAT about Barry George’s highly publicised and proven crimes? Shall we sweep them under the carpet and pretend they never happened? What rehabilitation did he receive, if any? It might be worth researching the Barry George case and all the individuals involved because when you do, all is not as it seems and Michelle Diskin Bates narrative stops adding up. The case against her brother becomes much clearer and plausible.
-
“George's lawyers also brought in evidence from a neuropsychiatrist to dispute prosecution suggestions that he showed signs of "histrionics, paranoia and narcissism" and had a personality disorder.
Prof Michael Kopelman implied that George could not have been as calculating as alleged. "[He] described to me that he can be aware of what's going on around him but just can't respond," the professor said.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/aug/01/jilldando.ukcrime2
This is the root of Barry George’s conundrum.
I’m not convinced by the opinions of the prosecution witnesses because of my experiences and the fact I know they can be flawed by varying factors.
-
2nd July 2001
“Key quotes from the trial of Barry George, who received an automatic life sentence at the Old Bailey today for the murder of TV presenter Jill Dando.
The case for the prosecution
Quotes from Orlando Pownall, a senior Treasury prosecuting counsel.
"[Police pieced together] compelling categories of circumstantial, forensic and scientific evidence, which, when taken together, prove that [George] was the man in Gowan Avenue who was responsible for killing Jill Dando."
Mr Pownall, prosecuting counsel, opening the case on Friday May 4 2001.
"We suggest that you can be sure he was there at 7am and later at 10am and was paying close attention to No 29 ... Why is he lying about his movements, if these identifications are correct and reliable? What reason did he have for being there? The crown suggest he was there hoping that Miss Dando would appear."
Friday May 4 2001
"[George has] obsessive aspects to his personality ƒ [including] ... exaggerated interest in well known figures... the army, weapons and the media."
Friday 4 May 2001
"She did not merely identify the defendant, but claimed the man did not have a goatee beard on April 26. She was right." Mr Pownall, Friday May 4 2001, on witness Theresa Normanton's evidence that she saw someone outside Ms Dando's home at 10am on the day of her murder.
"Why did he choose to take the longer route? The answer is plain. He had just shot Jill Dando and did not want to risk recognition."
Mr Pownall, Friday May 4 2001. George changed his alibi and said he had walked to a nearby community centre, taking an unusual route which avoided Gowan Avenue, Miss Dando's street.
"The defendant remained silent and stared at the floor. She repeated the question twice more and asked him to look at her. His lips moved as if he was thinking of an answer but none was forthcoming." Mr Pownall, Friday May 4 2001, on what happened after Lenita Bailey, who was told by George that the police were interested in him, asked George if he had done it.
"Whether he harboured a hidden grudge against [Miss Dando], believing her to have wronged him or figures he idolised, such as Freddie Mercury, is impossible to determine."
Friday May 4 2001
"His reaction to her death was out of all proportion to what one might expect from an individual who was not an admirer and would not have even recognised her. He visited shops and sought letters of condolence. He even suggested to a local council that they should consider a memorial."
Friday May 4 2001.
"They also found a photograph of the defendant outside the home address of Freddie Mercury, a Bulsara business card with the name Dando thereon, a torn section of a Dando police appeal poster."
Mr Pownall, Monday May 7 2001, on what police found in George's home.
"There were two copies - one torn - of the Metro newspaper referring to the death of Jill Dando."
Monday May 7 2001
"It is no coincidence that this defendant happens to have a particle in the inside pocket of his coat ... this aspect of the case provides compelling evidence of his guilt."
Mr Pownall, Tuesday May 8 2001, on evidence that firearms residue found in strands of Jill Dando's hair matched a particle recovered from the pocket of George's jacket.
"The gunman would have had an interest in firearms - so did the defendant. The gunman would have had an interest in altering or reactivating blank-firing guns - so did the defendant."
Tuesday May 8 2001
Witnesses
"There was no one else in the street. I had him in my view a minute. I paid attention to him because I wondered what he was doing."
Susan Mayes, Tuesday May 8 2001, a witness who said she saw George near Miss Dando's home on the day she was killed.
"It is just incredible that with one step everything changed. I was going about my business and anticipating the possibility of seeing Jill. To suddenly encounter such a violent scene was completely horrific. It took me a few seconds to realise it was Jill because of the way she looked. It was clear to me that she was dead."
Helen Doble, the friend of Miss Dando, who discovered her body, giving evidence on Friday May 11 2001.
"There is no particular reason why this particle can be related to the shooting of Miss Dando."
John Lloyd, a former Home Office forensic investigator, giving evidence on the firearm particle found in one of George's, Monday June 18 2001.
The case for the defence
Quotes from Michael Mansfield QC, the leading counsel for the defence.
"This defendant has lived in the area for a time and is very well known. He spent most of his time in the streets of Fulham. He was a local character."
Mr Mansfield, Tuesday May 8 2001, on the evidence of Susan Mayes who picked him out on a video identity parade.
"For Jill Dando to have been murdered by such precision shooting with a single muffled shot, it has to be the work of a professional assassin." Mr Mansfield, June 14 2001, told the court a Serbian assassin had killed Miss Dando and that it had all the "hallmark features" of a contract killing.
"The fundamental flaw in this argument is that there is no evidence, none at all, that prior to Jill Dando's murder this defendant has any particular interest in her."
June 14 2001
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/jul/02/jilldando3
-
4th May 2001
“Much of the prosecution case against Jill Dando murder suspect Barry George will focus on his movements around the time of the killing, the jury at his trial was told on Friday.
Orlando Pownall QC, prosecuting, told the Old Bailey that witness statements and other events had undermined Mr George's account of his whereabouts given to police.
Mr George, from Fulham, west London, pleads not guilty to the murder of 37-year-old Miss Dando on the doorstep of her home in Gowan Avenue, Fulham, on 26 April 1999.
Although Mr George told police he had not known anything about the television presenter, he allegedly told a journalist he had seen her on the BBC's Crimewatch UK programme.
Witnesses also claim to have seen him on the day of the murder, looking red-faced and agitated, said Mr Pownall.
What did the defendant have to fear?
Mr Pownall said that two days after the killing Mr George had tried to get a local disability centre to confirm what time he had visited on the day of the murder.
At that point he was not a suspect and the police had not even issued an e-fit of the man they were looking for, although press reports had mentioned a smartly-dressed man with dark hair.
Mr Pownall asked: "What did the defendant have to fear? Why did he feel impelled to seek verification of his movements.
"Were his actions merely an irrational response to a misguided belief that he might become a suspect, or were they the actions of a man who knew he was responsible and was doing his level best to create an alibi?"
The prosecution said Mr George was interviewed by a journalist retracing Miss Dando's route.
He said he gave the name Barry Bulsara and asked: "Who would want to do such a thing?"
"He said he used to see her on Crimewatch, she seemed a lovely lady," said Mr Pownall.
'Different account'
"If true this account was markedly different from what he told the police, when he claimed that he had never heard of Jill Dando before her death," he said.
On the day of the murder, three witnesses saw a man - the prosecution say it was Mr George - loitering in Gowan Avenue between 7am and 10am.
The prosecutor also described how staff at a taxi firm recalled Mr George being agitated, red-faced and sweating when he entered their office at about 12.55pm.
He was behaving in a strange manner and appeared agitated
Ramesh Paul, the manager of the taxi firm in Fulham Palace Road said the defendant asked for a taxi but was refused as he had no money.
Mr George allegedly remained in the office "with his back to the counter, gazing up and down the street".
"He was behaving in a strange manner and appeared agitated," said Mr Pownall.
He was later given a free lift after another customer called in asking to be picked up from the same street.
Four witnesses at Hammersmith and Fulham Action for the Disabled (Hafad) also recalled seeing Mr George on the day of the killing, Mr Pownall said.
"He was acting in a strange manner and appeared upset. He was casually dressed and wearing a yellow or ochre open necked shirt," he said.
From an early stage this defendant was at pains to verify what his movements were
Mr George allegedly told staff: "I don't have any appointment. I need help" before describing problems with his GP, solicitor and local housing department.
Mr Pownall said the evidence of staff members put the time of his visit between 11am and 2pm.
But Mr Pownall said he returned two days later, allegedly demanding verification of the timing of his earlier visit.
"He was threatening and intimidating in his manner. He insisted on knowing what time he had attended the centre," said Mr Pownall.
Mr George allegedly mentioned that the description published of the murderer of Miss Dando fitted him.
Mr Pownall said another witness Sally Mason, who had known Mr George for 15 years, asked him about Miss Dando's killing and he allegedly told her: "I was there you know."
"Ms Mason thought nothing of the remark and believed it was just another of his fantasies," said Mr Pownall.
The case continues.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1313509.stm
-
This is the root of Barry George’s conundrum.
I’m not convinced by the opinions of the prosecution witnesses because of my experiences and the fact I know they can be flawed by varying factors.
Nor of his sisters sanctimonious and disingenuous narrative!
-
My own view of this case is that SY and the CPS should rightly be embarrassed by what went on. George spent eight miserable years in prison for what was an appalling miscarriage of justice and when he was ultimately found NOT GUILTY at his retrial the State refused to pay him compensation. This was an insult to the man and an absolute disgrace.
George has had mental health issues since sustaining a head injury in his twenties, he was a bit of a dare devil back then. Laterally however, he involving himself in stalking which led to some really nasty conduct towards women which must be rightly deplored, his sister's attempts to play down those incidents was wrong IMO.
That doesn't in any way make him a murderer however, the jury at his retrial was right to find him not guilty IMO.
How did you form this opinion John?
-
As Jill's cousin said if Barry George was responsible all the stars had to align @ 45 mins in plus
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0003w40/the-murder-of-jill-dando
Worth watching this in contrast to the beeb interview https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yU7drIK1fVk
“I think it helped that our family were not based in London, we were based in the Westcountry which meant we were able to keep away from the media spotlight," Judith said.
"But it did in some ways at that time feel that Jill had been hijacked and her memory was hijacked by everything that was going on centrally in London and that is inevitable.
https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/celebs-tv/jill-dandos-cousin-says-getting-2796090
-
Yet Michelle Diskin Bates has been vying for the media spotlight alongside her brother since the moment she heard he’d been arrested?!
Maybe genetically they are both predisposed to delusional fantasies of wealth, power, or omnipotence? Who knows, something to consider though imo.
Alternative facts’: A psychiatrist’s guide to twisted relationships to truth
“We can think of distortions of reality as falling along a continuum, ranging from mild to severe, based on how rigidly the belief is held and how impervious it is to factual information. On the milder end, we have what psychiatrists call over-valued ideas. These are very strongly held convictions that are at odds with what most people in the person’s culture believe, but which are not bizarre, incomprehensible or patently impossible. A passionately held belief that vaccinations cause autism might qualify as an over-valued idea: it’s not scientifically correct, but it’s not utterly beyond the realm of possibility.
On the severe end of the continuum are delusions. These are strongly held, completely inflexible beliefs that are not altered at all by factual information, and which are clearly false or impossible. Importantly, delusions are not explained by the person’s culture, religious beliefs or ethnicity. A patient who inflexibly believes that Vladimir Putin has personally implanted an electrode in his brain in order to control his thoughts would qualify as delusional. When the patient expresses this belief, he or she is not lying or trying to deceive the listener. It is a sincerely held belief, but still a falsehood.
Falsehoods of various kinds can be voiced by people with various neuropsychiatric disorders, but also by those who are perfectly “normal.” Within the range of normal falsehood are so-called false memories, which many of us experience quite often. For example, you are absolutely certain you sent that check to the power company, but in fact, you never did.
As social scientist Julia Shaw observes, false memories “have the same properties as any other memories, and are indistinguishable from memories of events that actually happened.” So when you insist to your spouse, “Of course I paid that electric bill!” you’re not lying – you are merely deceived by your own brain.
A much more serious type of false memory involves a process called confabulation: the spontaneous production of false memories, often of a very detailed nature. Some confabulated memories are mundane; others, quite bizarre. For example, the person may insist – and sincerely believe – that he had eggs Benedict at the Ritz for breakfast, even though this clearly wasn’t the case. Or, the person may insist she was abducted by terrorists and present a fairly elaborate account of the (fictional) ordeal. Confabulation is usually seen in the context of severe brain damage, such as may follow a stroke or the rupture of a blood vessel in the brain.
Lying as a default
Finally, there is falsification that many people would call pathological lying, and which goes by the extravagant scientific name of pseudologia fantastica (PF). Writing in the Psychiatric Annals, Drs. Rama Rao Gogeneni and Thomas Newmark list the following features of PF:
A marked tendency to lie, often as a defensive attempt to avoid consequences. The person may experience a “high” from this imaginative story-telling.
The lies are quite dazzling or fantastical, though they may contain truthful elements. Often, the lies may capture considerable public attention.
The lies tend to present the person in a positive light, and may be an expression of an underlying character trait, such as pathological narcissism. However, the lies in PF usually go beyond the more “believable” stories of persons with narcissistic traits.
Although the precise cause or causes of PF are not known, some data suggest abnormalities in the white matter of the brain – bundles of nerve fibers surrounded by an insulating sheath called myelin. On the other hand, the psychoanalyst Helene Deutsch argued that PF stems from psychological factors, such as the need to enhance one’s self-esteem, secure the admiration of others or to portray oneself as either a hero or a victim.
Who cares about facts anyway?
Of course, all of this presumes something like a consensus on what constitutes “reality” and “facts” and that most people have an interest in establishing the truth. But this presumption is looking increasingly doubtful, in the midst of what has come to be known as the “post-truth era.” Charles Lewis, the founder of the Center for Public Integrity, described ours as a period in which “up is down and down is up and everything is in question and nothing is real.”
Even more worrisome, the general public seems to have an appetite for falsehood. As writer Adam Kirsch recently argued, “more and more, people seem to want to be lied to.” The lie, Kirsch argues, is seductive: “It allows the liar and his audience to cooperate in changing the nature of reality itself, in a way that can appear almost magical.”
https://theconversation.com/alternative-facts-a-psychiatrists-guide-to-twisted-relationships-to-truth-72469
-
SO many more Red Flags http://cambridge105.co.uk/bookmark-09-03-2019/
-
In a nutshell - I don' think much of manipulative individuals who use underhanded tactics in a quite obvious attempt to muddy the waters Eleanor.
Are you familiar with the term "gas lighting?"
I've read many of Barry George's sisters projections in her so called fight to stand for justice but I no longer buy into it. It stopped the day Simon Hall confessed. The niggles I had with regards the personalities of some of those people I once associated with kept niggling away at me - bit like David Jessel said in his comment about "the confession."
I'm driven by truth and justice. I have no agenda. I've learned much since I was conned and I've had to get to the bottom of how and why I was conned.
I've also learned a lot about criminal law and the loopholes used by some in their attempts to give themselves an air of plausible deniability (which equates to a lack of accountability).
SO many more Red Flags http://cambridge105.co.uk/bookmark-09-03-2019/
I cannot get away from the fact that Michelle (nee Diskin) Bates apparent values appear to conflict with her behaviours, which in turn would be suggestive of moral duplicity?
https://www.thetablet.co.uk/features/2/14966/freedom-fighter
And more Red Flags - didn’t go down too well at the point she laughed. She may think she got away with it but her spin is exposed by the facts.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p06pn49r
-
Barry George was initially assessed as showing signs of “histrionics, paranoia and narcissism, and had a personality disorder.
“George's lawyers also brought in evidence from a neuropsychiatrist to dispute prosecution suggestions that he showed signs of "histrionics, paranoia and narcissism" and had a personality disorder.
Prof Michael Kopelman implied that George could not have been as calculating as alleged. "[He] described to me that he can be aware of what's going on around him but just can't respond," the professor said.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/aug/01/jilldando.ukcrime2
Much of the assessments carried out on Barry George would have meant relying on what he chose to tell those who were assessing him at the time. It was then up to them to form an opinion.
The FACT Barry George is still under MAPPA suggests all is not as it seems with regards his dangerousness to himself, others and the public.
Barry George’s uncle also disagreed with Dr Kopelman’s opinion.
“I was quite annoyed when I read reports of Doctor Michael Kopelman’s medical opinion on Barry. It seemed to me that Barry’s inappropriate behaviour was being blamed on the overall family. I sent a protest to Jeremy Moore. In my opinion one is responsible for ones own actions and it is a cop out to try and blame ones bad behaviour on the family.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ltgorwROQfwC&pg=PA195&lpg=PA195&dq=I+was+quite+annoyed+when+I+read+reports+of+Doctor+Michael+Kopelman+medical+opinion+on+Barry.+It+seemed+to+me+that+Barry’s+inappropriate+behaviour+was+being+blamed+on+the+overall+family.+I+sent+a+protest+to+Jeremy+Moore.+In+my+opinion+one+is+responsible+for+ones+own+actions+and+it+is+a+cop+out+to+try+and+blame+ones+bad+behaviour+on+the+family.&source=bl&ots=Osy97OF07B&sig=ACfU3U3jqccBJ2TwXiBfmR9OsH7PDOGUGA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiuh8W8nfPhAhUvQRUIHbYnCRgQ6AEwCnoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=I%20was%20quite%20annoyed%20when%20I%20read%20reports%20of%20Doctor%20Michael%20Kopelman%20medical%20opinion%20on%20Barry.%20It%20seemed%20to%20me%20that%20Barry’s%20inappropriate%20behaviour%20was%20being%20blamed%20on%20the%20overall%20family.%20I%20sent%20a%20protest%20to%20Jeremy%20Moore.%20In%20my%20opinion%20one%20is%20responsible%20for%20ones%20own%20actions%20and%20it%20is%20a%20cop%20out%20to%20try%20and%20blame%20ones%20bad%20behaviour%20on%20the%20family.&f=false
-
“Reality is the state of being real or actual, whereas an illusion is a mental misinterpretation of what is believed to be true. Illusions often prevent people from perceiving reality and objective truths, which consequently results in delusions, and in some cases, tragedies.
excerpt from the book “Stand Against Injustice by Michelle Diskin Bates
“Marriage followed two years later and we bought a house in Ballincollig, just around the corner from Pat’s family. Life seemed to be moving on a well-oiled track, going in the same direction as most other people’s lives. One by one, the children arrived: Carine in 1985, Shane in 1987 and Emma Jane in 1990. Pat and I found ourselves working together day by day but growing further apart and, looking around me, I could see lots of other marriages going the same way. Life became humdrum, tedious and unfulfilling.
It was my psychiatrist who’d suggested college to me during my time in hospital in 1997. “Why don’t you enrol in a course at CIT? Maybe you could study psychology, I believe you’d do well at that,” she informed me as she sat reading over my notes and scribbling additions to the page. This was one of our one to one sessions, but I still looked around me to see who she was addressing, because she couldn’t have meant me. I was a mental wreck, psychologically impaired. I’d signed myself into the psychiatric ward a few weeks ago when I felt like my mind was imploding. The young doctor who’d interviewed me to assess my condition had asked, “Michelle, are you suicidal?” Struggling up through the pain and fog, I thought for a moment before I answered, “No, but if I go home, I will die!” The poor man had looked a bit nonplussed at that, but he took it seriously and admitted me to a ward. It was about six weeks later, after some R& R and one to ones with this impressive psychiatrist, that I found myself being assessed before going home. Enrolling in college felt like a lifeline had been thrown to me. Someone highly educated and deemed worthy by dint of her expertise had viewed me and seen a real person, not the shadow I had become.
-
“Later in the evening we had a drink with David Perrin and James Cohen. We managed to persuade Michelle not to take part in a late night talk radio show. David threw an example of a question she might face if she took part. ‘Michelle, do you accept that a rapist can graduate to murder?’ That decided the matter for Michelle and she took Margaret home. Later I became a little disturbed by something that James said. He asked me what I thought of the madness in the family.
“On Tuesday November 5th I was tempted to run from East Acton station to Margaret’s as rockets and bangers exploded all around the place. It was Guy Fawkes Day, and it felt like a battle zone. Michelle was in Birmingham with MOJO presenting their submission to the CCRC. Margaret and I met her in HMP Whitemoor the next day. Barry was very upset with Michelle because of press reports and the CCRC submission. He said that it should have been left to his solicitor to make the submission, and he feared that his prospects might now have been damaged. He said that he thought the visit by Don Hale and Paddy Hill was a private visit and he felt betrayed that it had been reported. It was a difficult visit where Barry threatened to have Michelle jailed if she did not respect his views. He no longer wanted MOJO to be involved in his situation. In time he would threaten to have us all jailed, which probably was a reflection of his frustration at not being in control of the things which concerned him.
“In truth Don Hale being behind this deceit came as no surprise since all of this ghost-hunting had really got started because I had happened across the book authored by Don Hale, in which Don himself had explained that Terry had died in 2010. Quite how Don explains the interviews he’s been having with Terry since then, I have no idea. However it does go some way to expose the state British journalism is in, in the 21st Century. It turns out that Don Hale is the new David Icke
http://jimcannotfixthis.blogspot.com/2015/04/a-victim-law-ghost-writer.html
Producer James Cohen - Cutting Edge Did Barry George Kill Jill Dando?
http://collections-search.bfi.org.uk/web/Details/ChoiceFilmWorks/150659508
Reviews of 'Cutting Edge' documentary, 'Did Barry George Kill Jill Dando?', compiled by Don Hale.
Observer:
No one from the police showed up in Cutting Edge: Did Barry George Murder Jill Dando? The shooting of Dando has probably excited more media attention in this country than any other single crime in recent history - which means in history. We feel we know everything there is to know about the murder. And we're right, because there's so little that is known.
All of the tiny knowledge that exists was neatly assembled by Cutting Edge and placed next to the troubled figure of George, an epileptic fantasist with a low IQ and past convictions for indecent assault and attempted rape. They did not match up well. The forensic evidence was bordering on negligible, and it was also contaminated in police custody. The rest of the police case was built on the fact that George, the fantasist, lied to them; he was identified by a small minority of witnesses as being near the scene of the crime (he lived not far away); and he had an obsession with celebrities (as do most Heat readers), although not, apparently, with Dando.
The tone of the documentary was scrupulous, never allowing itself to become distracted by cheap attacks on the police enquiry. Its aim was simply to question the evidence. The one certainty it established was that in this case there was nothing approaching certainty. Dando's death is a mystery that is only slightly more baffling than the mystery of how a jury found George responsible for it.
Sunday Telegraph:
A more disturbing side to obsessive behaviour was documented in Did Barry George Kill Jill Dando? (C4, Mon). Was George just a confused loner in the wrong place with the right magazine clippings in his bedroom at the wrong time? It seemed so, from the evidence provided here by neighbours and psychiatrists.
This investigation was gripping stuff, and a far better exposure of the seedy underbelly of everyday TV life than When Steptoe Met Son (C4, Tues), a disappointing secret history of the sitcom's stars that might have seemed more revealing if a) it was 1962, and b) the thought of an ageing celebrity going to Hong Kong to have sex with teenage boys seemed at all out of the ordinary.
Irish Times:
If you were going to finger someone for a celebrity murder in which little progress had been made in a year and the public pressure for a result was unbearable, Barry George would be just the man. A mentally retarded fantasist with an interest in guns, he had a previous conviction for attempted rape and rolls of undeveloped photographs of women walking the street littered his house. He lived half a mile from Jill Dando. Did Barry George Kill Jill Dando? claimed that all that was needed was more evidence.
Although a British court recently upheld George's conviction, ruling that the evidence against him was compelling, the programme suggested the evidence was stretched very thinly indeed over the case.
The documentary highlighted perceived inconsistencies in the case, particularly the following. Questionable forensic analysis was accepted by the court. The professional nature of the killing did not indicate a suspect with severe epilepsy and an intellectual ability that placed him in Britain's lowest 1 per cent. The central witness testimony came from a woman who had seen the suspect for six seconds, 18 months before being asked to identify him. If you were to collate the reports of the 16 witnesses, the killer could be described as an olive- or white-skinned man, with black short or long wavy or curly hair. He is between 5 feet 8 inches and 6 feet in height and on the day of the killing was wearing a coat or suit, and was sporting a Trilby hat. Or not.
It was a documentary that lacked balance, but then balance has hardly been a motif of the case. The alternative theory - that Dando was killed by a Serbian assassin - does not play too well on the front page of the Sun. George is not a man the media is interested in standing up for. The replay of Trevor McDonald on the night he read the news of George's conviction for Dando's murder was instructive. He appeared to editorialise with every inflection. When he described George, this 40-year-old gun-fanatic loner obsessed with female celebrities, he seemed to do so with the disgust of a man taking a bite of raw meat.
Daily Mail:
EVERYONE feels a little queasy at the idea of another miscarriage of justice to add to the melancholy list of 'unsafe' convictions that have had to be righted in recent years.
Last night's Cutting Edge did its best to argue - relying on experts who were not concerned in the actual trial, and friends and relatives of the accused - that it could happen again in the case of Barry George, sentenced to life for the murder of TV presenter Jill Dando.
Only last month, the Court of Appeal upheld the outcome of the trial as 'compelling', while acknowledging that it had been a complex and difficult case.
This programme explored what it saw as weaknesses and inconsistencies in the prosecution's charge that George, a loner interested in guns and obsessed with celebrities, had indeed killed Ms Dando.
Other questions that could be asked, but were unexplored in this Cutting Edge, concern modern police detection methods.
There must be worries over the intensely bureaucratic approach now adopted in all high-profile murder cases, where the police assemble large numbers of desk-bound detectives to sift information, before returning (as in the George case) to evidence they already had in the earliest days of their investigation.
Whatever happened to oldfashioned detection - or does it only happen in TV cop dramas?
Guardian:
As rhetorically as Who Killed Simone Valentine?, Cutting Edge (Channel 4) asked Did Barry George Kill Jill Dando? Unlike Trail of Guilt, this Cutting Edge undermined one's faith in the police, effectively demolishing any notion that George's conviction for the murder of Dando is safe, that his guilt is beyond a reasonable doubt. Hardly "Don't have nightmares, do sleep well" television, it was, nevertheless a legitimate examination of Dando's murder. Sometimes, certainty is a luxury.
Independent:
The Appeal Court recently decided that the question Did Barry George Kill Jill Dando? could safely be filed alongside those proverbial queries about the toilet habits of bears and the religious affiliations of Popes. It is, in other words, a question expecting the answer "yes". For Channel 4, though, this was an interrogation of a more straightforward kind. In contrast to the BBC's Trail of Guilt - an unabashed celebration of the triumphs of modern police work - their documentary about the George conviction set out to make us re-examine that most dangerous of all verdicts - "He must have done it".
Barry George did make a very juicy suspect. He'd followed women around, had pictures of television presenters in his flat and had posed with a handgun - the photographic evidence of a long fascination with the SAS and the army. For a police force under pressure after a year of fruitless investigation, he must have looked as if he had a big red bow tied round him, particularly after a witness had placed him in the vicinity on the day of the crime. When forensic scientists discovered a tiny particle of firing residue in his pocket, it looked as if they had their man. George (left) obligingly behaved suspiciously when questioned - the only problem being that he behaved suspiciously even when he was buying a pint of milk or chewing gum - two activities which, according to those who knew him, he would have had some difficulty combining. "He's the sort of bloke, you throw him a tennis ball and he'll miss it," said one acquaintance, mocking the notion that he might have effectively carried out a daylight hit. This is a prejudiced judgement of course - but an adversarial judicial system depends on prejudice for its operation, some opposed and some in favour - and there wasn't a lot of the latter about when George was on trial for murder.
There were other worrying features about the evidence. The coat in which the incriminating single particle had been found had been unpacked and photographed before it was sent to the forensic labs, an elementary breach of basic practice. There was considerable confusion among the eyewitness accounts of the man seen at the time of the shooting, with several insisting that the suspect had shoulder -length hair, including one of the Crown's most important witnesses. George had always had short, cropped hair. Even the apparently sinister fact that he had collected pictures of Jill Dando looked more innocuous after you'd heard the details - out of 800 newspapers found in his flat, only eight contained pictures of Dando from before the murder. Given her ubiquity in the tabloids, it was something of an achievement to have so few.
It isn't impossible that he did it, even so. The incredulity of your neighbours is hardly a solid alibi, and people have murdered before and left less evidence behind. Shortly before her death, the Radio Times published a provocative cover photograph of Dando that could easily have swung her into the crosshairs of a psychotic looking for a target. What you really couldn't say any longer, however, was "beyond reasonable doubt".
The chief suspect for a series of rapes and murders in Rochdale also "looked a wrong 'un", according to the local newspaper editor. But in this case, covered in BBC1's Trail of Guilt, the police had more than intuition to go on. They had DNA evidence, bloody handprints, clothing fibres, shoe impressions, splashes of the victim's blood in the killer's home - everything, in fact, short of a video showing him committing the crime. Compared to this Matterhorn of incrimination, the evidence against Barry George couldn't even be described as a molehill
http://www.mojuk.org.uk/bulletins/cuttingedge.html
-
August 2018
“According to The Mirror, George said: “When I was in emergency accommodation in Hackney, I was stood in a long hallway and I had a gun put to my head. “I went to the police station and told them and they gave me lip service. I was living in fear. There were two things in my mind: I’ve been acquitted of this crime and then I get a gun to my head.
There was talk of a Serbian hit team involved in Jill’s killing.
“We think it must have been someone who had a link. It’s too much of a coincidence.”
The Met Office police confirmed that George had informed them of the incident at the time it happened, but appeared in a state of shock upon arrival and couldn’t give concrete details about what he had witnessed.
Criminal report specialist David Wells had joined George to report the crime and told The Mirror: “He was incredibly distressed… sweating, out of breath and in quite a state. I’d seen Barry on many occasions and I had never seen him this distressed. Barry repeated that someone pointed a gun at him and made a threat – he appeared highly credible. He was very afraid. It could well have been someone linked to the murder of Jill Dando.
“It does seem unlikely someone would randomly select Barry out of millions in London and threaten him and put a gun to his head after his acquittal. If indeed it was rated as a serious complaint and investigated by police, nothing came of it.” http://igvofficial.com/case-solved-mark-williams-thomas-reveals-news-about-jill-dandos-killer/
July 2009
“Burley notified police after interviewing George following his release, claiming she was worried about his behaviour. She was briefly given security protection following her complaint.
In the high court writ, George's solicitor, Nicholas Baird of St Albans firm Wells Burcombe, contends that journalists and photographers from the MGN papers followed him and photographed him surreptitiously. Baird claims that this breached his client's right to privacy under human rights legislation.
George says his character and reputation have been gravely injured, and that he has suffered great embarrassment, anxiety and distress.
The writ alleges the newspapers published a series of photographs and details about his movements, including his stay at a hotel in Leeds and a visit to Walsall hospital.
George is also seeking an injunction against MGN barring it from repeating the allegations made in the stories.
A spokesman for Trinity Mirror confirmed that the publisher had received the claim at the beginning of July but declined to comment further.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2009/aug/21/barry-george-sues-mirror-group
Nicholas Baird’s contract with Wells Burcombe was terminated on 10th Aug 2016
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/OC336186/filing-history
https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/document-api-images-live.ch.gov.uk/docs/ZQltfflOVM3qDfHgx4RJLEmRLwmVm2swmgIvtpLjvYo/application-pdf?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Credential=ASIAWRGBDBV3PIWUGXN7%2F20190429%2Feu-west-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20190429T072502Z&X-Amz-Expires=60&X-Amz-Security-Token=AgoJb3JpZ2luX2VjEGsaCWV1LXdlc3QtMiJHMEUCIHcXcuKO6xK5j0IjGHIlv6vG4giUtqEkBr1IdxsshSEuAiEAv9M8UlSIbDmbxkSjkDM29NuXHWuh%2BoiMkE2CAQDr7Msq2gMIVBABGgw0NDkyMjkwMzI4MjIiDEH9VAdXNjIubMbGByq3AwpeUjiNzBOCXrxv7kD6%2B%2FhCXz9s%2F1uxyeEKQllTc3HMquh3qtm%2BgF6CzcuEMM2gUnJT%2Ft2ieVtkkEluB0HTDqQgrhBw7f%2FJv3ToUK8serQxOtWakfyvCF9YrqnCbXbmkMjIzTpykS8cA%2BhOSSuGl5tubJQozcL0kmshyDsxxLzAiN5Gnv0YMv0gl4PJNxn4lu6nQW%2Bm8AemWdkQ86Te7atr1j1iXOg0cf%2BxBJ47%2FBQzPdIylp%2B7UOrKp4YZOpP0fqIlRDd%2BAiLsiPMJCC%2FivfLwe4o%2Fy3M3bGPj7nt5bDDKunScEyz4J3LRMP1qf8rkthr1tVbuk994vhHSF7XL3m[Name removed]yiDvpqLojQYjmug%2FP0VIF8S2r%2Bf6s86CMSCOZ99H6tK9Gz4gleePLQs87PdMuTbrGAfQ8sDKT4DStUm%2B25wVkDNG0EKs7dv2VpQSHzng9YBnLht2%2BY1t6weOGBMiuLdoj0vbKpMrjrFk8EEyiKTYAfS7WxtIDF%2F57yhmiiFoQRSieNCouECiPv8646yDczWUwP0KY1jqoXsmKpvrpoH4Ag17XW5e7fkf9gjGw0XZxqAJxAqtz%2FkwxsaZ5gU6tAFCup%2Fv%2BfepYprhIS19qMIJ%2BHg29bOggjZjLrl9aKBRfLMOeMMBmSwSGAT5rgL7ATpHhpuwff6q1S3eRSONA5Z37idQ9Dv9R5cW5N2IBN3dJ3WC4kw3AXEewHON%2Fy9KKLJP9a1M3ZIaCWHtzLApCTB6vaAJIjfkbSGF4imLmpcBwloFnJToaLvqOKSRLJkQRHpPYeZnfKp4nQnVQEpHa9x102rdwYS%2B8GrYohNzn3ZLFlHO2zM%3D&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=0d81539515cac9ef86301c2acc4f74fd27bdac06b3218099cbc2b3309c66c980
-
“Brian Cathcart (born 26 October 1956) is an Irish-born journalist, academic and media campaigner based in the United Kingdom. He is professor of journalism at Kingston University London [1] and in 2011 was a founder of Hacked Off,[2] which campaigns for a free and accountable press. His books include Were You Still Up for Portillo? (1997), The Case of Stephen Lawrence (1999), The Fly in the Cathedral (2004) and The News From Waterloo (2015).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Cathcart
“Brian Cathcart is professor of journalism at Kingston University London and was a founder of the Hacked Off campaign. He served as specialist adviser to the commons media select committee in 2008-10. Irish by background, he was a journalist at Reuters, the Independent papers and the New Statesman, and has written books about the murders of Stephen Lawrence and Jill Dando, as well as on the history of nuclear science. He tweets as @BrianCathcart
Read more at:https://www.byline.com/journalist/brianjcathcart/biography
Police defend Dando murder hunt - July 2001
“Brian Cathcart, who has written a book about the murder, told the BBC that "fundamental mistakes" had been made in the handling of forensic evidence.
Chief among these was the coat which provided a speck of firearms residue linking George to the crime scene.
'Beggars belief'
Mr Cathcart said: "That a coat which had been sealed in an evidence bag should have been removed from that bag to be photographed and then replaced in that bag.
"That it was photographed in a studio where firearms were also photographed.
"This was before it was ever forensically examined. It beggars belief.
"Something similar happened with a lot of the other evidence that was removed from Barry George's flat. It was put in a depository where there was a firearms cache."
But DS Campbell said he was convinced police had got the right man.
"This has been a thorough investigation. I believe the right verdict has been reached," he said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1420037.stm
A Question or Identity by Brian Cathcart July 2002
“When the judge summed up in the trial of Barry George last year, one instruction he gave the jury was that if they were not sure – and he stressed that word "sure" – about the identification evidence, then they must return a verdict of not guilty. In other words, no matter what they felt about anything else they had heard in court, if they were not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that George was at the murder scene that morning, they had to acquit him.
Given such a clear instruction, it might seem fair to conclude that this part of the evidence at least must have been sound, that we can be confident that the man now serving life imprisonment for murdering Jill Dando was there or thereabouts, roughly at the time of the deed. Unhappily for Barry George and – unless something changes when he appeals against his conviction next week – unhappily for defendants in other trials yet to come, that is very far from being the case.
For although police traced dozens of people who used the west London street where Dando died on that morning, only one of them ever categorically identified George. And that witness, a local woman called Susan Mayes, said that she had seen him four and a half hours before the murder was committed. The sighting was at 7am, while the murder occurred at about 11.30am. And the circumstances are as worrying as the timing. The man that Ms Mayes saw across the road was wiping the windscreen of a double-parked, maroon-coloured car and wore a black suit with a white shirt open at the neck – all details difficult to reconcile with Barry George in the role of murderer
Since a double-parked car in Gowan Avenue would inevitably block the way, we can be sure it would have attracted attention if it had stayed there long, and yet no other witness saw it. The likelihood, therefore, is that it drove off soon after this sighting. By the same token, none of the other people out and about in the half hour after 7am saw this man. The odds, therefore, surely favour him getting into the car (which he had been wiping) and driving away. Yet Barry George can't drive and has never owned a car, maroon or otherwise
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/a-question-of-identity-183860.html
Prejudice? What prejudice? By Brian Cathcart June 2007
“When Barry George was arrested, newspapers branded him a weirdo and a loner - and we are asked to be
Of course, it is not the fault of the newspapers if the courts can’t be trusted to get decisions right. They just did what papers do. Having dutifully sat on some lurid (if ancient) material about George right through the trial, they unleashed it the moment the jury said “guilty” - photos of him with guns and a gas mask, a 20-year-old attempted rape conviction, an arrest outside Kensington Palace and more.
https://www.newstatesman.com/media/2007/06/barry-george-loner-conviction
Dando case evidence 'unreliable' November 2007
“The day after the verdict, campaign group Miscarriages of Justice claimed the case had all the hallmarks of injustice.
Brian Cathcart, who has written a book about the murder, said George was a "vulnerable" defendant and insisted that there was an "absence of motive"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7073564.stm
Financial Times by Brian Cathcart January 2013
“The implications of possible media prejudice go far wider than this one case. Only last summer Dominic Grieve, the
Attorney General, argued in court that some of the reporting of the arrest of Christopher Jefferies, who turned out to be wholly innocent of the murder of Joanna Yeates, would have prejudiced his chances of a fair trial.
I followed closely the trial of Barry George, wrongly convicted of the 1999 murder of Jill Dando and eventually freed on appeal. So weak was the case against him that I am convinced the lurid media reporting at the time of his arrest influenced the original verdict
Courts and Controversy – consequences of the Jefferies contempt case” – Brian Cathcart
“The Contempt of Court Act of 1981 prohibits all but the most straightforward reporting in a crime case from the moment “proceedings are active”, in other words once someone is arrested. The idea is to ensure that coverage does not interfere with the course of justice, for instance by prejudicing the eventual jury. But for years, when a big, competitive story came along, many editors and reporters in national media simply ignored the Act and continued to publish often grotesque allegations about a suspect after arrest and even sometimes after they were charged. Think Colin Stagg, Barry George, Karen Matthews and others — and Stagg and George were later shown to be innocent.
“The consequences could be significant. Not only might future reporting of crime be more restrained, but we could even see fewer miscarriages of justice. I reported the first trial of Barry George for the murder of Jill Dando in 2002 and I am convinced that his wrongful conviction was partly due to the influence on the jury of the grossly prejudicial press reporting about him after his arrest. George spent seven years in jail before the conviction was overturned.
https://inforrm.org/2011/09/04/opinion-courts-and-controversy-consequences-of-the-jeffries-contempt-case-brian-cathcart/
Hacked Off – Why The Secrecy? by @tabloidtroll on April 30, 2012
“The industry I have loathed and loved for more decades than I care to remember is going through the sort of public beasting which was reserved for witches in medieval England. No doubt there were excesses and a few individuals will no doubt find themselves before the courts. Should it emerge that they were indeed guilty of criminality, and not have a legitimate reason for their actions, then I am sure they will be punished.
The trouble – as many tabloid journalists like myself see it – is that there seems to be a rampaging to desire to flay all of us, and do so now, without any form of trial or jury. Unsurprisingly those at the forefront of this campaign – take a bow Labour member of parliament Tom Watson – are politicians who rarely see eye-to-eye with the media. Many are indeed still recovering from the trauma of having their dodgy expenses laid bare before their constituents courtesy of the press. Mr Watson, for example, claimed the maximum food allowance and had a penchant for food shopping at Marks and Spencer on the taxpayer. The excuse that they doled out was they were told it was OK to do it, yet the same MPs now deny that explanation to journalists working for News International.
But the attacks have not just come from MPs. The Guardian newspaper has also been revelling in reminding us what they have been saying for years – namely that tabloid newspapers are “just awful”. The fact that many of their most senior journalists came from those self-same tabloids – and indeed feature in the Motorman Report – is blatantly over looked. Who can also have failed to notice that the paper – which already has readers leaving it in droves – is so much duller without the News of the World to re-write on Monday.
However, one of the most remarkable features of recent months has been the emergence of the so-called Media Standards Trust, a registered charity, which also runs the Hacked Off campaign group. Few journalists who have covered the Leveson Inquiry at the High Court will not have run into one of the trust’s staff – tweeting from the hearing but most definitely not tweeting all of it. Indeed if you want a fair and accurate report of each day’s evidence I strongly suggest you look elsewhere. Ben Fenton, of the FT, is an excellent example of someone tweeting all the evidence – without bias or slant.
The open hostility this group shows towards tabloids is all there for all to see – sweeping generalisations such as “you all make things up” are liberally espoused by its co-ordinator, a former local newspaper reporter whose only experience of working at a higher level was as an intern at the Independent. Martin Moore and Brian Cathcart, the most public faces of the campaign, are further examples of the anti-tabloid agenda which sadly categorises the trust.
Recently I decided to take a further look at the Media Standards Trust – particularly keen to see if it was meeting the standards it was now apparently requiring of the rest of us. According to its website it is independent – yet has board members from the Scott Trust, which owns the Guardian, and also from the Pearson Foundation, which is the charitable arm of the Financial Times.
Equally against this independence claim is the powerful presence of one Charles Manby, the former worldwide head of Goldman Sachs. This bank has more reason to fear the media than most, after it was revealed that it playing a leading role in the sub prime mortgage collapse, which in turn has seen economies hit around the world. According to the charity’s accounts he was the largest individual donor back in 2007/08 – the same year that his bank was involved in the scandalous sub prime mortgage fiasco.
Perhaps mindful of the sort of image this conveys, or perhaps because Mr Manby and other secret donors were keen to keep their contributions private, the Media Standards Trust has not published details of who gives what since then. So, for example, the 2010 accounts show donations and gifts of £45,059 without any explanation of who, what, or why.
One would imagine that an organisation such as that run by Messrs Moore and Cathcart would be keen to explain all of this – particularly as they regaularly lambast tabloids for a lack of openness and hidden agendas. Last week I tweeted Mr Moore a whole series of questions – Hacked Off’s initial response was to suggest that because I don’t reveal my name then I am not entitled to the answers. Thankfully others pointed out that this was hardly an example of transparency – and its co-ordinator promised Moore would answer when he returned from holiday.
On Sunday he responded to the tweets at 8am – saying he would be addressing the issue once he had un-packed. Sadly this proved to be something of a false dawn – all he has done in two further tweets is post a link to accounts dating back to 2010. Then on Monday I put to him Mr Manby’s contribution and asked for a breakdown of who has given what since – the silence back from the organisation which wants “openness” and “accountability” has been deafening.
It appears that a charitable trust does not think it should be answerable to anyone – least of all the media it now seeks to change and – wait for it – make more open. No answers then to why a banker is on its board, what donations, if any, it has received from banks, how much it has been receiving on donations from unspecified individuals, or why it is claiming to be independent when the Guardian and the FT are involved.
My colleagues in the tabloid media say they have now lost all respect for Mr Moore and his cronies – so quite how they expect to garner our support is beyond me.
@tabloidtroll
https://annaraccoon.com/2012/04/30/hacked-off-why-the-secrecy/
Brian Cathcart: a traitor to journalism – or voice of reason?
“Hacked Off's executive director sat through the night to broker the Leveson deal – and has been condemned by colleagues for his role. But he says it was vital to cure newspaper abuses
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/mar/23/brian-cathcart-traitor-journalism-reason
Brian Cathcart, yet ANOTHER self serving, self promoting hypocrit!
“Cathcart may not approve of tabloid journalists, but he certainly knows how to behave like one.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/leveson-inquiry/9963263/The-truth-about-Hacked-Offs-media-coup.html
Hacked Off founder Brian Cathcart has accused Culture Secretary Matt Hancock of falsely crediting the Daily Mail with helping to bring Stephen Lawrence’s killers to justice - March 2018
“Cathcart described the claim as a “political lever being used to manipulate us all in the culture wars that surround our press” and a “gross disservice” to the Lawrence family.
In response, the Daily Mail has said it remains “proud” of its 20-year campaign regarding the case.
https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/hacked-off-founder-brian-cathcart-challenges-daily-mails-role-in-bringing-stephen-lawrence-killers-to-justice/
-
excerpt from the book “Stand Against Injustice by Michelle Diskin Bates
“Marriage followed two years later and we bought a house in Ballincollig, just around the corner from Pat’s family. Life seemed to be moving on a well-oiled track, going in the same direction as most other people’s lives. One by one, the children arrived: Carine in 1985, Shane in 1987 and Emma Jane in 1990. Pat and I found ourselves working together day by day but growing further apart and, looking around me, I could see lots of other marriages going the same way. Life became humdrum, tedious and unfulfilling.
It was my psychiatrist who’d suggested college to me during my time in hospital in 1997. “Why don’t you enrol in a course at CIT? Maybe you could study psychology, I believe you’d do well at that,” she informed me as she sat reading over my notes and scribbling additions to the page. This was one of our one to one sessions, but I still looked around me to see who she was addressing, because she couldn’t have meant me. I was a mental wreck, psychologically impaired. I’d signed myself into the psychiatric ward a few weeks ago when I felt like my mind was imploding. The young doctor who’d interviewed me to assess my condition had asked, “Michelle, are you suicidal?” Struggling up through the pain and fog, I thought for a moment before I answered, “No, but if I go home, I will die!” The poor man had looked a bit nonplussed at that, but he took it seriously and admitted me to a ward. It was about six weeks later, after some R& R and one to ones with this impressive psychiatrist, that I found myself being assessed before going home. Enrolling in college felt like a lifeline had been thrown to me. Someone highly educated and deemed worthy by dint of her expertise had viewed me and seen a real person, not the shadow I had become.
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
Apr 26
Somebody's lost the plot
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8940955/jill-dando-murder-killer-stranger/
*&^^&
“Manipulative people have mastered the art of deception. They may appear respectable and sincere but often that’s just a facade; it's a way to draw you in and ensnare you in a relationship before they show their true colors.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/in-flux/201610/9-classic-traits-manipulative-people
-
Brian Cathcart, yet ANOTHER self serving, self promoting hypocrit!
“Cathcart may not approve of tabloid journalists, but he certainly knows how to behave like one.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/leveson-inquiry/9963263/The-truth-about-Hacked-Offs-media-coup.html
Hacked Off founder Brian Cathcart has accused Culture Secretary Matt Hancock of falsely crediting the Daily Mail with helping to bring Stephen Lawrence’s killers to justice - March 2018
“Cathcart described the claim as a “political lever being used to manipulate us all in the culture wars that surround our press” and a “gross disservice” to the Lawrence family.
In response, the Daily Mail has said it remains “proud” of its 20-year campaign regarding the case.
https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/hacked-off-founder-brian-cathcart-challenges-daily-mails-role-in-bringing-stephen-lawrence-killers-to-justice/
Misogynistic Brothel Creeps by Anna Raccoon on April 13, 2016
“Take your pick – the unfortunate Olivia is a ‘sex-worker’ in the Guardian; a ‘professional dominatrix and escort’ in the Socialist Worker; and ‘a prostitute’ in the Independent; nowhere have I seen her described as she is – a young single woman who signed up to Match.com in an effort to find a partner outside of her work circle, and who had a few dates before disclosing her entire previous sex life to a new man.
There is only one reason for this continual harping on about an alleged occupation which ended any relationship with John Whittingdale as soon as it was disclosed – and that is that political commentators appear to believe that Olivia’s occupation is derogatory and thus shows John Whittingdale in a poor light. If they believe that, then what is their justification for exposing Olivia to such comment? Is this ‘fallen women’ syndrome we see before us?
Not only has Olivia been publicly pilloried for behaving as many young single women do in London – availing herself of a match-making service – but even the owners, lessees, and managers of premises that she was stalked to, and photographed visiting, have been labelled as criminally liable ‘brothels’. Would someone please remind the Guardian that technically a brothel doesn’t even have to contain any women, nor does any payment have to change hands – but is merely premises ‘where people resort to lewd acts’ which is as neat a description of the Guardian’s annual Xmas party as ever I heard?
I want to know why this young woman has been exposed to prurient interest, stalked, harrassed, held up to scorn and ridicule, when she has done nothing illegal, nothing morally wrong, nothing of the remotest public interest?
Brian Cathcart, founder of ‘Hacked Off’ the organisation which seeks to curb the intrusion of the press into the ordinary lives of ordinary people – just like Olivia! – claims that it was justified on the following grounds. Nay, that they had an obligation to treat her in this way.....
Read more here:
https://annaraccoon.com/2016/04/13/misogynistic-brothel-creeps/
-
Death of a girl next door
Nick Hopkins, the Guardian's crime correspondent, on Brian Cathcart's Jill Dando: Her Life and Death - August 2001
“All the ingredients are here: much-loved celebrity, shocking murder and doubts about the conviction of the local eccentric who was found guilty of the crime. And yet, and yet. Perhaps we've gorged enough on this subject; perhaps this analysis - the first since the Old Bailey trial, but certainly not the last - has come too soon. It is really two books in one. The first 130 pages are straightforward biography of Dando, the rest a description of her death, the police investigation and the arrest and trial of Barry George, sentenced in July to life imprisonment for her murder.
“It was written, it appears, without the cooperation of Dando's family or that of her fiancé, so Cathcart doesn't have the opportunity to explore fresh anecdote
“Is George innocent? Cathcart doesn't take a firm view, but prefers to marshal the facts for each side and pose questions that were already being asked weeks ago. There are rants at the press for "grossly distorting and luridly embellishing" the case against George once he was convicted, but the book doesn't go into detail or provide context.
Most crime reporters who covered the case from the day Dando died to the end of the trial thought George was probably guilty but would probably walk free, based on the evidence presented to the court
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/aug/11/biography.highereducation
-
'Wrong man' convicted of Dando killing, says sister
“The sister of Barry George will tonight claim the "wrong man" was convicted of murdering Jill Dando and that her killer still walks free.
Michelle Diskin said her brother, found guilty at the Old Bailey on Monday, did "not have it in him" to gun down the TV presenter in cold blood.
In an interview for ITV's Tonight With Trevor McDonald, Mrs Diskin derides the police investigation and pours scorn on the health system for not better protecting George.
She claims neither Miss Dando nor her own family received justice from the high-profile eight-week trial that ended in George being sentenced to life for the April 1999 murder that shocked the nation.
Mrs Diskin, 45, a mother of three, *had not seen her brother for two years before his arrest but sat loyally in the public gallery during his trial and watched in stunned silence as the jury found him guilty by a 10-to-one majority.
Asked by Tonight reporter Martin Bashir what she had to say to the family of Miss Dando, Mrs Diskin says: "I feel terrible and sorry for them - what Jill Dando has received isn't justice.
"Barry is not going to sit and rot in prison while the perpetrator walks the streets."
She says the police "are going to stop looking for the right man and that is a travesty.
"There is someone out there that does deserve to be in (prison) and it's not Barry."
At George's trial, his counsel, Michael Mansfield QC, fought to have the case thrown out at every stage, arguing there was no proper evidence against his client and also substantial prejudice that would prevent him getting a fair trial.
Mrs Diskin says: "The trial should never have taken place. I sat there during the trial and listened to it and there is nothing to connect him with (the murder)."
She tells the programme that knowing her brother the way she does, he could not be guilty.
"Everyone who knows Barry knows he is gentle and respectful.
"I've never seen anything in him to suggest he could murder someone. To kill you need to be cold - Barry is warm."
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-58143/Wrong-man-convicted-Dando-killing-says-sister.html
* Michelle Diskin Bates hadn’t seen her brother for 12 years not as reported 2 years.
In other words, and mo, had the health system projected her brother he wouldn’t have gone on to murder!?
WHAT type of man commits sexual offences against women?
WHAT type of man stalks women?
-
In other words, and mo, had the health system projected her brother he wouldn’t have gone on to murder!?
WHAT type of man commits sexual offences against women?
WHAT type of man stalks women?
“Barry lived alone but there was never anyone to check that he was OK. He should have been monitored," she says.
Asked about her brother's previous convictions, Mrs Diskin says she believes the exposure they have been given and the way they were portrayed had been taken out of context.
"Only these things (have received attention). The views of the people who liked (Barry) have been glossed over. It wasn't in the media's interest to put these things forward," she says.
"Yes, he's made mistakes, but not everyone has their whole life laid out to look at and judge.
"There was a requirement for this case (that the perpetrator) be 'anything but normal'. Society has asked him to pay a price for this and he's paid for it, over and over again," she says.
Describing the past few weeks as "devastating" and "like a nightmare", she says her Christian faith has kept her strong.
Asked how her brother would cope with life in prison, she says: "His faith will sustain him through."
-
“Barry lived alone but there was never anyone to check that he was OK. He should have been monitored," she says.
Asked about her brother's previous convictions, Mrs Diskin says she believes the exposure they have been given and the way they were portrayed had been taken out of context.
"Only these things (have received attention). The views of the people who liked (Barry) have been glossed over. It wasn't in the media's interest to put these things forward," she says.
"Yes, he's made mistakes, but not everyone has their whole life laid out to look at and judge.
"There was a requirement for this case (that the perpetrator) be 'anything but normal'. Society has asked him to pay a price for this and he's paid for it, over and over again," she says.
Describing the past few weeks as "devastating" and "like a nightmare", she says her Christian faith has kept her strong.
Asked how her brother would cope with life in prison, she says: "His faith will sustain him through."
Interesting psychological projections.
She hadn’t seen him for 12 years therefore she had no idea how his offending behaviour may have escalated over those 12 years .
"There was a requirement for this case (that the perpetrator) be 'anything but normal'. Society has asked him to pay a price for this and he's paid for it, over and over again," she says.
"I've never seen anything in him to suggest he could murder someone. To kill you need to be cold - Barry is warm
What does Michelle Diskin Bates mean by; “Society has asked him to pay a price for this and he’s paid for it over and over? i
William Clegg met Barry George some years after the murder in prison; his client is hardly likely to be thriving.
Barry George's lawyer: How I know he didn't kill Jill Dando - and why most people are capable of murder - April 2019
“When William Clegg QC was escorted into a cell in 2006 to meet his next client, he didn’t think much of the “rather pathetic character” he was introduced to.
“But Clegg was convinced from the get-go that his client, an epileptic with learning difficulties, whom he remembers as “very needy man” requiring exhaustive support from his legal team, simply didn’t have the physical or mental wherewithal to have executed a crime with such clinical precision.
After winning his appeal in 2007, Clegg successfully defended George in a retrial the following year, where he persuaded the court that the central piece of evidence against him – a minuscule particle of gunpowder residue found in his coat pocket – was as likely to have come from an extraneous source as the murder weapon.
”It’s one supported by Jill Dando’s brother, Nigel, who told The Telegraph earlier this month that he believes his younger sister was killed by somebody “on the street at that time, who knew where Jill lived and struck lucky on the morning in question”.
“In the age of Netflix, of course, grizzly ‘true crime’ documentaries such as Making a Murderer and The Ted Bundy Tapes have made armchair detectives out of us all. Many of us conceive of murderers as uniquely wicked individuals, destined for evil by their sociopathic tendencies.
Having worked on more than 100 trials, Clegg believes the opposite. “Murder is frequently committed by people who have no previous criminal record, and represents a break down in a domestic setting,” he says, “whether it is the single mother who cannot stop shaking a screaming child, or a partner who hits out.”
Perhaps most unsettlingly of all, Clegg is of the opinion that there are circumstances in which any of us could be driven to kill. "Death is often caused by the most unlikely person. It is something that we are all capable of,” he says. "No one can really know how we would react in such circumstances until they arise.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/barry-georges-lawyer-know-didnt-kill-jill-dando-people-capable/
And William Clegg is also hardly likely to admit to having made a mistake about his client Barry George’s guilt. He’s got a book to promote, therefore stirring up contraversary suits his agenda.
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
No...BBC, these are NOT rape victims until someone is proved guilty of raping them! With the greatest respect they are claimants or accusers until then. Innocent until proven guilty...not half guilty, awaiting a trial! #BBC
Could be my son or daughter.
Quote Tweet
BBC News (UK)
@BBCNews
· 6h
Disclosure: Rape victims among those to be asked to hand phones to police (link: https://bbc.in/2ZGmJVV) bbc.in/2ZGmJVV
1:26 pm · 29 Apr 2019 · Twitter for iPad
or brother *&^^& which of course she omits *&^^&
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
NO NO NO...unless trials are not needed when rape is claimed...they are not ATTACKERS either!
Quote Tweet
BBC News (UK)
@BBCNews
· 6h
Disclosure: Rape victims among those to be asked to hand phones to police (link: https://bbc.in/2ZGmJVV) bbc.in/2ZGmJVV
WHAT issues within Barry George’s charactor compelled him to commit serious violent offences against women?
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
No...BBC, these are NOT rape victims until someone is proved guilty of raping them! With the greatest respect they are claimants or accusers until then. Innocent until proven guilty...not half guilty, awaiting a trial! #BBC
Could be my son or daughter.
Quote Tweet
BBC News (UK)
@BBCNews
· 6h
Disclosure: Rape victims among those to be asked to hand phones to police (link: https://bbc.in/2ZGmJVV) bbc.in/2ZGmJVV
1:26 pm · 29 Apr 2019 · Twitter for iPad
Or brother *&^^& which of course she omits *&^^&
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
NO NO NO...unless trials are not needed when rape is claimed...they are not ATTACKERS either!
Quote Tweet
BBC News (UK)
@BBCNews
· 6h
Disclosure: Rape victims among those to be asked to hand phones to police (link: https://bbc.in/2ZGmJVV) bbc.in/2ZGmJVV
WHAT issues within Barry George’s charactor compelled him to commit serious offences against women?
What, if any, rehabilitation did Barry George receive following his convictions against women?
Criminal spin is a phenomenological model in criminology, depicting the development of criminal behavior. The model refers to those types of behavior that start out as something small and innocent, without malicious or criminal intent and as a result of one situation leading to the next, an almost inevitable chain of reactions triggering counter-reactions is set in motion, culminating in a spin of ever-intensifying criminal behavior. The criminal spin model was developed by Pro. Natti Ronel and his research team in the department of criminology at Bar-Ilan University. It was first presented in 2005 at a Bar-Ilan conference entitled “Appropriate Law Enforcement”.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_spin
Michelle Diskin Bates stated:
“Barry lived alone but there was never anyone to check that he was OK. He should have been monitored,"
(Asked about her brother's previous convictions) Mrs Diskin says she believes the exposure they have been given and the way they were portrayed had been taken out of context.
"Only these things (have received attention). The views of the people who liked (Barry) have been glossed over. It wasn't in the media's interest to put these things forward," she says.
What has been glossed over for 20 years are Barry George’s motivations for committing violent offences against women! And what has been taken out of context are Barry George’s character issues to which motivated him to commit these offences in the first place.
In an interview for ITV's Tonight With Trevor McDonald, Mrs Diskin derides the police investigation and pours scorn on the health system for not better protecting George.
-
Jill Dando’s brother says killer was most likely someone who ‘just wanted notoriety’
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8950770/jill-dando-killer-wanted-notoriety/
Who just happened to have a sister who may have also just wanted notoriety maybe?
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
No...BBC, these are NOT rape victims until someone is proved guilty of raping them! With the greatest respect they are claimants or accusers until then. Innocent until proven guilty...not half guilty, awaiting a trial! #BBC
Could be my son or daughter.
Quote Tweet
BBC News (UK)
@BBCNews
· 6h
Disclosure: Rape victims among those to be asked to hand phones to police (link: https://bbc.in/2ZGmJVV) bbc.in/2ZGmJVV
1:26 pm · 29 Apr 2019 · Twitter for iPad
You’d think, especially after highlighting Liam Allen’s case in her book, she’d have some sort of clue by now *&^^&
Troll exposure blog
“This is a remarkably stupid tweet by the Victims’ Commissioner for London. Why? Because it’s only justice if the allegation is actually true. If the allegation is false and the alleged victim has done nothing wrong then they should not fear any device examination.
Ironically therefore it’s precisely because the likes of the Victims’ Commissioner etc overlooked the problems of false allegations that this need for device examination of complainants has become necessary.
As Liam Allan stated to the Telegraph, anyone who is falsely accused of crimes and subjected to arrest etc as a result is also a victim of crimes against them. Notably the perversion of the course of justice, lying on witness statements for example is a criminal offence akin to perjury.
The need however would not have been necessary had the scale and nature of false allegations been recognized sooner. The “believe the victim” policies that the likes of the Victims’ Commissioner and former DPP’s Starmer and Saunders introduced in the first place are the cause of this fiasco. They created the environment in which false allegations were allowed to flourish
Read more here:
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/04/29/a-change-for-justice-and-not-a-moment-too-soon/
-
“Barry lived alone but there was never anyone to check that he was OK. He should have been monitored," she says.
Asked about her brother's previous convictions, Mrs Diskin says she believes the exposure they have been given and the way they were portrayed had been taken out of context.
"Only these things (have received attention). The views of the people who liked (Barry) have been glossed over. It wasn't in the media's interest to put these things forward," she says.
"Yes, he's made mistakes, but not everyone has their whole life laid out to look at and judge.
"There was a requirement for this case (that the perpetrator) be 'anything but normal'. Society has asked him to pay a price for this and he's paid for it, over and over again," she says.
Describing the past few weeks as "devastating" and "like a nightmare", she says her Christian faith has kept her strong.
Asked how her brother would cope with life in prison, she says: "His faith will sustain him through."
They criticise when he’s being monitored and criticise when he isn’t. What does that tell you?
No mention of this in her book though? Why is that I wonder? She gets the opportunity to tell her version of events but leaves these pertinent points out? Telling, very telling!
-
Jill Dando’s brother says killer was most likely someone who ‘just wanted notoriety’
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8950770/jill-dando-killer-wanted-notoriety/
Who just happened to have a sister who may have also just wanted notoriety maybe?
The brother of murdered BBC presenter Jill Dando has said he will find out who killed her "no matter how long it takes". https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-47779606
-
They criticise when he’s being monitored and criticise when he isn’t. What does that tell you?
No mention of this in her book though? Why is that I wonder? She gets the opportunity to tell her version of events but leaves these pertinent points out? Telling, very telling!
Here’s another telling excerpt from Michelle Diskin Bates book, “Stand Against Injustice
“Sitting with others in the canteen one morning, I mentioned that I would really like to send a Bible verse to Barry to help keep his spirits up. I knew he had his Bible with him–after all, the media had mocked him enough for carrying it–so I knew he’d be able to look up the references I sent. “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Deuteronomy 31: 6)
I also sent: “The LORD is my light and my salvation–whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life–of whom shall I be afraid? (Psalm 27: 1) Imagine my surprise when I received a Bible verse back from Barry, one perfectly suited to what I was going through! “May the God of hope fill you will all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15: 13) I’d underestimated Barry; he knew his Bible better than I’d realised. Of course, he had been studying the Bible in readiness to take his Believer’s Baptism at the time the police arrested him.
Sounds to me like the three eminent professionals also underestimated Barry George!
-
Here’s another telling excerpt from Michelle Diskin Bates book, “Stand Against Injustice
“Sitting with others in the canteen one morning, I mentioned that I would really like to send a Bible verse to Barry to help keep his spirits up. I knew he had his Bible with him–after all, the media had mocked him enough for carrying it–so I knew he’d be able to look up the references I sent. “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Deuteronomy 31: 6)
I also sent: “The LORD is my light and my salvation–whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life–of whom shall I be afraid? (Psalm 27: 1) Imagine my surprise when I received a Bible verse back from Barry, one perfectly suited to what I was going through! “May the God of hope fill you will all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15: 13) I’d underestimated Barry; he knew his Bible better than I’d realised. Of course, he had been studying the Bible in readiness to take his Believer’s Baptism at the time the police arrested him.
Sounds to me like the three eminent professionals also underestimated Barry George!
It seems he now carries around “All about Jill: The Life and Death of Jill Dando by David James Smith
-
Troll exposure blog
“However, this manipulation of families and stories for his own benefit raises some other questions too: like have other stories been manipulated, anonymous sources created on a hush-hush basis for the promise of monies in return.
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/04/27/auctorem-inquisitor/
Michelle Diskin Bates states:
“It was quite an eye-opener when I became aware of the extent of the symbiotic relationship between the police and the media.
Yet Barry George and his sister Michelle Diskin Bates have been in the same such mutually beneficial relationships.
“A great great teaming. Miscarriage of justice victims need strong support and experienced, structured assistance to fight their convictions. Good luck with the new venture.
Michelle (Barry George’s sister)
Troll exposure blog:
“It implies that the ideas were fed into people by someone, possibly either Williams-Thomas or Jones.
Read more here:
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/04/29/explosive-pollards/
-
Another faux pas
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
2 Aug 2018
Thank you Diane. If Barry was in prison for this crime the killer was free...why do people not think of that implication? THE KILLER WAS FREE!
https://mobile.twitter.com/mwilliamsthomas/status/1024947488153907201
Sounds like her imagination
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
No...BBC, these are NOT rape victims until someone is proved guilty of raping them! With the greatest respect they are claimants or accusers until then. Innocent until proven guilty...not half guilty, awaiting a trial! #BBC
Could be my son or daughter.
Quote Tweet
BBC News (UK)
@BBCNews
· 6h
Disclosure: Rape victims among those to be asked to hand phones to police (link: https://bbc.in/2ZGmJVV) bbc.in/2ZGmJVV
1:26 pm · 29 Apr 2019 · Twitter for iPad
Someone responded to the above
Replying to
@Michelle_Diskin
Ummm Im a rape survivor.. my rapist wasbt convicted. Does that mean it didnt happen? Of course not
Here: https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1122839518200172545
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
No...BBC, these are NOT rape victims until someone is proved guilty of raping them! With the greatest respect they are claimants or accusers until then. Innocent until proven guilty...not half guilty, awaiting a trial! #BBC
Could be my son or daughter.
Quote Tweet
BBC News (UK)
@BBCNews
· 6h
Disclosure: Rape victims among those to be asked to hand phones to police (link: https://bbc.in/2ZGmJVV) bbc.in/2ZGmJVV
1:26 pm · 29 Apr 2019 · Twitter for iPad
or brother *&^^& which of course she omits *&^^&
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
NO NO NO...unless trials are not needed when rape is claimed...they are not ATTACKERS either!
Quote Tweet
BBC News (UK)
@BBCNews
· 6h
Disclosure: Rape victims among those to be asked to hand phones to police (link: https://bbc.in/2ZGmJVV) bbc.in/2ZGmJVV
WHAT issues within Barry George’s charactor compelled him to commit serious violent offences against women?
“Karen Gray was a 20-year-old university languages student, when she was attacked and raped by George in the stairwell of a block of flats in West London.
But the Old Bailey jury were not permitted to hear the details of his vile attack on Miss Gray as she reached home - as it may have prejudiced his trial.
George was a stranger who followed her in the street, told her he was in the RAF, tried to hold her hand and spoke a few German phrases to impress her.
She thought he was a harmless oddball, 'a sad case' and didn't feel threatened or frightened by him.
But when he followed her into the block of flats where her mother lived, he changed.
The Old Bailey jury heard that George was incapable of planning or carrying out a series of actions without panicking or triggering an epileptic fit.
Later, after the murder of Jill Dando, a handwritten note found in his chaotic and cluttered flat provided a clue to what happened next.
It read: 'I have difficulty handling rejection. I become angry ... it starts a chain of events which is beyond my control.'
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/barry-george-raped-me-by-my-mums-door-then-said-sorry-6890558.html
“The police came pretty quickly and asked all the neighbours if they had seen anything but no one had. I went back to university and just got on with my life.'
A year later, George was caught after sexually assaulting another woman. He matched the description given by Miss Gray and a police officer remembered her attacker had used a German phrase.
He asked George if he spoke German and the suspect repeated exactly the same phrases.
When confronted, he broke down and confessed. He was initially charged with rape but because of a dispute over forensic evidence, the police reluctantly accepted his plea to attempted rape, partly to spare the victim from giving evidence.
-
Someone responded to the above
Replying to
@Michelle_Diskin
Ummm Im a rape survivor.. my rapist wasbt convicted. Does that mean it didnt happen? Of course not
Here: https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1122839518200172545
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
9h
No, absolutely it doesn’t. But all avenues must be open to examination. Not everyone is honest Jin, and the whole justice system is affected by wrongful conviction. So sorry this happened to you. 😢
Jin
9h
So you need to be sure when you post shit like "these are NOT rape victims"
Examine the stats, do a bit of critical thinking about just how many people ARE rape victims... conviction has nothing at all to do with whether someone is a rape victim. STILL RAPED
Here: https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1122839518200172545
They should read her book and listen to some of her radio interviews. *&^^&
“Not everyone is honest” *&^^& claims Michelle Diskin Bates, ”and the whole justice system is affected by wrongful conviction” she goes on..
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
9h
No, absolutely it doesn’t. But all avenues must be open to examination. Not everyone is honest Jin, and the whole justice system is affected by wrongful conviction. So sorry this happened to you. 😢
Jin
9h
So you need to be sure when you post shit like "these are NOT rape victims"
Examine the stats, do a bit of critical thinking about just how many people ARE rape victims... conviction has nothing at all to do with whether someone is a rape victim. STILL RAPED
Here: https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1122839518200172545
They should read her book and listen to some of her radio interviews. *&^^&
“Not everyone is honest” *&^^& claims Michelle Diskin Bates, ”and the whole justice system is affected by wrongful conviction” she goes on..
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
No...BBC, they are NOT rape victims until someone is proved guilty of raping them! With the greatest respect they are claimants or accusers until then. Innocent until proven guilty...not half guilty, awaiting a trial! #BBC
1:20 PM · Apr 29, 2019 · Twitter for iPad
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1122838159581224963
Barry George was found guilty of attempted rape but because it happened years before the murder Michelle Diskin Bates has always minimised her brothers behaviour. I wonder if she’s ever considered his victims and the impact it’s had on them?
“What is often described as misplaced anger is anger that is directed to the wrong cause, or the wrong person. Actually anger is caused by the immaturity of the angry person
“Psychologists call this phenomenon displaced aggression. Often when we feel powerless, we dump our anger on someone else — someone we know won’t fight back. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/anger-management-tips-martha-beck_n_4241174
“Aggression encompasses behavior, such as yelling or physical violence, that comes about as a result of feelings of anger. When you are angry, you will often take your anger out on the person causing it. But sometimes you are not able to express your anger directly to the person who is causing it. And if you are unable to resolve your anger, it may become displaced, meaning that it is directed towards something or someone else that has nothing to do with the original conflict.
Displaced aggression is aggressive behavior that cannot be expressed to the actual source that provoked the behavior; instead the anger is taken out on the easiest victim. In the example of Tom, he cannot take his aggression to the source of his anger, his supervisor, due to the possibility of getting fired if he does. Instead, he takes out his anger and dissatisfaction with the way things are going at work on the easiest victims, his wife and kids. After all, his wife and kids usually forgive him.
Theory of Displaced Aggression
The theory of displaced aggression is simply explained in the definition. But there is an additional component of displaced aggression that has fascinated social psychologists and researchers. This is the idea of triggered displaced aggression.
Triggered displaced aggression occurs when a person has anger towards someone (i.e. a supervisor or a coworker) that he or she cannot express to that person directly for fear of consequences, and then later, a mild trigger of annoyance or irritation causes the person to explode with anger due to the pent up frustration that he could not express earlier.
https://study.com/academy/lesson/displaced-aggression-definition-theory.html
-
I'm not condoning BG's previous crimes which involved attempted rape and sexual assault but there's no evidence Jill's murder was sexually motivated. If this was the case why didn't the perp allow her to open the front door, barge in at the same time and hold her at gunpoint ordering her to disable the house alarm (assuming it was on) and then attempt to rape or sexually assault her?
I'm not sure any sexual gratification could be derived from simply shooting someone dead and then disappearing?
-
Jill Dando’s brother says killer was most likely someone who ‘just wanted notoriety’
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8950770/jill-dando-killer-wanted-notoriety/
Who just happened to have a sister who may have also just wanted notoriety maybe?
Did Barry George’s motivation to murder stem from triggered displaced aggression?
-
I'm not condoning BG's previous crimes which involved attempted rape and sexual assault but there's no evidence Jill's murder was sexually motivated.
Doesn’t mean there wasn’t an irrational sexual element to the murder
-
I'm not sure any sexual gratification could be derived from simply shooting someone dead and then disappearing?
Why not?
-
Did Barry George’s motivation to murder stem from triggered displaced aggression?
Firstly BG has been through two criminal trials. He was acquitted at the latter and in they eyes of the law he is an innocent man.
Has any expert ever diagnosed BG with 'displaced aggression'?
-
I'm not condoning BG's previous crimes which involved attempted rape and sexual assault but there's no evidence Jill's murder was sexually motivated. If this was the case why didn't the perp allow her to open the front door, barge in at the same time and hold her at gunpoint ordering her to disable the house alarm (assuming it was on) and then attempt to rape or sexually assault her?
You appear to be assuming the murderer was thinking rationally as opposed to having irrational thought processes?
-
Doesn’t mean there wasn’t an irrational sexual element to the murder
What sexual gratification do you think the perp derived from simply shooting Jill dead within seconds of her arriving at Gowan Avenue and then disappearing immediately thereafter?
-
Why not?
In what way do you believe the perp derived sexual gratification from the crime?
-
Firstly BG has been through two criminal trials. He was acquitted at the latter and in they eyes of the law he is an innocent man.
In the eyes of the law he has yet to prove beyond a reasonable doubt he didn’t commit murder.
-
You appear to be assuming the murderer was thinking rationally as opposed to having irrational thought processes?
If the murder was sexually motivated where/when/how was the sexual gratification derived?
-
Has any expert ever diagnosed BG with 'displaced aggression'?
What did Michael Mansfield put forward at the original trial?
-
Has any expert ever diagnosed BG with 'displaced aggression'?
What motivates individuals to rape?
-
If the murder was sexually motivated where/when/how was the sexual gratification derived?
Before, after? How is sexual gratification derived from crimes such as rape and murder?
Irrational thoughts processes maybe?
-
In what way do you believe the perp derived sexual gratification from the crime?
You appear to be assuming the murderer was thinking rationally as opposed to having irrational thought processes?
http://uspp.csbsju.edu/crimpsych/CPSG-5.htm
https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/staff/taylorpj/papers/PCL2006.pdf
https://opentextbc.ca/socialpsychology/chapter/the-biological-and-emotional-causes-of-aggression/
https://www.rug.nl/research/portal/files/2888993/A-PANAL.pdf
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2772995?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
-
Has any expert ever diagnosed BG with 'displaced aggression'?
What assessments, if any, were carried out on Barry George following his arrest and subsequent conviction(s) of attempted rape etc?
-
I'm not condoning BG's previous crimes which involved attempted rape and sexual assault but there's no evidence Jill's murder was sexually motivated. If this was the case why didn't the perp allow her to open the front door, barge in at the same time and hold her at gunpoint ordering her to disable the house alarm (assuming it was on) and then attempt to rape or sexually assault her?
I'm not sure any sexual gratification could be derived from simply shooting someone dead and then disappearing?
Maybe in Barry George’s irrational mind the murder was his coup de grâce?
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
No...BBC, they are NOT rape victims until someone is proved guilty of raping them! With the greatest respect they are claimants or accusers until then. Innocent until proven guilty...not half guilty, awaiting a trial! #BBC
1:20 PM · Apr 29, 2019 · Twitter for iPad
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1122838159581224963
Barry George was found guilty of attempted rape but because it happened years before the murder Michelle Diskin Bates has always minimised her brothers behaviour. I wonder if she’s ever considered his victims and the impact it’s had on them?
I’ve always sensed a lack of shame, guilt and remorse from Barry George and his sister.
-
Troll exposure blog:
“It implies that the ideas were fed into people by someone, possibly either Williams-Thomas or Jones.
Read more here:
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/04/29/explosive-pollards/
More from
Troll exposure blog:
“Could it be that “the journalist” was someone from Sky News or posing to be from Sky News? Stacking the decks to encourage the BBC to act?
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/04/30/explosive-pollards-ii/
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Oh...how I wish it could, but those of us who’ve suffered because of it, know better.
Quote Tweet
Jeremy Bamber
@Bambertweets
· Apr 19
Petition Message:
"I have always had doubts about Bamber's guilt. As a citizen I need to know beyond reasonable doubt that the system can be trusted and the withholding of crucial evidence casts way too much suspicion.. (link: http://chng.it/5WSj9t7G) chng.it/5WSj9t7G via @UKChange
#JeremyBamber case
4:25 PM · Apr 20, 2019 · Twitter for iPad
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1119623118295851008
There’s never been a disclosure issue in the Barry George case; unless someone knows otherwise?
There is however a lack of transparency from Barry George and his sister.
Many questions still remain. Like what if anything, did previous assessments conclude as to his issues, motivations etc surrounding previous convictions? Was he rehabilitated? Did he ever complete courses?
Why is he still under MAPPA?
Excerpt from Stand Against Injustice; “The Met Police said this had nothing to do with his conviction in 2001. They had carried out a risk assessment, using a mathematical equation constructed on age and convictions (but his convictions were spent!) and based on this they had come up with him possibly reoffending (after 26 years?). He had not needed this order before Jill Dando had been killed. Barry took a case against this decision but lost, having to pay the costs himself.
It appears to me Barry George was released from prison following previous convictions and never monitored?
It also appears to me that the prison authorities are in dispute with the three eminent doctors who assessed him in the lead up to his retrial.
“These three eminent doctors worked together as a forensic medical team and they were an invaluable asset to the court. Without their expertise, Barry may well have been found ‘unfit to stand trial’.(Michelle Diskin Bates)
-
Why is he still under MAPPA?
Excerpt from Stand Against Injustice; “The Met Police said this had nothing to do with his conviction in 2001. They had carried out a risk assessment, using a mathematical equation constructed on age and convictions (but his convictions were spent!) and based on this they had come up with him possibly reoffending (after 26 years?). He had not needed this order before Jill Dando had been killed. Barry took a case against this decision but lost, having to pay the costs himself.
It appears to me Barry George was released from prison following previous convictions and never monitored?
It also appears to me that the prison authorities are in dispute with the three eminent doctors who assessed him in the lead up to his retrial.
“These three eminent doctors worked together as a forensic medical team and they were an invaluable asset to the court. Without their expertise, Barry may well have been found ‘unfit to stand trial’.(Michelle Diskin Bates)
Mens Rea
“Every person of the age of discretion is, unless the contrary is proved, presumed by law to be sane and to be accountable for his actions: R v Layton (1849) 4 Cox 149. Archbold 17-74. The onus is on the defence to establish insanity at the time of the offence on the balance of probabilities.
In all other cases, unless there is statutory authority to the contrary, the onus is on the prosecution to establish mens rea beyond all reasonable doubt, whether generally or when particular issues arise (Woolmington v DPP [1935] A.C.462) Archbold 17-5.
Prosecutors should be mindful of the mens rea requirements of specific offences and consider the impact of a mental disorder on the offender's ability to form the necessary mens rea. An independent medical report may be helpful.
https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/mentally-disordered-offenders
Excerpt from Stand Against Injustice
“This was something Mansfield was seriously concerned about, because if a defendant is deemed to be unfit to stand trial, they can be hospitalised in a secure mental facility, such as Broadmoor Hospital, until they recovered sufficiently to be able to stand trial. Mansfield knew that if Barry had been put into such a hospital it would be impossible for him to recover from the disabilities he was born with. The Dando case would very quickly have disappeared and Barry would have been detained indefinitely, probably never to be released again.(Michelle Diskin Bates)
-
Excerpt from Stand Against Injustice:
“Mansfield knew that if Barry had been put into such a hospital it would be impossible for him to recover from the disabilities he was born with. The Dando case would very quickly have disappeared and Barry would have been detained indefinitely, probably never to be released again. Everyone would have believed the case had been solved and Barry would never have had a trial, fair or otherwise. (Michelle Diskin Bates)
Fitness to Plead in the Crown Court
“The purpose of this procedure is to strike a fair balance between the need to protect a defendant, who has, in fact, done nothing wrong but is unfit to plead at his trial, and the need to protect the public from a defendant who has committed an injurious act which would constitute a crime if done with the requisite mens rea (R v Antoine [2001] 1 AC 340).
The procedure is set out in the Criminal Procedure (Insanity) Act 1964 as substantially amended by the Criminal Procedure (Insanity and Unfitness to Plead) Act 1991 and by sections 22, 24, 25, Schedule 2 and the provisions in respect of unfitness to plead and insanity in Schedules 10 and 11 to the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004 for all defendants arraigned after 31 March 2005. Transitional provisions are set out at paragraph 8 of Schedule 12 to the 2004 Act.
The procedure has two stages:
Whether the offender is under a disability i.e. whether he is "unfit" to plead (section 4 Criminal Procedure (Insanity) Act 1964) ; and if so
Whether he did the act or made the omission charged against him (section 4A Criminal Procedure (Insanity) Act 1964).
1. Whether the offender is under a disability
The question of fitness to plead may be raised before arraignment by the prosecution, defence or Judge.
In the majority of cases it is likely that the defendant will respond to medical treatment and the trial will take place within a reasonable period .The defendant may be remanded to hospital for a report on his medical condition (section 35 Mental Health Act 1983) or for treatment (section 36 Mental Health Act 1983) while he is awaiting trial. Archbold 5-891 - 5-892.
In cases of serious or enduring disorder, the issue of fitness to plead should be determined.
If there is a reasonable chance that the prosecution case will be successfully challenged, the issue of fitness to plead should not be determined before arraignment, but postponed until a time before the defence case is opened (Archbold 4-170). This may result in a conclusive verdict of acquittal and avoids the need for the issue of unfitness to be determined at all.
The issue of fitness to plead will be decided by the Judge not the jury (ss 4 (5) Criminal Procedure (Insanity) Act 1964) on the written or oral evidence of two or more registered medical practitioners, at least one of whom must be duly approved under section 12 Mental Health Act 1983.
https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/mentally-disordered-offenders
-
Excerpt from Stand Against Injustice:
“Mansfield knew that if Barry had been put into such a hospital it would be impossible for him to recover from the disabilities he was born with. The Dando case would very quickly have disappeared and Barry would have been detained indefinitely, probably never to be released again. Everyone would have believed the case had been solved and Barry would never have had a trial, fair or otherwise. (Michelle Diskin Bates)
“Finally, it all made sense. Now we understood what was going on with Barry as a child. It felt like we’d found the missing jigsaw pieces. With this information, we would be able to help Barry through this ordeal–he would have support in the courtroom and he would be given techniques for dealing with his anxiety. A small victory, but one we were grateful to have achieved. (Michelle Diskin Bates)
-
Surjit Singh Clair is pictured standing towards Michelle Diskin Bates left.
https://issuu.com/salvationarmyuk/docs/wc_27_april_2019_web
“Judge Robert Orme said Cotter (29) and co-conspirators Surjit Singh Clair (31) and Craig Wynn (29) had played the "race card" in an attempt to make the bogus attack convincing. Jailing Wynn for two years and Clair for three years at Birmingham Crown Court, the judge added that the men had committed a grave offence.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/jail-for-fake-race-hate-attack-1.312219
-
Advice for people under MAPPA
It also appears to me that the prison authorities are in dispute with the three eminent doctors who assessed him in the lead up to his retrial.
“There are various risk assessment tools that the police and/or probation use to assess and monitor the risk that you may pose. Examples of risk factors that might increase your current level of risk include:
Drinking alcohol or taking drugs
Having access to potential victims
Taking a sexual interest in children
Not managing your feelings appropriately
Blaming others for your problems
Thinking about sex a lot
Examples of factors that might reduce your level of risk include:
Having friends and a strong support network
Having a job or being active within your community
Complying with any treatment programmes or other requirements set by the agencies supporting you
Making a demonstrable commitment to not reoffending
Can my MAPPA details ever be disclosed to the public?
It is not possible to eliminate all risks and some offenders continue to pose a risk to others. In order to protect the public, there are occasions when information from a MAPP meeting is disclosed to another person or group of people in order to either protect them directly, or for them to protect others.
Where information is disclosed, it is only to ensure that the public are being protected. The person disclosing the information will explain why the information is being disclosed and should give advice on what will happen afterwards. The information remains confidential and must not be shared without the permission of the person who made the disclosure. Every MAPP meeting decides whether disclosure should take place.
https://www.nacro.org.uk/resettlement-advice-service/support-for-individuals/advice-prisoners-people-licence-sex-offenders-mappa/advice-people-mappa/#under
2009
“The Metropolitan police is contesting the challenge, which will be heard in full in two weeks' time after Tuesday's preliminary hearing.
It argues that George has admitted stalking women and police have received new complaints from two women since his release last year.
The Met says his pattern of behaviour over many years of following women means that he still poses a risk despite his acquittal. They use his convictions for indecent assault in 1982 and attempted rape in 1983 as evidence of a long-running pattern of behaviour.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/nov/29/barry-george-jill-dando
2009
“A jury at Mr George's second trial heard he was watched by police as he stalked a large number of women.
At least one woman has also complained to police about Mr George's behaviour since he was released from prison.
The Mappa monitoring means Mr George, who has previously stayed with his mother in west London and sister in Ireland, must tell police and his local authority where he lives.
Officials from the prison and probation authorities are also involved in a panel that reviews his case.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/6833611/Barry-George-wants-police-off-his-back-court-hears.html
-
Excerpt from Stand Against Injustice; “The Met Police said this had nothing to do with his conviction in 2001. They had carried out a risk assessment, using a mathematical equation constructed on age and convictions (but his convictions were spent!) and based on this they had come up with him possibly reoffending (after 26 years?). He had not needed this order before Jill Dando had been killed. Barry took a case against this decision but lost, having to pay the costs himself. (Michelle Diskin Bates).
Mathematical equation hey? *&^^&
-
There’s never been a disclosure issue in the Barry George case; unless someone knows otherwise?
There is however a lack of transparency from Barry George and his sister.
Many questions still remain. Like what if anything, did previous assessments conclude as to his issues, motivations etc surrounding previous convictions? Was he rehabilitated? Did he ever complete courses?
Why is he still under MAPPA?
Excerpt from Stand Against Injustice; “The Met Police said this had nothing to do with his conviction in 2001. They had carried out a risk assessment, using a mathematical equation constructed on age and convictions (but his convictions were spent!) and based on this they had come up with him possibly reoffending (after 26 years?). He had not needed this order before Jill Dando had been killed. Barry took a case against this decision but lost, having to pay the costs himself.
It appears to me Barry George was released from prison following previous convictions and never monitored?
It also appears to me that the prison authorities are in dispute with the three eminent doctors who assessed him in the lead up to his retrial.
“These three eminent doctors worked together as a forensic medical team and they were an invaluable asset to the court. Without their expertise, Barry may well have been found ‘unfit to stand trial’.(Michelle Diskin Bates)
January 2017
Sandra lean claimed:
“Why should anyone accept claims by the very organisation which set Barry George up for conviction about whether or not he is a "risk?" Of course they're going to continue to blacken his name - their prized conviction was snatched away from them, and they did what they always do - continue to throw negative information into the public domain. The "great big light" referred to by gringo is there for all to see - phone hacking, Christopher Jefferies, Hillsborough etc - it doesn't take a lot of searching to see how much corruption and collusion is being, and has been, shoved under the rug, but it can't and won't stay there forever. http://jeremybamberforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,8126.msg384156.html#msg384156
There is no evidence whatsoever Barry George was set up!
Now that Barry George’s sister has published the fact her brother is still being monitored, maybe she’ll tell us why?
The Met Police and other agencies involved don’t appear to have made a public comment on this for over a decade?
PPANI Is what MAPPA is known as in Northern Ireland.
-
Michelle Diskin Bates states:
“The hacking into the text messages on Millie Dowler’s mobile phone seems to have led to the public exposure of this practice. It was highly insensitive, and pointed to the belief that Millie may actually still be alive for some time after she had been murdered. It was the highlighting of disgusting behaviour like this which eventually led to the closing of one particularly salacious Sunday newspaper, The News of the World, part of the Rupert Murdoch empire. Those of us who had suffered at the printing press of this publication’s deceits breathed a huge sigh of relief when it finally closed for good. This disgraceful conduct was also clearly evident in the reporting of the 2010 murder of landscape gardener Joanna Yates in Bristol....
Anna Racoon blog: 2016
“Milly Dowler’s murder was not the only blot on the Surrey policing landscape. The original Guardian claim that the NOTW had ‘hacked’ Milly’s phone, later shown to be untrue, put them centre stage in the Leveson Inquiry...
“.....It may or may not be relevant that this meeting took place shortly after Mark Williams-Thomas, who has admitted his practice of briefing the tabloids when he thought it necessary, left the employ of Surrey Police.
Read more here:
https://annaraccoon.com/2016/02/03/surrey-police-and-lynne-owens/
-
You’d think, especially after highlighting Liam Allen’s case in her book, she’d have some sort of clue by now *&^^&
Troll exposure blog
“This is a remarkably stupid tweet by the Victims’ Commissioner for London. Why? Because it’s only justice if the allegation is actually true. If the allegation is false and the alleged victim has done nothing wrong then they should not fear any device examination.
Ironically therefore it’s precisely because the likes of the Victims’ Commissioner etc overlooked the problems of false allegations that this need for device examination of complainants has become necessary.
As Liam Allan stated to the Telegraph, anyone who is falsely accused of crimes and subjected to arrest etc as a result is also a victim of crimes against them. Notably the perversion of the course of justice, lying on witness statements for example is a criminal offence akin to perjury.
The need however would not have been necessary had the scale and nature of false allegations been recognized sooner. The “believe the victim” policies that the likes of the Victims’ Commissioner and former DPP’s Starmer and Saunders introduced in the first place are the cause of this fiasco. They created the environment in which false allegations were allowed to flourish
Read more here:
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/04/29/a-change-for-justice-and-not-a-moment-too-soon/
Troll Exposure blog:
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/04/30/durham-durham-durham-durham-durham-durham-durrhammmm/
-
Firstly BG has been through two criminal trials. He was acquitted at the latter and in they eyes of the law he is an innocent man.
Has any expert ever diagnosed BG with 'displaced aggression'?
What motivates an individual to stalk?
Barry George is still being monitored by multiple agencies due to his offending behaviour; presumably stalking. The fact his sister refuses to recognise this as a problem for both Barry and the public is a concern.
The only time Michelle Diskin Bates uses the word stalking in her book is in reference to the press (Once) and when her brother is alleged to have said talking instead of stalking? (Twice)
The elephant in the room - STALKING - has been mentioned 3 times in total *&^^&
-
Surjit Singh Clair is pictured standing towards Michelle Diskin Bates left.
https://issuu.com/salvationarmyuk/docs/wc_27_april_2019_web
“Judge Robert Orme said Cotter (29) and co-conspirators Surjit Singh Clair (31) and Craig Wynn (29) had played the "race card" in an attempt to make the bogus attack convincing. Jailing Wynn for two years and Clair for three years at Birmingham Crown Court, the judge added that the men had committed a grave offence.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/jail-for-fake-race-hate-attack-1.312219
I wonder if Barry George and his sister ever got to the bottom of who the source(s) were for leaking “scare stories as she refers to them in her book, to the press?
-
Death of a girl next door
Nick Hopkins, the Guardian's crime correspondent, on Brian Cathcart's Jill Dando: Her Life and Death - August 2001
“All the ingredients are here: much-loved celebrity, shocking murder and doubts about the conviction of the local eccentric who was found guilty of the crime. And yet, and yet. Perhaps we've gorged enough on this subject; perhaps this analysis - the first since the Old Bailey trial, but certainly not the last - has come too soon. It is really two books in one. The first 130 pages are straightforward biography of Dando, the rest a description of her death, the police investigation and the arrest and trial of Barry George, sentenced in July to life imprisonment for her murder.
“It was written, it appears, without the cooperation of Dando's family or that of her fiancé, so Cathcart doesn't have the opportunity to explore fresh anecdote
“Is George innocent? Cathcart doesn't take a firm view, but prefers to marshal the facts for each side and pose questions that were already being asked weeks ago. There are rants at the press for "grossly distorting and luridly embellishing" the case against George once he was convicted, but the book doesn't go into detail or provide context.
Most crime reporters who covered the case from the day Dando died to the end of the trial thought George was probably guilty but would probably walk free, based on the evidence presented to the court
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/aug/11/biography.highereducation
Another informative article by Nick Hopkins: July 2001
“His abuse of women continued throughout the 90s, though he was not convicted of any offences.
After his arrest, 43 women who lived in the neighbourhood claimed they had been harassed by George, including a diplomat who said he accosted her in Lambrook Terrace, two streets from Gowan Avenue, four years ago.
The woman claimed he flashed a business card which said he was Freddie Mercury's cousin and followed her when she turned away. She alleged that George grabbed her, but she broke free, ran away and hid behind bushes.
Another woman claimed George began following her in 1991 and tried to kiss her when she was walking down the street.
She brushed him off but George persisted. Sometime later, he approached her again as she tried to unlock her front door and said "Now I know where you live". Three years later, he asked to clean her car, and when she refused he left a note which said: "I like blondes."
”Thirteen women were prepared to tell the trial they had been stalked by George and the prosecution hoped to call at least five of them as witnesses. However, the judge ruled their evidence inadmissible .
”A friend he allowed into his room at a bed and breakfast in Kensington saw a third weapon, a polished silver pistol, carefully wrapped in tissue paper and kept in a shoe box.
This gun has never been found.
“George was an avid collector of brochures and magazines for military kit suppliers and gun dealers, and his books included Ambush and Counter Ambush, Ninja the Invisible Assassins and Construction of Hiding Places.
”Doctors who examined George before the trial differed on the likely problem and its extent. It is understood that one report for the prosecution identified "histrionic", "narcissistic" and possible "paranoid" personality disorders; it concluded that George displayed "psychopathic personality characteristics".
One defence psychiatrist, Gisli Gud-Jonsson, from the University of London, concluded that George's epilepsy had caused "seven conditions identifiable as recognised personality disorders".
During the investigation police spoke to experts on stalking to establish whether George was suffering from De Clerambault's syndrome, also known as erotomania. Sufferers often become aware of their victim through the media and establish a delusional fantasy in which they believe they have a special relationship with the person.
When their "love" for him or her is unrequited, violence can follow. Doctors who saw George could not draw any firm conclusions.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/jul/03/jilldando.media5
-
What Is the Cheater's High?
There are also some verbal clues to when someone is not telling the truth. A combination of some of the following speech patterns can alert you to potential dishonesty. The speaker may:
Pitch his voice higher than usual.
Switch the conversation to a new subject.
Use phrases like, "It's the truth," "Honestly," and, "To tell you the truth."
Make false starts, stutter, hesitate, and repeat himself.
Make the story he's telling excessively elaborate.
He may go on the offensive, in an attempt to make you feel guilty for doubting him.
Give indirect, evasive answers.
Stall when answering questions, or ask you to repeat them.
Get tongue-tied, or lose his train of thought midway through a sentence.
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/beware-cheaters-high.htm
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Wrm6m-6ydAo
-
You may want to consider John Warboys and his victims https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/01/victims-sexual-violence-john-worboys when you make the claims you do with regards public opinion and the media.
Barry George by passed the parole board once his conviction was overturned ( or so he thought) but he remained on MAPPA - and remains so to this day - unless someone knows otherwise please feel free to correct me.
I reiterate - Barry George's sister may make excuses for her brothers behaviour and the courts may have found him innocent for the murder of Jill Dando but he still poses a risk to the public
Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements or MAPPA is the process through which the police, probation and prison services work together with other agencies to assess and manage violent and sexual offenders in order to protect the public from harm
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-48117162
-
What Is the Cheater's High?
There are also some verbal clues to when someone is not telling the truth. A combination of some of the following speech patterns can alert you to potential dishonesty. The speaker may:
Pitch his voice higher than usual.
Switch the conversation to a new subject.
Use phrases like, "It's the truth," "Honestly," and, "To tell you the truth."
Make false starts, stutter, hesitate, and repeat himself.
Make the story he's telling excessively elaborate.
He may go on the offensive, in an attempt to make you feel guilty for doubting him.
Give indirect, evasive answers.
Stall when answering questions, or ask you to repeat them.
Get tongue-tied, or lose his train of thought midway through a sentence.
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/beware-cheaters-high.htm
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Wrm6m-6ydAo
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p02n7rgj
-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p02n7rgj
Michelle Diskin Bates:
“Barry has been told by British Justice that he has ‘not proven his innocence’ and that ‘a jury, properly directed, could have found him guilty.’ Therefore, he is not considered a miscarriage of justice…because they had evidence!
https://www.the justice gap.com/innocent-innocent-enough/
Excerpts from “Foxtrot Foxtrot the Dando distraction blog by Andy Rigsby
“April 28 1999 was a warm sunny spring day in London. Met Police Traffic Officers, Acting Sergeant Mark Newman and PC Steve Cox started a 1500 – 2300 late shift in the normal manner. Having attended their shift brief and checked over their patrol Land Rover Discovery, Oscar 523 proceeded out of Hampton Traffic Unit north on Station Road, the A312. They intended to patrol the M25/M3 sector. It was routine and they anticipated the shift to be as such.
They were mindful that just 2 days earlier the BBC Broadcaster Jill Dando had been shot dead outside her home in Gowan Avenue Fulham, across the Thames and just 10 miles to the NE. The murder despite being perpetrated in broad daylight on a normal suburban street had not left immediate and major clues for detectives to pursue. The bizarre circumstances had quickly led to a media frenzy. The killer was still at large, and it was known that he had used a 9mm semi-auto hand gun. Both Officers were fully aware of the implications and their visual presence to the public was a little more significant than usual. They would never have imagined what was about to happen just 5 minutes after they set off from the unit base.
“On remand and awaiting trial Knights insisted on speaking to the Jill Dando investigation team. He wasted their time by falsely claiming to know the source of the Dando murder weapon.
http://gunfire-graffiti.co.uk/foxtrot-foxtrot-the-dando-distraction/
https://www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/6384370.force-honours-officers-for-chasing-gun-maniac/
“A prisoner serving nine life sentences for a rampage in which he shot at police officers asked the High Court yesterday for permission to challenge his prison conditions.
George Knights, 46, accused the jail authorities of interfering with his medical records and breaching his human rights.
He wants an extra mattress for his prison bed and says he is entitled to other facilities as a disabled person.
Mr Justice Newman adjourned Knights's application for permission to seek judicial review so that inquiries could be made to see whether it was a matter that should go before the Prisons Ombudsman.
The dispute, which has involved 13 appeals through the internal prison system, five private-law actions and numerous applications for judicial review, arose in November 2003 when Knights was moved from a ground-floor cell at Long Lartin prison in Worcestershire to another cell on a landing
Addressing the court through a video link, he said his medical condition, including partially paralysed legs, meant he should not have to negotiate stairs.
Relevant medical notes had also gone missing, said Knights, who was jailed in 2000 for kidnap and weapons offences in Hanworth, south-west London.
He also said that doctors had previously ordered that he be given a second mattress to alleviate pins and needles and symptoms of deep vein thrombosis.
The Home Office accepted that Knights had suffered considerable disability from 1983 because of a drugs overdose, but argued that he was exaggerating its extent.
Although he had been prescribed aspirin to treat deep-vein thrombosis, a medical review in January this year said there were "no factors that limit or restrict normal activities or location".
Knights told the judge: "You are my last port of call before the European Court of Human Rights."
Adjourning the application, Mr Justice Newman said relevant medical records "must be disclosed and made available to this court, to Mr Knights and the Home Office".
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1466887/Prisoner-in-legal-battle-for-mattress.html
-
July 2009
“Burley notified police after interviewing George following his release, claiming she was worried about his behaviour. She was briefly given security protection following her complaint.
In the high court writ, George's solicitor, Nicholas Baird of St Albans firm Wells Burcombe, contends that journalists and photographers from the MGN papers followed him and photographed him surreptitiously. Baird claims that this breached his client's right to privacy under human rights legislation.
George says his character and reputation have been gravely injured, and that he has suffered great embarrassment, anxiety and distress.
The writ alleges the newspapers published a series of photographs and details about his movements, including his stay at a hotel in Leeds and a visit to Walsall hospital.
George is also seeking an injunction against MGN barring it from repeating the allegations made in the stories.
A spokesman for Trinity Mirror confirmed that the publisher had received the claim at the beginning of July but declined to comment further.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2009/aug/21/barry-george-sues-mirror-group
Nicholas Baird’s contract with Wells Burcombe was terminated on 10th Aug 2016
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/OC336186/filing-history
https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/document-api-images-live.ch.gov.uk/docs/ZQltfflOVM3qDfHgx4RJLEmRLwmVm2swmgIvtpLjvYo/application-pdf?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Credential=ASIAWRGBDBV3PIWUGXN7%2F20190429%2Feu-west-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20190429T072502Z&X-Amz-Expires=60&X-Amz-Security-Token=AgoJb3JpZ2luX2VjEGsaCWV1LXdlc3QtMiJHMEUCIHcXcuKO6xK5j0IjGHIlv6vG4giUtqEkBr1IdxsshSEuAiEAv9M8UlSIbDmbxkSjkDM29NuXHWuh%2BoiMkE2CAQDr7Msq2gMIVBABGgw0NDkyMjkwMzI4MjIiDEH9VAdXNjIubMbGByq3AwpeUjiNzBOCXrxv7kD6%2B%2FhCXz9s%2F1uxyeEKQllTc3HMquh3qtm%2BgF6CzcuEMM2gUnJT%2Ft2ieVtkkEluB0HTDqQgrhBw7f%2FJv3ToUK8serQxOtWakfyvCF9YrqnCbXbmkMjIzTpykS8cA%2BhOSSuGl5tubJQozcL0kmshyDsxxLzAiN5Gnv0YMv0gl4PJNxn4lu6nQW%2Bm8AemWdkQ86Te7atr1j1iXOg0cf%2BxBJ47%2FBQzPdIylp%2B7UOrKp4YZOpP0fqIlRDd%2BAiLsiPMJCC%2FivfLwe4o%2Fy3M3bGPj7nt5bDDKunScEyz4J3LRMP1qf8rkthr1tVbuk994vhHSF7XL3m[Name removed]yiDvpqLojQYjmug%2FP0VIF8S2r%2Bf6s86CMSCOZ99H6tK9Gz4gleePLQs87PdMuTbrGAfQ8sDKT4DStUm%2B25wVkDNG0EKs7dv2VpQSHzng9YBnLht2%2BY1t6weOGBMiuLdoj0vbKpMrjrFk8EEyiKTYAfS7WxtIDF%2F57yhmiiFoQRSieNCouECiPv8646yDczWUwP0KY1jqoXsmKpvrpoH4Ag17XW5e7fkf9gjGw0XZxqAJxAqtz%2FkwxsaZ5gU6tAFCup%2Fv%2BfepYprhIS19qMIJ%2BHg29bOggjZjLrl9aKBRfLMOeMMBmSwSGAT5rgL7ATpHhpuwff6q1S3eRSONA5Z37idQ9Dv9R5cW5N2IBN3dJ3WC4kw3AXEewHON%2Fy9KKLJP9a1M3ZIaCWHtzLApCTB6vaAJIjfkbSGF4imLmpcBwloFnJToaLvqOKSRLJkQRHpPYeZnfKp4nQnVQEpHa9x102rdwYS%2B8GrYohNzn3ZLFlHO2zM%3D&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=0d81539515cac9ef86301c2acc4f74fd27bdac06b3218099cbc2b3309c66c980
Who we are
“Specialist Investigations is run by Mark Williams-Thomas a high-profile, former detective and by David Wells a highly respected Criminal Defence Lawyer.
Between them, they have been involved in countless investigations both domestically and abroad and have been instructed in some of the country’s most complex investigations.
Their combined experience enables them to utilise and draw upon the support of a highly specialist team of investigators some of which are leaders in their field.
Meet the team
Mark Williams-Thomas, Founding Partner
Mark is a former police detective and a criminologist who has far-reaching experience of working at the centre of high-profile investigations and undertaking major reviews.
He is a multi award winning investigative journalist and broadcaster and has amongst his awards two Royal Television Society Awards, a Broadcasting Press Guild Award and an International Peabody Award. He is also BAFTA nominated.
Mark has over the last decade reported on nearly all of the biggest crime stories including: Oscar Pistorius, The Alps murders, Tia Sharp murder, Claudia Lawrence murder, the murder of Alice Gross and the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
One of Mark's greatest skills is his ability to get exclusive access and interviews with key people related to the cases.
Alongside Mark’s television and media work he also runs a number of high-profile investigations which attract no media attention. His level of confidentiality and trust he builds is what enables him to undertake so successfully the work that he takes on.
David Wells, Founding Partner
David has worked in the criminal justice system as a specialist for over 20 years.
He has been involved in some of the countries most high-profile cases. Having both defended criminal cases and been involved in complex prosecutions, David is able to draw upon his vast experience and adopt a forensic approach to the cases he is involved with.
David, and Mark Williams Thomas, have together been involved in complex investigations both to domestically and internationally, and often cases which attract considerable publicity.
Utilising his extensive skills over the last 20 years, it was inevitable that David would move into the field of specialist investigations. He has developed and nurtured trusted colleagues within the profession, all of whom sharing the same interest and passion for achieving justice across the investigative spectrum.
https://specialistinvestigations.com/about-us/
-
Who we are
“Specialist Investigations is run by Mark Williams-Thomas a high-profile, former detective and by David Wells a highly respected Criminal Defence Lawyer.
Between them, they have been involved in countless investigations both domestically and abroad and have been instructed in some of the country’s most complex investigations.
Their combined experience enables them to utilise and draw upon the support of a highly specialist team of investigators some of which are leaders in their field.
Meet the team
Mark Williams-Thomas, Founding Partner
Mark is a former police detective and a criminologist who has far-reaching experience of working at the centre of high-profile investigations and undertaking major reviews.
He is a multi award winning investigative journalist and broadcaster and has amongst his awards two Royal Television Society Awards, a Broadcasting Press Guild Award and an International Peabody Award. He is also BAFTA nominated.
Mark has over the last decade reported on nearly all of the biggest crime stories including: Oscar Pistorius, The Alps murders, Tia Sharp murder, Claudia Lawrence murder, the murder of Alice Gross and the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
One of Mark's greatest skills is his ability to get exclusive access and interviews with key people related to the cases.
Alongside Mark’s television and media work he also runs a number of high-profile investigations which attract no media attention. His level of confidentiality and trust he builds is what enables him to undertake so successfully the work that he takes on.
David Wells, Founding Partner
David has worked in the criminal justice system as a specialist for over 20 years.
He has been involved in some of the countries most high-profile cases. Having both defended criminal cases and been involved in complex prosecutions, David is able to draw upon his vast experience and adopt a forensic approach to the cases he is involved with.
David, and Mark Williams Thomas, have together been involved in complex investigations both to domestically and internationally, and often cases which attract considerable publicity.
Utilising his extensive skills over the last 20 years, it was inevitable that David would move into the field of specialist investigations. He has developed and nurtured trusted colleagues within the profession, all of whom sharing the same interest and passion for achieving justice across the investigative spectrum.
https://specialistinvestigations.com/about-us/
Surveillance
“Surveillance cases call for sensitivity and great care. Instruct the wrong investigator and you, or your organisation, could expose yourself to considerable expense and much criticism.
Surveillance covers a wide field and can range from instances of infelicity, all the way through to an untrusted business partner, colleague or member of staff. We also undertake insurance or benefit fraud.
Our surveillance work is tailored to your individual needs, we undertake static (van), mobile (car, bike and on foot) and vehicle tracking.
We also offer:
Counter Surveillance
Covert and Overt Video Installation
Sweep & De-Bugging
https://specialistinvestigations.com/services/
Media Response
From time to time people or organisations will find themselves at the centre of a media story. This could be in relation to a personal or a company situation.
Any response needs to be carefully considered, both in regard to what is said and how it is said.
We have considerable experience of handling critical situations where people have found themselves at the centre of a media storm.
Criminal Investigations
Being investigated or prosecuted for a criminal offence can be a very daunting experience. The cases that result in success for an accused tend to be those where the defence team is pro-active rather than simply responding to the evidence as presented by the police and prosecution.
You could not envisage a better investigative team than a former senior detective and highly experienced defence solicitor working with you and on your behalf, not just to expose the deficiencies in the prosecution case, but to actively identify and obtain evidence that positively undermines the nature and extent of the allegation(s
-
Michelle Diskin Bates does mention Jeffrey Archer in her book but no mention of her brothers alleged attempted suicide?
There’s also no mention of Don Hale?
“Don Hale, who shot to fame when he helped clear Stephen Downing of the 1973 "Bakewell murder" of Wendy Sewell, says he now has evidence suggesting Barry George, the man convicted of Jill Dando's murder, did not shoot the BBC presenter.
Hale, who was asked by George's family to investigate the case, was visiting the area to speak to journalism students at Salford University last Friday. He explained how he was the only journalist to have visited George in prison, and did not believe he was guilty.
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/local-news/don-digs-deep-to-help-case-1157985
“I was called in after he lost his appeal and pretty much had to start from scratch," he said. "I was the only journalist that was allowed to see Barry and I spent three hours with him.
https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/freedom-bid-man-who-shot-2933917
“Don Hale is undoubtedly best known for his involvement in the cases of wrongly convicted murderers Stephen Downing and Barry George who were both released after the tireless work of Don and others in over-turning a gross miscarriage of justice
http://www.donhale.co.uk/
Stephen Downing - Another murder conviction overturned on a technicality and claimed to be a miscarriage of justice *&^^&
“In a report on a new inquiry into the killing, made public this morning, Derbyshire Police Deputy Chief Constable Bob Wood said: "Wendy Sewell was a young woman in the prime of her life who was robbed of her future as a result of a vicious attack.
"We have carried out an extremely thorough reinvestigation and have been able to eliminate 22 individuals from the inquiry.
"Despite the lengthy investigation, we have not been able to eliminate Stephen Downing from the inquiry."
Mrs Sewell, who was 32, was bludgeoned to death in the grounds of Bakewell Cemetery in September 1973 as she took a lunchtime stroll.
Police said today that they had asked to interview Mr Downing under caution as part of the six-month reinvestigation, but that he had refused.
Officers wanted to question him about three confessions he is alleged to have made since his release, including one recorded on audio tape.
"Throughout the re-investigation, Stephen Downing has maintained a good working relationship with the investigating officers," said the report.
"He provided his fingerprints for elimination purposes but refused to be interviewed following consultation with his legal representatives.
"Under English law, Mr Downing can only be compelled to be interviewed under caution if he was under arrest.
"Following the quashing of his conviction by the Court of Appeal, Mr Downing cannot be re-arrested, or indeed tried, for the murder of Wendy Sewell."
Police said they wanted to ask Mr Downing about admissions in a taped telephone conversation between himself and former girlfriend Christine Smith in June 2001 and about two subsequent admissions to his father.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-167704/Downing-murder-suspect.html
https://www.scotsman.com/news/uk-news/man-admitted-bakewell-tart-murder-1-569524
“Police are examining a tape recording in which Stephen Downing, whose conviction in the 1973 Bakewell graveyard murder was quashed by the Court of Appeal this year, allegedly confesses to the crime.
Detectives, who reopened their investigation into the murder last month following intense media speculation that the "real" murderer was still at large, were handed the tape last Thursday. Officers examining the recording said last night that it "appeared to be genuine".
The recording is apparently of conversations between Mr Downing, 45, and Christine Smith, his girlfriend, and was made following his release last year.
A police spokesman said: "We have received a tape in relation to the reinvestigation of the 1973 murder of Wendy Sewell and are examining it."
Although Mr Downing cannot be tried for the murder again, the appearance of fresh evidence may have an impact on his attempt to claim up to £1 million in compensation for his time spent in prison
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1395343/Bakewell-murder-officers-study-taped-confession.html
“THE man cleared of the so-called Bakewell Tart murder after serving 27 years in jail has apparently said that he did commit the crime.
Stephen Downing made the admission of guilt to his father, Ray, six weeks ago as they drove to a restaurant.
However, since the incident, Downing has retracted his statement, claiming he made it up after being "manipulated" by his girlfriend, Christine Smith, a self-styled mystic.
It is the second time in several weeks that Downing is reported to have admitted to the killing.
Last week, it was revealed that Smith secretly recorded a conversation in which Downing appears to admit to killing Wendy Sewell, whose body he found in a graveyard in 1973.
Describing the latest admission in a Sunday newspaper, his father claimed: "Christine suddenly said to him, ‘Go on, tell your dad, go on ...’
"Steve just looked out of the window with a strange look in his eyes and said, ‘I did it’.
"I looked at him and just said ‘What?’. He said, ‘I killed Wendy, dad’."
“He is the victim of Britain's longest miscarriage of justice and she was his lifeline, maintaining her love for him and her belief in his innocence through his years in jail.
But when the Court of Appeal quashed Stephen Downing's life sentence last year, a very different woman was waiting for him back in their Derbyshire home town: one who was not afraid to manipulate, deceive and, eventually, make secret recordings she said could send the man she claimed to love straight back to prison.
Christine Smith, a 43-year-old, twice divorced grandmother, has spent the past eight years working her way into Downing's life, playing on the knowledge that Downing, imprisoned in 1973 for the murder of Wendy Sewell, had never had a girlfriend and was desperate to settle down.
Although the relationship is now over, Smith has insisted her declarations of love were genuine. Downing himself, however, with his family and friends, is adamant the entire relationship was false and calculated.
'Some people worried that she was more interested in a share of the millions of pounds Stephen is likely to receive in compensation payments,' said Don Hale, former editor of the Matlock Mercury who spent eight years campaigning for Downing's release.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/jun/02/ameliahill.theobserver
“The Government have talked about readjusting the balance of the criminal justice system to tip the scales in favour of the victims of crime - so where is the justice for Wendy and her family in all this?'
Former Detective Chief Superintendent David Gee, who has now retired, said he was convinced Mr Downing still had a case to answer.
He claimed the Crown Prosecution Service had agreed there was a reasonable chance of securing a conviction against Mr Downing after his review of the case, but had now gone back on that view, without explanation.
Mr Gee said: 'The question that must be asked is why the CPS changed its mind?'
Last night, legal sources said that as Mr Downing had served 27 years in jail already, it was not in the public interest to bring fresh charges against him.
Mrs Sewell, a 32-year-old typist, was bludgeoned to death in the cemetery where Mr Downing worked in his home town of Bakewell, Derbyshire.
He confessed to attacking and sexually assaulting her, but later retracted his statement. He was jailed for life in 1974.
The Court of Appeal released Mr Downing in February 2001 and formally quashed the conviction as 'unsafe' the following year.
Yesterday, Mr Downing's mother Juanita confirmed her son had received the settlement within the last few weeks.
'He has bought a new Mitsubishi Shogun and now he is looking for a new place to buy,' she said.
A Home Office source confirmed the total settlement, which includes the interim payment, was close to £750,000.
The payment will be an embarrassment for the Government which has been working on a series of measures designed to prevent compensation payments to unworthy cases
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/500000-payout-for-bakewell-tart-murder-suspect-7175183.html
“His cause was taken up decades later by Don Hale, a local journalist, who claims that the "real" murderers are a cabal of influential figures in the Bakewell area who had been having secret relationships with Mrs Sewell. Mr Hale, who has written a book about his theories, alleged that she had been promiscuous and dubbed her "The Bakewell Tart".
The police are reinvestigating the case, although detectives say that there are no new suspects for the killing.
Miss Smith claims that she made the tape for her own protection. She said: "I told Stephen once, because he started getting nasty with me, that I had got a tape. When he got quite panicky about it I just told him it was a fabrication on my part and that I had just said it for my own protection."
In fact, the tape did exist and Miss Smith's concerns over him eventually compelled her to take it to the police on May 23.
She said: "I have always thought he was a risk. I have not come out of this yet."
Miss Smith, who was not paid for her interview with this newspaper, said: "People will think I have done all this for the money but I haven't. I have been dragged through the dirt over this.
"People have thought that Stephen and me were together in a relationship and it is in Stephen's mind that we are still together. I have had to go through all of this, but the way I look at it, it is like this - do I betray one person, or do I betray the world?
"I know I have left myself wide open and I might be painted in a bad light by some people but I have had to do what I have had to do."
Miss Smith, a divorcee with two daughters, came into contact with Mr Downing after meeting Mr Hale. She wrote to Mr Downing in prison and they struck up a friendship which burgeoned into a relationship. On his release, he regularly visited her home and repeatedly asked her to marry him. Recently, however, they had argued frequently and the relationship had broken down.
Miss Smith claims that when Mr Hale heard about the tape he became nervous. "I had Don Hale on the telephone and he's been getting panicky because of what is on the tape. I suppose he has got a lot to lose by it. But he put me in his book and I didn't even know I was going into it. He portrayed me as a tart in the book, which I am not happy about."
Although Mr Downing cannot be tried for the murder again, the appearance of the fresh evidence may jeopardise his claim for up to £1 million in compensation. He has already received an interim payment of £260,000, much of which has been swallowed up by his legal fees.
When judges heard his appeal case they were careful not to proclaim him innocent and drew attention to the fact that he had admitted sexually molesting Mrs Sewell as she lay dying, although he later retracted this.
Mr Downing says he feels betrayed by Miss Smith, saying that she "tricked" him into admitting the murder. "She was on and on at me and I just blurted it out to see how she would react. I was stupid but I just wanted to test her love for me."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1396089/I-feared-for-my-safety-says-Bakewell-tape-woman.html
“THE FATHER of Stephen Downing has been jailed for eight months after admitting a sex attack on a teenage girl.
Ray Downing, 69, of Bakewell, Derbyshire, claimed he had been asked to give sex lessons to a girl suffering from learning difficulties.
Stephen Downing's murder conviction for killing Bakewell typist Wendy Sewell in 1973 was overturned by Court of Appeal judges last year.
Derby Crown Court heard that Ray Downing, who campaigned to secure his son's release after 27 years in prison, befriended the victim's mother after her marriage ended and from May 2002 began visiting the family home to do odd jobs. Sentencing, Judge Peter Stretton said: "You imposed yourself on an inadequate family and you used your dominance to behave in the way that has described to me.
"That anyone could have believed that your behaviour was sexual education is beyond belief."
Downing, who collapsed in the dock as he was sentenced, must serve an extended licence period of three years and four months and will be subject to the terms of the Sexual Offenders Act for 10 years.
He had claimed that the girl's mother, who also has learning difficulties, had asked him to offer sex education to the victim because she did not feel confident teaching her daughter.
Prosecuting, Mark Van Der Zwart, said: "She had a limited understanding of sexual activity and the defendant had said, 'Do you want me to give her some instruction?'
Eleanor Laws, in mitigation, said Downing and his family had suffered from stress as a result of the campaign to free his son from custody.
"They have over a period of 27 years undergone very serious stress battling for justice for their son Stephen," she said.
The court hearing was told 14 other allegations of indecent assault against Ray Downing will be left to lie on file.
https://www.thestar.co.uk/whats-on/downing-father-s-sex-attack-on-teenage-girl-1-318485
Downing's father jailed for indecent assault
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/derbyshire/3253186.stm
“A feud has arisen from the reinvestigation of the flawed Stephen Downing murder conviction, with two men filing formal complaints to police, it was revealed yesterday.
As an independent advisory group ratified Derbyshire police's assertion two weeks ago that Mr Downing remained the only suspect in the case, detectives said Don Hale, the journalist who campaigned for his release, and David Sewell, the murder victim's widower, had filed separate complaints against each other.
Mr Sewell alleges Mr Hale, 50, who was awarded OBE for his campaign to overturn Mr Downing's conviction, may have perverted the course of justice or attempted to pervert the course of justice.
Mr Hale, meanwhile, asserts that he has experienced threatening behaviour from Mr Sewell. The former editor of the Matlock Mercury newspaper also believes there may be a civil case for malicious falsehood or defamation.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/bakewell-murder-case-reporter-investigated-over-feud-122369.html
-
Michelle Diskin Bates does mention Jeffrey Archer in her book but no mention of her brothers alleged attempted suicide?
There’s also no mention of Don Hale?
“Don Hale, who shot to fame when he helped clear Stephen Downing of the 1973 "Bakewell murder" of Wendy Sewell, says he now has evidence suggesting Barry George, the man convicted of Jill Dando's murder, did not shoot the BBC presenter.
Hale, who was asked by George's family to investigate the case, was visiting the area to speak to journalism students at Salford University last Friday. He explained how he was the only journalist to have visited George in prison, and did not believe he was guilty.
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/local-news/don-digs-deep-to-help-case-1157985
“I was called in after he lost his appeal and pretty much had to start from scratch," he said. "I was the only journalist that was allowed to see Barry and I spent three hours with him.
https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/freedom-bid-man-who-shot-2933917
“Don Hale is undoubtedly best known for his involvement in the cases of wrongly convicted murderers Stephen Downing and Barry George who were both released after the tireless work of Don and others in over-turning a gross miscarriage of justice
http://www.donhale.co.uk/
Editor 'invented facts' to clear man in Bakewell Tart killing
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/editor-invented-facts-to-clear-man-in-bakewell-tart-killing-fxb673cdpbb
And was awarded an OBE for it *&^^&
-
Editor 'invented facts' to clear man in Bakewell Tart killing
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/editor-invented-facts-to-clear-man-in-bakewell-tart-killing-fxb673cdpbb
And was awarded an OBE for it *&^^&
“Hale saw the Court of Appeal verdict as a personal victory. He wrote a book about the campaign and co-operated with a BBC1 drama, in which he was played by Stephen Tompkinson. But police files show that Hale falsely portrayed Downing as an artless innocent who was wrongly accused while the guilty parties got away scot free.
The files demonstrate that he suppressed evidence suggesting that Downing was indeed the likely killer of Sewell, and fabricated “facts” to implicate entirely innocent people.
-
“Hale saw the Court of Appeal verdict as a personal victory. He wrote a book about the campaign and co-operated with a BBC1 drama, in which he was played by Stephen Tompkinson. But police files show that Hale falsely portrayed Downing as an artless innocent who was wrongly accused while the guilty parties got away scot free.
The files demonstrate that he suppressed evidence suggesting that Downing was indeed the likely killer of Sewell, and fabricated “facts” to implicate entirely innocent people.
Just like Michelle Diskin Bates has attempted to do with her brother.
“The court heard the police believe he remains a risk to women because of his convictions for indecent assault and attempted rape.
But Mr Glen said those convictions dating back to 1983, and some other unconnected complaints, did not justify the continuing surveillance.
He said Mr George had been stopped at least 15 times around London and as far away as Birmingham, the Isle of Wight and Ireland.
He had been labelled as posing ''a high-level risk'' despite his acquittal of the Dando murder. His other two spent convictions, dating from 1983, could not justify interference with his liberty.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/6833611/Barry-George-wants-police-off-his-back-court-hears.html
-
Editor 'invented facts' to clear man in Bakewell Tart killing
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/editor-invented-facts-to-clear-man-in-bakewell-tart-killing-fxb673cdpbb
And was awarded an OBE for it *&^^&
“Don Hale is undoubtedly best known for his involvement in the cases of wrongly convicted murderers Stephen Downing and Barry George who were both released after the tireless work of Don and others in over-turning a gross miscarriage of justice. He has also shot to fame as an author , most recently ‘Mallard: How the 'Blue Streak' Broke the World Steam Speed Record’ a book about the World-Famous locomotive and ‘The Final Dive: The Life and Death of Buster Crabb’ the enthralling tale of the British Diver and the intriguing circumstances of his death. Don has also toured the country giving speeches on all kinds of themes from his investigative journalism through to his former careers as a BBC journalist and Professional footballer.
http://www.donhale.co.uk/
This man is a fraud and has a track record for gaslighting and smear campaigns, undoubtedly another narcissist. *&^^&
Smear campaigns are intentional and systematic dissemination of deceptive information designed to undermine, discredit, and isolate
-
Don Hale, Mark Willian’s Thomas, Surjit Sing Clair, David Wells - to name but a few. What a team!
-
“Don Hale is undoubtedly best known for his involvement in the cases of wrongly convicted murderers Stephen Downing and Barry George who were both released after the tireless work of Don and others in over-turning a gross miscarriage of justice. He has also shot to fame as an author , most recently ‘Mallard: How the 'Blue Streak' Broke the World Steam Speed Record’ a book about the World-Famous locomotive and ‘The Final Dive: The Life and Death of Buster Crabb’ the enthralling tale of the British Diver and the intriguing circumstances of his death. Don has also toured the country giving speeches on all kinds of themes from his investigative journalism through to his former careers as a BBC journalist and Professional footballer.
http://www.donhale.co.uk/
This man is a fraud and has a track record for gaslighting and smear campaigns, undoubtedly another narcissist. *&^^&
Smear campaigns are intentional and systematic dissemination of deceptive information designed to undermine, discredit, and isolate
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/03/08/day-five-or-life-on-mars-bars/
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/03/28/hale-ing-frequencies/
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/03/28/hale-ing-frequences-ii/
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/03/28/hale-ing-frequencies-iii/
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/03/09/1984-sex-crime/
-
“Don Hale is undoubtedly best known for his involvement in the cases of wrongly convicted murderers Stephen Downing and Barry George who were both released after the tireless work of Don and others in over-turning a gross miscarriage of justice. He has also shot to fame as an author , most recently ‘Mallard: How the 'Blue Streak' Broke the World Steam Speed Record’ a book about the World-Famous locomotive and ‘The Final Dive: The Life and Death of Buster Crabb’ the enthralling tale of the British Diver and the intriguing circumstances of his death. Don has also toured the country giving speeches on all kinds of themes from his investigative journalism through to his former careers as a BBC journalist and Professional footballer.
http://www.donhale.co.uk/
This man is a fraud and has a track record for gaslighting and smear campaigns, undoubtedly another narcissist. *&^^&
Smear campaigns are intentional and systematic dissemination of deceptive information designed to undermine, discredit, and isolate
”But the Downing case would eventually change the law, win Hale an OBE and make him a go-to journalist to investigate major miscarriages of justice.
In the years since the release of Mr Downing, Hale has also helped to free Barry George, the man who spent eight years in jail for the murder of Jill Dando, and to clear the name of footballer, Ched Evans, after a controversial rape retrial.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-38581779
-
I cannot get away from the fact that Michelle (nee Diskin) Bates apparent values appear to conflict with her behaviours, which in turn would be suggestive of moral duplicity?
“Hypocrisy, according to usual definitions, means not practicing what we preach, saying one thing and doing another, or publicly upholding moral norms for others to follow, but personally violating them in private.
Social psychologists distinguish many varieties of hypocrisy. “People do not always do things for the reasons they profess, be this due to deliberate deception or non-conscious self-deception”, say Graham et al (2015).
Three relevant types are Moral Duplicity, Double Standard and Moral Weakness.
--Moral Duplicity (also Moral Deception): Assuming a false appearance of virtue or morality by preaching one thing while doing another, or publicly admonishing others for things one actually does oneself.
--Double Standard: When individuals’ evaluations of their own moral transgressions differ substantially from their evaluations of the same transgressions enacted by others (Valdesolo & DeSteno [2007]). Plainly said, the rules apply to others, but not to them.
--Moral Weakness: When people just fail to live up to their moral values. “Inconsistency between one’s stated intention and one’s subsequent behavior is a simple inability to follow through, for lack of ability, resources, or willpower. This differs from hypocrisy in that the intentions may have been stated in good faith while overestimating one’s ability to implement them” (Monin & Merrit, 2012).
https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_prevalent_are_hypocrisy_and_double_standard_among_people_in_your_field_university_or_workplace_How_do_you_deal_with_it
-
Seems Michelle Diskin Bates is today seeking a defamation solicitor https://mobile.twitter.com/michelle_diskin?lang=en
”He who comes to equity must approach the court with clean hands".
-
Seems Michelle Diskin Bates is today seeking a defamation solicitor https://mobile.twitter.com/michelle_diskin?lang=en
”He who comes to equity must approach the court with clean hands".
Why advertise for a defamation solicitor on Twitter? Can’t she use her brothers legal people?
Appears like attention seeking behaviour to me.
My observations and opinions of course.
-
“Attention seeking behavior is to act in a way that is likely to elicit attention, usually to elicit validation from others. People are thought to engage in both positive and negative attention seeking behavior independent of the actual benefit or harm to health. Most behavior that is motivated by attention seeking is considered to be driven by self-consciousness and thus an externalization of personality rather than internal and self-motivated behavior. This type of influence on behavior can result in a potential loss of a person's sense of agency, personality disorder and the behavior associated with these conditions.[1]
Enjoying the attention of others is socially acceptable in some situations.[2] In some instances, however, the need for attention can lead to new difficulties and may highlight underlying, preexisting ones. However, as a tactical method, it is often used in combat, theatre (upstaging) and it is fundamental to marketing. One strategy used to counter various types of attention-seeking behavior is planned ignoring.
Potential causes
If as a child, the person did not receive much attention from their parents or their peers then they may grow up feeling neglected. Those feelings will then be the main drive behind the person's attention-seeking behavior. Children of abusive parents and parents who are always absent may feel overlooked, and so the child may grow up becoming an attention-seeking adult.
Sometimes adults seek attention because of jealousy. When someone finds themselves threatened by another person who takes all the attention, they may respond with attention-seeking behavior.
Lack of self-esteem can be another cause for attention-seeking behavior. Some people think that they are overlooked and so they think that the only solution to restore their balance is to bring back the lost attention. The attention they will get in this case will provide them with reassurance and will help them think that they are worthy.
Narcissists are also attention seekers. They consider this attention a good source of narcissistic supply and so they strive to get it.[3]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_seeking
-
The files demonstrate that he suppressed evidence suggesting that Downing was indeed the likely killer of Sewell, and fabricated “facts” to implicate entirely innocent people.[/b]
If he can do this in the Stephen Downing’s case it follows he can do it in others.
“During the police interview, Downing went on to confess to having attacked Sewell before sexually assaulting her as she lay dying. He later repeated the confession to several prison doctors.
Shortly after being charged with murder, however, he made a partial retraction, denying having attacked Sewell but still admitting the sexual assault.
He was duly convicted of murder but later repudiated all of his confession. He remained so long in jail largely because he refused to acknowledge his crime.
His plight, as presented by his parents Ray and Juanita, caught the imagination of Hale who was the editor of the Matlock Mercury, a local Derbyshire paper. After going to see Downing 12 years ago, Hale began publicising the case. The story became a talking point when the editor suggested that the murder had actually been carried out by influential but unnamed local individuals.[/u]
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/editor-invented-facts-to-clear-man-in-bakewell-tart-killing-fxb673cdpbb
“O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive!
-
Editor 'invented facts' to clear man in Bakewell Tart killing
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/editor-invented-facts-to-clear-man-in-bakewell-tart-killing-fxb673cdpbb
And was awarded an OBE for it *&^^&
Daniel Foggo is the author for the above article, his bio reads:
“I am a reporter with a long history in investigative journalism. I like to tackle complex and difficult subjects while making them accessible and lively. Much of my TV work has stemmed from projects which I conceived myself, but I am equally happy being brought in to work on an existing concept or programme which has already been commissioned.
He’s also been a reporter for Panorama
https://www.thetalentmanager.com/talent/56178/daniel-foggo
-
If he can do this in the Stephen Downing’s case it follows he can do it in others.
“During the police interview, Downing went on to confess to having attacked Sewell before sexually assaulting her as she lay dying. He later repeated the confession to several prison doctors.
Shortly after being charged with murder, however, he made a partial retraction, denying having attacked Sewell but still admitting the sexual assault.
He was duly convicted of murder but later repudiated all of his confession. He remained so long in jail largely because he refused to acknowledge his crime.
His plight, as presented by his parents Ray and Juanita, caught the imagination of Hale who was the editor of the Matlock Mercury, a local Derbyshire paper. After going to see Downing 12 years ago, Hale began publicising the case. The story became a talking point when the editor suggested that the murder had actually been carried out by influential but unnamed local individuals.[/u]
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/editor-invented-facts-to-clear-man-in-bakewell-tart-killing-fxb673cdpbb
The seed is sown, the naive and gullible get hooked in, then it snowballs.
This is my theory regarding the Barry George case and my views remain firm
-
Seems Michelle Diskin Bates is today seeking a defamation solicitor https://mobile.twitter.com/michelle_diskin?lang=en
”He who comes to equity must approach the court with clean hands".
Wonder if someone said something to her when she gave her good morning Britain interview?
-
“Barry had previously been convicted for attempted rape and indecent assault some years earlier, and he lived in the vicinity of Dando’s flat. When I ask Michelle about these serious charges, she doesn’t respond defensively or try to protect her brother; instead she explains, gently, that she too was horrified when she discovered the truth – and told her brother so: “I’m afraid he was given quite a tough time from me; he didn’t enjoy that visit one bit,” she says, briskly. “But I think it needs to be understood that Barry is like a nine-year-old boy living in an adult’s body. These things should not happen, and he knows right from wrong, but at the same time, he has a whole host of disabilities
https://www.premierchristianity.com/Past-Issues/2019/April-2019/My-brother-was-wrongly-convicted-of-murdering-Jill-Dando
Barry George was classed sane and fit to stand trial for murder as an ADULT.
There are NO excuses and her comments are disingenuous. BUT nothing.
-
“Barry had previously been convicted for attempted rape and indecent assault some years earlier, and he lived in the vicinity of Dando’s flat. When I ask Michelle about these serious charges, she doesn’t respond defensively or try to protect her brother; instead she explains, gently, that she too was horrified when she discovered the truth – and told her brother so: “I’m afraid he was given quite a tough time from me; he didn’t enjoy that visit one bit,” she says, briskly. “But I think it needs to be understood that Barry is like a nine-year-old boy living in an adult’s body. These things should not happen, and he knows right from wrong, but at the same time, he has a whole host of disabilities
https://www.premierchristianity.com/Past-Issues/2019/April-2019/My-brother-was-wrongly-convicted-of-murdering-Jill-Dando
Barry George was classed sane and fit to stand trial for murder as an ADULT.
There are NO excuses and her comments are disingenuous. BUT nothing.
“Michelle soon realised that Barry needed her help, so she booked flights to England, leaving her husband and three children behind in Ireland. “I’m so grateful to God that he only gives us a lamp unto our feet,” she explains, thoughtfully, “because if I had seen 18-19 years ahead of me – that I was still going to be in this battle – I don’t think I would have taken that first step.” Michelle tells me that it would have been irresponsible if she hadn’t asked herself the question: “Did he do it?”. But once she spoke to the legal and medical teams, who were convinced of his innocence, and after reviewing the evidence, she was sure Barry couldn’t have committed the crime.
https://www.premierchristianity.com/Past-Issues/2019/April-2019/My-brother-was-wrongly-convicted-of-murdering-Jill-Dando
“here are 5 reasons we play the blame game.
Blame is an excellent defense mechanism. Whether you call it projection, denial, or displacement, blame helps you preserve your sense of self-esteem by avoiding awareness of your own flaws or failings.
Blame is a tool we use when we’re in attack mode. Falling into the category of a destructive conflict resolution method, blame is a way to try to hurt our partners.
We’re not very good at figuring out the causes of other people's behavior, or even our own. The attributions we make, whether to luck or ability, can be distorted by our tendency to make illogical judgments. And we're just as bad at making judgments involving the blameworthiness of actions in terms of intent vs. outcome.
It’s easier to blame someone else than to accept responsibility. There’s less effort involved in recognizing your contributions to a bad situation than in accepting the fact that you're actually at fault, and changing so you don't do it again.
People lie. As my colleague, Robert Feldman, discovered, “Everybody lies.” It’s pretty easy just to lie and blame someone else even though you know you’re at fault. You may figure that no one will know it was really you who spilled coffee all over the break room, so you just blame someone else who’s not there (and hope that person never finds out)
Unlike other games, the more often you play the blame game, the more you lose. Learning to tell when you need to own up to your role in a bad situation will help you grow from your experiences, and ultimately help you achieve more fulfilling relationships.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201509/5-reasons-we-play-the-blame-game
-
“Michelle tells me that because Barry has never been formally exonerated, the spectre of the case hangs over him: “He lives it and he breathes it every single minute of every single day. When he wakes up in the morning, it’s the first thing on his mind. All through the day he’s thinking about it, and when he goes to bed at night, he is still thinking about it.”
She cannot possibly know this, no one can!
“Barry was on the threshold of giving his life to Christ (just weeks away from being baptised) when he was arrested and his life crashed down around him. He attended every religious service while in prison, but Michelle tells me he wasn’t allowed to be baptised and hasn’t taken that step since.
https://www.premierchristianity.com/Past-Issues/2019/April-2019/My-brother-was-wrongly-convicted-of-murdering-Jill-Dando
-
“Michelle tells me that because Barry has never been formally exonerated, the spectre of the case hangs over him: “He lives it and he breathes it every single minute of every single day. When he wakes up in the morning, it’s the first thing on his mind. All through the day he’s thinking about it, and when he goes to bed at night, he is still thinking about it.”
She cannot possibly know this, no one can!
“Barry was on the threshold of giving his life to Christ (just weeks away from being baptised) when he was arrested and his life crashed down around him. He attended every religious service while in prison, but Michelle tells me he wasn’t allowed to be baptised and hasn’t taken that step since.
https://www.premierchristianity.com/Past-Issues/2019/April-2019/My-brother-was-wrongly-convicted-of-murdering-Jill-Dando
“I can’t tell you what was in God’s mind, but if what I’m doing now helps somebody else, then that’s making good come out of bad. And if I’ve been given a platform because of what happened to Barry – because he can’t do it – then again, that’s going to help make something good occur within our justice system. To make it more just, to make it what the public thinks it is.”
https://www.premierchristianity.com/Past-Issues/2019/April-2019/My-brother-was-wrongly-convicted-of-murdering-Jill-Dando
Cases like Barry George, Simon Hall, Jeremy Bamber and Stephen Downing help pollute the justice system, they do NOT make it more just!
-
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/bookmark-michelle-diskin-bates/id796334747?i=1000431434365
It’s ALL in the words, and music *&^^&
Barry George’s case is NOT Hillsborough! Ffs!
Dr Michael Naughton describes the book as “disturbing, inspirational and uplifting”
Extremely disturbing, that I agree with!
-
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/bookmark-michelle-diskin-bates/id796334747?i=1000431434365
Rewriting history does not help her cause
“Dr Shepherd said it was not possible to say what position Miss Dando was in when shot.
"It could have been in a position which allowed the firearm to be arranged so that it could be placed to her left temple and allowed to track through to the right."
A gunman standing to her left could have been either right or left-handed, he told the court.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-46217/Jills-death-instant.html
-
Rewriting history does not help her cause
“Dr Shepherd said it was not possible to say what position Miss Dando was in when shot.
"It could have been in a position which allowed the firearm to be arranged so that it could be placed to her left temple and allowed to track through to the right."
A gunman standing to her left could have been either right or left-handed, he told the court.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-46217/Jills-death-instant.html
She even attempts to rewrite history with regards what the prosecutor, Orlando Powell QC, thought *&^^&
-
Was he actually stalking women? I know he was following women around and photographing them in the street but if he was actually stalking women to the degree they felt uncomfortable then surely at least one or two would have reported to the police? Did the prosecution call any witnesses at trial to this effect?
https://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/video/barry-george-retrial-day-1-west-london-fulham-reporter-to-news-footage/664838214?adppopup=true
-
https://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/video/barry-george-begins-life-sentence-itn-int-2-shot-reay-news-footage/684706570?adppopup=true
-
September 10, 2013 at 10:04 am
“As a family member of a terrible miscarriage of justice, the victim being Barry George, convicted of the murder of Jill Dando; the Simon Hall confession is a concern because it is already so difficult for true MOJs to be believed by the public; this confession damages the credibility of all those still fighting for justice.
Michelle (Diskin) Bates
https://www.thejusticegap.com/simon-hall-confession-a-time-to-take-stock/
This comment made me question Michelle Diskin Bates integrity, especially when considered in relation to the content of the article. Which was ignorantly written by Julie Price, who immaturely and naively used it as her platform to have a pop at Bristol Uni in a quite obvious attempt to claim the moral high ground and promote her cause.
Her colleague Dennis Eady’s article, written around the same time, appears to have been removed? My mistake, it appears to have been moved https://www.thejusticegap.com/keeping-perspective/
Dennis Eady
”In 20 plus years of studying miscarriages of justice, while there may have been a few cases where people have for a short time maintained innocence before admitting guilt, I can think of no other high profile, widely supported case where the person has maintained innocence over many years and pursued the case through legal avenues (CCRC, Court of Appeal) and then admitted guilt.
**That’s concerning! Take a look at Stephen Downing’s case. Then go back and look at your own work**
Miscarriages of justice: the uncertainty principle
“The thesis considers the often illusory nature of some of the principles of the criminal justice system and utilises notions of 'magical legalism' (Cohen 2001) and other psychological processes that may be involved in maintaining the illusions. http://orca.cf.ac.uk/54837/
Appeal court referral is a welcome boost for university Innocence Projects
Jon Robins - November 2013
“George's case was one of six cases that students at Cardiff Law School investigated, overseen by its director Julie Price and consultant Dr Dennis Eady. "We worked on it for almost four years, then it was with the CCRC for a further three", writes Price. She adds that it is a time for "reflection rather than celebration."
“Times moves at a glacial pace in the under-resourced and overly-complex world of criminal appeals, nonetheless it is a shock to learn that this is the first case to be referred through an application signed off by a university. There was the Simon Hall referral – although the work was largely done by Bristol University, the application was apparently made in the name of the solicitors' firm who advised them previously. And, of course, Hall confessed. That bombshell over the summer stunned many campaigners who viewed Hall as a flagship case for the movement and the first real prospect of getting a conviction overturned.
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2013/nov/20/appeal-court-innocence-projects-dwaine-george
-
Experts have since claimed; the single speck of GSR, when taken with the circumstantial evidence, still has probative value.
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lagnado-lab/publications/lagnado/ScienceAndJustice.pdf
Norman Fenton et al: When ‘neutral’ evidence still has probative value (with implications from the Barry George Case)
”We contend that, in order to determine whether evidence has probative value – and therefore whether it should be excluded from proceedings or not – it should be evaluated against offence-level hypotheses. Any diversion from this key principle will carry the risk that evidence might be presented to the jury merely as a diversionary tactic, and persuade it to make decisions based on superfluous source- level hypotheses.
I’d say
Interesting, Professor Norman Fenton et al’ work on probative value has been picked up in the Ben Geen case by Jon Robbins here:
The Justice Trap: Murder by Numbers - Jon Robins 13 March 2019
“There is a phenomenon known as ‘prosecutor’s fallacy’ where people – lawyers, jurors and the judiciary – confuse the probability of finding the evidence on an innocent person with the probability that a person on whom the evidence is found is innocent.
“An application to the miscarriage of justice watchdog the Criminal Cases Review Commission was backed by five leading statisticians including Sir David Spiegelhalter, of Cambridge University and Professor Norman Fenton, of Queen Mary University of London.
There is widespread concern about the courts failure to get to grips with probability and how wrong assumptions drive prosecutions.
‘If you look at the way these cases are prosecuted, the statistics by no means dominate,’ Dr Fenton told me. ‘It’s all about the medical evidence. It doesn’t look like it has anything to do with a problem to do with statistics. But it is the statistics that initially drive the case.’
https://bylinetimes.com/2019/03/13/the-justice-trap-murder-by-numbers/
-
Interesting, Professor Norman Fenton et al’ work on probative value has been picked up in the Ben Geen case by Jon Robbins here:
The Justice Trap: Murder by Numbers - Jon Robins 13 March 2019
“There is a phenomenon known as ‘prosecutor’s fallacy’ where people – lawyers, jurors and the judiciary – confuse the probability of finding the evidence on an innocent person with the probability that a person on whom the evidence is found is innocent.
“An application to the miscarriage of justice watchdog the Criminal Cases Review Commission was backed by five leading statisticians including Sir David Spiegelhalter, of Cambridge University and Professor Norman Fenton, of Queen Mary University of London.
There is widespread concern about the courts failure to get to grips with probability and how wrong assumptions drive prosecutions.
‘If you look at the way these cases are prosecuted, the statistics by no means dominate,’ Dr Fenton told me. ‘It’s all about the medical evidence. It doesn’t look like it has anything to do with a problem to do with statistics. But it is the statistics that initially drive the case.’
https://bylinetimes.com/2019/03/13/the-justice-trap-murder-by-numbers/
Note though how Jon Robbins hasn’t mentioned Professor Norman Fenton et al’ findings in relation to the Barry George case.
Statistics
“the practice or science of collecting and analysing numerical data in large quantities, especially for the purpose of inferring proportions in a whole from those in a representative sample.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistics
-
Gunshot Residue and The Cardiff Innocence Project by James Wood QQ
“Dwayne, who had always protested his innocence, had the good fortune to write to and involve the Innocence Project at Cardiff University. Over successive years volunteering law students studied the case, and considered various avenues which might lead to the overturning of the conviction. The case of Barry George [2007] EWCA Crim 2722 with its staunch criticisms of the standards which had applied to gun shot residue evidence, and its recognition of the important revision of those standards under the auspices of the FSS and in particular their lead scientist Angela Shaw, led to the students securing the services of a firearms expert to write a report on the impact of the Barry George decision on Dwayne George’s case. Detailed submissions to the CCRC were prepared by the many students, into all aspects of the case. Impressed by the work involved the CCRC themselves commissioned Angela Shaw to write a report on the GSR findings in the case, and the approach which had been adopted to them. As a result the Commission referred the case back to the Court of Appeal.
http://doughty-street-chambers.newsweaver.com/Appeals/1cisha3cvxh?a=1&p=456444&t=174031
-
Note though how Jon Robbins hasn’t mentioned Professor Norman Fenton et al’ findings in relation to the Barry George case.
Statistics
“the practice or science of collecting and analysing numerical data in large quantities, especially for the purpose of inferring proportions in a whole from those in a representative sample.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistics
Note though how Jon Robbins hasn’t mentioned Professor Norman Fenton et al’ findings in relation to the Barry George case.
Which I find strange given he wrote and published the following:
Guilt, non-guilt and innocence: what will Strasbourg decide? - Jon Robins
“In May 2011, the supreme court rejected the government's contention that only those who could prove their innocence could be entitled to compensation in R (Adams) v Secretary of State for Justice. It was in that ruling that Hale (and others) grappled with the meaning of "miscarriage of justice". The majority (five to four) held that a miscarriage of justice had occurred when "a new or newly-discovered fact" showed conclusively that the "evidence against a defendant has been so undermined that no conviction could possibly be based upon it". Allen argues that such a test is contrary to her right under article 6(2) of the European Convention to be presumed innocent.
The Adams ruling has subdivided miscarriages into three, possibly four, categories: first, where the applicant can effectively prove innocence; second, where there is evidence that undermines the safety of the conviction; third where the fresh evidence might be sufficient for the court to quash the conviction but there may be other evidence upon which a jury could still convict; and fourth, a purely technical quashing of a conviction.
Last month there was a three-day hearing in the high court considering compensation in a number of cases including Barry George, who spent eight years in prison after being wrongly convicted of the murder of TV presenter Jill Dando. "The public might think, as they watch someone being released from the court of appeal, that they would be compensated by the state for being wrongfully convicted and for all the time they have served in prison," comments Mark Newby, who specialises in miscarriage cases. The solicitor is representing Ian Lawless, one of the lead cases alongside George. "That expectation is invariably not met. Under the current Ministry of Justice scheme only one award has been made post-Adams."
Newby has another case stayed pending the ruling by the Strasbourg court on the Allen case. If the European court decides in favour of Allen, the lawyer believes this will help the other compensation cases, with the possible exception of category four cases.
I wrote about the campaign to reinstate the ex gratia scheme last year. Frankly, persuading people to support a campaign for adequate compensation for the wrongfully convicted is never going to be a hugely popular crusade — and trying to persuade ministers to prioritise miscarriages over other voter-friendly and cash-starved causes nigh on impossible. Nonetheless the campaign is both right and one of fundamental importance — the state should be properly held to account for its errors.
The shocking attitude of the last government towards miscarriages of justice can best be summed up by Tony Blair's notorious sound bite: "It is perhaps the biggest miscarriage of justice in today's system when the guilty walks away unpunished."
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/nov/21/guilt-innocence-strasbourg-lorraine-allen
The Justice Trap: Murder by Numbers - Jon Robins 13 March 2019
“There is a phenomenon known as ‘prosecutor’s fallacy’ where people – lawyers, jurors and the judiciary – confuse the probability of finding the evidence on an innocent person with the probability that a person on whom the evidence is found is innocent.
https://bylinetimes.com/2019/03/13/the-justice-trap-murder-by-numbers/
His selective reporting is a classic example of publication bias, which leads to a distorted representation and is suggestive of tunnel vision.
-
Which I find strange given he wrote and published the following:
Guilt, non-guilt and innocence: what will Strasbourg decide? - Jon Robins
“In May 2011, the supreme court rejected the government's contention that only those who could prove their innocence could be entitled to compensation in R (Adams) v Secretary of State for Justice. It was in that ruling that Hale (and others) grappled with the meaning of "miscarriage of justice". The majority (five to four) held that a miscarriage of justice had occurred when "a new or newly-discovered fact" showed conclusively that the "evidence against a defendant has been so undermined that no conviction could possibly be based upon it". Allen argues that such a test is contrary to her right under article 6(2) of the European Convention to be presumed innocent.
The Adams ruling has subdivided miscarriages into three, possibly four, categories: first, where the applicant can effectively prove innocence; second, where there is evidence that undermines the safety of the conviction; third where the fresh evidence might be sufficient for the court to quash the conviction but there may be other evidence upon which a jury could still convict; and fourth, a purely technical quashing of a conviction.
Last month there was a three-day hearing in the high court considering compensation in a number of cases including Barry George, who spent eight years in prison after being wrongly convicted of the murder of TV presenter Jill Dando. "The public might think, as they watch someone being released from the court of appeal, that they would be compensated by the state for being wrongfully convicted and for all the time they have served in prison," comments Mark Newby, who specialises in miscarriage cases. The solicitor is representing Ian Lawless, one of the lead cases alongside George. "That expectation is invariably not met. Under the current Ministry of Justice scheme only one award has been made post-Adams."
Newby has another case stayed pending the ruling by the Strasbourg court on the Allen case. If the European court decides in favour of Allen, the lawyer believes this will help the other compensation cases, with the possible exception of category four cases.
I wrote about the campaign to reinstate the ex gratia scheme last year. Frankly, persuading people to support a campaign for adequate compensation for the wrongfully convicted is never going to be a hugely popular crusade — and trying to persuade ministers to prioritise miscarriages over other voter-friendly and cash-starved causes nigh on impossible. Nonetheless the campaign is both right and one of fundamental importance — the state should be properly held to account for its errors.
The shocking attitude of the last government towards miscarriages of justice can best be summed up by Tony Blair's notorious sound bite: "It is perhaps the biggest miscarriage of justice in today's system when the guilty walks away unpunished."
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/nov/21/guilt-innocence-strasbourg-lorraine-allen
His selective reporting is a classic example of publication bias, which leads to a distorted representation and is suggestive of tunnel vision.
I rest my case:
Jill Dando: how pressure to find a killer made the criminal justice system reckless by Natalie Smith 3rd May 2018
“Nearly everyone had been misled about the strength of the firearms residue evidence. Even during the appeal, the prosecution were reluctant to accept they had in anyway misled the jury but the Court of Appeal concluded it was impossible to know the verdict the jury would have returned had they been given the correct impression. The verdict was unsafe but there had been other evidence relied on and it was to be seen if a jury could be sure, as the Crown were, of Barry George’s guilt. A retrial followed that year and the jury acquitted him. He was released after eight years in prison.
https://www.thejusticegap.com/jill-dando-how-pressure-to-find-a-killer-made-the-criminal-justice-system-reckless/
Keith A Findley - “tunnel vision is the product of a variety of cognitive distortions, such as confirmation bias, hindsight bias, and outcome bias, which can impede accuracy in what we perceive and in how we interpret what we perceive”
-
Jill Dando: how pressure to find a killer made the criminal justice system reckless by Natalie Smith 3rd May 2018
“Nearly everyone had been misled about the strength of the firearms residue evidence. Even during the appeal, the prosecution were reluctant to accept they had in anyway misled the jury but the Court of Appeal concluded it was impossible to know the verdict the jury would have returned had they been given the correct impression. The verdict was unsafe but there had been other evidence relied on and it was to be seen if a jury could be sure, as the Crown were, of Barry George’s guilt. A retrial followed that year and the jury acquitted him. He was released after eight years in prison.
https://www.thejusticegap.com/jill-dando-how-pressure-to-find-a-killer-made-the-criminal-justice-system-reckless/
“tunnel vision is the product of a variety of cognitive distortions, such as confirmation bias, hindsight bias, and outcome bias, which can impede accuracy in what we perceive and in how we interpret what we perceive”
Natalie Smith clearly hasn’t considered the fact Barry George may have duped his way through the criminal process (I firmly believe he has), instead she argues, “nearly everyone has been mislead about the strength of the firearms residue evidence....
Recklessness could apply to Natalie Smith’ who apparently is a lawyer specialising in criminal litigation, she states:
“The expert evidence provides a terrifying image of her last moments. The killer forced her head either onto or close to the front step of her home, then bending or crouching over her he pressed a gun to her head and shot her. It was an execution. It was violence aimed at a woman and one of the most famous women in Britain at the time.
These are Natalie Smith’s images.
She then claims:
“The pressure and determination to find the killer made the criminal justice system reckless.
There’s no evidence of this.
“The smallest of evidence took on too great a significance and those tasked with finding the killer ended up seeing what they wanted to in it. Logic became obscured.
Seems to me Natalie Smith is seeing what she wants to see, dismissing all other evidential evidence in the process, and it’s her logic that has become obscured. *&^^&
According to her website bio she has, “successfully defended in cases involving very serious criminal allegations, particularly those that are damaging to reputation.
http://defendingfalseallegations.co.uk/Natalie%20Smith%20CV%20.pdf
And apparently currently works for Hodge, Jones and Allen who ironically Jon Robbins wrote about here:
Hodge Jones & Allen faces legal action for ‘hopeless’ MMR litigation - Posted By Jon Robins - 27th June 2
“Hodge Jones & Allen have flatly denied that they knowingly pursued ‘hopeless’ MMR vaccine litigation cases.
http://legalvoice.org.uk/hodge-jones-allen-faces-legal-action-for-hopeless-mmr-litigation/
Lawyers accused of milking millions from legal aid by pursuing 'hopeless' bid for compensation over claims MMR jab was linked to autism
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2670479/Families-failed-win-compensation-flawed-MMR-research-suing-lawyers-pursuing-hopeless-claims-making-millions-legal-aid.html
I don’t suppose she’s considered the police in this case had their reputations smeared, which in turn distorted the public’s perceptions of their investigation? Which Barry George attempted to use to his advantage.
-
Natalie Smith clearly hasn’t considered the fact Barry George may have duped his way through the criminal process (I firmly believe he has), instead she argues, “nearly everyone has been mislead about the strength of the firearms residue evidence....
Recklessness could apply to Natalie Smith’ who apparently is a lawyer specialising in criminal litigation, she states:
“The expert evidence provides a terrifying image of her last moments. The killer forced her head either onto or close to the front step of her home, then bending or crouching over her he pressed a gun to her head and shot her. It was an execution. It was violence aimed at a woman and one of the most famous women in Britain at the time.
These are Natalie Smith’s images.
She then claims:
“The pressure and determination to find the killer made the criminal justice system reckless.
There’s no evidence of this.
“The smallest of evidence took on too great a significance and those tasked with finding the killer ended up seeing what they wanted to in it. Logic became obscured.
Seems to me Natalie Smith is seeing what she wants to see, dismissing all other evidential evidence in the process, and it’s her logic that has become obscured. *&^^&
According to her website bio she has, “successfully defended in cases involving very serious criminal allegations, particularly those that are damaging to reputation.
http://defendingfalseallegations.co.uk/Natalie%20Smith%20CV%20.pdf
And apparently currently works for Hodge, Jones and Allen who ironically Jon Robbins wrote about here:
Hodge Jones & Allen faces legal action for ‘hopeless’ MMR litigation - Posted By Jon Robins - 27th June 2
“Hodge Jones & Allen have flatly denied that they knowingly pursued ‘hopeless’ MMR vaccine litigation cases.
http://legalvoice.org.uk/hodge-jones-allen-faces-legal-action-for-hopeless-mmr-litigation/
Lawyers accused of milking millions from legal aid by pursuing 'hopeless' bid for compensation over claims MMR jab was linked to autism
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2670479/Families-failed-win-compensation-flawed-MMR-research-suing-lawyers-pursuing-hopeless-claims-making-millions-legal-aid.html
I don’t suppose she’s considered the police in this case had their reputations smeared, which in turn distorted the public’s perceptions of their investigation? Which Barry George attempted to use to his advantage.
Rather than attempt to understand WHY the criminal justice system, who said in relation to Barry George, “only people who proved their innocence could get compensation, she continues with her assumption that it’s the system that is reckless as opposed to considering ALL options?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31578422
Her cognitive biases have clearly distorted her judgement of this case, imo.
Lord Justice Beatson and Mr Justice Irwin said: "There was indeed a case upon which a reasonable jury properly directed could have convicted the claimant of murder."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-211952
-
Interesting, Professor Norman Fenton et al’ work on probative value has been picked up in the Ben Geen case by Jon Robbins here:
The Justice Trap: Murder by Numbers - Jon Robins 13 March 2019
“There is a phenomenon known as ‘prosecutor’s fallacy’ where people – lawyers, jurors and the judiciary – confuse the probability of finding the evidence on an innocent person with the probability that a person on whom the evidence is found is innocent.
“An application to the miscarriage of justice watchdog the Criminal Cases Review Commission was backed by five leading statisticians including Sir David Spiegelhalter, of Cambridge University and Professor Norman Fenton, of Queen Mary University of London.
There is widespread concern about the courts failure to get to grips with probability and how wrong assumptions drive prosecutions.
‘If you look at the way these cases are prosecuted, the statistics by no means dominate,’ Dr Fenton told me. ‘It’s all about the medical evidence. It doesn’t look like it has anything to do with a problem to do with statistics. But it is the statistics that initially drive the case.’
https://bylinetimes.com/2019/03/13/the-justice-trap-murder-by-numbers/
Professor Norman Fenton et al’s work has caused controversy within the scientific community (Scroll down to read letter to editor)
“This letter to the Editor comments on the article When ‘neutral’ evidence still has probative value (with implications from the Barry George Case) by N. Fenton et al. [1, in press]
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262019314_On_the_use_of_the_likelihood_ratio_for_forensic_evaluation_response_to_Fenton_et_al
Once again reminds me of the controversy surrounding the FFS and Tiernan Coyle re; the fibre evidence in the Simon Hall case.
What’s the betting ego’s and contamination of confirmation bias factor into the controversy?
Guess it would be too much for these experts to consider Barry George’s guilt and their findings are wrong?!
-
“This letter to the Editor comments on the article When ‘neutral’ evidence still has probative value (with implications from the Barry George Case) by N. Fenton et al. [1, in press]
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262019314_On_the_use_of_the_likelihood_ratio_for_forensic_evaluation_response_to_Fenton_et_al
Once again reminds me of the controversy surrounding the FFS and Tiernan Coyle re; the fibre evidence in the Simon Hall case.
“In summary, we conclude that neither the concern of exhaustiveness, nor of ways to deal with this issue using12graphical probability models, represent original topics. Scientists who care about their approach to forensic evaluationcan find much material on the subject in existing literature, among which Science &Justice is a primary source (e.g.,14examples quoted above). By exposing known concepts in the context of a highly mediated case, Fenton et al.’s[1] critical exposition bears the risk of leaving the unfortunate impression that there is an inherent problem with16probability theory as a framework with which to deal with uncertainty.A suggestion that the findings in relation to gunshot residue should have been weighted di↵erently by the scientists18arises from a confusion between the role assigned to them and the role assigned to the court. In the context of thepropositions put to the scientist, the conclusion stating that the value to be assigned to the findings was ‘neutral’ – that20is a likelihood ratio of 1 – was fully justified. Had the propositions been di↵erent, the assessment of the findings mayhave required to be revised, but there is nothing new here and more importantly, there is nothing in the framework of22circumstances of that particular case that suggests that such a change is needed. Discussion of such a case in abstractoonly creates confusion that is not helpful for a proper administration of justice
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262019314_On_the_use_of_the_likelihood_ratio_for_forensic_evaluation_response_to_Fenton_et_al
Do Scientists care more about their reputations than admitting mistakes?
I’ve yet to see any academic who used the Simon Hall case in their research go back and re think through their theories and evaluations.
“Discussion of such a case in abstracto only creates confusion that is not helpful for a proper administration of justice.
Is it the job of the author(s) to administer justice?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25002051
-
“In summary, we conclude that neither the concern of exhaustiveness, nor of ways to deal with this issue using12graphical probability models, represent original topics. Scientists who care about their approach to forensic evaluationcan find much material on the subject in existing literature, among which Science &Justice is a primary source (e.g.,14examples quoted above). By exposing known concepts in the context of a highly mediated case, Fenton et al.’s[1] critical exposition bears the risk of leaving the unfortunate impression that there is an inherent problem with16probability theory as a framework with which to deal with uncertainty.A suggestion that the findings in relation to gunshot residue should have been weighted di↵erently by the scientists18arises from a confusion between the role assigned to them and the role assigned to the court. In the context of thepropositions put to the scientist, the conclusion stating that the value to be assigned to the findings was ‘neutral’ – that20is a likelihood ratio of 1 – was fully justified. Had the propositions been di↵erent, the assessment of the findings mayhave required to be revised, but there is nothing new here and more importantly, there is nothing in the framework of22circumstances of that particular case that suggests that such a change is needed. Discussion of such a case in abstractoonly creates confusion that is not helpful for a proper administration of justice
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262019314_On_the_use_of_the_likelihood_ratio_for_forensic_evaluation_response_to_Fenton_et_al
Do Scientists care more about their reputations than admitting mistakes?
I’ve yet to see any academic who used the Simon Hall case in their research go back and re think through their theories and evaluations.
“Discussion of such a case in abstracto only creates confusion that is not helpful for a proper administration of justice.
Is it the job of the author(s) to administer justice?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25002051
Who of course are not contaminated by confirmation bias
https://www.coursera.org/lecture/challenging-forensic-science/part-b-gunshot-residues-recovered-on-a-suspect-the-george-case-WiasT
*&^^&
Alex Bierderman
“I study and write about evidential reasoning and decision making at the intersection between forensic science and the law. My work is multidisciplinary and pertains to forensic science, law and topics in probability and decision theory
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alex_Biedermann
-
Professor Norman Fenton et al’s work has caused controversy within the scientific community (Scroll down to read letter to editor)
“This letter to the Editor comments on the article When ‘neutral’ evidence still has probative value (with implications from the Barry George Case) by N. Fenton et al. [1, in press]
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262019314_On_the_use_of_the_likelihood_ratio_for_forensic_evaluation_response_to_Fenton_et_al
Once again reminds me of the controversy surrounding the FFS and Tiernan Coyle re; the fibre evidence in the Simon Hall case.
What’s the betting ego’s and contamination of confirmation bias factor into the controversy?
Guess it would be too much for these experts to consider Barry George’s guilt and their findings are wrong?!
Who has a personal agenda as opposed to a public interest agenda?
-
Michelle Diskin Bates talks to Stephen Tomkins
On 26 April 1999, the TV presenter Jill Dando was killed, and 13 months later, Barry George was arrested and charged with her murder. Although the council for the defence were confident that there was no case against him, Barry was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. His sister, Michelle Diskin as she was then, had supported Barry in the past through difficulties caused by his mental health, and she supported him through his time in prison and his appeals, campaigning for his exoneration. Barry’s conviction was finally overturned in 2013. Mrs Diskin Bates now campaigns on behalf of those wrongfully convicted and is the author of Stand Against Injustice (Malcolm Down, 2018).
___
What was life like for you and Barry growing up?
We had quite a hard life. Our parents’ marriage was very poor – it was toxic – and that always leaves an effect on children. I found myself looking after my brother and my sister a lot. I would take them out every day to play, and it was my job to make sure they were all safe. When my sister had grand mal seizures, I had been trained to look after her.
When Barry was caught shoplifting you had to go home and get your mother, who couldn’t face it and you had to deal with it alone, at the age of 14.
I was often put in a position where I had to deal with things that would have been for an older person, but that was because Mum just couldn’t face things like that. A lot of Barry’s instances of what looked like bad behaviour were down to his disabilities. The shoplifting he did because Mum was feeling down and his only thought was: How can I make her feel better?
https://www.reform-magazine.co.uk/2019/01/interview-innocence-and-experience/
-
Here Michelle Diskin Bates describes herself as Barry George’s second mother and comments on Mark Williams Thomas
10th December 2018
https://www.rte.ie/radio/radioplayer/html5/#/radio1/21476295
Minimisation is a type of deception[1] involving denial coupled with rationalisation in situations where complete denial is implausible. It is the opposite of exaggeration. Minimisation—downplaying the significance of an event or emotion—is a common strategy in dealing with feelings of guilt.[2]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimisation_(psychology)
-
Listening to Michelle Diskin Bates talking about her brother Barry George and reading her various publications about his past behaviours reminds me of the phrase:
get away with murder
to be allowed to do things that other people would be punished or criticized for:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/get-away-with-murder
And I know I’m not alone regarding my opinions and observations.
-
“Barry George was wrongfully convicted of the 1999 murder of TV presenter Jill Dando and spent eight years in prison before his conviction was quashed. His sister Michelle Diskin Bates has written a memoir of the toll the case has taken on her family.
"The healing of damaged relationships is difficult to achieve after a miscarriage of justice. People have been hurt, words have been spoken that cannot be taken back. Trust will have broken down, and bitterness can become the driving force in many lives.
"Guilt, anger, fear, denial, pain, confusion and blame. These are all emotions I have either experienced or witnessed since Barry's release. Barry and I clashed many times - with me being the one to shout and scream at the poor guy for his unintentionally injurious effect on our family's life.
"I shouted, stormed and blazed. Barry looked on, confusion in his eyes, speaking words of apology to me. None of us had a magic wand to wave that would make all this disappear."
Like Sam Hallam and Victor Nealon, Barry George has been denied compensation for wrongful imprisonment. Michelle says the judges have in effect ruled that he “wasn’t innocent enough”.
Jill Dando’s killer has never been found.
https://www.insidejustice.co.uk/news/stand-against-injustice/152
-
Michelle Diskin Bates talks to Stephen Tomkins
On 26 April 1999, the TV presenter Jill Dando was killed, and 13 months later, Barry George was arrested and charged with her murder. Although the council for the defence were confident that there was no case against him, Barry was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. His sister, Michelle Diskin as she was then, had supported Barry in the past through difficulties caused by his mental health, and she supported him through his time in prison and his appeals, campaigning for his exoneration. Barry’s conviction was finally overturned in 2013. Mrs Diskin Bates now campaigns on behalf of those wrongfully convicted and is the author of Stand Against Injustice (Malcolm Down, 2018).
___
What was life like for you and Barry growing up?
We had quite a hard life. Our parents’ marriage was very poor – it was toxic – and that always leaves an effect on children. I found myself looking after my brother and my sister a lot. I would take them out every day to play, and it was my job to make sure they were all safe. When my sister had grand mal seizures, I had been trained to look after her.
When Barry was caught shoplifting you had to go home and get your mother, who couldn’t face it and you had to deal with it alone, at the age of 14.
I was often put in a position where I had to deal with things that would have been for an older person, but that was because Mum just couldn’t face things like that. A lot of Barry’s instances of what looked like bad behaviour were down to his disabilities. The shoplifting he did because Mum was feeling down and his only thought was: How can I make her feel better?
https://www.reform-magazine.co.uk/2019/01/interview-innocence-and-experience/
By Richard Edwards, Crime Correspondent
2:16PM BST 11 Jun 2008
“Barry George had written the names of Britt Ekland, star of The Man With The Golden Gun, and former Olympic gymnast and television presenter Suzanne Dando - who appeared in Octopussy - in a notebook.
There were the only two names in a column he had prepared for television and film stars, said Jonathan Laidlaw QC, prosecuting.
In the same book, he had also listed the names of models with a column for home addresses and there were references to television presenters Fiona Foster and Caron Keating.
They were among several female presenters whom George had photographed on his television set, the court heard.
Police found 4,000 images of women - many of whom he had stalked in the streets - on undeveloped rolls of film at his home, jurors have been told.
The prosecution alleges that George had an obsessive fascination with celebrities, guns and stalking women.
His flat contained business cards from female television presenters and BBC employees, as well as magazines with articles about Miss Dando.
They included a local newspaper which made it clear she lived in Fulham, south west London, Mr Laidlaw said.
A photograph of Miss Dando, 37, and her doctor fiancé Alan Farthing had been torn from a newspaper published after her death.
Two handwritten notes from George were found by police officers in which he expressed his regret at her death.
One ended: "For that reason, I took it upon myself to lay flowers at her doorstep on behalf of the fellowship of the Baptist Church."
The court also heard that George had taken cards of condolence left at the scene of Miss Dando's murder in April 1999, and kept them at his flat in the Crookham Road, 500 yards from Miss Dando's home.
Two photographs showed him holding guns - one in which he was wearing a military-style respirator and the other of him dressed in camouflage gear - showed his fascination with guns, it was alleged.
A year after the murder, George had been kept under surveillance by police for three weeks before his arrest.
"The defendant frequently approached women and he was a regular visitor to internet cafes," said Mr Laidlaw.
On one day, he had been followed to two BBC buildings in the Wood Lane area.
George denies murder at his retrial. The case continues.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/2110889/Jill-Dando-murder-Barry-George-kept-notes-on-James-Bond-girls.html
-
Interesting, Professor Norman Fenton et al’ work on probative value has been picked up in the Ben Geen case by Jon Robbins here:
The Justice Trap: Murder by Numbers - Jon Robins 13 March 2019
“There is a phenomenon known as ‘prosecutor’s fallacy’ where people – lawyers, jurors and the judiciary – confuse the probability of finding the evidence on an innocent person with the probability that a person on whom the evidence is found is innocent.
“An application to the miscarriage of justice watchdog the Criminal Cases Review Commission was backed by five leading statisticians including Sir David Spiegelhalter, of Cambridge University and Professor Norman Fenton, of Queen Mary University of London.
There is widespread concern about the courts failure to get to grips with probability and how wrong assumptions drive prosecutions.
‘If you look at the way these cases are prosecuted, the statistics by no means dominate,’ Dr Fenton told me. ‘It’s all about the medical evidence. It doesn’t look like it has anything to do with a problem to do with statistics. But it is the statistics that initially drive the case.’
https://bylinetimes.com/2019/03/13/the-justice-trap-murder-by-numbers/
http://probabilityandlaw.blogspot.com/2019/
https://understandinguncertainty.org/court-appeal-bans-bayesian-probability-and-sherlock-holmes
http://probabilityandlaw.blogspot.com/2013/01/who-is-appropriate-expert-here-dna.html
-
“When I first heard that Barry George was arrested for the murder of Jill Dando, I was shocked, but did not think that he was guilty. I decided that I would offer Barry and his mother my unconditional support, which was accepted. I helped him to get a good defence team and followed the case with close interest. I thought the Crown might produce hard evidence at the committal hearing and was horrified when he was sent for trial on the little evidence which they had. When, seven months after his arrest, the Home Office bowed to pressure and finally allowed me to visit him, I became a regular visitor. I was there when he was convicted, and the following day, I told the UK that he was innocent. A rift in his supporters then opened, but we all had the same aim, justice for Barry. One day, a respected reporter asked me: "If Barry did not kill Jill Dando, then who did" I had never given that any thought, but I would, in the future. What I discovered was disturbing, and I came to believe that the real killer may have slipped under the radar while potentially vital evidence was ignored, the crime scene destroyed, red herrings chased, as the trail went cold. Following Barry's failed appeal, I set up website and later formed a small but well supported campaign group. We took every opportunity to highlight doubts and discrepancies. After a few bleak years, with our help, the BBC Panorama exposed serious flaws in the Crown's case. We were on the road to victory, and two years later, we arrived. Barry and I then went our separate ways but reconciled eventually. But this story will not end until the murder of Jill Dando is properly solved or explained. I have not given up hope on that, and I would like to think that this book might inspire the powers that be to have a more in-depth review of all the evidence, old and new. Not to do so would be remiss of them and an affront to justice.
Mike Burke, June 2012
https://www.amazon.com/Fight-Clear-Barry-George-Murder/dp/146858586X/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
I wonder how Mike Bourke feels today?
-
September 10, 2013 at 10:04 am
“As a family member of a terrible miscarriage of justice, the victim being Barry George, convicted of the murder of Jill Dando; the Simon Hall confession is a concern because it is already so difficult for true MOJs to be believed by the public; this confession damages the credibility of all those still fighting for justice.
Michelle (Diskin) Bates
https://www.thejusticegap.com/simon-hall-confession-a-time-to-take-stock/
This comment made me question Michelle Diskin Bates integrity, especially when considered in relation to the content of the article. Which was ignorantly written by Julie Price, who immaturely and naively used it as her platform to have a pop at Bristol Uni in a quite obvious attempt to claim the moral high ground and promote her cause.
Her colleague Dennis Eady’s article, written around the same time, appears to have been removed? My mistake, it appears to have been moved https://www.thejusticegap.com/keeping-perspective/
Dennis Eady
”In 20 plus years of studying miscarriages of justice, while there may have been a few cases where people have for a short time maintained innocence before admitting guilt, I can think of no other high profile, widely supported case where the person has maintained innocence over many years and pursued the case through legal avenues (CCRC, Court of Appeal) and then admitted guilt.
**That’s concerning! Take a look at Stephen Downing’s case. Then go back and look at your own work**
Miscarriages of justice: the uncertainty principle
“The thesis considers the often illusory nature of some of the principles of the criminal justice system and utilises notions of 'magical legalism' (Cohen 2001) and other psychological processes that may be involved in maintaining the illusions. http://orca.cf.ac.uk/54837/
“Downing's release was reported in the BBC as being hailed as 'a triumph for campaigning journalism... and an end to one of the worst miscarriages of justice in English legal history.' Downing was reported as receiving celebrity treatment upon his release. He initially found employment as a trainee chef in a Bakewell restaurant, using the training he had been given whilst in prison.[4] He received compensation of £750,000 because he was not informed he was under arrest nor that he had the right to a solicitor.[12][better source needed] He received the money in two payments – an interim payment of £250,000 followed by a final payment of £500,000.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Downing_case
Dennis Eady - This thesis is submitted in candidature for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
The Dangers of Certainty
Handful of excerpts from page 260 onwards
“Policing by its nature involves decision making and assertive action (Reiner 2000). The uncertainty of many investigative and evidential factors may be uncomfortable in a culture where decisiveness is considered an important attribute. Furthermore one of the experiential problems for investigating officers is that they deal constantly with crime and people who commit crimes; they are no doubt faced on a regular basis with people who lie and distort the truth.
Covering up the Cracks
The case study in the next chapter on the Sion Jenkins case expands on the police and CPS reactions to his acquittal, and the implied suggestions that they had not changed their view and were right to have brought the prosecution.
“Sion Jenkins “seven second defence” at his first trial (see page 160) provided another example of a barrister’s tactic presumably supposed to have a dramatic effect on the jury, an assumption that most people would find bizarre; the logical step for most people being likely to be ‘if you have a defence then use if. This element of theatre is part of the “majesty of the law”, the idea of skilful advocates performing before the court to swing the argument for their clients.
The arbitrators of ‘fact’ are it seems faced with making their decisions in an artificial magisterial environment where information can be presented in many ways, some of which may involve elements of theatre or tactics which may not accord with their normal mode of thinking.
Journalistic Culture and Wrongful Convictions
Inthe history of the correction of miscarriages of justice the role of the media has been crucial in discovering new evidence and creating public awareness, without which the systems own mechanisms for ‘rectification of error’ would not have been adequate. Despite the advent of the CCRC the media role remains a vital resource for investigations thatmight seek out new witnesses or fund expert reports and make a case that can be used bythe CCRC or defence lawyers (see for example the TV programmes listed under ‘References’). This section however reflects on the views ofjournalists in this study and suggests a trend away from the kind ofjournalism that has made these vital contribution
The decline of Investigative Journalism.
Writing in the prisoners’ magazine “Inside Time” (Dec 2007) Louise Shorter, a former producer of BBC’s “Rough Justice” programme, pointed out how investigations by the programme had led to 17 serious convictions being overturned in the programme’s 27 year history. Rough Justice had been dropped by the BBC in Nov 2007 and independent television’s equivalent programme “Trial and Error” had been shelved some years before. For some the media role in respect of investigating cases declined in part as a result of the establishment of the CCRC: -
“A result of that was to keep things out of the media somewhere along the line a lot ofjournalists have got the message that these things are being dealt with” (Jl)
Investigative programmes however, although less in number and very selective in the cases they featured, were very different to most CCRC investigations, being more proactive in searching for new evidence and free of legalistic and statutory restraints on remit. Moreover they brought the issue into the public consciousness in a way that may bebeing lost in a world of “law and order” rhetoric: -
“Today’s journalists therefore work under pressure to produce sound bites in an era of information overload; they are mostly commentators rather than investigators. The media focus is on what sells - on personality, individuals and on celebrity; “looking at evidence does not sell newspapers or TV programmes” (Jl). The rectification of miscarriages of justice may suffer from a wider culture of ‘dumbing down’ which weakens the power of public pressure: -
“Another aspect of risk and cost increasingly faced by journalists and particularly if dealing with controversial convictions, is the potential legal comeback if media outlets challenge the integrity of powerful groups or individuals. This means that lawyers advising organisations are cautious and, as some journalists had experienced, the system needs a lot of convincing before challenging the authorities, who may then be liable to
sue: -
“These concerns will not be helped by comments made by Lord Chief Justice Phillips at the appeal of Barry George, questioning the propriety of programmes broadcast by the BBC on the case shortly before the appeal (Duncan Campbell Guardian 12/11/07). The Court of Appeal has never been keen on the idea that the media might reveal the failings of the criminal justice system.
https://orca.cf.ac.uk/54837/1/U585226.pdf
The broadcasting by the BBC on the Barry George case shortly before his appeal should never have been allowed. Nothing whatsoever to do with ”the media might reveal the failings of the criminal justice system” and everything to do with due process and the rule of law. What about the potential to prejudice a jury? Which I believe is what happened.
Jill Dando: The Jury's Out Panorama
“Raphael Rowe investigates claims that the forensic evidence which lead to the conviction of Barry George for the murder of Jill Dando in 2001 was unreliable and misleading.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0085bqg
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2018/08/08/is-the-investigator-being-investigated/
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2018/12/23/2018-a-trollexposure-review/
-
“These concerns will not be helped by comments made by Lord Chief Justice Phillips at the appeal of Barry George, questioning the propriety of programmes broadcast by the BBC on the case shortly before the appeal (Duncan Campbell Guardian 12/11/07). The Court of Appeal has never been keen on the idea that the media might reveal the failings of the criminal justice system.
https://orca.cf.ac.uk/54837/1/U585226.pdf
The broadcasting by the BBC on the Barry George case shortly before his appeal should never have been allowed. Nothing whatsoever to do with ”the media might reveal the failings of the criminal justice system” and everything to do with due process and the rule of law. What about the potential to prejudice a jury? Which I believe is what happened.
Jill Dando: The Jury's Out Panorama
“Raphael Rowe investigates claims that the forensic evidence which lead to the conviction of Barry George for the murder of Jill Dando in 2001 was unreliable and misleading.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0085bqg
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2018/08/08/is-the-investigator-being-investigated/
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2018/12/23/2018-a-trollexposure-review/
Eight years after the Dando murder, Barry George is told his conviction was unsafe
“Barry George had his conviction for murdering the television presenter Jill Dando quashed yesterday after the court of appeal concluded that fresh scientific evidence meant that there was "no certainty" that the jury at his original trial would have convicted him. The court ruled that the original verdict was unsafe.
George, 47, who remained impassive when the lord chief justice, Lord Phillips, announced the court's decision, will face a retrial next year. His legal team is considering whether to apply for bail, as the trial is unlikely to take place before the end of next summer.
"I just want to say thank you to the judges in there," said George's sister, Michelle Diskin, after the decision. "They were very fair and they really did look at the evidence. This is just one step along the way. We do not really feel that we have a victory. We do not have Barry. He has not got his freedom yet and it has been an absolute nightmare journey so far." Diskin, who has campaigned on behalf of her brother since his conviction in 2001, said they were "back at first base now".
George's solicitor, Jeremy Moore, also welcomed the decision. "We are very pleased with the outcome," he said. "This is only the latest hurdle in what has been a very long road and we now look forward very much to preparing for the trial. Barry is also very pleased."
George, who had a psychologist beside him in the dock to explain what was happening, because he suffers from learning difficulties, was remanded in custody.
The judge, who sat with Lord Justice Leveson and Mr Justice Simon, said the prosecution had relied on four categories of evidence at the original trial in 2001. One category had been identification evidence, which placed George near the scene on two occasions on the day of the murder; the second ground was "repeated lies" told by George in police interviews; the third category was an alleged attempt to create a false alibi; and the fourth was a tiny particle of firearms discharge residue (FDR) found in his overcoat about a year after the murder.
Last week, the appeal court heard from expert witnesses from the Forensic Science Service that "it was, in fact, no more likely that the particle had come from a gun fired by Barry George than that it had come from some other source".
The lord chief justice told a packed court that "if this evidence had been given to the jury at the trial, there is no certainty that they would have found Barry George guilty. For this reason his conviction had to be quashed."
In the fuller, written judgement, the court said: "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 ... that it is 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."
Orlando Pownall QC, for the crown, told the court that they would seek a retrial.
William Clegg QC, for George, asked the court to issue instructions to the media on the future coverage of the controversial case. At the start of the three-day appeal last week, the lord chief justice said that correspondence about the case had been sent to him and his fellow-judges which was inappropriate. He also said that the court would consider the "propriety" of recent television programmes about the case, one of which carried interviews with two jurors from George's original trial.
Yesterday Clegg said that the letter sent to the judges prior to the appeal, which "contained a number of material inaccuracies", had also been published in a national newspaper. This is believed to be a reference to an open letter from Dando's former colleague and friend Nick Ross, which was published in the Daily Mail two days before the appeal started. "There should be no further repetition of the details of the case," said Clegg. He said much of the coverage in the media leading up to the appeal had been "inaccurate."
The lord chief justice said that he would emphasise to the media their potential liabilities under the contempt of court rules which now come into force and which will remain active until the conclusion of the retrial
Dando, co-presenter of BBC's Crimewatch UK programme, was shot dead on the doorstep of her home in Fulham, south-west London, in April 1999. George, who lived near her home, was arrested for her murder a year later and convicted and jailed for life at the Old Bailey in 2001. His first appeal, in 2002, was unsuccessful, but the matter was re-examined by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which referred it back to the court of appeal.
Clegg told the court last week that the jury were given the impression that the particle of FDR was "crucial" to the case, whereas they should have been told that it was "neutral" or "inconclusive". At the appeal, Pownall argued that the particle evidence was only one part of a "compelling" prosecution case against George and it had been challenged heavily at the original trial.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/nov/16/jilldando.ukcrime
-
Lost clues that led police to Dando's killer
The Dando investigation: vital evidence emerged after hunch about 'stranger murderer'
Nick Hopkins July 2001
“Eight clues lost in a mass of information provided by 16,000 calls finally led detectives to arrest and charge Barry George. The crucial "messages" were provided by members of the public who called the murder squad between April 26 and June 14 1999. On their own, they were not regarded as overly significant and were placed in a holding queue for low-priority intelligence.
During a review of this material months later, DC John Gallagher realised the messages were referring to the behaviour and habits of the same person - George.
The decision to arrest him on May 28 last year, 460 days after the murder, was not taken quickly.
It came after George had been under surveillance for four weeks and when the squad, led by Detective Superintendent Hamish Campbell, had details of his previous convictions, including one for attempted rape.
They pieced together fragments of evidence regarding his whereabouts on the day Dando died. The hunch became a conviction when a scientist found a single particle of firearms discharge in the inside pocket of a blue cotton jacket hanging on the back of a door in George's flat.
It matched residue on the back of Dando's head and in her hair. "Once we had that, we knew we had enough to arrest him," said one officer.
Three months before, Det Supt Campbell, 43, had changed the focus of the investigation. He was disillusioned with theories of professional hitmen and Crimewatch vendettas, telling friends they seemed "outlandish and far-fetched".
Despite a £150,000 reward and a plea for information from police informants, he had not been presented with a shred of evidence to suggest Dando's death was the work of the underworld.
Only two men had been regarded as possible suspects before George. Martyn Gilbert had allegedly sent sexually explicit emails about Dando and had moved from his home in Fulham to Australia two weeks after her murder. He was ruled out after an officer flew to meet him.
So was Steve Savva, a mechanic from east London, who was wrongly named as a possible assassin by a police informer.
Mr Campbell believed he and his team must have missed something obvious in the maelstrom which followed Dando's death, and suspected the killer was not a professional at all, but an obsessive who had a lucky getaway.
Consulting other detectives at a conference in Birmingham last spring crystallised a growing conviction he should be looking for a "disorganised, stranger murderer" rather than a contract killer. Although wary of giving this too much significance, it chimed with offender profiles prepared by the National Crime Faculty.
Mr Campbell ordered his team to sift through thousands of information "messages" - mainly calls from the public - received in the days after the murder, in case something had been missed.
One referred to a man called "Busara" who lived in a flat in Crookham Road, Fulham, and was described by the caller as "very strange and mentally unstable". "Busara" had not been seen by detectives, so was put in the queue for action, a list of people detectives wanted to see, but not as a high priority.
The officer finally tracked down "Busara" after four weeks and reported back to Det Supt Campbell on April 5, telling his boss he had met someone who was "rather odd". "Busara" was Bulsara. Bulsara was Barry George.
Mr Campbell told his detective to take a statement from him, which he did the next day. With his mother Margaret acting as a witness, George recalled precisely what he had done on April 26 1999.
He said he had been at home that morning. He remembered exactly what he was wearing, mentioning a cotton jacket.
"He was the first person we interviewed who knew precisely where he was and what he was doing, without a moment of hesitation," said a source. "It was as if he had been preparing for the visit."
George also said he had "never heard of Jill Dando", which seemed unlikely, especially as his flat was littered with newspapers and copies of the BBC in-house magazine, Ariel.
The team immediately reviewed George's criminal record, which showed he had a history of violence towards women, including a conviction for attempted rape in 1983.
On April 17 last year, detectives searched George's flat and took away crates of clothes and personal belongings for forensic examination. Mr Campbell ordered a seven-day surveillance of George from 7am to midnight.
The team went through all the police messages again and found other clues which suggested George was lying about his whereabouts on April 26.
One was from a taxi firm, Traffic Cars, five minutes walk from Dando's home. It reported that "a very strange man", who fitted George's description, had come into the office on the day of the murder.
Witnesses at Hammersmith and Fulham Action for Disability (Hafad), a community centre in Greswell Street, thought George had been there at about noon.
George, police learnt, had returned to Hafad two days after the murder and asked staff if they remembered what time he had been there on April 26.
George told them he was worried he looked like the e-fit of the man the police were looking for. Detectives, however, had not released an image of a man seen running away from the scene.
George went to Traffic Cars again and asked if the controller, Ramesh Paul, remembered what he was wearing on his previous visit. When he could not, George became agitated and said "I was wearing yellow, like the colour of the sun! You must remember!"
The material taken from Crookham Road seemed disturbing. It included a handwritten list of 90 car registration numbers and descriptions of the women drivers. One of the number plates was Princess Diana's.
Detectives also recovered hundreds of undeveloped films which showed George had secretly taken several thousand photos of 418 different women.
One picture in particular grabbed the attention of the police. It showed George wearing khaki and a gas mask, and holding a silver handgun, which appeared to have been damaged or tampered with. Although the gun that killed Jill Dando has never been found, forensic analysis of the cartridge has shown the weapon must have been modified in some way.
George, they discovered, did have some knowledge of weapons and had spent six months in the Territorial Army. He did not have a firearms licence, but he legally kept three starting pistols in the 1980s. He had reported one stolen in 1986.
None of this was evidence that linked George to the murder of Dando, but in the second week of May the results of forensic tests on George's clothes landed on Mr Campbell's desk.
Inside the left-hand pocket of George's blue cotton jacket, scientists found a particle comprising lead, antimony and barium - firearms discharge. The particles matched those found on the back of Dando's head and on her coat.
Senior lawyers at the crown prosecution service agreed that on the basis of the forensic evidence there was "sufficient evidence" for the prospect of conviction.
At 6.30am on May 28 last year, four unarmed officers knocked on George's door and told him he was being arrested on suspicion of murdering Jill Dando.
Further analysis of more than 3,000 items taken from George's flat identified a fibre on a pair of trousers which matched those on a coat Dando was wearing when she was shot.
It was not conclusive - the fibre could have come from a number of clothes - but for detectives, it added a little more weight to the prosecution case.
After George was committed to stand trial at the Old Bailey and the CPS had served notice to the defence of its case, he completely changed his alibi.
He admitted he had been out on April 26, and had walked to Hafad at 10.50am, where he had stayed until lunchtime, putting him in the centre at the time of the murder. Staff at Hafad were confused about when they had seen him: one said 11.50am, others claimed it was later.
George told police he had taken a circuitous route to Hafad which avoided Gowan Avenue and took him past Fulham football club. He said he was wearing a bright yellow top.
Detectives scoured the cctv coverage of the area, and found a hazy image of a man, wearing a bright yellow top, walking towards Hafad just before 1pm.
"Is that coincidence or is it George?" said an officer. "We believe that was George. We think he killed Jill, went home and changed, and then out again to Hafad, avoiding the murder scene."
One obvious and gaping hole in the prosecution case was lack of motive. There was nothing in George's flat to suggest he was fixated with Miss Dando. There were no photos or posters, though they could have been destroyed. Nor was there any evidence that he stalked Miss Dando.
Detectives had one weak anecdote which hinted at revenge. Nine years ago, George, who had worked for the BBC briefly in 1976, approached a woman at a bus-stop near Television Centre in Shepherd's Bush and asked whether she worked for the corporation. When she nodded, he told her he disliked the BBC and its journalists because of the way Freddie Mercury had been treated before he died.
Having studied George, Mr Campbell concluded that establishing a motive might prove impossible. "George is a fantasist, so how can we understand the working of his mind?", he told his team.
A detective told the Guardian: "George spent his days following and looking at women. If he liked you, he would photograph you, find your address and visit you. He will ask you to talk to him and if you are aggressive back, that's the trigger for him to attack.
"We were looking for a traditional stalker, but George didn't have to stalk Jill Dando. He lived right by her. He walked past her house nearly every day."
From the moment George came into their orbit, Mr Campbell knew a conviction would be difficult. But Mr Campbell told friends he believed "with all his heart" that George killed Miss Dando
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/jul/03/jilldando.media2
-
“Barry had previously been convicted for attempted rape and indecent assault some years earlier, and he lived in the vicinity of Dando’s flat. When I ask Michelle about these serious charges, she doesn’t respond defensively or try to protect her brother; instead she explains, gently, that she too was horrified when she discovered the truth – and told her brother so: “I’m afraid he was given quite a tough time from me; he didn’t enjoy that visit one bit,” she says, briskly. “But I think it needs to be understood that Barry is like a nine-year-old boy living in an adult’s body. These things should not happen, and he knows right from wrong, but at the same time, he has a whole host of disabilities
https://www.premierchristianity.com/Past-Issues/2019/April-2019/My-brother-was-wrongly-convicted-of-murdering-Jill-Dando
Barry George was classed sane and fit to stand trial for murder as an ADULT.
There are NO excuses and her comments are disingenuous. BUT nothing.
As previously pointed out, Barry George’s offending behaviour continued up to the murder and after.
Barry George: a victim of emotional tyranny?
“Without it, the case against George, resting entirely upon circumstantial evidence, fell apart. In fact, the belief that George, a heavily medicated epileptic who, by all accounts, isn’t the brightest, could have carried out a ‘meticulously planned and thoroughly professional’ execution simply looked absurd[/b]. Which does raise a question: how did George come to be convicted?
https://www.spiked-online.com/2008/08/04/barry-george-a-victim-of-emotional-tyranny/
Barry George wasn’t diagnosed with epilepsy until after his arrest
-
"Justice is never served by the conviction of the innocent" by Michelle Bates on the 31st Anniversary of the tragedies (Jerrmy Bamber case)
"Becoming aware of a breaking-news story I began to listen in more closely. A siege was taking place at a farmhouse in England. The broadcaster relayed that five people were inside and there was great fear for their safety. As the story unfolded it became apparent that this was an older couple. A farmer and retired Magistrate, Nevill Bamber and his wife, June; their daughter, Sheila, and her six year old twin sons. Jeremy, their son, was outside with police who were trying to communicate with someone inside the house who had been seen pacing back and forth in front of an upstairs window and carrying a firearm. The reporter said that police were reluctant to get too close to the house for fear of causing that person to become more agitated, thereby, escalating the danger to the family. I watched for an hour or so but there was no resolution and, heavily pregnant, I became exhausted and had to go off to bed.
No one was seen pacing back and forth carrying a firearm - this is a lie
Awaking early I was anxious for news, hopefully of a rescue, so I put the News on immediately. The siege was over, police had stormed the house and five bodies had been found inside. I was heartbroken, a whole family! My heart went out to the young man who had waited all night long with the police for news of his family; this was not what he wanted to hear. There was no live TV coverage during the time Bamber was outside the farmhouse with the police - another lie
My own child was born a few days later and I became engrossed in motherhood. It was a real shock to hear, sometime later, that the son, Jeremy Bamber, had been arrested for the killings…how was that possible when he was outside during the siege and everyone knew that? I presumed the police knew something we did not; there must have been strong evidence to convict a man of killing his entire family…I pushed my unease aside and got on with motherhood and my own life.
Since then I have revisited the facts of this case in light of so many high-profile miscarriage of justice cases coming to light, including that of my own brother, Barry George, for the murder of Jill Dando. More recently we’ve heard of the lies and cover-ups in the Hillsborough deaths and The Chilcot report exposing the same type of cover ups in the Iraqi war scandal. In the Bamber case I can find no evidence to convince me of the guilt of this man. Nothing that can account for a man languishing in jail for more than thirty years. How did a jury convict a young man without proof?
https://jeremybamber.blogspot.com/2016/08/justice-is-never-served-by-conviction.html
Photofit dispute
“Mr George confirmed that he went to the offices of the Hammersmith and Fulham Action for Disability (Hafad) on the day Miss Dando was shot and returned there two days later.
He told police he had wanted to account for his movements as people had said he was similar in appearance to a photofit of the killer.
The prosecution says the photofit was only released four days after the murder.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1349115.stm
Barry George may well have told his mother of his concerns, who in turn told his sister Michelle Diskin Bates. I’ve never believed her story about when she claims she first heard of her brothers involvement in the murder.
Alternatively Barry George’s mother may have raised her concerns with her son. Following my experiences, nothing should be ruled out.
“Spinning a yarn, or storytelling, is what I do. But why do I think stories are so important? Well, for me, it's all about imagination; a story can carry us anywhere and everywhere… into a world where anything is possible.
Stories help us to put our own stories - our lives and our feelings - into context and explore how we feel about them, even in the most fantastical settings. https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/top-10-tips-spinning-good-yarn-real-storyteller/1230166
Michelle Diskin Bates is renowned for spinning a yarn.
What she doesn’t recognise (And I suspect it’s to do with her lack of insight) is that some of us who were once involved in the moj movement - for want of a better word, see manipulation for what it is.
Her credibility has long been shot to bits.
-
https://jeremybamber.blogspot.com/2016/08/justice-is-never-served-by-conviction.html
Michelle Diskin Bates is renowned for spinning a yarn.
What she doesn’t recognise (And I suspect it’s to do with her lack of insight) is that some of us who were once involved in the moj movement - for want of a better word, see manipulation for what it is.
Her credibility has long been shot to bits.
Michelle Diskin Bates has claimed, far too many times to count, how she heard of Jill Dando’s murder at the time but never really followed the case until her brothers arrest.
I don’t believe this for varying reasons but also because of what she wrote about Jeremy Bamber and how it appears she has had an interest in real crime for many many years
“It was well after midnight on August 6th 1985 and I couldn’t sleep. Switching on the T.V., I absent-mindedly tuned into a news channel. We were living in Co. Cork, in Southern Ireland, and I was joyfully awaiting the birth of our first child who was already overdue, making me feel restless; that was why I was up and about at such an hour.
“Becoming aware of a breaking-news story I began to listen in more closely. A siege was taking place at a farmhouse in England. The broadcaster relayed that five people were inside and there was great fear for their safety. As the story unfolded it became apparent that this was an older couple. A farmer and retired Magistrate, Nevill Bamber and his wife, June; their daughter, Sheila, and her six year old twin sons. https://jeremybamber.blogspot.com/2016/08/justice-is-never-served-by-conviction.html
“Awaking early I was anxious for news, hopefully of a rescue, so I put the News on immediately. The siege was over, police had stormed the house and five bodies had been found inside. I was heartbroken, a whole family! My heart went out to the young man who had waited all night long with the police for news of his family; this was not what he wanted to hear.
-
Michelle Diskin Bates is not to be trusted. She has become a master at manipulation as is self evident. She has attempted to paint herself to be all things to all people within the moj movement and it appears her deceptive nature knows no bounds
Many individuals questioned Simon Hall’s confession/guilt when it was made back in 2013 but NOT Michelle Diskin Bates. She indicated to others to move on, which I found suspicious. Her first thought was for her credibility, which gave an indication to me of her moral obligations and ethical motives as well as her moral responsibilities.
My opinions my observations.
Scientists call it the 'dark core' or 'D-factor'. You can call it trouble.
“When we talk about being a "good" person, we're usually talking about having personality traits that get a social thumbs up, such as honesty, patience and courage. The other side of the coin exists, though, too, exemplified through traits like narcissism, spitefulness and disloyalty. Scientists now say these negative personality traits share a common 'dark core'.
Defining the "D-factor"
“Researchers from the University of Copenhagen, Ulm University and University of Koblenz-Landau conducted a series of studies with more than 2,500 people focusing on nine common negative traits (egoism, Machiavellianism, moral disengagement, narcissism, psychological entitlement, psychopathy, sadism, self-interest and spitefulness). They asked participants how much they agreed or disagreed with statements like "I know that I am special because everyone keeps telling me so." They also studied other self-reported behaviors, such as impulsivity. Finally, researchers attempted to map a common denominator present in the nine personality traits.
The experts involved in the work define this common denominator, the D-factor or "dark core", as the general tendency to maximize one's individual utility (i.e., to put your interests and goals over others and even enjoy it) while having beliefs that serve as justifications. While somebody certainly can display one negative trait more than others, the dark core means that, if a person shows one of the negative personality traits, they're probably going to have a strong tendency to show one or more of the others, as well. So don't be too surprised, for example, if the same team member who fudges the books also plays mean office pranks or can't stop crowing about their own accomplishments.
“The problem, of course, is authenticity. While some individuals naturally are more open about who they really are, others are experts at showing people what they think others want to see. They try hard to hide their natural tendencies. The only ways to really figure out how high someone's D-factor might be is to engage frequently with them through many different scenarios or to have them undergo a standardized screening process. It's also important to get feedback from others, as they can verify whether something feels off or you're being manipulated. Realize you might be too close to the situation to be objective, and make sure that your HR and mental health team are trained to spot behaviors that could signal a problem. Remember that the more transparent you are, the more likely it is that people will trust you enough to reveal their real selves.
https://www.inc.com/wanda-thibodeaux/science-finally-explained-what-all-toxic-people-have-in-common-heres-what-it-means-for-your-team.html
-
“Barry had previously been convicted for attempted rape and indecent assault some years earlier, and he lived in the vicinity of Dando’s flat. When I ask Michelle about these serious charges, she doesn’t respond defensively or try to protect her brother; instead she explains, gently, that she too was horrified when she discovered the truth – and told her brother so: “I’m afraid he was given quite a tough time from me; he didn’t enjoy that visit one bit,” she says, briskly. “But I think it needs to be understood that Barry is like a nine-year-old boy living in an adult’s body. These things should not happen, and he knows right from wrong, but at the same time, he has a whole host of disabilities
https://www.premierchristianity.com/Past-Issues/2019/April-2019/My-brother-was-wrongly-convicted-of-murdering-Jill-Dando
Barry George was classed sane and fit to stand trial for murder as an ADULT.
There are NO excuses and her comments are disingenuous. BUT nothing.
Michelle Diskin Bates has claimed her brother Barry George knows right from wrong. What she doesn’t do however is explain or explore how she came to this conclusion. Which, in my opinion, is indicative of her inability in understanding moral reasoning and shows a total lack of logic.
“Moral reasoning, also known as moral development, is a study in psychology that overlaps with moral philosophy. Children can make moral decisions about what is right and wrong from a young age; this makes morality fundamental to the human condition. Moral reasoning, however, is a part of morality that occurs both within and between individuals. [1] Prominent contributors to this theory include Lawrence Kohlberg and Elliot Turiel. The term is sometimes used in a different sense: reasoning under conditions of uncertainty, such as those commonly obtained in a court of law. It is this sense that gave rise to the phrase, "To a moral certainty;"[2] however, this idea is now seldom used outside of charges to juries.
Moral reasoning can be defined as being the process in which individuals try to determine the difference between what is right and what is wrong by using logic.[3] This is an important and often daily process that people use when trying to do the right thing. For instance, every day people are faced with the dilemma of whether to lie in a given situation or not. People make this decision by reasoning the morality of their potential actions, and through weighing their actions against potential consequences.
A moral choice can be a personal, economic, or ethical one; as described by some ethical code, or regulated by ethical relationships with others. This branch of psychology is concerned with how these issues are perceived by ordinary people, and so is the foundation of descriptive ethics. There are many different forms of moral reasoning which often[/i] are dictated by culture. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_reasoning
-
Michelle Diskin Bates has claimed her brother Barry George knows right from wrong. What she doesn’t do however is explain or explore how she came to this conclusion. Which, in my opinion, is indicative of her inability in understanding moral reasoning and shows a total lack of logic.
Which in turn show she argues in defence of her brother out of ignorance., not out of truth.
Mahatma Gandhi “Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear.”
-
Michelle Diskin Bates is not to be trusted. She has become a master at manipulation as is self evident. She has attempted to paint herself to be all things to all people within the moj movement and it appears her deceptive nature knows no bounds
Many individuals questioned Simon Hall’s confession/guilt when it was made back in 2013 but NOT Michelle Diskin Bates. She indicated to others to move on, which I found suspicious. Her first thought was for her credibility, which gave an indication to me of her moral obligations and ethical motives as well as her moral responsibilities.
My opinions my observations.
Michelle Diskin Bates publicly claims to have first known her brother used the name Bulsara from emails she’d received from him? Would be interesting to find out what the police uncovered in this respect, if anything.
Would also be interesting to learn if she provided the police with these alleged emails in order to help them with their enquiries.
-
Here Michelle Diskin Bates describes herself as Barry George’s second mother and comments on Mark Williams Thomas
10th December 2018
https://www.rte.ie/radio/radioplayer/html5/#/radio1/21476295
Troll Exposure blog - August 2018
“In 2013, on the back of the crest of the wave after the documentary run by Williams-Thomas concerning the Jimmy Savile furore, Williams-Thomas was boasting about his achievements to the Guardian. Those boasts however, 5+ years on, now look a little different.
Screenshot_2648
Basically what Williams-Thomas was admitting to there was that as a Surrey Police officer he would take it upon himself to brief journalists on what he thought was in the public interest.
The Guardian rightly pointing out that if he had done so now (or in 2013) he would be arrested and suspended from his role. However, this raises a crucial point. If he was doing it then, is he doing it now and has he done it since leaving the force in 2000? https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2018/08/08/is-the-investigator-being-investigated/
Michelle Diskin Bates
“Since then I have revisited the facts of this case in light of so many high-profile miscarriage of justice cases coming to light, including that of my own brother, Barry George, for the murder of Jill Dando. More recently we’ve heard of the lies and cover-ups in the Hillsborough deaths and The Chilcot report exposing the same type of cover ups in the Iraqi war scandal. In the Bamber case I can find no evidence to convince me of the guilt of this man. Nothing that can account for a man languishing in jail for more than thirty years. How did a jury convict a young man without proof?
I suspect Michelle Diskin Bates, like many of us, is fully aware of Mark Williams Thomas’ behaviour but chooses to carry on regardless in the hope her disingenuous behaviours, along with his, will all disappear.
Troll Exposure blog
Sharing with whom?
Williams-Thomas was recently named by the Judge in the full ruling into the Cliff Richard v BBC case by exposing reporter Dan Johnson’s notes as being the first contact for the alleged victim (complainant) in the allegations which resulted in the BBC overegged reporting of the search of Cliff’s property.
It therefore stands to reason that the person who was “close to Yewtree” and “not a serving police officer” is highly likely Williams-Thomas. https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2018/08/08/is-the-investigator-being-investigated/
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
Apr 29
No...BBC, these are NOT rape victims until someone is proved guilty of raping them! With the greatest respect they are claimants or accusers until then. Innocent until proven guilty...not half guilty, awaiting a trial! #BBC
Could be my son or daughter.
https://mobile.twitter.com/BBCNews/status/1122749875043672064
The BBC panorama documentary “Jill Dando - The jury’s out” aired just before her brothers appeal.
(It last aired on Sat 3 Nov 2007 - 02:15) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0085bqg
Barry George appeared before the Old Bailey on 14 December 2007
“The BBC's Panorama team has forensic analysis which questions the only piece of scientific evidence against the man jailed for murdering Jill Dando.
Firearms residue expert Professor Marco Morin says the single particle taken from Barry George's coat may not have even come from a gun. He says it should not have been introduced as evidence.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/5314996.stm
-
WHY did Barry George tell police. re his alibi, he wanted to account for his movements because people had said he was similar in appearance to a photofit of the killer - when the photofit wasn’t released until a couple of days after he’d been to HAFAD.
More importantly WHO told him he looked like the photofit? His mother perhaps? His sister maybe?
WHO Knew Barry George best?
WHY did he change his appearance?
Was he encouraged to change his appearance by anyone?
-
Dennis Eady - This thesis is submitted in candidature for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
The Dangers of Certainty
Handful of excerpts from page 260 onwards
“Policing by its nature involves decision making and assertive action (Reiner 2000). The uncertainty of many investigative and evidential factors may be uncomfortable in a culture where decisiveness is considered an important attribute. Furthermore one of the experiential problems for investigating officers is that they deal constantly with crime and people who commit crimes; they are no doubt faced on a regular basis with people who lie and distort the truth.
We are ALL no doubt faced on a regular basis with people who lie and distort the truth.
-
After George was committed to stand trial at the Old Bailey and the CPS had served notice to the defence of its case, he completely changed his alibi https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/jul/03/jilldando.media2
WHY did Barry George completely change his alibi?
Was he encouraged to change his alibi be someone maybe?
Was he afraid to tell the truth through fear of persecution?
-
Nick Hopkins for the Guardian - July 2001
”Three months before, Det Supt Campbell, 43, had changed the focus of the investigation. He was disillusioned with theories of professional hitmen and Crimewatch vendettas, telling friends they seemed "outlandish and far-fetched".
Despite a £150,000 reward and a plea for information from police informants, he had not been presented with a shred of evidence to suggest Dando's death was the work of the underworld.
Only two men had been regarded as possible suspects before George
“Mr Campbell believed he and his team must have missed something obvious in the maelstrom which followed Dando's death, and suspected the killer was not a professional at all, but an obsessive who had a lucky getaway.
Consulting other detectives at a conference in Birmingham last spring crystallised a growing conviction he should be looking for a "disorganised, stranger murderer" rather than a contract killer. Although wary of giving this too much significance, it chimed with offender profiles prepared by the National Crime Faculty.
Mr Campbell ordered his team to sift through thousands of information "messages" - mainly calls from the public - received in the days after the murder, in case something had been missed.
One referred to a man called "Busara" who lived in a flat in Crookham Road, Fulham, and was described by the caller as "very strange and mentally unstable".
The facts of this case have been skewed over these past 2 decades and Michelle Diskin Bates hands are not clean, far from it.
She has knowingly put disingenuous information into the public domain in the hope if she repeats her story enough times it’ll be believed, not dissimilar to Simon Hall and his family.
The fact is she’s digging an even bigger hole for herself and in turn for Barry George. She really should have listened to her uncle Mike, who, according to his book, pointed this out to her on more than one occasion.
It’s clear from the content of her book she’s burned many bridges.
Her self righteous attitude has done her no favours either.
“The most dangerous lies are the lies you tell yourself
My opinions, my observations.
-
Dando suspect 'devious' - June 2001
“The Old Bailey: The man accused of Jill Dando's murder told "lie after lie" when questioned by police, the Old Bailey heard.
In his closing speech, prosecuting counsel Orlando Pownall claimed Barry George was "devious" and played cat-and-mouse with the police when quizzed.
George had not mentioned in his witness statement that he returned to an advice centre two days after Miss Dando's murder, the jury heard.
The prosecution alleges George went to the offices of Hammersmith and Fulham Action for Disability to establish a false alibi.
Mr Pownall said: "The defendant was given an opportunity to tell the truth and time after time he declined that invitation and told lie after lie.
"As he realised there was an overwhelming amount of evidence contradicting his earlier assertions, he acknowledged these events - an acknowledgement a truthful interviewee would have given from the word go.
"You may think the police had done their homework, but it did not stop the defendant playing cat and mouse."
https://www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/6410638.dando-suspect-devious/
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Dan Didio: DC Comics to release blasphemous series about Jesus - Sign: (link: http://www.citizengo.org/en/md/167848-dc-comics-slated-release-blasphemous-series-about-jesus?tc=tw&tcid=53287472) citizengo.org/en/md/167848-d…
Why is it ok to offend Christians but not LGBT, Muhammad , Buddha, trans people? I think this is awful. I won’t be hurtful or disrespectful to any group...except paedophiles [/u]
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1086345633823408128
“There is probably no word in the English language that currently triggers a witch-hunt faster than this little gem: paedophile. https://www.legalcheek.com/2015/06/top-barrister-sparks-social-media-row-with-telly-copper-over-janner-trial-of-facts/
Troll Exposure blog
“Which brings me to another supposition and theory: that Williams-Thomas is at the forefront of a media and police campaign, he is the link between police and media. He fulfils his own stated ambition of being a “middle man” for such matters but by doing so he’s effectively removed the chances of fair trials in many of the cases which he’s leaked information about to the media.
The key to his need to do so is personal ambition in my opinion. However it needs a willing set of players around him, the Murdoch empire stand out as the main willing recipients, the police are clearly leaking operational material through him. Operation Yewtree was leaking more than a sieve with a massive rusted hole in the bottom. The public clamour for arrests and guilty verdicts was being tub-thumped by the actions of Williams-Thomas in leaking such material to the media. And in order to not make the connection to the Murdoch empire so obvious every now and again he would pass other details to the likes of the BBC or the Mirror Group. Spread the wealth.
Read more here:
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/05/04/may-the-force-be-with-the-force/
-
Troll Exposure blog
“Which brings me to another supposition and theory: that Williams-Thomas is at the forefront of a media and police campaign, he is the link between police and media. He fulfils his own stated ambition of being a “middle man” for such matters but by doing so he’s effectively removed the chances of fair trials in many of the cases which he’s leaked information about to the media.
The key to his need to do so is personal ambition in my opinion. However it needs a willing set of players around him, the Murdoch empire stand out as the main willing recipients, the police are clearly leaking operational material through him. Operation Yewtree was leaking more than a sieve with a massive rusted hole in the bottom. The public clamour for arrests and guilty verdicts was being tub-thumped by the actions of Williams-Thomas in leaking such material to the media. And in order to not make the connection to the Murdoch empire so obvious every now and again he would pass other details to the likes of the BBC or the Mirror Group. Spread the wealth.
Read more here:
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/05/04/may-the-force-be-with-the-force/
Troll Exposure blog:
“In 2003, Williams-Thomas was charged with blackmail, he was subsequently found not guilty by a jury, however that charge alone and the investigation around it should’ve been a red flag. Especially as evidence was found on Williams-Thomas’ computer(s) that he was offering to sell “victim” information to the media in 2001. “Victim” information which was basically confidential information which should’ve remained within the offices of … Surrey Police.
However, it didn’t raise a red flag.
“In 2009, Williams-Thomas presented a two part ITV documentary entitled “To Catch a Paedophile”. He and a production team were allowed access into police investigations and police units revealing the methods employed to catch such offenders. Interestingly the series director/producer of that documentary is Lesley Gardiner who was also the same producer/director of the Exposure programme and also of Williams-Thomas’ Investigator series. Draw your own conclusions from that.
What it does suggest however is that Gardiner and Williams-Thomas had an existing working relationship on a very specific topic.
March 2015 - Mark Williams Thomas
Police let Jill Dando down and now they MUST launch a new hunt for her killer
“The Mirror is launching a major series revealing the secrets behind the investigation into the murder of one of Britain’s best-loved TV presenters, Jill Dando.
“So after all the careful analysis I set about with my producer Lesley Gardiner to start to pull the strands together to make a documentary and build up this investigation with the Mirror.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/police-let-jill-dando-down-5415482
-
Here Michelle Diskin Bates describes herself as Barry George’s second mother and comments on Mark Williams Thomas
10th December 2018
https://www.rte.ie/radio/radioplayer/html5/#/radio1/21476295
During this interview - Michelle Diskin Bates makes the disingenuous claim that everyone believes Jill Dando was murdered by a hitman!
The police don’t believe it, her family and friends don’t believe it, Nick Ross does’t believe it and many journalists don’t believe it...... I could go on
They believe a misguided individual murdered Jill Dando and Barry George fits that description 100%.
There is no mention anywhere in the book Stand Against Injustice where Michelle Diskin Bates offers guidance to Barry George, which in itself is a red flag. His offending behaviour is minimised throughout the book and during all public interviews.
From the moment George came into their orbit, Mr Campbell knew a conviction would be difficult. But Mr Campbell told friends he believed "with all his heart" that George killed Miss Dando
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/jul/03/jilldando.media2
On 26th April Michelle Diskin Bates implies Hamish Campbell has “lost the plot.”
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
Apr 26
Somebody's lost the plot!
Jill Dando’s diaries point to her ‘being murdered by a stranger’, says cop who led hunt for her...
JILL Dando’s personal diaries point to her being murdered by a stranger, says the cop who led the hunt for her killer. The Crimewatch presenter’s intimate thoughts show that she did not feel under …
thesun.co.uk
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1121861952727322625
What is interesting about Michelle Diskin Bates behaviour is the fact she cannot back up any of her assertions with factual evidence, rather than help her cause it has the opposite effect.
-
The BBC panorama documentary “Jill Dando - The jury’s out” aired just before her brothers appeal.
(It last aired on Sat 3 Nov 2007 - 02:15) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0085bqg
Barry George appeared before the Old Bailey on 14 December 2007
“The BBC's Panorama team has forensic analysis which questions the only piece of scientific evidence against the man jailed for murdering Jill Dando.
Firearms residue expert Professor Marco Morin says the single particle taken from Barry George's coat may not have even come from a gun. He says it should not have been introduced as evidence.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/5314996.stm
“Lord Phillips also said that he and his fellow judges had not seen either of the recent television documentaries - one on Channel 4 the previous night and last week's BBC Panorama programme - which suggested that the case against George was deeply flawed.
At the end of the appeal, he said, the court would consider "the propriety of those broadcasts".
“Mr Clegg had barely started his argument when a man stood up in the public gallery behind him and delivered an impassioned attack on the QC for failing to put the case across properly. "This man is not doing his job," he shouted before he was led out.
He turned out to be Paul Cleeland, who was jailed for murder back in 1972 and who is still trying to prove his innocence, after being released after serving 26 years.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/nov/06/ukcrime.jilldando
-
Michelle Diskin Bates has claimed, far too many times to count, how she heard of Jill Dando’s murder at the time but never really followed the case until her brothers arrest.
I don’t believe this for varying reasons but also because of what she wrote about Jeremy Bamber and how it appears she has had an interest in real crime for many many years
“It was well after midnight on August 6th 1985 and I couldn’t sleep. Switching on the T.V., I absent-mindedly tuned into a news channel. We were living in Co. Cork, in Southern Ireland, and I was joyfully awaiting the birth of our first child who was already overdue, making me feel restless; that was why I was up and about at such an hour.
“Becoming aware of a breaking-news story I began to listen in more closely. A siege was taking place at a farmhouse in England. The broadcaster relayed that five people were inside and there was great fear for their safety. As the story unfolded it became apparent that this was an older couple. A farmer and retired Magistrate, Nevill Bamber and his wife, June; their daughter, Sheila, and her six year old twin sons. https://jeremybamber.blogspot.com/2016/08/justice-is-never-served-by-conviction.html
“Awaking early I was anxious for news, hopefully of a rescue, so I put the News on immediately. The siege was over, police had stormed the house and five bodies had been found inside. I was heartbroken, a whole family! My heart went out to the young man who had waited all night long with the police for news of his family; this was not what he wanted to hear.
Another point is that Michelle Diskin Bates has repeatedly claimed (in her book & during interviews) that because she lived in Ireland they didn’t really get to hear much about UK news. Yet here she is claiming to be watching the news following the White House farm murders?
“Not having lived in the UK since 1973, I hadn’t really been following the case about the senseless murder of a much loved TV presented; it was a crime that had taken place in London and I’d felt somewhat removed from it.
I don’t believe this. Her story gets embellished depending on what medium you listen to or read.
-
Michelle Diskin Bates has claimed, far too many times to count, how she heard of Jill Dando’s murder at the time but never really followed the case until her brothers arrest.
I don’t believe this for varying reasons but also because of what she wrote about Jeremy Bamber and how it appears she has had an interest in real crime for many many years
Another reason for not believing her is because of what her uncle Mike wrote in his book.
“In early May 2000 I visited my sister Margaret in London as part of my summer holidays. Her son Barry had called to see me on the day I arrived, but had left before I got there. Later I mentioned that to one of my brothers who explained that Barry was a little uptight as he was getting a bit of hassle from the police over the Jill Dando murder. I was puzzled, why would the police be interested in him, surely he wasn’t involved? Could he have done it? ‘No no of course not, but the silly prat has been going around talking about the murder and has got the attention of the police’.
-
Another reason for not believing her is because of what her uncle Mike wrote in his book.
“In early May 2000 I visited my sister Margaret in London as part of my summer holidays. Her son Barry had called to see me on the day I arrived, but had left before I got there. Later I mentioned that to one of my brothers who explained that Barry was a little uptight as he was getting a bit of hassle from the police over the Jill Dando murder. I was puzzled, why would the police be interested in him, surely he wasn’t involved? Could he have done it? ‘No no of course not, but the silly prat has been going around talking about the murder and has got the attention of the police’.
Barry George’s uncle Mike continues:
“A couple of days later Margaret told me that the police had recently questioned Barry in her presence and had also searched her house. I felt glad that I hadn’t been there. Barry called around in the evening before Coronation Street ended. Margaret’s lifelong friend Annie was chatting away as she does while I was engrossed in Corrie. After a time I realised that something had changed and then I realised that Annie had stopped talking. I looked over to her and was a little surprised to see her sitting in silence, which is unusual. Barry had a meal and watched a film on Channel 5, a rather nasty film about a woman who was trapped with a murderous psychotic gunman in a camper van. At one stage she managed to get hold of a gun but could not bring herself to shoot the man in the back. ‘She knows what to do but she can’t do it’ said Barry. That sent a shiver down my spine and I stole a sideways glance at him wondering for a moment would he be able to do it, was I sitting next to a murderer? But though I thought he looked a little tense he otherwise seemed much the same as ever and I dismissed the possibility. I didn’t mention the police and neither did he. I wasn’t aware then that he was being followed around by a team of police. I did fear that he might ask me for a drive to Ireland when I was going home the next morning but to my relief he didn’t.
“A couple of weeks after I had returned from my London holiday SKY News reported that police were confident of making a breakthrough in the Jill Dando murder investigation. I told my brother Tom that Barry had been questioned, and he laughed loudly at the idea. It just seemed too ridiculous to him. But the speculation on Sky was gaining momentum and news of an arrest came on Thursday May 25th. Again I tried to warn Tom, saying I hoped it wasn’t Barry. Again he laughed, but I was uneasy, though not seriously worried.
-
WHY did Barry George tell police. re his alibi, he wanted to account for his movements because people had said he was similar in appearance to a photofit of the killer - when the photofit wasn’t released until a couple of days after he’d been to HAFAD.
More importantly WHO told him he looked like the photofit? His mother perhaps? His sister maybe?
WHO Knew Barry George best?
https://jeremybamber.blogspot.com/2016/08/justice-is-never-served-by-conviction.html
Michelle Diskin Bates is renowned for spinning a yarn.
What she doesn’t recognise (And I suspect it’s to do with her lack of insight) is that some of us who were once involved in the moj movement - for want of a better word, see manipulation for what it is.
Her credibility has long been shot to bits.
Barry George’s uncle Mike states:
“As I looked over the papers I felt nauseous, broke out in a sweat and had to push my breakfast away, I felt quite ill and it was not Guinness related. Our great victory now seemed hollow and I later said to David James Smith that it seemed like we had won the battle but lost the war. The Sunday Mirror ‘Exclusive’ had the independent article by Scott Lomax which was much more sympathetic towards Barry, though perhaps not entirely accurate. I was later told that there were threats of legal action over the article and I let it be known that if so I would be a witness for the defendants. Fortunately that Pandora’s Box was never opened. In the Mail on Sunday Jon Roseman revealed that he had never believed that Barry was the killer, instead thinking that Jill was shot by the Serbs. Overall much of the press coverage seemed to insinuate that Barry got away with it, but that he was really guilty. That would seem to reflect the police response. I saw just a little of the SKY News interview but I was not impressed by what I saw and heard. It seemed to me as if Barry was reciting from a script. I almost laughed as he earnestly said that he couldn’t begin to understand what the Dando family was going through. It just didn’t sound like something which he would say without being prompted, I felt they were not his words.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ltgorwROQfwC&pg=PA212&lpg=PA212&dq=Then+there+was+the+body+charged+with+monitoring+Barry+and+smoothing+his+path+back+into+society+under+a+Multi+Agency+Public+Protection+Agreement&source=bl&ots=Osy89OF-cJ&sig=ACfU3U0zgkLRZxktkcCyj-B_-VTf-1st0Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjP_uOK-dvhAhWssKQKHT4IBzYQ6AEwAHoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=Then%20there%20was%20the%20body%20charged%20with%20monitoring%20Barry%20and%20smoothing%20his%20path%20back%20into%20society%20under%20a%20Multi%20Agency%20Public%20Protection%20Agreement&f=false
Would be interesting to hear what Barry George’s uncle Mike thought of his niece and nephews behaviour during their recent TV interviews.
-
Barry George’s uncle Mike Bourke
”Overall much of the press coverage seemed to insinuate that Barry got away with it, but that he was really guilty. That would seem to reflect the police response
Obsessed with visiting Jill Dando's grave and acting more erratically than ever, Barry George is a man on the edge by David Jones 10th October 2008
“During the interview he gave (or rather sold for £80,000) to a down-market tabloid after his release, George insisted he was never fixated with the 37-year-old star, as the prosecution had alleged.
Yet if George wasn't obsessed with Jill at the time she was murdered, he certainly is now.
He spends hour upon hour poring over books and websites about her - and, now, with a breathtaking lack of insight into the likely furore, he aims to travel 150miles from London to the West Country.
“Mr Singh Clair is a Midlands-based freelance journalist who was enlisted by the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation (MOJO) to promote George's cause four years ago, when he was battling to overturn his murder conviction.
He brokered the £80,000 interview deal after George's acquittal, and he is now among the trusted inner circle who proffer assistance to George
In an angry email to me this week, Michelle Diskin claimed her brother was the victim of a media-driven plot designed to smear and intimidate him. George's uncle on his mother's side, Michael Bourke fears that the police, having ultimately failed to nail him for murder, might be trying to frame him. It could be like O. J. Simpson - you get him second time around,' he said. His mother said much the same when I spoke to her at her West London home. 'I'm very worried for Barry,' she said. 'How can he be happy when they're all out to get him?'
The George family, incidentally, have been torn apart by in-fighting since their 'Free Barry' crusade ended.
Limerick bus-driver Mr Bourke, 53, is estranged from the main George camp for suggesting that the Miscarriages of Justice outfit might be self-serving.
He also questioned the wisdom of parading his nephew (who, in the words of one friend 'can't tell the difference between fame and infamy') before the TV cameras just hours after he was freed.
Of course, all this turmoil is just what a volatile character like George does not need, as he struggles to adjust to the real world after eight years inside.
In the grim appraisal of Ian Horrocks, the retired Scotland Yard detective who was number two on the original Dando murder inquiry, George is still a 'danger to women' and in need of constant supervision.
-
Barry George was I believe diagnosed as having a narcissistic personality disorder or traits of?
What causes personality disorders?
“Research suggests that genetics, abuse and other factors contribute to the development of obsessive-compulsive, narcissistic or other personality disorders.
In the past, some believed that people with personality disorders were just lazy or even evil. But new research has begun to explore such potential causes as genetics, parenting and peer influences:https://www.apa.org/topics/personality/disorders-causes
What is narcissistic personality disorder?
The word narcissism gets tossed around a lot in our selfie-obsessed, celebrity-driven culture, often to describe someone who seems excessively vain or full of themselves. But in psychological terms, narcissism doesn’t mean self-love—at least not of a genuine sort. It’s more accurate to say that people with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) are in love with an idealized, grandiose image of themselves. And they’re in love with this inflated self-image precisely because it allows them to avoid deep feelings of insecurity. But propping up their delusions of grandeur takes a lot of work—and that’s where the dysfunctional attitudes and behaviors come in.
Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) involves a pattern of self-centered, arrogant thinking and behavior, a lack of empathy and consideration for other people, and an excessive need for admiration. Others often describe people with NPD as cocky, manipulative, selfish, patronizing, and demanding. This way of thinking and behaving surfaces in every area of the narcissist’s life: from work and friendships to family and love relationships.
People with narcissistic personality disorder are extremely resistant to changing their behavior, even when it’s causing them problems. Their tendency is to turn the blame on to others. What’s more, they are extremely sensitive and react badly to even the slightest criticisms, disagreements, or perceived slights, which they view as personal attacks. For the people in the narcissist’s life, it’s often easier just to go along with their demands to avoid the coldness and rages.
Signs and symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder
Grandiose sense of self-importance
Grandiosity is the defining characteristic of narcissism. More than just arrogance or vanity, grandiosity is an unrealistic sense of superiority. Narcissists believe they are unique or “special” and can only be understood by other special people. What’s more, they are too good for anything average or ordinary. They only want to associate and be associated with other high-status people, places, and things.
Narcissists also believe that they’re better than everyone else and expect recognition as such—even when they’ve done nothing to earn it. They will often exaggerate or outright lie about their achievements and talents. And when they talk about work or relationships, all you’ll hear is how much they contribute, how great they are, and how lucky the people in their lives are to have them. They are the undisputed star and everyone else is at best a bit player.
Lives in a fantasy world that supports their delusions of grandeur
Since reality doesn’t support their grandiose view of themselves, narcissists live in a fantasy world propped up by distortion, self-deception, and magical thinking. They spin self-glorifying fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, attractiveness, and ideal love that make them feel special and in control. These fantasies protect them from feelings of inner emptiness and shame, so facts and opinions that contradict them are ignored or rationalized away. Anything that threatens to burst the fantasy bubble is met with extreme defensiveness and even rage, so those around the narcissist learn to tread carefully around their denial of reality.
Needs constant praise and admiration
A narcissist’s sense of superiority is like a balloon that gradually loses air without a steady stream of applause and recognition to keep it inflated. The occasional compliment is not enough. Narcissists need constant food for their ego, so they surround themselves with people who are willing to cater to their obsessive craving for affirmation. These relationships are very one-sided. It’s all about what the admirer can do for the narcissist, never the other way around. And if there is ever an interruption or diminishment in the admirer’s attention and praise, the narcissist treats it as a betrayal.
Sense of entitlement
Because they consider themselves special, narcissists expect favorable treatment as their due. They truly believe that whatever they want, they should get. They also expect the people around them to automatically comply with their every wish and whim. That is their only value. If you don’t anticipate and meet their every need, then you’re useless. And if you have the nerve to defy their will or “selfishly” ask for something in return, prepare yourself for aggression, outrage, or the cold shoulder.
Exploits others without guilt or shame
Narcissists never develop the ability to identify with the feelings of others—to put themselves in other people’s shoes. In other words, they lack empathy. In many ways, they view the people in their lives as objects—there to serve their needs. As a consequence, they don’t think twice about taking advantage of others to achieve their own ends. Sometimes this interpersonal exploitation is malicious, but often it is simply oblivious. Narcissists simply don’t think about how their behavior affects others. And if you point it out, they still won’t truly get it. The only thing they understand is their own needs.
Frequently demeans, intimidates, bullies, or belittles others
Narcissists feel threatened whenever they encounter someone who appears to have something they lack—especially those who are confident and popular. They’re also threatened by people who don’t kowtow to them or who challenge them in any way. Their defense mechanism is contempt. The only way to neutralize the threat and prop up their own sagging ego is to put those people down. They may do it in a patronizing or dismissive way as if to demonstrate how little the other person means to them. Or they may go on the attack with insults, name-calling, bullying, and threats to force the other person back into line.
https://www.helpguide.org/articles/mental-disorders/narcissistic-personality-disorder.htm/
-
What’s New in Narcissism?
“Narcissism is definitely one of the hot button topics in psychology. The term comes from the legend of Narcissus, the mythical Greek nymph who fell in love with his own reflection in the water. Transfixed by this image, which he did not recognize as his own, he was unable to leave the pool and died.
It was not until the early 20th Century that the myth of Narcissus became embraced by psychology. According to Freud, narcissism is a normal stage of development, when infants need to love themselves to survive. The pathological condition develops when infants fail to overcome this normal phase, called “primary narcissism.” When all goes well, primary narcissism becomes the basis for healthy self-love on which we build a solid sense of our self-worth and identity.
Freud believed, then, that a certain amount of self-love is essential for having a positive approach to yourself and your life. Following Freud’s ideas, other psychoanalysts defined a phase early in life in which children have a grandiose sort of narcissism in which they see themselves as capable of anything. Over time, children’s narcissism transforms into a more realistic view of what they can accomplish. In both theories, the child’s family plays an important role in setting the path from healthy narcissism to healthy, and more limited, self-regard.
Narcissism wasn’t considered a psychological disorder until 1980 when the psychiatrists who developed the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Diseases (DSM) decided to introduce it as an official term in the nomenclature. Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), as it was called, was intended to fit a pattern of behavior in which an individual shows such behaviors as excessive grandiosity, attention-seeking, and sensitivity to being rejected or ignored. In the revision of the DSM slated for 2013, the working groups on personality disorder diagnoses tentatively decided to scrap the diagnosis. Ironically enough, a loud clamoring by clinicians to preserve the NPD diagnosis occurred and now it will still qualify as its own diagnosis.
Apart from the diagnostic disputes, narcissism remains an area of focus in personality and abnormal psychology that continues to – shall we say- draw attention. In a recent issue of the Journal of Clinical Psychology: In Session, Dr. Donna Bender (2012) organized a series of papers to help advance our knowledge of the way that narcissism is conceived of and treated. Her summary of these papers provides us with a brief and useful snapshot to summarize the status of the official diagnosis and an understanding, even more importantly, of its cultural and social connections. These points show where narcissism is and where it is going as an area of study in psychology:
1.No one agrees on how to define narcissism. This is a little bit of a disappointment, I suppose. It would be nice to tie up the definition with a bow and present it clearly to you. However, although the myth of Narcissus is itself pretty straightforward, the way that mental health practitioners and researchers pin down the specifics of the disorder is surprisingly murky and difficult to measure. The basic criteria include feeling grandiosely self-important, fantasizing that you have unlimited power, believing that you are “special,” needing to be admired, feeling entitled, exploiting others, being unable to empathize with others, jealous, and arrogant. Quite a collection of undesirable traits, is it not? And this is the heart of the diagnostic problem, according to Bender. The people who came up with these diagnostic criteria may be showing just a bit of what psychoanalysts call “countertransference” meaning that they don’t like working with narcissistic clients and so paint them with an overly negative label. If we move beyond those pejorative terms, as the newest DSM authors hope to do, we could avoid these harsh terms and instead rate people with more neutral terms such as identity, empathy, intimacy, and self-direction. To diagnose someone with NPD, you would not just check off their negative traits, but scale them from high to low on these dimensions.
2. Narcissism can be healthy and begins as a normal part of development. It’s not always bad to be narcissistic, at least early in life. If we stamp out all forms of narcissism, including those that exist in childhood, we could run the risk of creating a generation of children who lack a foundation of healthy self-regard. Children develop into adults who accept themselves more realistically when their parents have propped up their self-esteem early in life. It’s not only the Freudians who believe this, either. Carl Rogers and other humanistic theorists talk about “unconditional positive regard” as a parenting style that can help children accept themselves rather than feeling that they constantly have to meet someone else’s expectations.
3. Narcissism isn’t an all-or-none thing. When the DSM authors considered dropping narcissistic personality disorder as its own category, they thought that they could do the condition more justice by making it a dimensional rating. As Bender indicated in point #1 above, mental health workers may be more accepting of their clients who have this personality disorder if they rate them along a continuous dimension. Similarly, if you’re thinking about the people you know, it’s important not to throw the narcissistic label around just because they strike you as selfish and self-centered. When it comes to thinking about yourself, it’s also helpful to realize that you may be a little bit narcissistic (especially if you hear this enough from other people) but it doesn’t mean you’re a hopeless case. If we think of narcissism as a dimension instead of a category, it provides hope that people can slide up or down that scale as they (or you) learn from life experiences to be more empathetic and less attention-seeking.
4. Social and familial factors help to shape narcissism. Bender brings up this next important point, one that is too often neglected when we think about this personality disorder. It’s easy to blame someone for being too self-centered and egotistical and attribute these behaviors to a personal flaw or failing. However, people who suffer from pathological narcissism may have received not too much, but too little attention and acceptance by their parents. Their outward grandiosity covers up their fundamental insecurities, the result of having been rejected or devalued by their parents. They’re constantly hoping that someone will fulfill their need to be admired and accepted. In extreme cases, their actual sense of self becomes indistinguishable from their ideal self, and they seek the approval only of those people who they see as up to their unrealistically high standards. Called by one psychoanalyst “malignant narcissism,” people with this form of pathology can’t get intimate with anyone because they can’t find anyone who they think is qualified enough to evaluate or judge them.
5. Pathological narcissism may be fairly common and even on the rise. It’s undoubtedly come to your attention that in a society focused on “me” time, amplified by minute-by-minute Facebook and Twitter updates, narcissism is becoming a fact of life. Back in 1979, author Christopher Lasch wrote The Culture of Narcissism” in which he argued that the individualism of Western society is leading us to pursue happiness above all else. When all we care about is our own feelings of comfort and well-being, it’s hard for us to care about anyone else’s. Considering that the era of all these me-focused social media were far distant on the horizon, Lasch’s work seems especially prescient. Reality shows, from Honey Boo Boo to MTV’s Real World only reinforce the focus on the self. Bender suggests that the proposal that narcissism is becoming a more prominent social disease may have some truth in that the diagnosis of NPD is becoming more prevalent among young adults. Again, this begs the question of whether we should blame the narcissists for their own disorder or the society in which everyone has become just that much more self-focused.
Now that you’re up on the narcissism news, how can you use this to improve your life? I think the findings can help you understand that not all narcissists really want to be that way. If at their core they are insecure and afraid of being criticized, you might be more sympathetic to your narcissistic friends. You can also realize that people can change, especially if they are helped to feel more secure and grounded. This doesn’t mean that you won’t be annoyed, angered, and even hurt by someone whose narcissism is out of control. However, if you put their behaviors into perspective, you’ll at least be able to feel less likely to think the problem rests within you. Finally, therapy can work to help people with narcissism become more empathetic, less inwardly self-critical, and more in touch with their problematic feelings. Great narcissists may be made and not born, but with the right kind of intervention, they can be tamed.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201211/what-s-new-in-narcissism
-
6 Common Traits of Narcissists and Gaslighters
“Psychologist Stephen Johnson writes that a narcissist is someone who has “buried his true self-expression in response to early injuries and replaced it with a highly developed, compensatory false self.” This alternate persona often comes across as grandiose, “above others,” self-absorbed, and highly conceited.
Gaslighting is a form of persistent manipulation and brainwashing that causes the victim to doubt her or himself, and to ultimately lose one’s own sense of perception, identity, and self-worth. A gaslighter’s statements and accusations are often based on deliberate falsehoods and calculated marginalization. The term gaslighting is derived from the 1944 film Gaslight, where a husband tries to convince his wife that she’s insane by causing her to question herself and her reality.
Multiple studies and writings have been done on the impact of narcissism and gaslighting on relationships(1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6). While each of these often destructive pathologies is unique, there are certain behavioral overlaps. Following are six common traits, with references from my books: "How to Successfully Handle Narcissists" and "How to Successfully Handle Gaslighters & Stop Psychological Bullying". Not all narcissists and gaslighters possess every characteristic identified below. However, chronic narcissists and gaslighters are likely to exhibit at least several of the following on a regular basis.
1. Frequent Lies and Exaggerations
Both narcissists and gaslighters are prone to frequent lies and exaggerations (about themselves and others), and have the tendency of lifting themselves up by putting others down. While narcissists often strive to make themselves seem superior and “special” by showing off, bragging, taking undeserved credit, and other forms of self-aggrandizement, gaslighters tend to concentrate on making you feel inferior through false accusations, constant criticism, and psychological intimidation. Both narcissists and gaslighters can be adept at distortion of facts, deliberate falsehoods, character assassinations, and negative coercions. One key difference is that while the narcissist lies and exaggerates to boost their fragile self-worth, the gaslighter does so to augment their domination and control.
2. Rarely Admit Flaws and Are Highly Aggressive When Criticized
Many narcissists and gaslighters have thin skin and can react poorly when called to account for their negative behavior. When challenged, the narcissist is likely to either fight (e.g., temper tantrum, excuse-making, denial, blame, hypersensitivity, etc.) or take flight (bolt out the door, avoidance, silent treatment, sulking resentment, or other forms of passive-aggression). The gaslighter nearly always resorts to escalation by doubling or tripling down on their false accusations or coercions, to intimidate or oppress their opponent. Many gaslighters view relationships as inherently competitive rather than collaborative; a zero-sum game where one is either a winner or a loser, on top or at the bottom. “Offense is the best defense” is a mantra for many gaslighters, which also represents their aggressive method of relating to people.
3. False Image Projection
“My husband always wants people to see him as successful, powerful, and envy-worthy, no matter how shaky his real life actually is.” —Anonymous partner of narcissist
Both narcissists and gaslighters tend to project false, idealized images of themselves to the world, in order to hide their inner insecurities. Many narcissists like to impress others by making themselves look good externally. This “trophy complex" can exhibit itself physically, romantically, sexually, socially, religiously, financially, materially, professionally, academically, or culturally. The underlying message of this display is: “I’m better than you!” or “Look at how special I am — I’m worthy of everyone’s love, admiration, and acceptance!”
Gaslighters, on the other hand, often create an idealized self-image of being the dominant, suppressive alpha male or female in personal relationships, at the workplace, or in high-profile positions of society (such as politics and media). Many gaslighters like to view themselves falsely as all-powerful and strong, capable of dishing out judgments and penalties at will. Pathological gaslighters often take pride and boost themselves up by marginalizing those whom they perceive as weaker, believing that the meek deserve their downtrodden fate. They attack their victims with direct or subtle cruelty and contempt, gaining sadistic pleasure from these offenses, and betraying a lack of empathy and humanity.
In essence, narcissists want others to worship them, while gaslighters want others to submit to them. In a big way, these external facades become pivotal parts of their false identities, replacing the real and insecure self.
4. Rule Breaking and Boundary Violation
Many narcissists and gaslighters enjoy getting away with violating rules and social norms. Examples of narcissistic trespass include cutting in line, chronic under-tipping, personal space intrusion, borrowing items without returning, using other’s properties without asking, disobeying traffic laws, breaking appointments, and negating promises. Examples of gaslighting trespass include direct or subtle marginalizing remarks, public or private shaming and humiliation, sardonic humor and sarcastic comments, internet trolling, angry and hateful speech, and virulent attacks on undesirable individuals and groups.
Both narcissist and gaslighter boundary violations presume entitlement, with a narrow, egocentric orientation that oppresses and de-humanizes their victims. In severe cases, this boundary violation pathology may result in illicit and underhanded dealings, financial abuse, sexual harassment, date rape, domestic abuse, hate crimes, human rights violations, and other forms of criminality. Many narcissists and gaslighters take pride in their destructive behaviors, as their machinations provide them with a hollow (and desperate) sense of superiority and privilege.
5. Emotional Invalidation and Coercion
Although narcissists and gaslighters can be (but are not always) physically abusive, for the majority of their victims, emotional suffering is where the damage is most painfully felt. Both narcissists and gaslighters enjoy spreading and arousing negative emotions in order to feel powerful, and keep you insecure and off-balance. They habitually invalidate others’ thoughts, feelings, and priorities, showing little remorse for causing people in their lives pain. They often blame their victims for having caused their own victimization (“You wouldn’t get yelled at if you weren’t so stupid!”).
In addition, many narcissists and gaslighters have unpredictable mood swings and are prone to emotional drama — you never know what might displease them and set them off. They become upset at any signs of independence and self-affirmation (“Who do you think you are!?”). They turn agitated if you disagree with their views or fail to meet their expectations. As mentioned earlier, they are sensitive to criticism, but quick to judge others. By keeping you down and making you feel inferior, they boost their fragile ego, and feel more reassured about themselves.
6. Manipulation: The Use or Control of Others as an Extension of Oneself
Both narcissists and gaslighters have a tendency to make decisions for others to suit their own agenda. Narcissists may use their romantic partner, child, family, friend, or colleague to meet unreasonable self-serving needs, fulfill unrealized dreams, or cover-up weaknesses and shortcomings. Narcissists are also fond of using guilt, blame, and victimhood as manipulative devices.
Gaslighters conduct psychological manipulation toward individuals and groups through persistent distortion of the truth, with the intention of causing their victims to question themselves and feel less confident. In personal and/or professional environments, they manipulate by micromanaging (controlling) relationships, including telling others how they should think, feel, and behave under the gaslighter’s unreasonable restrictions and scrutiny. They often become critical, angry, intimidating, and/or hostile toward those who fail to bow down to their directives. Gaslighter manipulation is often highly aggressive, with punitive measures (tangible or psychological) executed toward those who fail to recognize and obey their self-perceived authority.
Perhaps the biggest distinction between narcissists and gaslighters is that narcissists use and exploit, and gaslighters dominate and control. While the narcissist does so to compensate for a desperate sense of deficiency (of being unloved as the real self), the gaslighter does so to hide their ever-present insecurity (of being powerless and losing control). Both of these pathological types betray an inability and/or unwillingness to relate to people genuinely and equitably as human beings. They become “special” and “superior” by being less human and by de-humanizing others.
In the worst-case scenario, some individuals possess traits of both narcissism and gaslighting. This is a highly toxic and destructive combination of vanity, manipulation, bullying, and abuse — all unleashed in order to compensate for the perpetrator’s deep-seated sense of inadequacy and fear.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/communication-success/201707/6-common-traits-narcissists-and-gaslighters
-
“I suspect Michelle Diskin Bates, like many of us, is fully aware of Mark Williams Thomas’ behaviour but chooses to carry on regardless in the hope her disingenuous behaviours, along with his, will all disappear.
There is no mention in either Michelle Diskin Bates book or her uncle Mike Bourke’ s book regarding the following claims made by Mark Williams Thomas (& Nick Dorman):
Jill Dando murder: Cops tried honeytrap to get Barry George to confess to her murder
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jill-dando-murder-cops-tried-5431123
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/gallery/barry-george-police-honeytrap-operation-5431175
-
During this interview - Michelle Diskin Bates makes the disingenuous claim that everyone believes Jill Dando was murdered by a hitman!
The police don’t believe it, her family and friends don’t believe it, Nick Ross does’t believe it and many journalists don’t believe it...... I could go on
They believe a misguided individual murdered Jill Dando and Barry George fits that description 100%.
There is no mention anywhere in the book Stand Against Injustice where Michelle Diskin Bates offers guidance to Barry George, which in itself is a red flag. His offending behaviour is minimised throughout the book and during all public interviews.
On 26th April Michelle Diskin Bates implies Hamish Campbell has “lost the plot.”
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
Apr 26
Somebody's lost the plot!
Jill Dando’s diaries point to her ‘being murdered by a stranger’, says cop who led hunt for her...
JILL Dando’s personal diaries point to her being murdered by a stranger, says the cop who led the hunt for her killer. The Crimewatch presenter’s intimate thoughts show that she did not feel under …
thesun.co.uk
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1121861952727322625
What is interesting about Michelle Diskin Bates behaviour is the fact she cannot back up any of her assertions with factual evidence, rather than help her cause it has the opposite effect.
CCRC
@ccrcupdate
Tonight's BBC programme #TheMurderofJillDando looks interesting and
@ccrcupdate
recalls the CCRC's June 2007 referral for appeal of Barry George's murder conviction. His appeal succeeded and he was acquitted at a retrial.
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
Apr 2
Replying to
@ccrcupdate
Not so much interesting for Barry, as scary! He’s been battling for justice for 19yrs, then the officer who was responsible for his wrongful conviction is given a platform on BBC to say ‘no one else was being sought for this crime’ how else would he be feeling? Disgraceful!
https://mobile.twitter.com/ccrcupdate/status/1113074556862976001
WHY would Barry George be scared if what his sister Michelle Diskin Bates claims is true, then appear on an ITV documentary a few weeks later? The ITV documentary, which included her interview and her brothers interview, was made in advance of it’s airing.
The BBC documentary first aired on BBC1 on Tue 2 Apr 2019 @ 21:00 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0003w40
And from this article in The Sunday Times, dated April 14 2019, Barry George and his sister has already been interviewed.
Interestingly, Crazy making behaviour is often behavior that is a projection from the person who is crazy making onto the person who is being crazy made. It is behavior that is not logical, not based on truth but on manipulating the other person into feeling wrong and changing their behavior
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/crazy-making_n_5860048
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Watch this space...the must-see 👁 documentary! 😊🙃💪🏼
This is the documentary that will air on next Thursday at 9pm. In this programme you will learn far more than you ever have before😎 Both Barry and myself have taken part.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1119322847074299904
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Good grief...people don’t have enough work to do! #getalife There are more important things to get agitated about than TV presenters.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1118096335436165120
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Please everyone, share on...I really want people to view this. More info soon 🤗♥️😸
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1119349775785132034
When someone’s words do not match their behaviour this is a red flag and no amount of emotional manipulation, as I see it, will further Barry George’s cause.
-
CCRC
@ccrcupdate
Tonight's BBC programme #TheMurderofJillDando looks interesting and
@ccrcupdate
recalls the CCRC's June 2007 referral for appeal of Barry George's murder conviction. His appeal succeeded and he was acquitted at a retrial.
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
Apr 2
Replying to
@ccrcupdate
Not so much interesting for Barry, as scary! He’s been battling for justice for 19yrs, then the officer who was responsible for his wrongful conviction is given a platform on BBC to say ‘no one else was being sought for this crime’ how else would he be feeling? Disgraceful!
https://mobile.twitter.com/ccrcupdate/status/1113074556862976001
WHY would Barry George be scared if what his sister Michelle Diskin Bates claims is true, then appear on an ITV documentary a few weeks later? The ITV documentary, which included her interview and her brothers interview, was made in advance of it’s airing.
The BBC documentary first aired on BBC1 on Tue 2 Apr 2019 @ 21:00 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0003w40
And from this article in The Sunday Times, dated April 14 2019, Barry George and his sister has already been interviewed.
Interestingly, Crazy making behaviour is often behavior that is a projection from the person who is crazy making onto the person who is being crazy made. It is behavior that is not logical, not based on truth but on manipulating the other person into feeling wrong and changing their behavior
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/crazy-making_n_5860048
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Watch this space...the must-see 👁 documentary! 😊🙃💪🏼
This is the documentary that will air on next Thursday at 9pm. In this programme you will learn far more than you ever have before😎 Both Barry and myself have taken part.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1119322847074299904
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Good grief...people don’t have enough work to do! #getalife There are more important things to get agitated about than TV presenters.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1118096335436165120
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Please everyone, share on...I really want people to view this. More info soon 🤗♥️😸
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1119349775785132034
When someone’s words do not match their behaviour this is a red flag and no amount of emotional manipulation, as I see it, will further Barry George’s cause.
Interesting projections, in response to Mark Williams Thomas.
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
2 Apr
This is just betraying the Dando family further, they’ve been lied to for 19years. Not to mention us 😢
https://mobile.twitter.com/mwilliamsthomas/status/1113200690321612800
-
Interesting projections, in response to Mark Williams Thomas.
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
2 Apr
This is just betraying the Dando family further, they’ve been lied to for 19years. Not to mention us 😢
https://mobile.twitter.com/mwilliamsthomas/status/1113200690321612800
Barry George’s uncle Mike claimed:
“I saw just a little of the SKY News interview but I was not impressed by what I saw and heard. It seemed to me as if Barry was reciting from a script. I almost laughed as he earnestly said that he couldn’t begin to understand what the Dando family was going through. It just didn’t sound like something which he would say without being prompted, I felt they were not his words.
I got the strong sense Michelle Diskin Bates and Barry George’s words were scripted (From their imaginations) in their recent ITV & GMB interviews; wonder if Mike Bourke felt the same?
My impression of the pair of them is that they are hiding a secret, and are codependent on each other and
Michelle Diskin Bates became her brothers enabler many years ago.
”Codependency is a behavioral condition in a relationship where one person enables another person's addiction, poor mental health, immaturity, irresponsibility, or under-achievement. Among the core characteristics of codependency is an excessive reliance on other people for approval and a sense of identity.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codependency
Enabling Behavior and Codependency
https://greatoaksrecovery.com/enabling-behavior-and-codependency/
-
Barry George’s uncle Mike claimed:
“I saw just a little of the SKY News interview but I was not impressed by what I saw and heard. It seemed to me as if Barry was reciting from a script. I almost laughed as he earnestly said that he couldn’t begin to understand what the Dando family was going through. It just didn’t sound like something which he would say without being prompted, I felt they were not his words.
I got the strong sense Michelle Diskin Bates and Barry George’s words were scripted (From their imaginations) in their recent ITV & GMB interviews; wonder if Mike Bourke felt the same?
My impression of the pair of them is that they are hiding a secret, and are codependent on each other and
Michelle Diskin Bates became her brothers enabler many years ago.
”Codependency is a behavioral condition in a relationship where one person enables another person's addiction, poor mental health, immaturity, irresponsibility, or under-achievement. Among the core characteristics of codependency is an excessive reliance on other people for approval and a sense of identity.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codependency
Enabling Behavior and Codependency
https://greatoaksrecovery.com/enabling-behavior-and-codependency/
I don’t suppose they’ve given much consideration to the following
“Hamish Campbell was the officer in charge after the Crimewatch host, 37, was shot 20 years ago this month.
He said: “What remains outstanding is the handgun.
“If that were to be discovered, and could be directly attributed to a person, and that person’s timeline determined for April 1999, then perhaps matters could progress.
“But after two decades, it becomes a remote possibility.
“The Dando investigation is clear on what evidence it has at a forensic level, and what the witnesses said they saw or heard or knew in 1999. They remain unchanged.”
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jill-dandos-killer-only-caught-14446069
-
Barry George’s uncle Mike claimed:
“I saw just a little of the SKY News interview but I was not impressed by what I saw and heard. It seemed to me as if Barry was reciting from a script. I almost laughed as he earnestly said that he couldn’t begin to understand what the Dando family was going through. It just didn’t sound like something which he would say without being prompted, I felt they were not his words.
I got the strong sense Michelle Diskin Bates and Barry George’s words were scripted (From their imaginations) in their recent ITV & GMB interviews; wonder if Mike Bourke felt the same?
My impression of the pair of them is that they are hiding a secret, and are codependent on each other and
Michelle Diskin Bates became her brothers enabler many years ago.
”Codependency is a behavioral condition in a relationship where one person enables another person's addiction, poor mental health, immaturity, irresponsibility, or under-achievement. Among the core characteristics of codependency is an excessive reliance on other people for approval and a sense of identity.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codependency
Enabling Behavior and Codependency
https://greatoaksrecovery.com/enabling-behavior-and-codependency/
“People who have a codependent relationship where there is a lot of enabling going on often think they have a great love for the person they enable. Actually, it is a limited love that is often based on their own codependent needs to control and enmesh. Enabling behavior and codependency lead not to intimate loving relationships but to pain and estrangement.
Enmeshment is a concept in psychology and psychotherapy introduced by Salvador Minuchin (1921-2017) to describe families where personal boundaries are diffused, sub-systems undifferentiated, and over-concern for others leads to a loss of autonomous development.[1] Enmeshed in parental needs, trapped in a discrepant role function,[2] a child may lose their capacity for self-direction;[3] their own distinctiveness, under the weight of "psychic incest";[4] and, if family pressures increase, may end up becoming the identified patient or family scapegoat.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enmeshment
https://www.thrivetalk.com/enmeshment/
-
Barry George’s uncle Mike claimed:
“I saw just a little of the SKY News interview but I was not impressed by what I saw and heard. It seemed to me as if Barry was reciting from a script. I almost laughed as he earnestly said that he couldn’t begin to understand what the Dando family was going through. It just didn’t sound like something which he would say without being prompted, I felt they were not his words.
I got the strong sense Michelle Diskin Bates and Barry George’s words were scripted (From their imaginations) in their recent ITV & GMB interviews; wonder if Mike Bourke felt the same?
My impression of the pair of them is that they are hiding a secret, and are codependent on each other and
Michelle Diskin Bates became her brothers enabler many years ago.
”Codependency is a behavioral condition in a relationship where one person enables another person's addiction, poor mental health, immaturity, irresponsibility, or under-achievement. Among the core characteristics of codependency is an excessive reliance on other people for approval and a sense of identity.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codependency
Enabling Behavior and Codependency
https://greatoaksrecovery.com/enabling-behavior-and-codependency/
In her book Michelle Diskin Bates writes about having signed herself into a psychiatric ward in 1997 after what she describes as, “my mind was imploding, “I was a mental wreck, my mind was psychologically impaired.
She appears to link it to her home life at the time, which she claims was “humdrum, tedious and unfulfilling,” And apparently told her psychiatrist, when they asked her if she were suicidal, “no but if I go home I’ll kill myself.”
At some point, following what she says was her psychiatrist’s suggestion, she appears to have enrolled on a psychology course of some description? She doesn’t say what kind of course it was nor if she completed the course? However not long after this we know that Jill Dando was murdered and her brother subsequently arrested and charged with murder.
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀 Retweeted
Don Hale OBE
@perryscope21
The documentary was very biased and one sided. Nothing new. No interview with Barry George and his family, no acknowledgement Campbell made a complete hash of the police inquiry and no apology to an innocent man.
Quote Tweet
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
· Apr 3
“...undeveloped film, and a collection of cuttings about Dando.”
Is it only Hamish Campbell who doesn’t know this is a lie? Two trials both knew there were no cuttings, underlining or other markings on the magazines. Campbell saw cuttings?
(link: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/apr/02/the-murder-of-jill-dando-review) theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2…
8:36 AM · Apr 4, 2019 · Twitter Web Client
14
Retweets
17
Likes
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
Apr 4
Replying to
@perryscope21
Thank you Don. No ‘right of reply’ either. They spoke with me on courtesy calls, but no warning as to the content. The only thing they did was to NOT describe Barry’s autism in disparaging terms...oddball, weirdo. They obviously couldn’t find a better word for Loner though 😡
5
4
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
Apr 4
Replying to
@perryscope21
The programme shocked me, it was outrageous that they gave an ex cop, of a failed investigation a huge platform, then used leading questions to reach their objective. They knew my book outlines the flaws in the investigation, but chose to sideline that.
https://mobile.twitter.com/perryscope21/status/1113706820693102592
*&^^&
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀 Retweeted
Don Hale OBE
@perryscope21
The documentary was very biased and one sided. Nothing new. No interview with Barry George and his family, no acknowledgement Campbell made a complete hash of the police inquiry and no apology to an innocent man.
Quote Tweet
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
· Apr 3
“...undeveloped film, and a collection of cuttings about Dando.”
Is it only Hamish Campbell who doesn’t know this is a lie? Two trials both knew there were no cuttings, underlining or other markings on the magazines. Campbell saw cuttings?
(link: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/apr/02/the-murder-of-jill-dando-review) theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2…
8:36 AM · Apr 4, 2019 · Twitter Web Client
14
Retweets
17
Likes
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
Apr 4
Replying to
@perryscope21
Thank you Don. No ‘right of reply’ either. They spoke with me on courtesy calls, but no warning as to the content. The only thing they did was to NOT describe Barry’s autism in disparaging terms...oddball, weirdo. They obviously couldn’t find a better word for Loner though 😡
5
4
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
Apr 4
Replying to
@perryscope21
The programme shocked me, it was outrageous that they gave an ex cop, of a failed investigation a huge platform, then used leading questions to reach their objective. They knew my book outlines the flaws in the investigation, but chose to sideline that.
https://mobile.twitter.com/perryscope21/status/1113706820693102592
*&^^&
Appears to me because she has the likes of Dr Michael Naughton’s endorsement of her book it would give it some of credibility. It doesn’t!
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Okay...where did this come from? A transcript?
The 'restricted' transcript which claimed Liverpool gangsters were linked to Jill Dando murder - Liverpool Echo
Transcript claimed Liverpool gangsters were linked to Jill Dando murder
ECHO reveals full unredacted copy of a secret recording and the real story behind it
liverpoolecho.co.uk
8:33 PM · Apr 7, 2019 · Twitter for iPad
3
Retweets
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
Apr 7
Replying to
@Michelle_Diskin
Two trials took place and the investigation was subject to an internal review. If any new information comes to our attention then this will be investigated."
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1114974492521054208
Hum, I wonder? Who had access to “restricted” and sensitive case papers? Who did Barry George and Michelle Diskin Bates appear to allow free reign? *&^^&
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀 Retweeted
Prof David Wilson
@ProfDavidWilson
Watching #JillDando on #BBC1 - serious and sober but 1. The miscarriage against George is significant and the circumstances of it typical of other miscarriages; 2. Why a contract killing was ruled out still baffles and is for me the most likely scenario
https://mobile.twitter.com/ProfDavidWilson/status/1113184617966825473
*&^^&
Maybe if he read “Stand Against Injustice and “Mike’s Story he’d change his mind?
Sandra Lean
@SandraLean5
The murder of Jill Dando - another case of police choosing an easy target, ignoring everything else and refusing to consider they might have the wrong man. How can we call this justice?
(link: https://player.stv.tv/episode/3rz2/dando-mystery/) player.stv.tv/episode/3rz2/d… …
https://mobile.twitter.com/SandraLean5/status/1121703077122330624
Poppy Ann Miller™
@PoppyMeze
Wondering why the case of Barry George, who, having been totally absolved of #JillDando's murder, is considered by the #BBC to be worthy or a re-run. No-ones's getting worried about this book are they? (link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stand-Against-Injustice-wrongly-convicted-ebook/dp/B07JFZSF6V/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Barry+George&qid=1554238766&s=digital-text&sr=1-1) amazon.co.uk/Stand-Against-…
@Michelle_Diskin
https://mobile.twitter.com/PoppyMeze/status/1113185065482235904
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀 Retweeted
Prof David Wilson
@ProfDavidWilson
Watching #JillDando on #BBC1 - serious and sober but 1. The miscarriage against George is significant and the circumstances of it typical of other miscarriages; 2. Why a contract killing was ruled out still baffles and is for me the most likely scenario
https://mobile.twitter.com/ProfDavidWilson/status/1113184617966825473
*&^^&
Maybe if he read “Stand Against Injustice and “Mike’s Story he’d change his mind?
Then again..
“This video is very interesting. Julie Walters (one of my favourite actresses and I won't have a bad word said about her) is clearly reading from an auto cue. She says that the video is co-produced by a Children's charity, child protection experts and a criminologist.
If you look at the introductory video you will find the following:
Written by: Mark Williams-Thomas and Professor David Wilson
Produced by: Mark Williams-Thomas
Directed by: Professor David Wilson (MWT studied at Birmingham City University under David Wilson)
Lead Animator: Jack Millard (I've looked him up but can only find a web designer)
There is absolutely NO mention of a charity on the introduction video of this website.
Prior to the video Julie Walters is heralded as an award winning actress (once again I love Julie Walter's work and won't have anything horrid said about her) but she's then further introduced as 'known to many of the new generations as Ron Weasley's mum.' (it's always good to get a bit of Harry Potter in there). However, this video which is charged for is aimed at and I quote "Aimed at teachers, parents, youth workers and others who work with children and young people."
The DVD is now sold out. Who was it sold to? How many teachers, parents, youth workers and others who work with children and young people bought it? If it was so popular why aren't there more? Did education authorities buy it?
https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t7547p30-the-mark-williams-thomas-thread
Mark Williams Thomas
“After that, I got the opportunity to return as a lecturer, on the Crime Analysis module, where I talked about how crime is reported and how the media affects the public’s perception of crime. To put myself in the students’ shoes, there’s nothing better than learning from someone who is a practitioner; someone who can say ‘this is the reality, this is what it’s like’ and can contextualise things. You can read a book but it’s better to do it. And what I think I can also do is show that there are opportunities out there; if you are driven and focused and make yourself available, there is work to be had.
https://www.bcu.ac.uk/social-sciences/criminology/employability/mark-williams-thomas
-
There is no mention in either Michelle Diskin Bates book or her uncle Mike Bourke’ s book regarding the following claims made by Mark Williams Thomas (& Nick Dorman):
Jill Dando murder: Cops tried honeytrap to get Barry George to confess to her murder
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jill-dando-murder-cops-tried-5431123
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/gallery/barry-george-police-honeytrap-operation-5431175
Troll Exposure blog:
“Entrapment - In another post on Anna Raccoon’s site, other questions were also asked of Williams-Thomas. That post also suggests to me that Williams-Thomas was duplicating the methods he discovered as part of the 2 part ITV Documentary he fronted in 2009 “To Catch a Paedophile” for his own purposes.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1256793/I-posed-girl-14-online-What-followed-sicken-you.html
In which Williams-Thomas admitted to entrapment methods. .
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/05/05/the-missing-link/
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀 Retweeted
Prof David Wilson
@ProfDavidWilson
Watching #JillDando on #BBC1 - serious and sober but 1. The miscarriage against George is significant and the circumstances of it typical of other miscarriages; 2. Why a contract killing was ruled out still baffles and is for me the most likely scenario
https://mobile.twitter.com/ProfDavidWilson/status/1113184617966825473
Gunfire Graffiti UK
@MatthewSeiber
·
3 Apr
Replying to
@ProfDavidWilson
, and
@Michelle_Diskin
I thought the documentary was excellent and well balanced. Contract killing? What was the perpetrators brief....If you happen to see Jill Dando, shoot her.
https://mobile.twitter.com/MatthewSeiber/status/1113285756871749634
8((()*/
-
Then again..
“This video is very interesting. Julie Walters (one of my favourite actresses and I won't have a bad word said about her) is clearly reading from an auto cue. She says that the video is co-produced by a Children's charity, child protection experts and a criminologist.
If you look at the introductory video you will find the following:
Written by: Mark Williams-Thomas and Professor David Wilson
Produced by: Mark Williams-Thomas
Directed by: Professor David Wilson (MWT studied at Birmingham City University under David Wilson)
Lead Animator: Jack Millard (I've looked him up but can only find a web designer)
There is absolutely NO mention of a charity on the introduction video of this website.
Prior to the video Julie Walters is heralded as an award winning actress (once again I love Julie Walter's work and won't have anything horrid said about her) but she's then further introduced as 'known to many of the new generations as Ron Weasley's mum.' (it's always good to get a bit of Harry Potter in there). However, this video which is charged for is aimed at and I quote "Aimed at teachers, parents, youth workers and others who work with children and young people."
The DVD is now sold out. Who was it sold to? How many teachers, parents, youth workers and others who work with children and young people bought it? If it was so popular why aren't there more? Did education authorities buy it?
https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t7547p30-the-mark-williams-thomas-thread
Mark Williams Thomas
“After that, I got the opportunity to return as a lecturer, on the Crime Analysis module, where I talked about how crime is reported and how the media affects the public’s perception of crime. To put myself in the students’ shoes, there’s nothing better than learning from someone who is a practitioner; someone who can say ‘this is the reality, this is what it’s like’ and can contextualise things. You can read a book but it’s better to do it. And what I think I can also do is show that there are opportunities out there; if you are driven and focused and make yourself available, there is work to be had.
https://www.bcu.ac.uk/social-sciences/criminology/employability/mark-williams-thomas
Mark Williams-Thomas
@mwilliamsthomas
Documentary:The Dando Files Using unseen footage & documents to explore the Jill Dando murder. (link: http://youtu.be/6oKoq0GEuh0) youtu.be/6oKoq0GEuh0
Image
1:56 pm · 16 Jul 2015 · Twitter for iPhone
19
Retweets
12
Likes
sibelhodge
@sibelhodge
·
11 Aug 2017
Replying to
@mwilliamsthomas
Mark, is there anywhere I can watch this? It seems to be unavailable? Thank you :) xx
1
Mark Williams-Thomas
@mwilliamsthomas
·
11 Aug 2017
Hi - sorry about that I am doing some work on the case at the moment so have taken down .
1
sibelhodge
@sibelhodge
·
11 Aug 2017
Aha! Thank you for letting me know! Good luck with your research :) xx
Andrew
@REBELTROOP
·
16 Jul 2015
Replying to
@mwilliamsthomas
@mwilliamsthomas
A very insightful documentary, on a case that needs to be reviewed at the earliest opportunity, for Jill's family.
1
Mark Williams-Thomas
@mwilliamsthomas
·
16 Jul 2015
@REBELTROOP
yes - many questions need answering . Police remain convinced Barry is the killer & won't look anywhere else
1
jacqz1
@jacquiez1
·
16 Jul 2015
@mwilliamsthomas
@REBELTROOP
or someone high up knows who is responsible & BG is an easy target to pin it on? Nothing surprises me anymore😱
https://mobile.twitter.com/mwilliamsthomas/status/621664605723566080?lang=en-gb
I don’t believe this is the reason he took the video down.
-
Seems Michelle Diskin Bates is today seeking a defamation solicitor https://mobile.twitter.com/michelle_diskin?lang=en
”He who comes to equity must approach the court with clean hands".
Someone on Twitter has asked whether she could sue the BBC following the Jill Dando documentary. *&^^&
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1123970834740252672/photo/1
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1119322847074299904
-
Poppy Ann Miller™
@PoppyMeze
Wondering why the case of Barry George, who, having been totally absolved of #JillDando's murder, is considered by the #BBC to be worthy or a re-run. No-ones's getting worried about this book are they? (link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stand-Against-Injustice-wrongly-convicted-ebook/dp/B07JFZSF6V/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Barry+George&qid=1554238766&s=digital-text&sr=1-1) amazon.co.uk/Stand-Against-…
@Michelle_Diskin
https://mobile.twitter.com/PoppyMeze/status/1113185065482235904
Nope.
-
Pro Norman Fenton on probability and law
Worth a listen https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RVQ6kReMLdw
-
Barry George’s uncle Mike claimed:
“I saw just a little of the SKY News interview but I was not impressed by what I saw and heard. It seemed to me as if Barry was reciting from a script. I almost laughed as he earnestly said that he couldn’t begin to understand what the Dando family was going through. It just didn’t sound like something which he would say without being prompted, I felt they were not his words.
I got the strong sense Michelle Diskin Bates and Barry George’s words were scripted (From their imaginations) in their recent ITV & GMB interviews; wonder if Mike Bourke felt the same?
My impression of the pair of them is that they are hiding a secret, and are codependent on each other and
Michelle Diskin Bates became her brothers enabler many years ago.
“An Irish uncle of Barry George, the convicted murderer of BBC presenter Jill Dando, protested his nephew's innocence shortly before the jury handed down the verdict yesterday. Mr Tony Bourke, from the Co Limerick village of Ballyneety, said he had been following news of the trial on Sky TV. His sister, Ms Margaret George, is the mother of Barry George and comes originally from Ballyneety.
Mr Bourke, speaking outside his bungalow home yesterday, said he was sure his nephew was innocent. He had known him as a teenager in London when he visited his elder sister's house.
At the time, Mr Bourke was working in factories there. He remembered George being interested in books and pop music.
As far as I was concerned, he was the same as any teenager. I said all along and I still say it, he is innocent. He could not have done it, no way.
"If he is found guilty, there is no way I will believe it. I will still say he is innocent."
Now semi-retired, Mr Bourke said he had returned from London in 1974 after spending 17 years there.
A bachelor, he shares his home with his brother, Michael, who was in London with other family members during the trial.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/george-s-irish-uncle-says-he-could-not-have-done-it-no-way-1.315991
-
“Barry was on the threshold of giving his life to Christ (just weeks away from being baptised) when he was arrested and his life crashed down around him. He attended every religious service while in prison, but Michelle tells me he wasn’t allowed to be baptised and hasn’t taken that step since.
https://www.premierchristianity.com/Past-Issues/2019/April-2019/My-brother-was-wrongly-convicted-of-murdering-Jill-Dando
If true, and I suspect it isn’t, other than manipulation I can see no other reason for making this claim. Again, depending on what medium you listen to or read, her stories differ.
-
Pro Norman Fenton on probability and law
Worth a listen https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RVQ6kReMLdw
Angela Shaws’s findings on the gunshot residue in the Barry George case is “completely blown apart” by Norman Fenton.
“Angela Shaw was interviewed by Marcus Plowright, Director, for a BBC documentary covering the Murder of Jill Dando almost 20 years after she was fatally shot on the doorstep of her home in Gowan Avenue, London. The film examines the investigation into Jill Dando’s death which was led by Detective Chief Inspector Hamish Campbell of the MPS and which culminated in the charging and conviction of Barry George for Ms Dando’s murder. Part of the evidence used by the Prosecution in the Trial against Mr George was a single particle of gunshot residue found in an inside pocket of a coat found at his home address. The film, with Angela’s assistance, examines the lack of significance that could be attached to the single particle of gunshot residue found in the coat pocket almost a year after the shooting. The GSR finding was ruled inconclusive by the Court of Appeal and Mr George’s conviction was quashed. Upon retrial he was found not guilty. https://www.principalforensicservices.com/angela-contributes-to-the-murder-of-jill-dando-documentary/
http://forensicfirearmsconsultancy.com/author/ffc/
-
Pro Norman Fenton on probability and law
Worth a listen https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RVQ6kReMLdw
An unusual pattern: Is Benjamin Geen a killer or England's unluckiest man?
“Norman Fenton is a professor of risk management information at Queen Mary London University.
And Ben Geen, he says, might be the victim of what he terms an 'exaggerated coincidence'.
'What you've got is apparently a highly unusual sequence of events happening at this particular hospital.
'If you looked at that individually—what is the probability that this particular nurse would be present at 18 respiratory arrest events at the same hospital within such a short period of time—the probability is incredibly low.'
But Fenton is 'almost certain' that similar patterns would have occurred in a given two-month period in thousands of hospitals across the UK.
'Think of it this way,' Fenton says. 'In most hospitals, the nurses tend to be on duty for at least 50 to 70 per cent of the recorded time.
'For any given nurse to be present at all of those events is still—again—a very, very low probability.
'But what you've got is, let's say, 100 nurses at any given hospital where one of these sequence of events has been observed—again, there is quite a high probability that at least one of them would have been present at all, in this case 18, such events.'
In other words, statistically speaking, Geen won the lottery twice—but it was the wrong kind of lottery.
When Geen's team appealed his conviction on statistical grounds, the court didn't agree with Hutton or Fenton's analyses, arguing that there was no need to statistically validate the opinion evidence of experts.
It's worth noting: neither Hutton nor Fenton were arguing that Geen was innocent, merely making the case for greater statistical rigour.
The court claimed that 'academic statistical opinion, however distinguished, is divorced from the actual facts'.
After all, real people—patients, jurors, healthcare professionals in the high pressure environment of A and E—have to react to a lot more than raw data.
But in the case of Geen, what were they reacting to?
The spectre of Harold Shipman still very much haunts the UK healthcare system.
Shipman, nicknamed 'Dr Death', is the most prolific serial killer on record—arrested in 1998 and sentenced to life in prison by 2000, he was confirmed by an inquiry to have killed 218 of his patients, though it's suspected the true number could be as high as 250.
Shipman hanged himself in his cell on 13 January, 2004—just 23 days before the two patients that sparked the Horton General Hospital investigation suffered respiratory arrest.
'Since the Shipman inquiry, as soon as there's an accusation, you've got to think dirty,' says Dr Wendy Hesketh, who is writing a book about medico-crime.
'If you don't, you could find yourself having to answer as to why you didn't do a full investigation.'
Hesketh points out that in Geen's case very few incidences of respiratory deaths were considered suspicious when they occurred.
'Beforehand, they weren't flagged up to anyone, no one was suspicious, no one thought that there was any untoward behaviour or that anyone had been unlawfully killed.
'All of a sudden you've got this team who are actually potential witnesses themselves, and they are talking to each other and reinforcing their own suspicions.
Read more here: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/healthreport/benjamin-geen-an-unusual-pattern/7287620
Ben Geen: another possible case of miscarriage of justice and misunderstanding statistics?
http://probabilityandlaw.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-ben-geen-case-another-miscarriage.html
https://www.crcpress.com/Risk-Assessment-and-Decision-Analysis-with-Bayesian-Networks/Fenton-Neil/p/book/9781138035119
http://probabilityandlaw.blogspot.com/
-
Angela Shaws’s findings on the gunshot residue in the Barry George case is “completely blown apart” by Norman Fenton.
Excerpts from Bayes and the Law - Norman Fenton, Martin Neil, and Daniel Berger
Abstract
“Although the last forty years has seen considerable growth in the use of statistics in legal proceedings, it is primarily classical statistical methods rather than Bayesian methods that have been used. Yet the Bayesian approach avoids many of the problems of classical statistics and is also well suited to a broader range of problems. This paper reviews the potential and actual use of Bayes in the law and explains the main reasons for its lack of impact on legal practice. These include misconceptions by the legal community about Bayes’ theorem, over-reliance on the use of the likelihood ratio and the lack of adoption of modern computational methods. We argue that Bayesian Networks (BNs), which automatically produce the necessary Bayesian calculations, provide an opportunity to address most concerns about using Bayes in the law.
Conclusions
“Proper use of Bayesian reasoning has the potential to improve the efficiency, transparency and fairness of criminal and civil justice systems. It can help experts formulate accurate and informative opinions; help courts determine admissibility of evidence; help identify which cases should be pursued; and help lawyers to explain, and jurors to evaluate, the weight of evidence during a trial. It can also help identify errors and unjustified assumptions entailed in expert opinions.
Yet, despite the impeccable theoretical credentials of Bayes in presenting legal arguments, and despite the enormous number of academic papers making the case for it, our review of the impact in practice of Bayes in the Law is rather depressing. It confirms that its impact on legal practice has been minimal outside of paternity cases. While it has been used in some well-known cases to expose instances of the prosecutor’s fallacy, that very fallacy continues to afflict many cases. And while the LR has been quite widely used to present the impact of forensic evidence, we have explained the multiple problems with it and the danger of allowing it to be seen as synonymous with Bayes and the law. The fact that these problems were not the reason for the RvT judgment in 2010 which effectively banned the use of the LR (outside of DNA evidence) makes the judgment even more of a travesty than many assume it to be.
In addition to the RvT judgment, we have seen the devastating appeal judgments in R v Adams (effectively banning the use of Bayes for combining ‘non statistical evidence’) and in (Nulty & Ors v Milton Keynes Borough Council, 2013) which went as far as banning the use of probability completely when discussing events that had happened but whose outcome was unknown. Even when an appeal judgment was favourable to Bayes ((R. v. George, EWCA Crim 2722, 2007)) subsequent research has discovered weaknesses in the LR reasoning (Fenton et al., 2013a). Similar weaknesses have been recently exposed in other ‘successful’ Bayesian arguments such as those used in the successful Sally Clark appeal (Fenton, 2014).
The good news is that the difficulties encountered in presenting Bayesian arguments can be avoided once it is accepted that over-simplistic LR models and inference calculations from first principles are generally unsuitable. We have explained that BNs are the appropriate vehicle for overcoming these problems since they enable us to model the correct relevant hypotheses and the full causal context of the evidence. Unfortunately, too many people in the community are unaware of (or reluctant to use) the tools available for easily building and running BN models.
Read more here:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4934658/
-
“An Irish uncle of Barry George, the convicted murderer of BBC presenter Jill Dando, protested his nephew's innocence shortly before the jury handed down the verdict yesterday. Mr Tony Bourke, from the Co Limerick village of Ballyneety, said he had been following news of the trial on Sky TV. His sister, Ms Margaret George, is the mother of Barry George and comes originally from Ballyneety.
Mr Bourke, speaking outside his bungalow home yesterday, said he was sure his nephew was innocent. He had known him as a teenager in London when he visited his elder sister's house.
At the time, Mr Bourke was working in factories there. He remembered George being interested in books and pop music.
As far as I was concerned, he was the same as any teenager. I said all along and I still say it, he is innocent. He could not have done it, no way.
"If he is found guilty, there is no way I will believe it. I will still say he is innocent."
Now semi-retired, Mr Bourke said he had returned from London in 1974 after spending 17 years there.
A bachelor, he shares his home with his brother, Michael, who was in London with other family members during the trial.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/george-s-irish-uncle-says-he-could-not-have-done-it-no-way-1.315991
On the 26th November 2005 Barry George’s uncle Thomas (Tom) passed away. https://notices.irishtimes.com/death/burke/2375124?s_source=itir_titi
Barry George’s uncle Mike mentions this in his book “Mike’s Story” but Michelle Diskin Bates makes no mention of it in Stand Against Injustice, which I find telling for varying reasons.
-
Natalie Smith clearly hasn’t considered the fact Barry George may have duped his way through the criminal process (I firmly believe he has), instead she argues, “nearly everyone has been mislead about the strength of the firearms residue evidence....
Recklessness could apply to Natalie Smith’ who apparently is a lawyer specialising in criminal litigation, she states:
“The expert evidence provides a terrifying image of her last moments. The killer forced her head either onto or close to the front step of her home, then bending or crouching over her he pressed a gun to her head and shot her. It was an execution. It was violence aimed at a woman and one of the most famous women in Britain at the time.
These are Natalie Smith’s images.
She then claims:
“The pressure and determination to find the killer made the criminal justice system reckless.
There’s no evidence of this.
“The smallest of evidence took on too great a significance and those tasked with finding the killer ended up seeing what they wanted to in it. Logic became obscured.
Seems to me Natalie Smith is seeing what she wants to see, dismissing all other evidential evidence in the process, and it’s her logic that has become obscured. *&^^&
According to her website bio she has, “successfully defended in cases involving very serious criminal allegations, particularly those that are damaging to reputation.
http://defendingfalseallegations.co.uk/Natalie%20Smith%20CV%20.pdf
And apparently currently works for Hodge, Jones and Allen who ironically Jon Robbins wrote about here:
Hodge Jones & Allen faces legal action for ‘hopeless’ MMR litigation - Posted By Jon Robins - 27th June 2
“Hodge Jones & Allen have flatly denied that they knowingly pursued ‘hopeless’ MMR vaccine litigation cases.
http://legalvoice.org.uk/hodge-jones-allen-faces-legal-action-for-hopeless-mmr-litigation/
Lawyers accused of milking millions from legal aid by pursuing 'hopeless' bid for compensation over claims MMR jab was linked to autism
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2670479/Families-failed-win-compensation-flawed-MMR-research-suing-lawyers-pursuing-hopeless-claims-making-millions-legal-aid.html
I don’t suppose she’s considered the police in this case had their reputations smeared, which in turn distorted the public’s perceptions of their investigation? Which Barry George attempted to use to his advantage.
I don’t understand why Jon Robbins of The Justice Gap gave Natalie Smith a platform to make claim re Jill Dando’s murder, that “pressure to find a killer made the criminal justice system reckless - this is a sweeping statement and it has already been pointed out; there is no evidence of this.
Peoples perceptions could be described as reckless.
Given the fact he’s met with Professor Norman Fenton, and I’m assuming he’s familiar with his work (Based on his writings), how he’s yet to join the dots in the Barry George case?
“Prof Fenton argued that situations which appear to be extremely unlikely coincidence were often not as unlikely as most people thought. ‘Coincidences which appear almost impossible often actually have a very high probability of occurring,’ he said. https://www.thejusticegap.com/guilty-until-proven-innocent-book-launch-report/
“Jon Robins argued that the protections put in place as a result of scandals such as the Birmingham Six had failed. ‘It’s not a sign of weakness to recognise fallibility. It is actually the sign for a system that works. And this is a system that isn’t working. The safety net that we thought we put in place after the Birmingham 6 isn’t there.’
Robins spoke about the families that featured in his book. ‘I have spent a long time interviewing people in this room,’ he said. ‘The reality is that our interests aren’t aligned and that can make for a complicated, even fraught relationship.’
‘From my perspective I have seen extraordinary courage from people who fight the most extreme odds and extraordinary love from those who have supported them.’
Jon Robbins appears to have recognised that some within the moj movement don’t share the same interests but omits to point out the fact that within the moj movement there are individuals who aren’t all they profess to be; the wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Injustices come in many forms.
“Dr Waney Squier told the audience that there were ‘probably well over 200 families damaged and destroyed’ by incorrect diagnoses of shaken baby syndrome every year. Dr Squier was struck off by the General Medical Council, and subsequently reinstated but remains barred from giving evidence in court.
She said that the controversial ‘diagnosis’ was based on an assumption of a triad of symptoms. ‘This assumption has never been supported by any scientific evidence,’ she said.’ But science is not a democracy and a hypothesis cannot be accepted as correct just because people believe it.’ She criticised the family courts for ‘draconian decisions to remove babies from their parents’.
Dr Squier argued that the problem with these courts appear was two-fold. ‘Firstly, secrecy so we cannot see and hear what is being used as evidence; secondly, the routine use of single joint experts. As the single expert his opinion isn’t challenged. This is wrong and against the spirit of our adversarial system. Any opinion should surely be strengthened by intelligent opposition.’
‘How much longer can we tolerate courts making decisions of such major importance, destroying hundreds of families every year, on the basis of unsubstantiated consensus opinion rather than science?’
https://www.thejusticegap.com/guilty-until-proven-innocent-book-launch-report/
-
Angela Shaws’s findings on the gunshot residue in the Barry George case is “completely blown apart” by Norman Fenton.
“Angela Shaw was interviewed by Marcus Plowright, Director, for a BBC documentary covering the Murder of Jill Dando almost 20 years after she was fatally shot on the doorstep of her home in Gowan Avenue, London. The film examines the investigation into Jill Dando’s death which was led by Detective Chief Inspector Hamish Campbell of the MPS and which culminated in the charging and conviction of Barry George for Ms Dando’s murder. Part of the evidence used by the Prosecution in the Trial against Mr George was a single particle of gunshot residue found in an inside pocket of a coat found at his home address. The film, with Angela’s assistance, examines the lack of significance that could be attached to the single particle of gunshot residue found in the coat pocket almost a year after the shooting. The GSR finding was ruled inconclusive by the Court of Appeal and Mr George’s conviction was quashed. Upon retrial he was found not guilty. https://www.principalforensicservices.com/angela-contributes-to-the-murder-of-jill-dando-documentary/
http://forensicfirearmsconsultancy.com/author/ffc/
“During Keeley's career, the crime that people will perhaps be most familiar with is the murder of BBC presenter Dando. She was shot outside her home in Fulham on 26 April, 1999. The crime was efficient, fast and brutal and left police floundering, but forensic evidence apparently told a different story.
Local man Barry George was convicted of the murder after Keeley identified a single particle of "firearms discharge residue" and concluded it could have been linked to the killing. Many believed at the time that George, who had a history of criminal and [ censored word]ocial behaviour, was simply not calculated enough to have carried out such an act.
In 2007 Keeley, haunted by the case, admitted that the evidence was at best neutral and George had his conviction quashed in 2008. Dando's killer has never been found.
https://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/obituary-robin-keeley-1-806816
-
CCRC
@ccrcupdate
Tonight's BBC programme #TheMurderofJillDando looks interesting and
@ccrcupdate
recalls the CCRC's June 2007 referral for appeal of Barry George's murder conviction. His appeal succeeded and he was acquitted at a retrial.
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
Apr 2
Replying to
@ccrcupdate
Not so much interesting for Barry, as scary! He’s been battling for justice for 19yrs, then the officer who was responsible for his wrongful conviction is given a platform on BBC to say ‘no one else was being sought for this crime’ how else would he be feeling? Disgraceful!
https://mobile.twitter.com/ccrcupdate/status/1113074556862976001
WHY would Barry George be scared if what his sister Michelle Diskin Bates claims is true, then appear on an ITV documentary a few weeks later? The ITV documentary, which included her interview and her brothers interview, was made in advance of it’s airing.
The BBC documentary first aired on BBC1 on Tue 2 Apr 2019 @ 21:00 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0003w40
And from this article in The Sunday Times, dated April 14 2019, Barry George and his sister has already been interviewed.
Interestingly, Crazy making behaviour is often behavior that is a projection from the person who is crazy making onto the person who is being crazy made. It is behavior that is not logical, not based on truth but on manipulating the other person into feeling wrong and changing their behavior
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/crazy-making_n_5860048
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Watch this space...the must-see 👁 documentary! 😊🙃💪🏼
This is the documentary that will air on next Thursday at 9pm. In this programme you will learn far more than you ever have before😎 Both Barry and myself have taken part.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1119322847074299904
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Good grief...people don’t have enough work to do! #getalife There are more important things to get agitated about than TV presenters.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1118096335436165120
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Please everyone, share on...I really want people to view this. More info soon 🤗♥️😸
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1119349775785132034
When someone’s words do not match their behaviour this is a red flag and no amount of emotional manipulation, as I see it, will further Barry George’s cause.
Two misguided individuals stand out to me in this case; one is very much Michelle Diskin Bates!
My opinions my observations.
-
If true, and I suspect it isn’t, other than manipulation I can see no other reason for making this claim. Again, depending on what medium you listen to or read, her stories differ.
As do her brothers:
“Inside prison, he had studied Buddhism, he said, but he had also, as a Catholic, prayed and read an Old Testament psalm every day. "I prayed that something would happen to get me out," he said.
Lots of prisoners blamed me for murdering Jill," he said. "They used to call me s..m and spit in my tea. I kept my head down and never spoke to anyone."
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/aug/04/jilldando.ukcrime
-
As do her brothers:
“Inside prison, he had studied Buddhism, he said, but he had also, as a Catholic, prayed and read an Old Testament psalm every day. "I prayed that something would happen to get me out," he said.
Lots of prisoners blamed me for murdering Jill," he said. "They used to call me s..m and spit in my tea. I kept my head down and never spoke to anyone."
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/aug/04/jilldando.ukcrime
Remember Michelle Diskin Bates claims here:
Here’s another telling excerpt from Michelle Diskin Bates book, “Stand Against Injustice
“Sitting with others in the canteen one morning, I mentioned that I would really like to send a Bible verse to Barry to help keep his spirits up. I knew he had his Bible with him–after all, the media had mocked him enough for carrying it–so I knew he’d be able to look up the references I sent. “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Deuteronomy 31: 6)
I also sent: “The LORD is my light and my salvation–whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life–of whom shall I be afraid? (Psalm 27: 1) Imagine my surprise when I received a Bible verse back from Barry, one perfectly suited to what I was going through! “May the God of hope fill you will all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15: 13) I’d underestimated Barry; he knew his Bible better than I’d realised. Of course, he had been studying the Bible in readiness to take his Believer’s Baptism at the time the police arrested him.
Sounds to me like the three eminent professionals also underestimated Barry George!
“I’d underestimated Barry; he knew his Bible better than I’d realised. Of course, he had been studying the Bible in readiness to take his Believer’s Baptism at the time the police arrested him
So, according to Michelle Diskin Bates, her brother Barry George was capable of studying the bible in readiness to take his Believers Baptism before he was arrested and had retained that knowledge for 8 years, yet incapable of murdering Jill Dando. Do give over!
It was almost a year after the murder that he was arrested; ample time to dispose of the gun and clothes he was wearing.
The forensic science services wouldn’t have tested every single item in Barry George’s home for gun shot residue due to costs. So although only one matching gun shot particle was found in his coat pocket, it’s possible others may have existed elsewhere but just hadn’t been picked up in by the chosen methods of the scene of crime techs.
-
Getting it wrong once was bad enough but Sandra Lean got it wrong twice that we definitely know about. She went to great lengths to campaign for killers Adrian Prout and Simon Hall yet both men eventually admitted their guilt. I for one would certainly question her judgement.
Michelle Bates involvement in the Bamber case is surprising given what we know about the conviction. Jeremy Bamber is certainly no Barry George, the two cases couldn't be more different.
Have you not considered the reason Michelle Diskin Bates may have aligned herself with the Jeremy Bamber campaign was because she knew the Bamberettes were naive, gullible and prone to lack in judgement?
Plus she was running out of supporters. If you read her book it’s made clear; though unintentionally I imagine. But I don’t suppose she thought of these consequences when she chose to publish it. She’s made reference to many instances of where she clashed with others, including William Clegg QC.
Excerpts from Mike Bourke’s book Mike’s Story
“Eaten bread is quickly forgotten and neither I nor my fellow supporters would see or hear from Barry again. I felt quite bitter about it for a long while, and I was not alone in feeling like that. Some people put their professional reputations on the line and got no thanks for their efforts.
After I got home I read in some paper that Barry and family were on the Isle of Wight where Michelle introduced him to Sion Jenkins. The IPCC needed to know if I wanted to pursue my complaint but I did not now wish to have any further involvement and so I dropped it.
Scott later told me that JfB’s website had received 978 hits on August 1st, 533 on the 2nd, and 369 on the 3rd. On October 1st I shut it down.
It was now open season on Barry and the press set about destroying any hope of him settling into any kind of normal life in his home city of London. I watched dispassionately as his reputation, such as it was, nosedived over the last days of 2008 under a welter of tabloid fantasy. They ran stories on what he ate, what bookshops he visited, his temporary accommodation. They claimed incorrectly that he was stalking a nurse, that Sky’s Kay Burley was frightened sick by him, that he was interested in Cheryl Cole of X Factor, that he was involved with the partner of a convicted killer etc.
To make things even better a ‘spokesman’ for him allegedly confirmed some of those manufactured stories. Pat Reynolds said to me one day: ‘with friends like those who needs enemies?’ It was a little sad to see the end results of the long hard battle and one day a despairing Margaret said to me that it was now worse than when he was in prison.
“That evening I met David Perrin in a Shepherds Bush pub where we had a nice pint of Guinness. We discussed the website and he gave me some advice on that saying that I should look at Susan May’s website. He then said that Barry’s supporters seemed to be fragmented, and suggested that it would be more effective if there was a combined united push for Barry. Good advice I thought.
On Thursday Michelle and Margaret took Sheba the cat to the vet, as she had a sore mouth. In the evening I told Michelle about the planned website, and about David’s suggestion of a united front. She did not seem to be very interested.
“On Sunday November 10th we had agreed on the first page of the website. I wrote to MOJO suggesting that we should form a united campaign front for Barry. The ‘site was up and running by the 20th, www.barrygeorge.co.uk ‘He’s Net Guilty’, the Irish Mirror reported, next to a large photo of Michelle and Margaret. The Guardian also gave it a mention in an article on prisoner websites. MOJO’s Hazel Keirle wrote to me, saying that MOJO was not in any way a campaign group, but she advised that I could form a campaign. So with the help of the webmaster Mick Lynch I contacted the ‘Irish In Britain Representation Group’ or the IBRG to see if they would help.
“I went to London on December 12 and met Pat Reynolds, the IBRG Chairman, at Margaret’s house. We discussed a campaign plan, and agreed to think things over. Pat then spoke to Michelle on the phone, but she was now tied up with MOJO and told Pat that Barry already had their support. The campaign was hampered from the word go but I was determined to push ahead and managed to persuade Pat to remain on board.
“On January 25th 2003 the Justice for Barry or JfB campaign emerged. There was no fanfare but I knew that Barry and his mother were in favour of it and that was the relevant test. JfB was always a small loosely knit group and we did not normally seek or encourage people to join us, though we sought support for the cause. We feared police or journalist infiltration, and I would point to the group MOJO as justification of that caution. I believe that if the campaign rather than Barry had become the focus of attention it would not have stood the test of time, and we were in it for the long haul, in good times and bad. Mostly bad.
“I designed a lea flet and Mick made up a prototype which I then got printed. The leaflet described Barry as a proud Englishman with Welsh Irish roots. He was described as not a devil, not a saint, but perhaps a Scapegoat. It then pointed to some shortcomings of the jury, and there followed a description of the case against Barry, and the scant forensic evidence. It also contained a list of people who felt or expressed CONCERN at the safety of Barry’s conviction. Eventually I had a short list, small in number but impressive in quality. The list consisted of Willie O Dea, TD. John McDonnell, MP. Professor Tim Valentine. Jim Nichol, Solicitor. John Witzenfeld. Solicitor. Pat Reynolds, Chairman IBRG. Dr Chris R Tame, Director Libertarian Alliance. Billy Power and Paddy Hill. (Birmingham Six) Andy Parr. (Cricket writer) Paul Foot, Journalist. Later I would get a few more names. They were Jeremy Corbyn, MP. John McManus, MOJO. LA Naylor, author of HOW MANY ARE INNOCENT. Senator Labhras O Murchu. Professor Elizabeth Loftus, ‘Memory expert’ who was concerned at witnesses recollections. Seamus Healy TD. Dan Neville TD. The leaflet ended with information on our website and a request for concerned people to write to their local politician or MEP, and a mention of Martin Jeremiah and his album Day Off For The Queen. I planned to distribute some at the London Saint Patrick’s Day Festival in March. I also sent some to politicians, the Home Office etc. Michelle phoned to tell me that she would also be in London, as MOJO were holding a public meeting in the House of Commons. I was not invited which I thought was a pity as we could perhaps have distributed some more of the leaflets.
“Love Peace Justice. We distributed some JfB lea flets and then sat around the main stage and listened to the Bands. It reminded me of the pop festivals of the early 1970s as the sun shone down on the Tolpuddle fields. Many people carried anti Bush Blair and Iraq War banners saying BLiar Out. Later, when Martin and Vicky had departed on their coach back to West Sussex I visited the Martyr’s Museum which gives a good account of the birth of the English trade unions. I bought a Martyr’s T-Shirt and a badge and then I drove back to Dorchester. Next day I drove up to London. It was a brilliant sunny day as I drove along parts of England I had not seen before. I entered London via the M25, straight into a traffic jam. I stayed in London for two nights, but I felt a little ill from the moment I arrived. Maybe it was from the smog, or perhaps it was the comedown from the freedom of Tolpuddle. While in London I responded by e-mail to News of the World reporter Danielle Gusmaroldi who claimed she wanted to support Barry. She wanted to visit him but I advised her that he would probably not agree to that. I went home on Wednesday 21st. On August 1st Margaret told me that the reporter had written to Barry, and he was mad at me as a result. If I done nothing he would be mad at me, and if I did something he would also be mad with me. Sometimes one just can’t win. I went to see him on the 7th and we had a blazing row in which I threatened to walk away and pull the plug on the campaign and website. The row was quickly over and we had our tea and settled down for what turned out to be quite a good visit. I could appreciate how he felt about reporters, and I agreed with him when he said he didn’t want visits from them. After all they had portrayed him as some kind of a monster, and helped the Crown’s case against him, so how could he appreciate that we would now need to use them to try and turn around public opinion?[/i]
“On August 26th a new website www.barrygeorge.com replaced the original one which had run into a few problems. On September 5th I read an e-mail from Scott Lomax telling me about a BBC reporter, Raphael Rowe, who hoped to make a programme about Barry. I made some discreet enquiries and I was told that ‘He is a good guy, genuine’. I was happy with that recommendation and decided to contact him. I phoned him the next day and we had a good long chat. He was quite up to speed having looked at the websites and appeal court links. I agreed to contact Barry and his solicitor to see if they might cooperate with a TV programme. I later spoke to Pat Reynolds who was very enthusiastic when I mentioned Panorama, saying that Panorama could be seen as a turning point, the beginning of the end. I next visited Barry on Friday October 8th. I was suffering from a heavy cold, and family tensions were again running high, otherwise the visit went ok. On the way back to East Acton I saw on the headlines that the hostage Ken Bigley had been killed in Iraq. I got fish and chips and had quiet a miserable evening. ‘Why the hell am I doing this?’ I wondered, not for the first time.
“That evening I met David James Smith at Starbucks in Hammersmith, where we discussed aspects of Jill Dando’s murder which concerned me. David believed that I was on the wrong track but I was convinced that more people could have known of Jill’s intention to visit her house on the day of her murder than we were led to believe. I also wondered how many people might have had keys to her house.
“In early January 2005 there was a story in a Sunday paper about Sir Cliff Richard’s religious views where he said that God would have to forgive Jill Dando’s killer. I wondered if Sir Cliff was referring to Barry. Cliff, who was one of my childhood favourite singers, had been routinely interviewed by the police in an effort to find clues which might help to solve the case.
“I drove to London on Monday the 31st. I had hoped to visit Barry on Tuesday and Margaret had promised that she would book it in good time. But she waited until Monday before phoning to book the visit. She then discovered that there were no visits allowed on Tuesdays. I was going to a public meeting in the House of Commons on Wednesday and so I had to wait until Thursday to visit him which lost me another precious day’s holiday. It was a short visit as his solicitor was also due to visit. Barry was somewhat stressed out as a result. He was concerned again that some of us would speak to the press. He got agitated when I told him that Raphael Rowe was interested in the Cutting Edge video, which I had in fact already loaned to Raphael along with a video of the trial reconstruction. He threatened to sue anybody who might use the Cutting Edge video. He then gave out to me for sending the cheque, saying that it had caused him stress. I was quite annoyed at his attitude. He then apologised for having a go at us, and asked if we could visit for his birthday. Sometimes he seemed as if he were still a kid, a large one.
“I e-mailed Raphael Rowe asking about news on a documentary. He replied that Barry and his solicitor had made demands that Raphael could not comply with. Supporting Barry was often a struggle against the odds, as he seemed to see problems with everything we did or tried to do for him. I felt that a good opportunity was in danger of being lost and I decided to keep in touch with Raphael in the hope of some development.
“In late April JfB got an angry e-mail from the man known as Mr V. Scott Lomax featured V or Mr Vorms in his book ‘The Case of Barry George’, and on his website. It appeared that Scott may have sent Vorms something which he thought had come indirectly from me. I replied that JfB had not sent him anything either directly or indirectly. I and Michelle had discussed the article on Vorms and we both agreed that we would not want any other innocent person to be locked up. I wrote to the CCRC suggesting that Barry’s trial might have had a different outcome if the Archer allegations had been disclosed at the time of the trial. Somehow the Daily Mirror and Guardian got to know about my letter, (I didn’t tell them) and they published a couple of articles. But that had the positive effect of letting the authorities know that we were watching everything. I did not believe that Archer would have hired a hit-man and my submission was merely intended to help Barry. I had read Archer’s book FF8282 A Prison Diary and I was quite impressed at the fair unbiased way in which he had written about Barry.
“May 25th was the fifth anniversary of Barry’s arrest. Scott Lomax had tried to get an article published, and a regional newspaper had reported that he believed that Jill Dando had been shot by mistake. I forwarded Scott’s article to a couple of papers, and I also sent a letter of mine to a few. The Limerick Leader’s Barry Duggan phoned me and suggested that they would like to run a story based on my letter. I agreed and to help things along I allowed the photo of Barry which had been taken in prison to be used, with his mother and me blanked out. To my surprise the story dominated the front page of the county edition, under the headline ‘Barry Did Not Kill Dando’. The photo accompanied the ‘exclusive’ article which was quite a scoop for Barry Duggan.
That evening he phoned to say that the Daily Mirror wanted to use the photo in a story, and wondered if I would sell it to them. I would not risk being accused of ‘cashing in’ and so while I agreed to them using the photo no money was exchanged. The proverbial hit the fan on Friday 28th as the Mirror, Irish Independent, Star and Sun ran the story that I believed Barry was innocent, but of course it was the photo which made the story. I could not fail to miss how RTE ignored the story in their reporting of the regional weekly papers leading stories though they would often cover that paper. Unfortunately in their report the Mirror incorrectly stated that I had taken the photo in prison, which would have been a serious breach of prison rules with negative implications for Barry. But otherwise I thought it was brilliant publicity for the cause. Unfortunately though the publicity was welcome I felt I had no choice but to make a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission about the Daily Mirror, as I believed that Barry could be in hot water with the prison due to the inaccurate reporting. I also realised that he would be hopping mad, and wondered if I would be allowed to visit him again. Michelle sent me a text message saying that she hadn’t seen the paper and that I should have warned her. Others broke off contact with me for a few months but I was happy that the message had gone out loud and clear that we still supported Barry and that the battle would go on. I could live with the unpopularity it brought.
On Sunday May 29th I phoned Margaret. After some small talk I asked her how Barry was. ‘Fine, he phoned earlier’. ‘Has he any news’ I probed? Eventually she said that he had seen the Mirror report. She said that he was upset by it, but that a ‘Screw’ was standing by him so he could not say much. I then told her what the papers had said and she agreed it was good that it was reported that we still believed he was innocent. I asked if I was still welcome to visit him and she said yes, he would soon be sending out a visiting order. ‘Oh God’, I thought; ‘now I will have to face the music’. I booked some holidays and my ticket planning to visit him on Sunday June 12th. But on the 2nd Margaret phoned and told me that my name was not on the VO. ’Fine’ I thought, ‘if he don’t want me to visit that’s ok by me’. She then mentioned how the Mirror had said that I had taken the photo of him in the prison. I explained to her about my complaint to his solicitor and to the Press Complaints Commission. Later on the PCC published the Mirror’s apology on their website. I was happy to let the matter rest there. I wrote a three line letter to Barry saying I would end the campaign and close the website if he didn’t want me to visit anymore. The JfB campaign could not be run without the blessing of the prisoner. The timing was bad as Scott Lomax had only recently agreed to be part of the campaign, but the ball was in Barry’s court.
“Michelle phoned me on the 5th. She was pleased with the article but said I should have warned her in advance. She thought that Barry would be annoyed at the use of his photo, how right she was. As regards being in the doghouse, she said she knew what that felt like. She agreed that it was important that the message was out that we still supported him; otherwise people would think that we no longer cared. In the evening Margaret phoned me. She had been to see Barry and again she had made the journey alone without any bother. She said that the whole visit had been taken up with him giving out about the article, even though she had nothing to do with it. She also said that he told her that I was not barred and that my name was omitted from the VO by mistake. He said that the prison officers had told him that I would have been allowed in if I had come, but I knew that was not true. Nobody is allowed in without a VO. I told Margaret that I would visit him in July. On Saturday July 2nd I visited him for what I later believed was the last time. I told Margaret that I would not stand for any big arguments and would leave if there were any. He was immediately hostile towards me. I saw red when he accused me of being a coward who used moral blackmail against him by threatening to stop the campaign and website. He was very angry over the three line letter which I had sent him. He remained hostile so I got up saying ‘I’m off, goodbye’. Unfortunately when I got to the door I couldn’t get out as I left my pass with Margaret and had to ask her to bring it. While I was waiting Margaret was engaged in an intense conversation with him. ‘If he leaves now he’ll never come back’ she said. She then called to me to come back to the table, and Barry beckoned at me to return. I relented, apologised to the friendly female prison officer and went back. Barry then apologised for ranting at me and we had some tea. The rest of the visit passed without incident but I was struck by how angry he could be. At one stage a couple of officers in dark blue uniforms entered the visiting hall and Barry said that they were the heavy mob, to deal with any aggro. He then said that he could not discuss certain matters with me as he feared that I might run to the press. I did not argue but then he said that if I did anything to damage his case he would be very angry and the anger he displayed this day would be nothing compared with what he could be like. It seemed like he was threatening me. When Margaret spoke about my three dogs he joked that I had three dogs in case he came calling.
-
Remember Michelle Diskin Bates claims here:
“I’d underestimated Barry; he knew his Bible better than I’d realised. Of course, he had been studying the Bible in readiness to take his Believer’s Baptism at the time the police arrested him
So, according to Michelle Diskin Bates, her brother Barry George was capable of studying the bible in readiness to take his Believers Baptism before he was arrested and had retained that knowledge for 8 years, yet incapable of murdering Jill Dando. Do give over!
The Barry George Michelle Diskin Bates attempts to portray is very different to the Barry George his uncle Mike refers to in his book.
And very much suggests to me Barry George is indeed deceptive and chameleon like.
-
Mike Bourke re the Serbian conspiracy
”In an e-mail David James Smith seemed surprised when I said that the police had discounted the Serb line of inquiry at such an early stage. I decided to write to the CCRC about the Master Detective article. I sent them a copy explaining that I had already written to Barry’s solicitor, and that I was reluctant to delay their investigation further. Then I got the idea that I should make a complaint to the Independent Police Complaints Commission. We had never complained to the police despite us being unhappy with their conduct’. We did not see the point of complaining to the same police that charged him. It was the complaint by the de Menzes family that gave me the idea as until then I had never heard of the IPCC.
I ran up the complaint and submitted it on September 26th with a copy to Barry’s solicitor. In an e-mail David James Smith dismissed the story about the Serb arrest and said that the efit was of the wrong man. On October 1st Andy Gardner phoned me to say that the Sunday Mirror would be doing an article on Mr Vorms as they had interviewed him. I bought the paper and the story made interesting reading. Vorms claimed that he lied about where he was when Jill Dando was shot, his alibi being that he was working in a school at the time. He also said that he had done work on Jill’s garden and that he hated her. It was revealed that he was an ex soldier and had once been suspected of reactivating deactivated firearms. He claimed that a policeman and policewoman had visited him asking why he had changed his alibi, and as to what questions the original Dando police had asked him. This all sounded very strange though he denied killing Jill. He also said that he did not believe that Barry had done it. He thought that the killer would have known that Jill would be at her house on that day. I thought that he was probably correct in thinking that. On Thursday October 13th the Limerick Leader ran a front page story about the IPCC complaint. The Metropolitan Police wrote to me saying that they intended applying to the IPCC for a dispensation so as not to investigate it. Margaret again visited Barry in late October and he was again complaining about the press. He said that he didn’t care if we took off the website, and that his solicitor had said that the IPCC complaint would not help his appeal. I told Margaret that I could drop the complaint but she thought that it would not be a good idea. Michelle shared the same opinion, as did Scott Lomax. But the campaign had now run into difficulty as it appeared that it no longer enjoyed the blessing of Barry. I contacted his solicitor and Scot informing them that as I no longer enjoyed the approval of Barry the campaign would begin to wind down. I also asked Scott to remove references to a campaign. However I decided that I would see the IPCC complaint through, as whatever the real truth was I felt that the police had not acted properly in the Dando investigation and we had to try and expose that. I wrote to some politicians seeking their support for the inquiry and Willie O Dea, Jeremy Corbyn and Dave Horan responded. I also contacted the CCRC and the IPCC to inform them of each others involvement in the case. In late December the IPCC asked me if I would agree to a CCRC request for a copy of my complaint. I was then informed that the police request for a dispensation was rejected and so the investigation would go ahead in due course. It was a little victory but coupled with all the recent press reports there could now be no doubt that we were going to fight back hard. Margaret visited Barry on the 22nd. When I told her of the IPCC decision to investigate she complained that Barry would be upset as the people in the prison would be getting on to him about it. I replied that if we were to take too much notice of that we might just as well give up and accept his conviction.
“Early in the New Year I received a couple of e-mails inquiring about the campaign rather than about Barry which was unusual. Then Scott Lomax told me there had been a Sunday Express article which had quoted me. We contacted the reporter Camilla Tomlinson who sent us a copy. It was quite a good article which revealed that I was no longer welcome to visit Barry, and that Margaret was now his only regular visitor. On January 21st, I phoned Margaret. I asked her if Barry still put Michelle’s name on visiting orders. To my surprise she replied that he always put our three names on them. I had understood that my name had been removed, so perhaps Camilla’s article had influenced somebody. I got a letter from Willie O’Dea saying he had been in touch with the IPCC and that he was reasonably confident about the upcoming investigation. In March Margaret told me that Jeremy Moore had requested that we would not issue any stories to the media in the run up to the CCRC decision. I passed that on to David James Smith and to my surprise he replied that Jeremy Moore had phoned him and there was a possibility that he could visit Barry, he was due to meet Jeremy on the 24th to discuss the matter. On Saturday I received a text message telling me that Jeremy Moore had issued a press statement. It mentioned the two witnesses who apparently saw armed police at Barry’s flat, and that medical evidence would show that Barry could not have committed the crime. The big news was the release of another hostage, Norman Kember, in Iraq. The following Saturday the Irish Daily Mail ran a two page spread by Bob Woffinden in which he re-ran his Serb theory, that Jill Dando was executed as a result of the 1999 war in Kosovo. I was again contacted at work by reporters on Monday April 3rd. One was a researcher seeking to contact Jeremy Moore and Michelle with a view to making a TV documentary and I forwarded their contact details. On Saturday I got a text telling me that Michelle would be on the TV3 programme ‘The Big Bite’, along with John O Connor and Hazel Keirle. Michelle said that Barry had asked her to be his public ‘Face’. On April 13th I watched the programme. Michelle said she ‘knew’ that Barry was innocent; as she had asked him and he said he was. John O Connor, former head of the Flying Squad, explained why he thought it was a professional ‘hit’ probably done by a team. But he didn’t try to explain why the ‘hit’ didn’t take place in Chiswick where Jill lived or how the assassin could have known that she would be in Fulham on that day. But overall it was a good programme, positive.
“On the way I read an article in the Sunday Express by James Murray. The headline read ‘FAMILY FEAR FOR DANDO’s KILLER’. It had a large photo of Jill Dando and inserts of Barry and Susan. It was another Michelle / MOJO story claiming that Barry was not getting the correct medication for his epilepsy. Margaret refused to look at the article.
Barry was in good form though a little anxious as we were late, being almost the last visitors to arrive. He was unshaven, though I noticed that he had shoelaces. He said he agreed with the Express article provided it had been first approved by his solicitor. Margaret then told him that it was what he wanted and he said if it went through his solicitor it was OK, but if it didn’t there would be trouble. He then reminded me how angry he could be if things were done without his approval, referring to the awful argument we had back in July. I was annoyed but I said nothing. I was a little concerned that he was again trying to threaten me. That type of behaviour undermined my belief in him. He then spoke about the late David Dobbins and Eugene O Mahoney and the replica gun which they had taken from his flat. He claimed that the ‘gun’ had been intact when it was taken and so he thought the damage which resulted in the exposed spring had happened after it left his possession. He also denied that it was him in the photo of the man in the gas mask posing in the SAS style photo. I reminded him that the police said he took the photo and he said ‘how could I do that?’ I mentioned self timers and he said that his camera did not have one. He complained that for the second time a prison officer had removed his copy of the book ALL ABOUT JILL. He then spoke about the book Bent Coppers, which had a reference to Detective John Gallagher. He also said he would like to have a visit from David James Smith, Scott Lomax or Andy Parr, but Scott and Andy were never approved by the Home Office.
-
Further excerpts
”The report appeared on Sunday and referred to the Panorama programme which was being made by Raphael Rowe. It mentioned two jurors who were having doubts and who apparently were willing to appear on the programme. It also mentioned that FBI agents criticised the Met Polices handling of the single particle evidence. On Monday Raphael asked me not to discuss the programme with MOJO. I replied that I had fallen out with them in 2001 due to the News of the World article. But I feared that a last minute hitch might have negative consequences and so I texted Michelle asking her to urge discretion on MOJO. She replied that they hadn’t known about the programme. In mid-August following a BBC Radio 4 programme I contacted Professor Elizabeth Loftus PHD. Elizabeth is an American memory expert based in Stanford University. Elizabeth later expressed concerns over eyewitness testimony which largely helped to convict Barry. She agreed to be added to the list of ‘concerned’, her concern being based on witness identification. Her website reads: ‘Elizabeth Loftus studies human memory. Her experiments show how memories can be changed by things we are told. Facts, ideas, suggestions and other post-event information can modify our memories. The legal field, so reliant on memories has been a significant application of the memory research’. Unknown to us on September 4th a Forensic Science Service report prepared for the CCRC dismissed the FDR evidence which dammed Barry as inconclusive. In their opinion it provided no support for the prosecutions case that Barry had killed Jill Dando. It would be another year before we became aware of that. Raphael Rowe phoned me to say that the Panorama-George programme would be broadcast on September 5th. I took a day’s holiday to watch it because as luck would have it I was on a late shift and I feared I would not get to see it. At 07.33 Pat Reynolds sent me a text message to say that BBC Radio 4 News was reporting on the programme every half hour.
It was also on BBC News 24, and RTE Radio 2FM. For me at least it was exciting news as this was the biggest development since the 2002 appeal and I felt I had helped in some small way to make it happen. The Telegraph reported that the programme cost £ 250,000 to produce and took Raphael two years to investigate. In response to criticism of Raphael a spokesman for the BBC said: ‘Raphael is a first class investigative journalist with five years experience reporting from a range of BBC outlets… He is a wholly appropriate presenter for this programme, which meets the usual criteria for impartiality, fairness and accuracy’.
At 21.00 I settled down to watch Panorama. It began with Raphael saying to Barry over Margaret’s telephone ‘so you didn’t kill Jill?’ …’ course not, replied a surprised Barry. Then the photo of Barry which I got taken at Whitemoor was shown alongside the prison envelope in which it was returned to me after the prison refused to allow Barry to have it. CCTV footage of Jill Dando on her last journey and a clip of 29 Gowan Avenue was shown, and Helen Doble’s 999 phone call was played. It ran through Barry being questioned, his visit to HAFAD and Susan Bicknell’s meeting with him. It was Susan’s first day at HAFAD and she recorded the time of his visit. Two days later Barry called back asking staff to recall the exact time of his earlier visit. A week later Susan typed an account of her meeting with Barry for the police and she wrote the time of his visit as 11.50. That seriously undermined the Crown’s case that Barry shot Jill Dando after 11.30, returned home by a circuitous route to change his clothes and then went to HAFAD. There would not be enough time to do that and be at HAFAD before 12.10 according to Raphael who walked the Crown’s suggested route. But Susan revealed that at court she was unwell and suffered a breakdown shortly afterwards. She felt upset that her illness might have caused the jury to doubt her and that they might have convicted Barry as an indirect result of her illness.
-
Signs and symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder
Grandiose sense of self-importance
Lives in a fantasy world that supports their delusions of grandeur
Needs constant praise and admiration
Sense of entitlement
Exploits others without guilt or shame
Frequently demeans, intimidates, bullies, or belittles others
https://www.helpguide.org/articles/mental-disorders/narcissistic-personality-disorder.htm/
All traits that I observe in Barry George and indeed his sister.
-
He then reminded me how angry he could be if things were done without his approval, referring to the awful argument we had back in July. I was annoyed but I said nothing. I was a little concerned that he was again trying to threaten me. That type of behaviour undermined my belief in him. He then spoke about the late David Dobbins and Eugene O Mahoney and the replica gun which they had taken from his flat. He claimed that the ‘gun’ had been intact when it was taken and so he thought the damage which resulted in the exposed spring had happened after it left his possession. He also denied that it was him in the photo of the man in the gas mask posing in the SAS style photo. I reminded him that the police said he took the photo and he said ‘how could I do that?
Red flags scream out in this case!
“Jonathan Laidlaw QC, prosecuting, said Miss Dando's death was the 'not the result of a well-planned, organised assassination by either a criminal or a criminal association'.
Instead, he alleged, it was the actions of 'a loner, a man acting alone with no rational motive to kill'.
Mr Laidlaw said that over 'many years' George would approach women - mainly in the Fulham area - and 'engage them in conversation and then seek to discover where they lived and the vehicles they drove'.
'Some of the witnesses provide evidence that Barry George, having discovered where they lived, also spent time in the area of their addresses. On occasions, he was outside watching when they arrived back at their homes.
One in particular was entirely unaware of the defendant's interest in her until a document containing directions to her home was recovered at his address after his arrest.'
Mr Laidlaw said it was clear from material found at George's home in Crookham Road and from the evidence of other witnesses that he had spent 'a great deal of time watching and following single women. Whilst engaged in this pursuit he took literally thousands of photographs.'
One woman, Angela Gordon, told police how George approached her as she opened the door to her flat opposite his home and asked: 'Do you live here?' He allegedly told her he was in the SAS and asked to kiss her. Miss Gordon rebuffed his advances and fled into her home. A photograph of her car was later found on undeveloped film at George's home.
Another woman, Amanda Scriven, claimed that George would follow her on his bike as she walked from Parsons Green tube station. He did it in a manner 'designed to intimidate' and refused to stop, even when challenged. Mr Laidlaw said: 'On one occasion, he held a camera to Miss Scriven's face and took pictures until she pushed it away.'
Mr Laidlaw said a woman named Claudia Casey was also targeted in the street by George. 'She tried to get away from him by walking more quickly but he grabbed her arm and said, "But I only want to talk". She was terrified and jumped into the passenger seat of a passing car and explained to the driver what had gone on.'
Mr Laidlaw said: 'Whilst others in the Fulham area might have regarded the defendant as a lonely, harmless individual there is evidence of a more sinister aspect to his pursuit of women.
The court heard that George once had a gun which 'could have been converted into the sort of weapon which was used to kill Miss Dando'.
He enlisted for training with the Territorial Army under the name S.F. Majors in 1981. He stayed for a year and although he did not complete basic training, he attended weapons courses which involved firing, stripping and assembling selfloading rifles and machine guns.
In 1982, he was also a member of a gun club and took part in pistol shooting.
When police raided his home in 2000, they discovered a large collection of books, magazines and cards relating to guns, weapons, the military and military techniques.
There was also a photograph of George wearing a military respirator-and holding a handgun.
In about 1985 George was living in bed-and-breakfast accommodation in Gloucester Road, West London, under the name Thomas Palmer.
He showed David Dobbins, who lived there with his family, an imitation Heckler and Koch machine gun.
He showed another resident a handgun, a machine pistol and a silver-coloured handgun.
The following year the Dobbins family moved to a basement flat nearby. One evening George knocked at the door, dressed in combat gear and wearing a balaclava. He charged into the hallway holding a handgun and there was a loud bang, which caused panic.
He left, putting the gun in the waistband of his jeans.
Soon afterwards, when George was living in Crookham Road, David Dobbins broke into his flat and found both an MP5 machine gun and the handgun shown in the photograph as well as other military equipment. Mr Mahoney took the handgun and some blank ammunition, which he was able to fire in the gun.
Mr Laidlaw said it appears the silver handgun was never found and its whereabouts remain unknown.
George's story about where he was when Jill Dando was shot has changed over the years. At first, he claimed he was at home in Crookham Road, a few streets from the scene of the murder, at 11.30am, and attended a support centre for the disabled at 12.45.
But later, he made a new statement, claiming he had been at the centre all the time. The prosecution alleges he lied about his alibi and will use CCTV evidence and testimony from witnesses who saw him after the killing.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/dandos-killer-kept-photos-of-other-top-female-tv-presenters-among-thousands-of-pictures-he-hoarded-6837144.html
-
”He was immediately hostile towards me. I saw red when he accused me of being a coward who used moral blackmail against him by threatening to stop the campaign and website. He was very angry over the three line letter which I had sent him. He remained hostile so I got up saying ‘I’m off, goodbye’. Unfortunately when I got to the door I couldn’t get out as I left my pass with Margaret and had to ask her to bring it. While I was waiting Margaret was engaged in an intense conversation with him. ‘If he leaves now he’ll never come back’ she said. She then called to me to come back to the table, and Barry beckoned at me to return. I relented, apologised to the friendly female prison officer and went back. Barry then apologised for ranting at me and we had some tea. The rest of the visit passed without incident but I was struck by how angry he could be. At one stage a couple of officers in dark blue uniforms entered the visiting hall and Barry said that they were the heavy mob, to deal with any aggro. He then said that he could not discuss certain matters with me as he feared that I might run to the press. I did not argue but then he said that if I did anything to damage his case he would be very angry and the anger he displayed this day would be nothing compared with what he could be like. It seemed like he was threatening me.
Barry George’s uncle Mike’s book provides much insight into the real Barry George.
”Moral blackmail is a wrongful strategy intended to force a person to perform an act by manipulating her circumstances so as to make it morally wrong for her to do anything else. The idea of moral blackmail can seem paradoxical, but moral blackmail is a coherent and indeed a familiar phenomenon. It has special significance for our intimate personal relationships and is often a force within family dynamics. It is used to enforce power relationships within families, and in particular to uphold expectations that women and girls will do most of the work in caring for vulnerable family members. It is also used as a tool of policy makers, to transfer to families duties of care that would otherwise be discharged by the government or by society at large. It is an important but under-recognized source of ongoing manipulation and exploitation.[/i]
https://brill.com/abstract/journals/jmp/13/6/article-p699_4.xml
Emotional blackmail and FOG are terms, popularized by psychotherapist Susan Forward, about controlling people in relationships and the theory that fear, obligation, and guilt (FOG) are the transactional dynamics at play between the controller and the person being controlled. Understanding these dynamics is useful to anyone trying to extricate from the controlling behavior of another person, and deal with their own compulsions to do things that are uncomfortable, undesirable, burdensome, or self-sacrificing for others.[1][/i]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_blackmail
-
”He was immediately hostile towards me. I saw red when he accused me of being a coward who used moral blackmail against him by threatening to stop the campaign and website. He was very angry over the three line letter which I had sent him. He remained hostile so I got up saying ‘I’m off, goodbye’. Unfortunately when I got to the door I couldn’t get out as I left my pass with Margaret and had to ask her to bring it. While I was waiting Margaret was engaged in an intense conversation with him. ‘If he leaves now he’ll never come back’ she said. She then called to me to come back to the table, and Barry beckoned at me to return. I relented, apologised to the friendly female prison officer and went back. Barry then apologised for ranting at me and we had some tea. The rest of the visit passed without incident but I was struck by how angry he could be. At one stage a couple of officers in dark blue uniforms entered the visiting hall and Barry said that they were the heavy mob, to deal with any aggro. He then said that he could not discuss certain matters with me as he feared that I might run to the press. I did not argue but then he said that if I did anything to damage his case he would be very angry and the anger he displayed this day would be nothing compared with what he could be like. It seemed like he was threatening me.
Intelligence or information like this is what organisations like MAPPA use to help them with risk assessments. The same would apply with regards Michelle Diskin Bates denial of her brothers dangerousness.
-
Have you not considered the reason Michelle Diskin Bates may have aligned herself with the Jeremy Bamber campaign was because she knew the Bamberettes were naive, gullible and prone to lack in judgement?
Plus she was running out of supporters. If you read her book it’s made clear; though unintentionally I imagine. But I don’t suppose she thought of these consequences when she chose to publish it. She’s made reference to many instances of where she clashed with others, including William Clegg QC.
The Barry George campaign run its course long ago. He has no where else to go, other than attempt to jump on the bandwagon of other campaigns. If you look, you will see this is what Michelle Diskin Bates and her brother have been doing for some time.
-
Barry George’s uncle Mike’s book provides much insight into the real Barry George.
And regarding his niece - Michelle Diskin Bates
“On the train to East Acton I read on the Evening Standard that the guestbook on Michelle’s website was inundated with congratulatory messages. I wondered if that referred to the JfB ‘site, or was there another one which we were unaware of. Meanwhile I got more congratulatory texts from reporters in Ireland.
“I felt that those media interviews were a mistake and damaged his chances of attaining public acceptance. Within two days he had been transformed from tragic miscarriage of justice victim deserving of some sympathy into something much less savoury. When I opened the JfB e-mails I saw nasty derogatory messages which were intended for Michelle, something which had rarely ever happened up to this. One told her to take her lovely brother to Ireland and to keep him there. That is the sanitised version. It was quite a contrast from the reaction which followed his 2007 victory in the appeal court.
-
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
Mike Bourke;
“It was pointed out by John McVicar that under Scottish law the jury would have had the option of a ‘not proven’ verdict. ‘Not Proven’ is basically an acquittal and was described in 1824 by novelist and Sheriff Sir Walter Scott as ‘That b........ verdict, not proven’. I feel it was a little mean of McVicar to try and muddy the waters with such tripe, which has no relevance in English law. Barry was found Not Guilty. What could be clearer?
I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that Barry George and his uncle Mike are once again estranged. Wonder if he’s changed his mind about his nephews guilt?
In her book Stand Against Injustice Michelle Diskin Bates states her uncle Mike would probably support Barry George even if he were innocent.
The way I interpreted what she wrote and the context in which she wrote it, was as if she were attempting to claim some perceived higher moral ground.
-
Hi,
New poster. I, like many others believed the spin that Barry George was just an eccentric who'd been unfairly scapegoated by the police.
After reading up on this case and getting acquainted with the facts after the recent BBC doc aired, I now think it's almost certain that Barry George killed Jill Dando. It's just unfortunate that the police didn't look into him soon enough, giving him of plenty of time to dispose of the murder weapon and other incriminating material.
-
Hi,
New poster. I, like many others believed the spin that Barry George was just an eccentric who'd been unfairly scapegoated by the police.
After reading up on this case and getting acquainted with the facts after the recent BBC doc aired, I now think it's almost certain that Barry George killed Jill Dando. It's just unfortunate that the police didn't look into him soon enough, giving him of plenty of time to dispose of the murder weapon and other incriminating material.
8((()*/
Welcome again ()678%
-
Hi,
New poster. I, like many others believed the spin that Barry George was just an eccentric who'd been unfairly scapegoated by the police.
After reading up on this case and getting acquainted with the facts after the recent BBC doc aired, I now think it's almost certain that Barry George killed Jill Dando. It's just unfortunate that the police didn't look into him soon enough, giving him of plenty of time to dispose of the murder weapon and other incriminating material.
“The barrister for Barry George, cleared of killing presenter Jill Dando, has warned that huge publicity can distort investigations into high-profile cases.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7538683.stm
Huge publicity can also distort spin from the truth. Though you won’t hear that from William Clegg because his job is to defend his client.
Mr Clegg told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "All these cases that attract widespread publicity put huge pressure on the police and the prosecuting authorities to try to find the perpetrator and I sometimes feel that that pressure distorts the objectivity that would otherwise be present, were the publicity to be absent."
Clever use of words
Contempt of court was an issue the prosecuting authorities were faced with in this case.
One juror in particular springs to mind. I do hope she’s not been allowed on jury service since. I also hope she isn’t working with vulnerable individuals.
-
Mr Clegg told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "All these cases that attract widespread publicity put huge pressure on the police and the prosecuting authorities to try to find the perpetrator and I sometimes feel that that pressure distorts the objectivity that would otherwise be present, were the publicity to be absent."
And statements like this were manipulated by Barry George and his campaign in order to suit their agenda.
-
Hi,
New poster. I, like many others believed the spin that Barry George was just an eccentric who'd been unfairly scapegoated by the police.
After reading up on this case and getting acquainted with the facts after the recent BBC doc aired, I now think it's almost certain that Barry George killed Jill Dando. It's just unfortunate that the police didn't look into him soon enough, giving him of plenty of time to dispose of the murder weapon and other incriminating material.
Hi WHM and welcome to the forum 8((()*/
Jill's property at Gowan Ave was either on the market or about to go on the market. She lived in the main with her fiancee, Alan Farthing, at his home in Chiswick. Given she only visited Gowan Ave very infrequently on random days/times how would anyone know when she was going to turn up, including BG?
If we are to believe BG was responsible, which I do not, then we have to believe he was not only lucky in arriving just as Jill pulled up but that he also had a lucky escape too. Imo this is too much luck to be true.
I would suggest the murder was planned in great detail over many weeks, or longer, by an accomplished network of individuals with considerable experience in covert surveillance, procuring firearms and ammo and planning and executing such crimes undetected. The murder was carried out with military style precision except imo the perps were not military trained but terrorist trained.
The fact a man was seen living 29 Gowan Ave shortly after Jill's neighbour heard Jill pull up, set her car alarm followed by a scream does not mean the man was acting alone. Imo others were in the vicinity tracking Jill's movements electronically, acting as distractors in the event of anyone entering the zone during the crucial period and providing getaway transport.
-
Hi WHM and welcome to the forum 8((()*/
Jill's property at Gowan Ave was either on the market or about to go on the market. She lived in the main with her fiancee, Alan Farthing, at his home in Chiswick. Given she only visited Gowan Ave very infrequently on random days/times how would anyone know when she was going to turn up, including BG?
If we are to believe BG was responsible, which I do not, then we have to believe he was not only lucky in arriving just as Jill pulled up but that he also had a lucky escape too. Imo this is too much luck to be true.
I would suggest the murder was planned in great detail over many weeks, or longer, by an accomplished network of individuals with considerable experience in covert surveillance, procuring firearms and ammo and planning and executing such crimes undetected. The murder was carried out with military style precision except imo the perps were not military trained but terrorist trained.
The fact a man was seen living 29 Gowan Ave shortly after Jill's neighbour heard Jill pull up, set her car alarm followed by a scream does not mean the man was acting alone. Imo others were in the vicinity tracking Jill's movements electronically, acting as distractors in the event of anyone entering the zone during the crucial period and providing getaway transport.
This thread is for facts not conspiracy theories. Please post on the threads you’ve started, otherwise what was the point in starting them in the first place.
-
I’d be interested in learning more about David Dobbins
“A witness in the Jill Dando trial who gave important evidence against Barry George, the man convicted of the murder of the television presenter, has been found hanged at his home, it emerged yesterday.
David Dobbins, 30, was discovered by a relative on Thursday at his flat in Fulham, south-west London. It is understood he had been suffering from depression.
He had given evidence which showed that George was a fantasist who owned weapons which he liked to show to local children. During tense moments at the Old Bailey, he told the court how George had stormed into his home one evening dressed in combat gear and then fired at the ceiling with a pistol.
Mr Dobbins befriended George in the mid-1980s when they lived in the Stanhope Gardens Hotel, a bed and breakfast hostel in Kensington, west London. At the time Mr Dobbins was 13. George had just been released from prison after a conviction for attempted rape.
“Mr Dobbins had told the trial that he knew George as Thomas Palmer, the name of an SAS soldier involved in the rescue of hostages from the Iranian embassy siege of 1980.
He told the jury that George owned an imitation Heckler and Koch MP5 machine gun, and a blank-firing handgun, as well as "a few knives".
Mr Dobbins's family moved to another address in 1986, but George continued to see them. Mr Dobbins had recalled how he heard a noise outside the basement flat and opened the door to investigate. "I saw Mr Palmer. He pushed his way in with a handgun and he discharged a shot. It was pretty scary. It was like he was trying to frighten us."
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2001/aug/21/broadcasting.jilldando
-
I’d be interested in learning more about David Dobbins
Mike Bourke
”Barry denied during police questioning that it was him in the photograph, and claimed the gun; a blank firing replica was stolen by his friend David Dobbins
In evidence David Dobbins described an incident where Barry discharged a blank firing pistol at David’s mother’s house, frightening him. David admitted that following his frightening experience he chatted with Barry, his friend, for about an hour.
“During August it was reported that David Dobbins, a friend of Barry’s who became a prosecution witness had hanged himself, preceded by his brother. I was told that David was depressed but I do not know if his giving evidence against Barry contributed to his unfortunate death. Finally on September 2nd a visiting order arrived.
“I was a little concerned that he was again trying to threaten me. That type of behaviour undermined my belief in him. He then spoke about the late David Dobbins and Eugene O Mahoney and the replica gun which they had taken from his flat. He claimed that the ‘gun’ had been intact when it was taken and so he thought the damage which resulted in the exposed spring had happened after it left his possession.
-
I’d be interested in learning more about David Dobbins
“A witness in the Jill Dando trial who gave important evidence against Barry George, the man convicted of the murder of the television presenter, has been found hanged at his home, it emerged yesterday.
David Dobbins, 30, was discovered by a relative on Thursday at his flat in Fulham, south-west London. It is understood he had been suffering from depression.
He had given evidence which showed that George was a fantasist who owned weapons which he liked to show to local children. During tense moments at the Old Bailey, he told the court how George had stormed into his home one evening dressed in combat gear and then fired at the ceiling with a pistol.
Mr Dobbins befriended George in the mid-1980s when they lived in the Stanhope Gardens Hotel, a bed and breakfast hostel in Kensington, west London. At the time Mr Dobbins was 13. George had just been released from prison after a conviction for attempted rape.
“Mr Dobbins had told the trial that he knew George as Thomas Palmer, the name of an SAS soldier involved in the rescue of hostages from the Iranian embassy siege of 1980.
He told the jury that George owned an imitation Heckler and Koch MP5 machine gun, and a blank-firing handgun, as well as "a few knives".
Mr Dobbins's family moved to another address in 1986, but George continued to see them. Mr Dobbins had recalled how he heard a noise outside the basement flat and opened the door to investigate. "I saw Mr Palmer. He pushed his way in with a handgun and he discharged a shot. It was pretty scary. It was like he was trying to frighten us."
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2001/aug/21/broadcasting.jilldando
David Dobbins, who was then aged 13, was also living there with his family. "He recalls the defendant showing him an imitation Heckler & Koch machine gun and a gas mask," said counsel.
"He told Susan Combe, another resident, that he collected guns and showed her a handgun and a machine pistol.
"She once went to his room and was shown a third gun which was kept in a small cardboard box. It was silver in colour, highly polished and smaller than the other two weapons she had seen."
Mr Pownall said the Dobbins family moved to a basement flat in Pelham street and one evening, there was a knock on the door.
He added: "It was the defendant, who was dressed in combat gear and wearing a balaclava.
"He entered into the hallway holding a handgun and there was a loud bang. After the initial panic resulting from his arrival had subsided, the defendant removed the balaclava and showed those present the gun.
"The defendant also took blank firing rounds of ammunition from his pocket and showed them to David Dobbins. They were gold in colour and there was no head.
"The tops of the cases were flat and covered with a coloured wax. When he left the flat he placed a hundgun in the waistband of his jeans."
In 1987/8, George was living in Crookham Road when David Dobbins, Eugene Mahoney and two other friends went to the flat and climbed in through an open window.
"The defendant was not in and they stole the blank firing pistol and imitation Heckler & Koch machine pistol," said Mr Pownall.
"It appears that they did not find the silver coloured handgun in the shoebox described by Susan Coombe.
"The present whereabouts of that gun are unknown."
Mr Dobbins was shown a number of photographs developed by police from negatives found at George's home which showed George "wearing a respirator and holding a gun".
"He identified the gun as the one he had seen used by the defendant on the occasion that he entered the Pelham Road address and discharged a blank round," said Mr Pownall.
"A firearms expert has looked at the photographs. Certain features enable him to identify it as a Bruni blank firing pistol. Part of the frame has been cut away exposing the spring mechanism.
"I told you (the jury) earlier that the gun used to kill Miss Dando had a smooth-bored barrel which had either been converted from a blank-firing pistol to one capable of firing bullets or a deactivated weapon which had been similarly converted.
"In due course, you may wish to consider why the defendant appears to have altered the structure of the Bruni pistol."
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-43483/Dando-killed-single-bullet.html
-
“The journalist Louise Shorter, who heads up the Inside Justice investigative unit, was commissioned by Panorama to look at the case. Shorter had been aware of concerns over the safety of the conviction since working on another BBC programme, Rough Justice in the 1990s.
‘If a case lands on my desk involving gunshot residue, I would ask how much was there and would it pass today’s standards?’ she told the Justice Gap yesterday. ‘Since the Barry George and Dwaine George cases, the guidance to forensic scientists as to how they put across the evidence to juries has changed significantly: anything less than four particles of this particular type of gunshot residue and then a red flag should go up straightaway.’
Barry George’s conviction was quashed in the same year that Kevin Lane’s legal team made a third application to the CCRC. It was overturned followed a referral by the CCRC after a Panorama investigation identified concerns about a single speck on George’s coat which had convinced the jury that murdered Jill Dando. It was Cardiff Law School that identified the vulnerability of the gunshot residue evidence in the Dwaine George case as reported on the Justice Gap (here). The CCRC referred that case on the grounds there was ‘a real possibility’ the evidence of gunshot residue ‘does not now attract the value attributed to it at trial, and therefore does not support the identification evidence’. That conviction was quashed in 2014.
https://www.thejusticegap.com/unmanageable-workloads-and-substandard-investigations-that-fail-to-put-right-miscarriages-of-justice/
-
“The journalist Louise Shorter, who heads up the Inside Justice investigative unit, was commissioned by Panorama to look at the case. Shorter had been aware of concerns over the safety of the conviction since working on another BBC programme, Rough Justice in the 1990s.
‘If a case lands on my desk involving gunshot residue, I would ask how much was there and would it pass today’s standards?’ she told the Justice Gap yesterday. ‘Since the Barry George and Dwaine George cases, the guidance to forensic scientists as to how they put across the evidence to juries has changed significantly: anything less than four particles of this particular type of gunshot residue and then a red flag should go up straightaway.’
Barry George’s conviction was quashed in the same year that Kevin Lane’s legal team made a third application to the CCRC. It was overturned followed a referral by the CCRC after a Panorama investigation identified concerns about a single speck on George’s coat which had convinced the jury that murdered Jill Dando. It was Cardiff Law School that identified the vulnerability of the gunshot residue evidence in the Dwaine George case as reported on the Justice Gap (here). The CCRC referred that case on the grounds there was ‘a real possibility’ the evidence of gunshot residue ‘does not now attract the value attributed to it at trial, and therefore does not support the identification evidence’. That conviction was quashed in 2014.
https://www.thejusticegap.com/unmanageable-workloads-and-substandard-investigations-that-fail-to-put-right-miscarriages-of-justice/
“Errors plague the criminal justice system
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RVQ6kReMLdw
“Since then, the same errors (either in combination or individually) have occurred in well-reported cases such as R v. Clark (Forrest 2003, Hill 2005), R v. George (Fenton et al. 2013a), and R v. de Berk (Meester et al. 2007). Although the original bad use of statistics in each case (presented by forensic or medical expert witnesses without statistical training) was exposed through good use of statistics on appeal, it is the bad use of statistics that leaves an indelible stain. Yet the role of legal professionals (who allow expert witnesses to commit the same well-known statistical errors repeatedly) is rarely questioned.
https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-statistics-041715-033428
-
“Errors plague the criminal justice system
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RVQ6kReMLdw
“Since then, the same errors (either in combination or individually) have occurred in well-reported cases such as R v. Clark (Forrest 2003, Hill 2005), R v. George (Fenton et al. 2013a), and R v. de Berk (Meester et al. 2007). Although the original bad use of statistics in each case (presented by forensic or medical expert witnesses without statistical training) was exposed through good use of statistics on appeal, it is the bad use of statistics that leaves an indelible stain. Yet the role of legal professionals (who allow expert witnesses to commit the same well-known statistical errors repeatedly) is rarely questioned.
https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-statistics-041715-033428
Challenging claims that probability theory is incompatible with legal reasoning
https://probabilityandlaw.blogspot.com/2019/03/challenging-claims-that-probability.html
-
Challenging claims that probability theory is incompatible with legal reasoning
https://probabilityandlaw.blogspot.com/2019/03/challenging-claims-that-probability.html
How much do we trust academic 'experts'?
http://probabilityandlaw.blogspot.com/2018/07/how-much-do-we-trust-experts_13.html
-
David Dobbins, who was then aged 13, was also living there with his family. "He recalls the defendant showing him an imitation Heckler & Koch machine gun and a gas mask," said counsel.
"He told Susan Combe, another resident, that he collected guns and showed her a handgun and a machine pistol.
"She once went to his room and was shown a third gun which was kept in a small cardboard box. It was silver in colour, highly polished and smaller than the other two weapons she had seen."
Mr Pownall said the Dobbins family moved to a basement flat in Pelham street and one evening, there was a knock on the door.
He added: "It was the defendant, who was dressed in combat gear and wearing a balaclava.
"He entered into the hallway holding a handgun and there was a loud bang. After the initial panic resulting from his arrival had subsided, the defendant removed the balaclava and showed those present the gun.
"The defendant also took blank firing rounds of ammunition from his pocket and showed them to David Dobbins. They were gold in colour and there was no head.
"The tops of the cases were flat and covered with a coloured wax. When he left the flat he placed a hundgun in the waistband of his jeans."
In 1987/8, George was living in Crookham Road when David Dobbins, Eugene Mahoney and two other friends went to the flat and climbed in through an open window.
"The defendant was not in and they stole the blank firing pistol and imitation Heckler & Koch machine pistol," said Mr Pownall.
"It appears that they did not find the silver coloured handgun in the shoebox described by Susan Coombe.
"The present whereabouts of that gun are unknown."
Mr Dobbins was shown a number of photographs developed by police from negatives found at George's home which showed George "wearing a respirator and holding a gun".
"He identified the gun as the one he had seen used by the defendant on the occasion that he entered the Pelham Road address and discharged a blank round," said Mr Pownall.
"A firearms expert has looked at the photographs. Certain features enable him to identify it as a Bruni blank firing pistol. Part of the frame has been cut away exposing the spring mechanism.
"I told you (the jury) earlier that the gun used to kill Miss Dando had a smooth-bored barrel which had either been converted from a blank-firing pistol to one capable of firing bullets or a deactivated weapon which had been similarly converted.
"In due course, you may wish to consider why the defendant appears to have altered the structure of the Bruni pistol."
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-43483/Dando-killed-single-bullet.html
Interestingly 2 weeks before the murder Barry George purchased a gun SAS belt. “Only two weeks before Miss Dando's death he had bought an SAS belt.
”George attended at least three schools before settling at Northcroft juniors in Shepherd's Bush, west London. It had just opened to deal with - in the parlance of the time - "maladjusted children".
Following his parents separation, George's father remarried and emigrated to Australia. Though he moved back to Britain and now lives in Wales, he has not seen his son for 20 years. Margaret told her friends that "when he divorced me, he divorced the kids too".
Aged 14, George moved to a council boarding school for boys who had "emotional and behavioural difficulties".
Staff at Heathermount, set in 14 idyllic acres in Sunningdale, Berkshire, remembered him as a "mummy's boy" who followed one of the matrons "like a lost lamb". The less academic pupils, like George, were encouraged to concentrate on woodwork, metalwork, weaving and gardening, and to perform in ambitious theatre productions, such as La Boheme and The Mikado.
It was here that George's obsession with celebrity began to emerge, insisting to friends and teachers that they should call him Paul Gadd, Gary Glitter's real name.
"He didn't just have posters on his walls like the other kids," said one former member of staff. "He knew every movement, song and dance."
At Heathermount, George may also have had his first contact with guns. In the spring of 1972 the school built a small-bore rifle range, much against the wishes of some parents and governors. Although it closed a year later, George would have known about and probably used the facility.
George often had "funny turns", but staff were not sure whether these episodes were real or feigned. Doctors examined him on two occasions between 1974 and 1976 and concluded there was nothing wrong.
It is now accepted that George does suffer from a mild form of epilepsy, though the experts are divided about its effects. Some believe George deliberately exaggerates the condition, others claim it has caused "severe brain dysfunction"
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/jul/03/jilldando.media5
-
Michelle Diskin Bates claims to be able to, “definitely divorce the umm thriller from the real thing”
https://cambridge105.co.uk/bookmark-09-03-2019/ (approx 1 minute in)
Her book Stand Against Injustice suggests otherwise, as does the interview
Wonder what the police and Jill Dando’s family think about some of the claims she makes?
She appears to be taken aback by the fact one of the other authors on the show was a barrister/judge
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀 Retweeted
Don Hale OBE
@perryscope21
The documentary was very biased and one sided. Nothing new. No interview with Barry George and his family, no acknowledgement Campbell made a complete hash of the police inquiry and no apology to an innocent man.
Quote Tweet
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
· Apr 3
“...undeveloped film, and a collection of cuttings about Dando.”
Is it only Hamish Campbell who doesn’t know this is a lie? Two trials both knew there were no cuttings, underlining or other markings on the magazines. Campbell saw cuttings?
(link: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/apr/02/the-murder-of-jill-dando-review) theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2…
8:36 AM · Apr 4, 2019 · Twitter Web Client
14
Retweets
17
Likes
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
Apr 4
Replying to
@perryscope21
Thank you Don. No ‘right of reply’ either. They spoke with me on courtesy calls, but no warning as to the content. The only thing they did was to NOT describe Barry’s autism in disparaging terms...oddball, weirdo. They obviously couldn’t find a better word for Loner though 😡
5
4
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
Apr 4
Replying to
@perryscope21
The programme shocked me, it was outrageous that they gave an ex cop, of a failed investigation a huge platform, then used leading questions to reach their objective. They knew my book outlines the flaws in the investigation, but chose to sideline that.
https://mobile.twitter.com/perryscope21/status/1113706820693102592
*&^^&
“Don Hale, the local newspaper journalist who was awarded an OBE for helping to overturn the murder conviction of Stephen Downing, has for the first time admitted that he made mistakes during his eight-year investigation of the case.
Mr Hale, who only eight months ago completely rejected police criticisms that he had embellished evidence during his campaign to free Mr Downing, has now admitted that with hindsight he would have done things differently.
In an interview last week with The Telegraph, the former newspaper editor also tried to distance himself from Mr Downing, whose conviction for murdering Wendy Sewell in a Bakewell graveyard was quashed by the Court of Appeal on a technicality last year. After 27 years in prison he was released - because he had not been properly cautioned before making his confession.
Although he had previously insisted that Mr Downing was of impeccable character, Mr Hale agreed that revelations that the man he sought to free has an alleged history of harassing women had made things difficult for him.
Allegations by a number of women that Mr Downing had stalked or attacked them and had also made obscene telephone calls from prison were disclosed in The Telegraph; our reports were subsequently confirmed in an exhaustive police reinvestigation of Mrs Sewell's murder by Derbyshire police.
During the course of the reinvestigation, detectives established that Mr Hale had ignored many of his own notes, instead distorting information in an apparent attempt to blame others for Mrs Sewell's murder.
After consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service, however, Derbyshire Police have decided that "there are no grounds on which to base any further investigation nor indeed a prosecution for any offence"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1441408/Campaigner-for-Stephen-Downing-admits-to-errors.html
-
“Don Hale, the local newspaper journalist who was awarded an OBE for helping to overturn the murder conviction of Stephen Downing, has for the first time admitted that he made mistakes during his eight-year investigation of the case.
Mr Hale, who only eight months ago completely rejected police criticisms that he had embellished evidence during his campaign to free Mr Downing, has now admitted that with hindsight he would have done things differently.
In an interview last week with The Telegraph, the former newspaper editor also tried to distance himself from Mr Downing, whose conviction for murdering Wendy Sewell in a Bakewell graveyard was quashed by the Court of Appeal on a technicality last year. After 27 years in prison he was released - because he had not been properly cautioned before making his confession.
Although he had previously insisted that Mr Downing was of impeccable character, Mr Hale agreed that revelations that the man he sought to free has an alleged history of harassing women had made things difficult for him.
Allegations by a number of women that Mr Downing had stalked or attacked them and had also made obscene telephone calls from prison were disclosed in The Telegraph; our reports were subsequently confirmed in an exhaustive police reinvestigation of Mrs Sewell's murder by Derbyshire police.
During the course of the reinvestigation, detectives established that Mr Hale had ignored many of his own notes, instead distorting information in an apparent attempt to blame others for Mrs Sewell's murder.
After consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service, however, Derbyshire Police have decided that "there are no grounds on which to base any further investigation nor indeed a prosecution for any offence"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1441408/Campaigner-for-Stephen-Downing-admits-to-errors.html
“Don Hale is undoubtedly best known for his involvement in the cases of wrongly convicted murderers Stephen Downing and Barry George who were both released after the tireless work of Don and others in over-turning a gross miscarriage of justice. http://www.donhale.co.uk/
What’s the betting Stephen Downing was also under MAPPA, (or what ever it was called back then) upon his release from prison.
Barry George and Stephen Downing - two men with a history of violence against women both of whom had their murder convictions overturned on technicalities.
Don Hale OBE Retweeted
Brian P Willmot
@BrianWillmot
·
Mar 7
Replying to
@perryscope21
@MarkWatts_1
You have first hand knowledge of how the Police operate, given your eventful experiences over the years. God moves in mysterious ways & your success in getting innocent people released from prison is a testament to your integrity. Thanks & good will are extended ✝️
Don Hale OBE
@perryscope21
·
Apr 8
Great job of reporting the facts Mark.
https://mobile.twitter.com/perryscope21?lang=en
*&^^&
More on Mark Watts can be found here: https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/?s=Mark+watts+
Excerpts from Barrister Blogger blog:
“As for corroboration of the allegations: there is none so far as we can tell, apart from the existence of multiple complaints, the vast majority of which even the institutionally credulous Wiltshire Police accept do not give rise even to “reasonable suspicion.” In the frantic leaking and spinning in the weeks leading up to the report it was reported that Police considered these complainants “independent” of one another. For some reason “sources close to Mike Veale” appear to have leaked a lot to Mark Watts, former boss of Exaro News, the defunct and unlamented organisation that gambled and lost all respectability through its reporting of Operation Midland.
http://barristerblogger.com/2017/10/09/operation-conifer-report-sir-edward-heath-empty-exercise-self-justification/
“Sir Richard’s report – at least the published parts of it – says comparatively little about the involvement of the media. Throughout the the whole Operation Midland saga the online scandal-site Exaro News continued to report Nick’s claims in ever more salacious detail, although carefully editing out the most absurd-sounding parts. Far from disinterestedly reporting news, Exaro’s editor in chief Mark Watts openly attacked Harvey Proctor for his “shameful” and “over the top theatrics” when he held a news conference to protest his innocence of multiple rape and murder. Apparently this “distressed” Nick.
It is unclear what Mr Watts would consider an appropriate response to being falsely accused of multiple sadistic murders, or why the victim of such an accusation should be expected to keep quiet so as not to distress his tormentor
At least Hogan-Howe has apologised for his force’s behaviour. Mr Watts has not, although thankfully the horrible company for which he worked collapsed like a cold soufflé once Operation Midland was wound up.
http://barristerblogger.com/2016/11/10/henriques-report-deputy-heads-must-roll/
And Don Hale here: https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/?s=Mark+watts+
-
My doubts remain, mainly due to how it (the case) has been presented in the media and by whom it has been presented.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02n7rgj
What is Bates referring to re the Daily Mirror reporting? And from what newspapers did George win damages?
This clip is originally from 5 live Breakfast on April 1 2015 - Michelle Diskin Bates states:
“and as we can see from the umm Daily Mirrors reporting that umm there’s a whole lot of it that was never looked at at all
By Nick Dorman & Mark Williams Thomas - 31 March 2015
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jill-dando-secret-files-revealed-5437428
Reporter 'offered to sell names of victims'
"A FORMER police officer in the Jonathan King case who is now a TV documentary reporter offered to sell the names of the pop mogul’s victims, according to a judge.
Investigative reporter Mark Williams-Thomas, who made his name in a documentary exposing Jimmy Savile, has claimed to have solved a number of high-profile cases, including the murder of TV host Jill Dando.
But yesterday his professional reputation was called into question after Judge Deborah Taylor delivered a withering assessment of his previous work for Surrey Police on the King case. Before he left the force in October 2000 Mr Williams-Thomas was the detective who interviewed the first man to accuse King of sexual assault. He was subsequently accused – and acquitted – of blackmail in an unrelated case.
Yesterday the judge said: ‘ During the investigation into that offence a document was found on his computer offering for sale names and introductions to victims of Mr King.
‘There was also information that prior to Mr King’s arrest, Williams-Thomas said that he had been provided by a journalist with information about King. Williams-Thomas left taking his contemporaneous notebooks of his involvement with inquiries into Mr King with him.
‘No attempts had been made to obtain them, although it is the Crown’s position that he should not have taken them with him as they were the property of Surrey Police.’
The judge added that it had been suggested ‘there was deliberate concealment of his previous prosecution and of the documents indicating attempts to gain financial advantage from selling details of Mr King’s case’. Yesterday Mr Williams-Thomas denied ever knowing the victims’ identities, or offering them for sale.
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/daily-mail/20180807/281732680305413
Why did Michelle Diskin Bate's & Barry George choose Mark Williams Thomas to "re-investiagate" the murder of Jill Dando?
Jonathan king
“We tend to concentrate on celebrities because that's all the media assumes the public are interested in but I was fortunate to spend time in prison and learned a huge amount about ordinary people - including many, often vicars, priests or teachers, who had pleaded guilty to crimes that never took place simply because they did not want to cause further distress to the false accusers. Yes; some did it to get lesser sentences or simply to stop the horrid process (often nasty enough to cause suicide; believe me, as I stood in the dock recently and heard the horrid Cottage woman (prosecutor) spout total lies about me, without being able to speak up and deny them, I knew how ordinary people, with less thick skin, could kill themselves). But many were genuinely decent people who simply felt it was better they suffer than make the loonies, or greedies or simply deluded, suffer more. A Christian attitude. And they had nothing to gain by telling me that. In honest conversations - their lives already ruined or almost over - some in their 80s. The crimes simply never happened but why ruin someone else's life when they were only going to be alive for a few more years anyway? Often their wives and children knew and believed the truth; essentially that was all that mattered. These men didn't have the "killer instinct" I have - not for revenge but to prevent other innocent people suffering similar. They were decent, honest, honourable men. Most will now be dead. I hope I gave them comfort, friendship, understanding.
http://www.kingofhits.co.uk/component/option,com_kunena/Itemid,65/func,view/catid,2/id,188820/
-
How much do we trust academic 'experts'?
http://probabilityandlaw.blogspot.com/2018/07/how-much-do-we-trust-experts_13.html
Not a whole lot! Many of the academics I came into contact with (Simon Hall era) have built their reputations on sand!
And so it goes on...... *&^^&
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0379073819301550?via%3Dihub
-
“Don Hale is undoubtedly best known for his involvement in the cases of wrongly convicted murderers Stephen Downing and Barry George who were both released after the tireless work of Don and others in over-turning a gross miscarriage of justice. http://www.donhale.co.uk/
What’s the betting Stephen Downing was also under MAPPA, (or what ever it was called back then) upon his release from prison.
Barry George and Stephen Downing - two men with a history of violence against women both of whom had their murder convictions overturned on technicalities.
Don Hale OBE Retweeted
Brian P Willmot
@BrianWillmot
·
Mar 7
Replying to
@perryscope21
@MarkWatts_1
You have first hand knowledge of how the Police operate, given your eventful experiences over the years. God moves in mysterious ways & your success in getting innocent people released from prison is a testament to your integrity. Thanks & good will are extended ✝️
Don Hale OBE
@perryscope21
·
Apr 8
Great job of reporting the facts Mark.
https://mobile.twitter.com/perryscope21?lang=en
*&^^&
More on Mark Watts can be found here: https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/?s=Mark+watts+
Excerpts from Barrister Blogger blog:
“As for corroboration of the allegations: there is none so far as we can tell, apart from the existence of multiple complaints, the vast majority of which even the institutionally credulous Wiltshire Police accept do not give rise even to “reasonable suspicion.” In the frantic leaking and spinning in the weeks leading up to the report it was reported that Police considered these complainants “independent” of one another. For some reason “sources close to Mike Veale” appear to have leaked a lot to Mark Watts, former boss of Exaro News, the defunct and unlamented organisation that gambled and lost all respectability through its reporting of Operation Midland.
http://barristerblogger.com/2017/10/09/operation-conifer-report-sir-edward-heath-empty-exercise-self-justification/
“Sir Richard’s report – at least the published parts of it – says comparatively little about the involvement of the media. Throughout the the whole Operation Midland saga the online scandal-site Exaro News continued to report Nick’s claims in ever more salacious detail, although carefully editing out the most absurd-sounding parts. Far from disinterestedly reporting news, Exaro’s editor in chief Mark Watts openly attacked Harvey Proctor for his “shameful” and “over the top theatrics” when he held a news conference to protest his innocence of multiple rape and murder. Apparently this “distressed” Nick.
It is unclear what Mr Watts would consider an appropriate response to being falsely accused of multiple sadistic murders, or why the victim of such an accusation should be expected to keep quiet so as not to distress his tormentor
At least Hogan-Howe has apologised for his force’s behaviour. Mr Watts has not, although thankfully the horrible company for which he worked collapsed like a cold soufflé once Operation Midland was wound up.
http://barristerblogger.com/2016/11/10/henriques-report-deputy-heads-must-roll/
And Don Hale here: https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/?s=Mark+watts+
Byline – an editorial failure
“Byline Media, run by Peter Jukes and contributed to by various freelance journalists was recently at the centre of the Mark Watts “boy in a boat” issues.
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2017/10/10/byline-an-editorial-failure/
-
Michelle Diskin Bates:
"Becoming aware of a breaking-news story I began to listen in more closely. A siege was taking place at a farmhouse in England. The broadcaster relayed that five people were inside and there was great fear for their safety. As the story unfolded it became apparent that this was an older couple. A farmer and retired Magistrate, Nevill Bamber and his wife, June; their daughter, Sheila, and her six year old twin sons. Jeremy, their son, was outside with police who were trying to communicate with someone inside the house who had been seen pacing back and forth in front of an upstairs window and carrying a firearm. The reporter said that police were reluctant to get too close to the house for fear of causing that person to become more agitated, thereby, escalating the danger to the family. I watched for an hour or so but there was no resolution and, heavily pregnant, I became exhausted and had to go off to bed.
Another interview, another narrative - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0000t65
-
Man made errors plaque the criminal justice system *&^^& polluted by the contamination of confirmation bias
Appears to me because she has the likes of Dr Michael Naughton’s endorsement of her book it would give it some of credibility. It doesn’t!
“Errors plague the criminal justice system
Dr Holly Greenwood
“Holly’s research interests are in Criminal Justice and Criminal Procedure with a particular focus on miscarriages of justice. Her PhD was the first empirical research to examine the development and operation of innocence projects in the UK, which are university based projects where students investigate claims of alleged wrongful conviction. The research examined how innocence projects constructed and understood a “miscarriage of justice” and explored the problems and challenges which they faced. It also drew on Luhmann’s Social Systems Theory as a theoretical framework for examining this.
https://www.swansea.ac.uk/staff/law/hollygreenwood/
Read Holly Greenwood’s research on Innocent Networks UK, Dr Michael Naughton, Professor Julie Price & Dr Dennis
Eady here: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa40034
and here https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa40032
Holly Greenwood Retweeted
JB Campaign LTD
@jbcampaignltd
TODAY: #JeremyBamber Campaigner
@tru68
& Patron Dr Eady will be speaking at the 16th
@UaInjustice
Conference: #MOJ (link: https://www.change.org/p/rt-hon-amber-rudd-mp-home-secretary-essex-police-release-all-documents-withheld-under-pii-to-jeremy-bamber-s-legal-defence/u/21588673) change.org/p/rt-hon-amber…?
https://mobile.twitter.com/jbcampaignltd/status/916597420854861824
Holly Greenwood
@HollyGreenwood8
·
27 Apr 2016
Several important questions raised, my phd research will cast further light on some of these issues when complete
University innocence projects: where are they now?
Only one conviction has ever been overturned on the strength of a university innocence project’s work in the UK – what’s going on? And what’s next for these projects?
theguardian.com
https://mobile.twitter.com/HollyGreenwood8/status/725345733034008576
By Jon Robins - April 2016 https://www.theguardian.com/law/2016/apr/27/university-innocence-projects-where-are-they-now
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀 Retweeted
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
1h
Replying to
@hannahjames40
Nobody seems to recognise... Jill’s assassination was actually CLAIMED within 3 hours of her death! And it was done 3 times over 3 days. If Mansfield had known of that first ‘misfiled’ call, Barry would likely never have gone to trial. Responsibility claimed!!! 😱
Thanks ITV 👍🏻♥️
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1126220729568178179
*&^^&
Hannah James
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/user/hannah_james_2
-
Michael Bourke Uncle of Barry George stated:
He was immediately hostile towards me. I saw red when he accused me of being a coward who used moral blackmail against him by threatening to stop the campaign and website. He was very angry over the three line letter which I had sent him. He remained hostile so I got up saying ‘I’m off, goodbye’. Unfortunately when I got to the door I couldn’t get out as I left my pass with Margaret and had to ask her to bring it. While I was waiting Margaret was engaged in an intense conversation with him. ‘If he leaves now he’ll never come back’ she said. She then called to me to come back to the table, and Barry beckoned at me to return. I relented, apologised to the friendly female prison officer and went back. Barry then apologised for ranting at me and we had some tea. The rest of the visit passed without incident but I was struck by how angry he could be. At one stage a couple of officers in dark blue uniforms entered the visiting hall and Barry said that they were the heavy mob, to deal with any aggro. He then said that he could not discuss certain matters with me as he feared that I might run to the press. I did not argue but then he said that if I did anything to damage his case he would be very angry and the anger he displayed this day would be nothing compared with what he could be like. It seemed like he was threatening me.
Intelligence or information like this is what organisations like MAPPA use to help them with risk assessments. The same would apply with regards Michelle Diskin Bates denial of her brothers dangerousness.
Stalker, rapist and sex prowler - July 2001
“THE true enormity of the crimes and perversions of Barry George can finally be disclosed following his conviction for planning and executing the murder of Jill Dando.
George was found guilty by a 10-1 majority yesterday of shooting Miss Dando, one of the most popular TV presenters of modern times, as she crouched in terror on her doorstep.
The trial judge, Mr Justice Gage, told him: "You are unpredictable and dangerous and are likely to remain so for some time to come. There can be no doubt that it was premeditated. Why you did it will never be known: it is probable that you yourself could give no rational explanation."
As the judge sentenced him to life imprisonment, George (41), raised his eyebrows and swayed slightly. Pausing only to pick up a copy of the Bible that he had kept at his side throughout the 36-day trial, he bit his lower lip hard and was led away to the cells beneath the Old Bailey.
After they had returned their verdict, the six women and five men who remained on the jury after one member was discharged looked staggered as Det Supt Hamish Campbell, who led the inquiry, outlined George's previous convictions.
Mr Campbell told the court that George had raped a woman in 1982 - he pleaded guilty to attempted rape - and that he had previous convictions for indecent assault and for impersonating a police officer.
George also raped his Japanese wife Itsuko Toide, who left him after 11 months of a marriage filled with violence and intimidation. In an interview published today, she gives a remarkable insight into the mind of a man filled with rage and hatred of women.
George met Miss Toide after she had suffered a sexual assault herself and was feeling highly vulnerable. They married after a romance lasting four months. Almost immediately he began subjecting her to a series of sexual and physical attacks at the cramped ground-floor council flat that they shared in Crookham Road, Fulham.
The jury was not allowed to know that George had a long history of stalking women in the area where Miss Dando lived, although detectives found clear evidence that he had followed at least 419 women in Fulham, taking 2,597 photographs of them.
The judge also ruled during pre-trial legal argument that the jury should not learn that George had been arrested in 1983 while prowling in the grounds of Kensington Palace, close to the private apartments of the Prince and Princess of Wales, clad in camouflage fatigues and wielding a commando knife.
Despite these revelations, George's defence team announced they were to launching an immediate appeal.
One possible ground for appeal may be the discovery that one of the prosecution witnesses, Charlotte de Rosnay, 29, was involved for a while in a relationship with a member of the murder squad, Detective Constable Peter Bartlett.
Miss Dando (37) was murdered as she arrived at her home in Fulham, southwest London, on the morning of Monday April 26, 1999.
(The Times, London)
https://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/stalker-rapist-and-sex-prowler-26079016.html
According to Michelle Diskin Bates her brother remains under MAPPA (23rd October 2018)
Apparently, “being under MAPPA has seriously affected Barry’s ability to access help for his PTSD.
⚠️ 🔔 ⚠️ 🔔 ⚠️ 🔔
-
According to Michelle Diskin Bates her brother remains under MAPPA (23rd October 2018)
Apparently, “being under MAPPA has seriously affected Barry’s ability to access help for his PTSD.
⚠️ 🔔 ⚠️ 🔔 ⚠️ 🔔
Denial - In the psychological sense, denial is a defense mechanism in which a person, faced with a painful fact, rejects the reality of that fact. ... When a person is in denial, they engage in distractive or escapist strategies to reduce stress and help them cope. The effect upon psychological well-being in doing this is unclear
“From a psychoanalytical viewpoint, denial is a pathological, ineffective defense mechanism..On the other hand, according to the stress and coping model, denial can be seen as an adaptive strategy to protect against overwhelming events and feelings."
Therein is the appeal of denial to humans. Denial allows someone to keep going unchanged despite reality. Denial is the path of psychological and moral least resistance.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/29/the_odd_body_denial/
-
An unusual pattern: Is Benjamin Geen a killer or England's unluckiest man?
“Norman Fenton is a professor of risk management information at Queen Mary London University.
And Ben Geen, he says, might be the victim of what he terms an 'exaggerated coincidence'.
'What you've got is apparently a highly unusual sequence of events happening at this particular hospital.
'If you looked at that individually—what is the probability that this particular nurse would be present at 18 respiratory arrest events at the same hospital within such a short period of time—the probability is incredibly low.'
But Fenton is 'almost certain' that similar patterns would have occurred in a given two-month period in thousands of hospitals across the UK.
'Think of it this way,' Fenton says. 'In most hospitals, the nurses tend to be on duty for at least 50 to 70 per cent of the recorded time.
'For any given nurse to be present at all of those events is still—again—a very, very low probability.
'But what you've got is, let's say, 100 nurses at any given hospital where one of these sequence of events has been observed—again, there is quite a high probability that at least one of them would have been present at all, in this case 18, such events.'
In other words, statistically speaking, Geen won the lottery twice—but it was the wrong kind of lottery.
When Geen's team appealed his conviction on statistical grounds, the court didn't agree with Hutton or Fenton's analyses, arguing that there was no need to statistically validate the opinion evidence of experts.
It's worth noting: neither Hutton nor Fenton were arguing that Geen was innocent, merely making the case for greater statistical rigour.
The court claimed that 'academic statistical opinion, however distinguished, is divorced from the actual facts'.
After all, real people—patients, jurors, healthcare professionals in the high pressure environment of A and E—have to react to a lot more than raw data.
But in the case of Geen, what were they reacting to?
The spectre of Harold Shipman still very much haunts the UK healthcare system.
Shipman, nicknamed 'Dr Death', is the most prolific serial killer on record—arrested in 1998 and sentenced to life in prison by 2000, he was confirmed by an inquiry to have killed 218 of his patients, though it's suspected the true number could be as high as 250.
Shipman hanged himself in his cell on 13 January, 2004—just 23 days before the two patients that sparked the Horton General Hospital investigation suffered respiratory arrest.
'Since the Shipman inquiry, as soon as there's an accusation, you've got to think dirty,' says Dr Wendy Hesketh, who is writing a book about medico-crime.
'If you don't, you could find yourself having to answer as to why you didn't do a full investigation.'
Hesketh points out that in Geen's case very few incidences of respiratory deaths were considered suspicious when they occurred.
'Beforehand, they weren't flagged up to anyone, no one was suspicious, no one thought that there was any untoward behaviour or that anyone had been unlawfully killed.
'All of a sudden you've got this team who are actually potential witnesses themselves, and they are talking to each other and reinforcing their own suspicions.
Read more here: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/healthreport/benjamin-geen-an-unusual-pattern/7287620
Ben Geen: another possible case of miscarriage of justice and misunderstanding statistics?
http://probabilityandlaw.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-ben-geen-case-another-miscarriage.html
https://www.crcpress.com/Risk-Assessment-and-Decision-Analysis-with-Bayesian-Networks/Fenton-Neil/p/book/9781138035119
http://probabilityandlaw.blogspot.com/
If Ben Geen is innocent and “England’s unluckiest man” ergo Barry George is guilty!
https://abcmedia.akamaized.net/rn/podcast/2016/03/hrt_20160328_1730.mp3
http://probabilityandlaw.blogspot.com/2013/09/barry-george-case-new-insights-on.html
-
Michelle Diskin Bates
https://jeremybamber.blogspot.com/2016/08/justice-is-never-served-by-conviction.html
" it was well after midnight on August 6th 1985 and I couldn’t sleep. Switching on the T.V., I absent-mindedly tuned into a news channel. We were living in Co. Cork, in Southern Ireland, and I was joyfully awaiting the birth of our first child who was already overdue, making me feel restless; that was why I was up and about at such an hour.
Becoming aware of a breaking-news story I began to listen in more closely. A siege was taking place at a farmhouse in England. The broadcaster relayed that five people were inside and there was great fear for their safety. As the story unfolded it became apparent that this was an older couple. A farmer and retired Magistrate, Nevill Bamber and his wife, June; their daughter, Sheila, and her six year old twin sons. Jeremy, their son, was outside with police who were trying to communicate with someone inside the house who had been seen pacing back and forth in front of an upstairs window and carrying a firearm.
As police talked to Jeremy Bamber outside the farmhouse where his family lay dying, was the real killer still inside?
“He told the Observer: 'I know I was outside with the police when they saw someone moving around in the house, when they were talking to someone in the house, when they saw my sister in the kitchen, when they went into the house.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1352116/As-police-talked-convicted-murderer-Jeremy-Bamber-outside-farmhouse-family-lay-dying-real-killer-inside.html
-
Gun murder man Paul Cleeland loses judicial review
“In the latest proceedings, Cleeland compared his case to that of Barry George, who was cleared of Jill Dando's murder after doubt was cast on the reliability of gunshot residue evidence.
His defence team also produced a report by independent expert Dudley Gibbs concluding there was "a high probability that the murder weapon was different from the one cited" in the original trial.
Lord Justice Simon said while firearms residue analysis had developed considerably since 1973, the Barry George decision did "not throw significant light on the issue".
He said the CCRC had no time to respond to Mr Gibbs's report and refused an application to include it, adding: "If there was substance in the point as a matter of scientific analysis, which we doubt, it could and should have been raised long ago."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-48230378
http://www.dudleygibbs.com/
“The CCRC document said: "There is no complete proof that the G&M gun fired the wadding found at the scene. However, the totality of the evidence does provide a link between the gun, the claimant and the murder."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-47446150
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
47m
Gun murder man Paul Cleeland loses judicial review - BBC News
No review over gun murder conviction
Paul Cleeland has been fighting to clear his name of Terry Clarke's murder for more than 45 years.
bbc.co.uk https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1127146363312062464
-
Gun murder man Paul Cleeland loses judicial review
“In the latest proceedings, Cleeland compared his case to that of Barry George, who was cleared of Jill Dando's murder after doubt was cast on the reliability of gunshot residue evidence.
His defence team also produced a report by independent expert Dudley Gibbs concluding there was "a high probability that the murder weapon was different from the one cited" in the original trial.
Lord Justice Simon said while firearms residue analysis had developed considerably since 1973, the Barry George decision did "not throw significant light on the issue".
He said the CCRC had no time to respond to Mr Gibbs's report and refused an application to include it, adding: "If there was substance in the point as a matter of scientific analysis, which we doubt, it could and should have been raised long ago."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-48230378
http://www.dudleygibbs.com/
“The CCRC document said: "There is no complete proof that the G&M gun fired the wadding found at the scene. However, the totality of the evidence does provide a link between the gun, the claimant and the murder."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-47446150
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
47m
Gun murder man Paul Cleeland loses judicial review - BBC News
No review over gun murder conviction
Paul Cleeland has been fighting to clear his name of Terry Clarke's murder for more than 45 years.
bbc.co.uk https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1127146363312062464
”Like Barry George'
At a hearing in July, Cleeland's counsel Edward Fitzgerald QC compared his client's case to that of Barry George, who was cleared at a retrial of the murder of Jill Dando after doubt was cast on the reliability of gunshot residue evidence.
Mr Fitzgerald said forensic evidence in Cleeland's case - including that given by Scotland Yard firearms experts John McCafferty - had been discredited.
He said: "Once you take a bit of evidence like that away, even if there is other evidence, as was the case in Barry George, it still leaves an unsafe verdict."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-46265662
“Cleeland has the backing of Paddy Hill, one of the Birmingham Six, who founded the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation (MOJO) after his own wrongful conviction for the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings was quashed.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-44520554
-
Paul Cleeland
”Like Barry George'
At a hearing in July, Cleeland's counsel Edward Fitzgerald QC compared his client's case to that of Barry George, who was cleared at a retrial of the murder of Jill Dando after doubt was cast on the reliability of gunshot residue evidence.
Mr Fitzgerald said forensic evidence in Cleeland's case - including that given by Scotland Yard firearms experts John McCafferty - had been discredited.
He said: "Once you take a bit of evidence like that away, even if there is other evidence, as was the case in Barry George, it still leaves an unsafe verdict."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-46265662
“Cleeland has the backing of Paddy Hill, one of the Birmingham Six, who founded the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation (MOJO) after his own wrongful conviction for the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings was quashed.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-44520554
They infilitrate pressure groups in Russia, China, Germany, America and also in the U.K. It all makes sense no. Craigie and his superior Cleeland were assigned by M15 to infiltrate then report back to their political masters. They prob on another undercover mission already. The people of Greece and Syria are discontent so it possible they been sent there. Can just see them disguised as Arabs on a camel infiltrating these groups like they do over here. It is a disgrace
Hanratty was innocent.
Michael Gregsten and Valerie Storie were defecting to Russia in 1961. It was during the cold war and these places were under surveillance by security. Their intentions were known. The person who was responsible was Peter Alfonso, who occasionally was used by the security services to do their dirty work. The DNA was planted, as Hanratty and Alfonso once shared a room in a bed and breakfast. Paul Cleeland knew Alfonso !
“Mr Clegg had barely started his argument when a man stood up in the public gallery behind him and delivered an impassioned attack on the QC for failing to put the case across properly. "This man is not doing his job," he shouted before he was led out.
He turned out to be Paul Cleeland, who was jailed for murder back in 1972 and who is still trying to prove his innocence, after being released after serving 26 years. https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/nov/06/ukcrime.jilldando
https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1982/apr/29/mr-paul-cleeland
-
Michael Bourke Uncle of Barry George stated:
Stalker, rapist and sex prowler - July 2001
“THE true enormity of the crimes and perversions of Barry George can finally be disclosed following his conviction for planning and executing the murder of Jill Dando.
George was found guilty by a 10-1 majority yesterday of shooting Miss Dando, one of the most popular TV presenters of modern times, as she crouched in terror on her doorstep.
The trial judge, Mr Justice Gage, told him: "You are unpredictable and dangerous and are likely to remain so for some time to come. There can be no doubt that it was premeditated. Why you did it will never be known: it is probable that you yourself could give no rational explanation."
As the judge sentenced him to life imprisonment, George (41), raised his eyebrows and swayed slightly. Pausing only to pick up a copy of the Bible that he had kept at his side throughout the 36-day trial, he bit his lower lip hard and was led away to the cells beneath the Old Bailey.
After they had returned their verdict, the six women and five men who remained on the jury after one member was discharged looked staggered as Det Supt Hamish Campbell, who led the inquiry, outlined George's previous convictions.
Mr Campbell told the court that George had raped a woman in 1982 - he pleaded guilty to attempted rape - and that he had previous convictions for indecent assault and for impersonating a police officer.
George also raped his Japanese wife Itsuko Toide, who left him after 11 months of a marriage filled with violence and intimidation. In an interview published today, she gives a remarkable insight into the mind of a man filled with rage and hatred of women.
George met Miss Toide after she had suffered a sexual assault herself and was feeling highly vulnerable. They married after a romance lasting four months. Almost immediately he began subjecting her to a series of sexual and physical attacks at the cramped ground-floor council flat that they shared in Crookham Road, Fulham.
The jury was not allowed to know that George had a long history of stalking women in the area where Miss Dando lived, although detectives found clear evidence that he had followed at least 419 women in Fulham, taking 2,597 photographs of them.
The judge also ruled during pre-trial legal argument that the jury should not learn that George had been arrested in 1983 while prowling in the grounds of Kensington Palace, close to the private apartments of the Prince and Princess of Wales, clad in camouflage fatigues and wielding a commando knife.
Despite these revelations, George's defence team announced they were to launching an immediate appeal.
One possible ground for appeal may be the discovery that one of the prosecution witnesses, Charlotte de Rosnay, 29, was involved for a while in a relationship with a member of the murder squad, Detective Constable Peter Bartlett.
Miss Dando (37) was murdered as she arrived at her home in Fulham, southwest London, on the morning of Monday April 26, 1999.
(The Times, London)
https://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/stalker-rapist-and-sex-prowler-26079016.html
According to Michelle Diskin Bates her brother remains under MAPPA (23rd October 2018)
Apparently, “being under MAPPA has seriously affected Barry’s ability to access help for his PTSD.
⚠️ 🔔 ⚠️ 🔔 ⚠️ 🔔
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
8m
Absolutely not acceptable, this puts a child/parent through hell a second time.
‘Dad’ rights for rapists must end, says Rotherham child sex grooming scandal victim
A VICTIM of the Rotherham child sex grooming scandal is backing the Daily Express crusade to End This Injustice.
express.co.uk
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1127212333875462144
“Miss Woodhouse, based in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, said: “Rapists should not get access to people they have harmed. We want all the support we can get.
“When I went public, it took me months to go through the messages, it went crazy.
“There should not be so many of us going through this. I am in quite a fortunate situation because of the platform I have.
“People have gone to prison to support their children, their lives have been made absolute hell. The first thing you want to do is to love and protect your child.
“They are not just ignoring me – they are putting other mothers at risk as well.”
The Daily Express has highlighted the case of a mother and her two children, both under 10, being controlled by their paedophile father from behind bars.
Grandiose sense of self-importance
Lives in a fantasy world that supports their delusions of grandeur
Exploits others without guilt or shame
https://www.helpguide.org/articles/mental-disorders/narcissistic-personality-disorder.htm/
-
The Clues that Point to Barry George’s Guilt
https://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/2019/05/11/the-clues-that-point-to-barry-georges/
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
8m
Absolutely not acceptable, this puts a child/parent through hell a second time.
‘Dad’ rights for rapists must end, says Rotherham child sex grooming scandal victim
A VICTIM of the Rotherham child sex grooming scandal is backing the Daily Express crusade to End This Injustice.
express.co.uk
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1127212333875462144
Hannah
@hannahjames40
·
33m
Replying to
@Michelle_Diskin
Michelle, she used to go on crime sprees with him and got pregnant twice by him.
She is far from innocent.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1127212333875462144
-
Man made errors plaque the criminal justice system *&^^& polluted by the contamination of confirmation bias
Dr Holly Greenwood
“Holly’s research interests are in Criminal Justice and Criminal Procedure with a particular focus on miscarriages of justice. Her PhD was the first empirical research to examine the development and operation of innocence projects in the UK, which are university based projects where students investigate claims of alleged wrongful conviction. The research examined how innocence projects constructed and understood a “miscarriage of justice” and explored the problems and challenges which they faced. It also drew on Luhmann’s Social Systems Theory as a theoretical framework for examining this.
https://www.swansea.ac.uk/staff/law/hollygreenwood/
Read Holly Greenwood’s research on Innocent Networks UK, Dr Michael Naughton, Professor Julie Price & Dr Dennis
Eady here: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa40034
and here https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa40032
Holly Greenwood Retweeted
JB Campaign LTD
@jbcampaignltd
TODAY: #JeremyBamber Campaigner
@tru68
& Patron Dr Eady will be speaking at the 16th
@UaInjustice
Conference: #MOJ (link: https://www.change.org/p/rt-hon-amber-rudd-mp-home-secretary-essex-police-release-all-documents-withheld-under-pii-to-jeremy-bamber-s-legal-defence/u/21588673) change.org/p/rt-hon-amber…?
https://mobile.twitter.com/jbcampaignltd/status/916597420854861824
Holly Greenwood
@HollyGreenwood8
·
27 Apr 2016
Several important questions raised, my phd research will cast further light on some of these issues when complete
University innocence projects: where are they now?
Only one conviction has ever been overturned on the strength of a university innocence project’s work in the UK – what’s going on? And what’s next for these projects?
theguardian.com
https://mobile.twitter.com/HollyGreenwood8/status/725345733034008576
By Jon Robins - April 2016 https://www.theguardian.com/law/2016/apr/27/university-innocence-projects-where-are-they-now
http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=89.msg494098#msg494098
“Holly Greenwood says:
April 20, 2016 at 10:12 am
I think we should use Foster’s comment to expose a very real problem. I am sure a prisoner would rather have a lawyer working on their case than law students, but the reality is that there are not lawyers able to work on these cases due to the complete lack of funding available. Innocence projects and other law school clinics are filling a gap there.
However, I agree that as university clinics we should work towards being more transparent about the number of cases we are working on and how long we have had them.
https://www.thejusticegap.com/genuinely-welcome-applications/
“Small wonder then that innocence projects boast just one major success story since their inception 12 years ago. In that case, the hard graft of Cardiff law students saw the appeal court overturn Dwaine George’s murder conviction in 2014. A result like this is an undeniable triumph for the students involved: as PhD student Holly Greenwood from Cardiff points out in Robins’ article, the students who take on these cases really are “starting from a difficult point”.
It’s not the end of the road just yet. Faults and all, universities are sticking with innocence projects. They are, Robins concludes, “committed” to the work that they do, and improving their efficiency by exploring “more effective ways of operating”. https://www.legalcheek.com/2016/04/legal-commentator-voices-concerns-over-challenges-facing-university-innocence-projects-in-damning-new-article/
-
https://www.legalcheek.com/2016/04/legal-commentator-voices-concerns-over-challenges-facing-university-innocence-projects-in-damning-new-article/
“Hannah Quirk
May 6 2016 4:42pm
I wrote an article in 2007 entitled ‘Identifying Miscarriages of Justice: Why Innocence in the UK is Not the Answer’ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-2230.2007.00662.x/full
I am sure that students get a great deal from the experience of working on these cases – my concern is largely for the applicants. I do not mean to disparage the efforts of those involved in this work. My concern has always been that innocence projects (a model imported from America where there is no post-appeal assistance) fit awkwardly in a legal system with a body such as the CCRC. The only route back to the Court of Appeal for those who have had one appeal is via the CCRC. An inevitably lengthy investigation by students delays this process and risks contaminating new evidence.
There are ways around this, and I understand that some projects now just prepare applications to the CCRC or work on cases that have been rejected. These are often very difficult cases – junior solicitors or barristers would not work on such serious cases. Enthusiasm is important but if I were wrongly convicted, I would prefer expertise and experience.
Identifying Miscarriages of Justice: Why Innocence in the UK is Not the Answer - Hannah Quirk
- First published: 20 August 2007
Abstract
“This article examines two contrasting proposals for the reform of criminal appeals: the government's recent proposal that the guilty should no longer have their convictions quashed on ‘technicalities’; and calls by campaigners for the Court of Appeal to consider innocence rather than the ‘safety of the conviction,’ together with their associated attempts to establish Innocence Projects in the UK. Despite the rhetorical power of ‘innocence’ as a campaigning tool, it is contended that to import such a standard into the legal system would be retrogressive and counter‐productive, both as a safeguard against wrongful convictions and in protecting the integrity of the system. In order to be meaningful, due process protections must apply to all. The government's proposals attack this principle directly; innocence campaigners risk unwittingly assisting their endeavours.
-
“Hannah Quirk
May 6 2016 4:42pm
I wrote an article in 2007 entitled ‘Identifying Miscarriages of Justice: Why Innocence in the UK is Not the Answer’ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-2230.2007.00662.x/full
I am sure that students get a great deal from the experience of working on these cases – my concern is largely for the applicants. I do not mean to disparage the efforts of those involved in this work. My concern has always been that innocence projects (a model imported from America where there is no post-appeal assistance) fit awkwardly in a legal system with a body such as the CCRC. The only route back to the Court of Appeal for those who have had one appeal is via the CCRC. An inevitably lengthy investigation by students delays this process and risks contaminating new evidence.
There are ways around this, and I understand that some projects now just prepare applications to the CCRC or work on cases that have been rejected. These are often very difficult cases – junior solicitors or barristers would not work on such serious cases. Enthusiasm is important but if I were wrongly convicted, I would prefer expertise and experience.
Identifying Miscarriages of Justice: Why Innocence in the UK is Not the Answer - Hannah Quirk
- First published: 20 August 2007
Abstract
“This article examines two contrasting proposals for the reform of criminal appeals: the government's recent proposal that the guilty should no longer have their convictions quashed on ‘technicalities’; and calls by campaigners for the Court of Appeal to consider innocence rather than the ‘safety of the conviction,’ together with their associated attempts to establish Innocence Projects in the UK. Despite the rhetorical power of ‘innocence’ as a campaigning tool, it is contended that to import such a standard into the legal system would be retrogressive and counter‐productive, both as a safeguard against wrongful convictions and in protecting the integrity of the system. In order to be meaningful, due process protections must apply to all. The government's proposals attack this principle directly; innocence campaigners risk unwittingly assisting their endeavours.
Anger at legal compensation shakeup
Clarke's bid to overhaul law on wrong convictions attacked by justice groups - 2006
“Miscarriage of justice campaigners were enraged last night by plans to stop defendants walking free from the court of appeal after their convictions have been quashed on a technicality.
The announcement by the home secretary, Charles Clarke, was made as part of a package making a £5m a year cut in the £8m paid out annually in compensation to victims of miscarriages of justice. Mr Clarke said he wanted to see the change introduced in legislation as soon as possible.
One option is to introduce the Scottish "not proven" verdict into the English legal system. He said it was needed to put an end to the growth of a "small industry for the legal profession that has been giving away large amounts of money to individuals who do not deserve it".
The urgent government review will look at the statutory test used in the court of appeal to decide whether to quash a conviction. In particular, it will focus on whether an "error in the trial process" necessarily means a miscarriage of justice has occurred.
Mr Clarke acknowledged that a move to a "not proven" verdict would be a major change. "It would be a radical change. We are going to have a look at it. The time has come to assess it," he said.
The package of cuts to compensation payments will cap payments at a maximum of £500,000. He is also to introduce legislation empowering the compensation assessor to make deductions from the award if there are other criminal convictions in the case. He cited the example of a man serving nine years in prison for robbery convictions who had one of them quashed by the court of appeal and went on to receive £75,000 compensation.
But the proposals have angered miscarriage of justice campaigners. Gerry Conlon, of the Guildford four, who was wrongly convicted over an IRA bombing in 1974, said he was "absolutely horrified" by the package and called the compensation cuts a "penny-pinching, vote-catching exercise".
John McManus of MOJO, the campaigning organisation set up by Paddy Hill of the Birmingham six, said he was appalled that ministers appeared to be suggesting that those whose convictions were quashed were really criminals. He claimed that in many cases technical grounds were used to quash convictions to avoid the exposure of corrupt police officers.
"If the government want to do something about this compensation bill they should prosecute the corrupt police officers who have been involved. There have been at least 150 miscarriages of justice cases in the last 15 years but no police officers have ever been prosecuted."
But Mr Clarke believes that the growing compensation bill for miscarriage of justices has more to do with the failings of the English adversarial criminal justice system. He claimed yesterday that the system encouraged highly paid barristers funded by legal aid to play courtroom games in pursuit of compensation claims far beyond what was acceptable.
"This is not really about justice or righting wrongs in a fair way," said Mr Clarke. "I think the more the legal system clearly relates to the conduct of individuals who have done things or not done things and the less it relates to the technicalities of the legal process, the better.
"What individuals want to see is a legal system which correctly finds guilty those who are guilty and acquits those who are innocent, with respect to what they did or didn't do rather than whether or not the legal process was or was not correctly followed."
The proposal was first put forward by Lord Justice Auld in his review of the criminal courts in 2001, who said that "unhappily" the 1995 Criminal Appeal Act had led to the belief among some that an unfair trial should automatically be punished with an acquittal.
It also sparked an angry reaction from opposition MPs. The Liberal Democrat shadow attorney general, Simon Hughes, said an important criminal justice proposal seemed to have been smuggled on to the agenda under cover of an announcement on compensation.
"Criminal trials are supposed to clear up questions of guilt and not encourage suspicions to linger. Any review of the law must be conducted with extreme care. There are many people in Scotland who, with good reason, have deep misgivings about the 'not proven' verdict," said Mr Hughes.
The Conservatives also voiced doubts about the "not proven" verdict, saying it had come in for much criticism in Scotland. "We have a longstanding principle in this country of being innocent until proven guilty," said Dominic Grieve, the shadow attorney general.
"People want certainty and I am at a loss to understand why the home secretary might think this course of action necessary."
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2006/apr/20/constitution.ukcrime1
-
https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/latest-news/final-payout-made-over-quashed-murder-conviction-1-2394729
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/362411/Stephen-Downing-faces-benefits-battle
-
The Clues that Point to Barry George’s Guilt
https://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/2019/05/11/the-clues-that-point-to-barry-georges/
Jon Robins appears to have TODAY pulled Professor Julie Price’s published article from his Justice Gap site; “Simon Hall confession - A time to take stock? https://www.thejusticegap.com/simon-hall-confession-a-time-to-take-stock/
-
Remember Michelle Diskin Bates claims here:
“I’d underestimated Barry; he knew his Bible better than I’d realised. Of course, he had been studying the Bible in readiness to take his Believer’s Baptism at the time the police arrested him
So, according to Michelle Diskin Bates, her brother Barry George was capable of studying the bible in readiness to take his Believers Baptism before he was arrested and had retained that knowledge for 8 years, yet incapable of murdering Jill Dando. Do give over!
“Jurors heard that George had an IQ of 75 - in the lowest 5% of the population. In memory and other tests, he came in the bottom 1% of the population.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/aug/01/jilldando.ukcrime1
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
4h
Good grief...people don’t have enough work to do! #getalife There are more important things to get agitated about than TV presenters https://mobile.twitter.com/EveningStandard/status/1118094287059603456
Helga Speck
@HelgaSpeck
·
3h
Replying to
@EveningStandard
I love Sir David's programmes and he has done so much to make people aware of the planet. Madeley really needs to look at himself, his own misdeeds instead of pointing the finger elsewhere.
Seems it not only the justice gap who are withdrawing articles/comments etc from the world wide web
-
Seems it not only the justice gap who are withdrawing articles/comments etc from the world wide web
My mistake https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1118096335436165120
-
Mike Bourke
“On the way I read an article in the Sunday Express by James Murray. The headline read ‘FAMILY FEAR FOR DANDO’s KILLER’. It had a large photo of Jill Dando and inserts of Barry and Susan. It was another Michelle / MOJO story claiming that Barry was not getting the correct medication for his epilepsy. Margaret refused to look at the article.
⚠️ 🔔 ⚠️ 🔔
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀 Retweeted
Prof David Wilson
@ProfDavidWilson
Watching #JillDando on #BBC1 - serious and sober but 1. The miscarriage against George is significant and the circumstances of it typical of other miscarriages; 2. Why a contract killing was ruled out still baffles and is for me the most likely scenario
https://mobile.twitter.com/ProfDavidWilson/status/1113184617966825473
*&^^&
JILL DANDO MURDER Why haven’t they found my pal’s killer, says Sir Cliff
Daily Express25 Apr 2019By James Murray and John Twomey
“Michelle Diskin Bates, the sister of Barry George, appears alongside him. She is critical of a BBC documentary, aired earlier this month, which she says effectively put her brother on trial for a third time. Neither she nor her brother were interviewed for the BBC programme: “I feel balance has been partially restored by ITV’s investigation.”
Barry will travel from his home in Cork to watch it with his sister and they will appear on the Good Morning show today to discuss the case. Although an Old Bailey jury cleared him of murder, Barry’s name is still, a decade on, dragged into speculation about the death, says Michelle. Barry continues to protest his innocence. He says: “My conscience was clear. I know I hadn’t done it.”
For retired policeman Hamish Campbell, the officer who was in charge of the case, the key piece of missing evidence is the murder weapon – the handgun used to fire the modified sound-reducing bullet.With the passage of 20 years hopes of finding the gun have all but faded although Campbell hasn’t ruled it out.
David Wilson, a well-known TV criminologist who appears regularly on the BBC, believes a professional hitman shot Dando through the head on the doorstep of her home in Gowan Avenue, Fulham, just after 11.30am that day.
For his latest book, My Life with Murderers, Professor Wilson had a clandestine meeting with a professional hitman at a cafe, which backed up his theory.
The hitman said: “An amateur might shoot them in the body, might be a bit squeamish, one in the body first to see how it goes.
“That was someone who has killed before. Someone who has just walked up and boom. Probably tried for the second shot, couldn’t get it and just walked away.”
Former Scotland Yard detective Mark Williams-Thomas claimed that he knew the name of the hitman responsible but said they needed more information before they could investigate this claim
-
Further excerpts
”The report appeared on Sunday and referred to the Panorama programme which was being made by Raphael Rowe. It mentioned two jurors who were having doubts and who apparently were willing to appear on the programme. It also mentioned that FBI agents criticised the Met Polices handling of the single particle evidence. On Monday Raphael asked me not to discuss the programme with MOJO. I replied that I had fallen out with them in 2001 due to the News of the World article. But I feared that a last minute hitch might have negative consequences and so I texted Michelle asking her to urge discretion on MOJO. She replied that they hadn’t known about the programme. In mid-August following a BBC Radio 4 programme I contacted Professor Elizabeth Loftus PHD. Elizabeth is an American memory expert based in Stanford University. Elizabeth later expressed concerns over eyewitness testimony which largely helped to convict Barry. She agreed to be added to the list of ‘concerned’, her concern being based on witness identification. Her website reads: ‘Elizabeth Loftus studies human memory. Her experiments show how memories can be changed by things we are told. Facts, ideas, suggestions and other post-event information can modify our memories. The legal field, so reliant on memories has been a significant application of the memory research’. Unknown to us on September 4th a Forensic Science Service report prepared for the CCRC dismissed the FDR evidence which dammed Barry as inconclusive. In their opinion it provided no support for the prosecutions case that Barry had killed Jill Dando. It would be another year before we became aware of that. Raphael Rowe phoned me to say that the Panorama-George programme would be broadcast on September 5th. I took a day’s holiday to watch it because as luck would have it I was on a late shift and I feared I would not get to see it. At 07.33 Pat Reynolds sent me a text message to say that BBC Radio 4 News was reporting on the programme every half hour.
It was also on BBC News 24, and RTE Radio 2FM. For me at least it was exciting news as this was the biggest development since the 2002 appeal and I felt I had helped in some small way to make it happen. The Telegraph reported that the programme cost £ 250,000 to produce and took Raphael two years to investigate. In response to criticism of Raphael a spokesman for the BBC said: ‘Raphael is a first class investigative journalist with five years experience reporting from a range of BBC outlets… He is a wholly appropriate presenter for this programme, which meets the usual criteria for impartiality, fairness and accuracy’.
At 21.00 I settled down to watch Panorama. It began with Raphael saying to Barry over Margaret’s telephone ‘so you didn’t kill Jill?’ …’ course not, replied a surprised Barry. Then the photo of Barry which I got taken at Whitemoor was shown alongside the prison envelope in which it was returned to me after the prison refused to allow Barry to have it. CCTV footage of Jill Dando on her last journey and a clip of 29 Gowan Avenue was shown, and Helen Doble’s 999 phone call was played. It ran through Barry being questioned, his visit to HAFAD and Susan Bicknell’s meeting with him. It was Susan’s first day at HAFAD and she recorded the time of his visit. Two days later Barry called back asking staff to recall the exact time of his earlier visit. A week later Susan typed an account of her meeting with Barry for the police and she wrote the time of his visit as 11.50. That seriously undermined the Crown’s case that Barry shot Jill Dando after 11.30, returned home by a circuitous route to change his clothes and then went to HAFAD. There would not be enough time to do that and be at HAFAD before 12.10 according to Raphael who walked the Crown’s suggested route. But Susan revealed that at court she was unwell and suffered a breakdown shortly afterwards. She felt upset that her illness might have caused the jury to doubt her and that they might have convicted Barry as an indirect result of her illness.
New gun evidence
Barry George
Sunday Express 3 Sep 2006By James Murray
“MAJOR new doubts have been cast on the conviction of Barry George for the murder of TV presenter Jill Dando.
Two developments focus on a speck of gunpowder which was a crucial part of the case against him in 2001. A ballistics expert has claimed the speck discovered by police in a pocket of a blue Cecil Gee coat found at George’s flat did not even come from a gun.
Also, a former Crown Prosecution Service barrister has sent a confidential email to lawyers acting for George, who has always denied the murder, suggesting the speck might have come from a police firing range.
Venice- based Professor Marco Morin, who helps Italian police with ballistics analysis in mafia trials, has spent six months working for the BBC on the gunpowder evidence after being supplied exact details of the substance forensic experts found in George’s coat. Last night he told the Sunday Express: “It was said to be gunshot residue but I told the BBC that it was nothing of the sort. If anything it was something from exhaust fumes or smoke particles. It was definitely not gunshot residue.”
Prof Morin, a military historian, has written several books on gunpowder and firearms and has been involved in several high- profile Italian murder cases. He was also recently asked to contribute to a programme on the 1963 assassination of US President John F Kennedy.
Although he did not have the particle itself, he reconstructed it in his laboratory after being given details of its constituents.
The weapon used to shoot 37-yearold Crimewatch presenter Miss Dando on the doorstep of her London home in April 1999 has never been found. Police said the gunpowder speck was key evidence that George, 46, had concealed the murder weapon in his coat after the crime.
The Crown Prosecution Service barrister, who retired from the CPS in 2003, contacted a lawyer working for the Miscarriage of Justice Organisation, which is working closely with George’s lawyer Jeremy Moore. He passed the information to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, (CCRC) which will soon decide whether to refer the case back to the Court of Appeal based on the new evidence.
He told them: “Before I left the CPS a retiring senior Met police officer told me that the forensic team that examined Barry George’s flat was from Marylebone Police Station. It had an indoor firing range at that time and may still have. Like most police stations of size there is a canteen which is used by all Met staff and some visitors. Anyone using the range and anyone in the forensic team could have had close contact.”
In another development, the CCRC has interviewed key witness Susan Mayes, who picked George out of an identity parade a year after the murder.
Her evidence at the trial was that she had been on her way to work when she saw George in Gowan Avenue at 7am on the day of the murder. She described him as a stocky, slightly overweight man, with black shoulder-length hair, olive skin, no facial hair wearing a black suit with an open-necked white shirt.
Witnesses have given information to the commission questioning her account. There were claims that she was not working at the time but Ms Mayes told the Sunday Express : “They (the CCRC) asked me if I was working at the time. I was on my way to work when I saw what I saw.”
Lawyers for George have asked the CCRC to consider that on the day of the murder George’s hairstyle was distinctly short.
-
David Dobbins, who was then aged 13, was also living there with his family. "He recalls the defendant showing him an imitation Heckler & Koch machine gun and a gas mask," said counsel.
"He told Susan Combe, another resident, that he collected guns and showed her a handgun and a machine pistol.
"She once went to his room and was shown a third gun which was kept in a small cardboard box. It was silver in colour, highly polished and smaller than the other two weapons she had seen."
Mr Pownall said the Dobbins family moved to a basement flat in Pelham street and one evening, there was a knock on the door.
He added: "It was the defendant, who was dressed in combat gear and wearing a balaclava.
"He entered into the hallway holding a handgun and there was a loud bang. After the initial panic resulting from his arrival had subsided, the defendant removed the balaclava and showed those present the gun.
"The defendant also took blank firing rounds of ammunition from his pocket and showed them to David Dobbins. They were gold in colour and there was no head.
"The tops of the cases were flat and covered with a coloured wax. When he left the flat he placed a hundgun in the waistband of his jeans."
In 1987/8, George was living in Crookham Road when David Dobbins, Eugene Mahoney and two other friends went to the flat and climbed in through an open window.
"The defendant was not in and they stole the blank firing pistol and imitation Heckler & Koch machine pistol," said Mr Pownall.
"It appears that they did not find the silver coloured handgun in the shoebox described by Susan Coombe.
"The present whereabouts of that gun are unknown."
Mr Dobbins was shown a number of photographs developed by police from negatives found at George's home which showed George "wearing a respirator and holding a gun".
"He identified the gun as the one he had seen used by the defendant on the occasion that he entered the Pelham Road address and discharged a blank round," said Mr Pownall.
"A firearms expert has looked at the photographs. Certain features enable him to identify it as a Bruni blank firing pistol. Part of the frame has been cut away exposing the spring mechanism.
"I told you (the jury) earlier that the gun used to kill Miss Dando had a smooth-bored barrel which had either been converted from a blank-firing pistol to one capable of firing bullets or a deactivated weapon which had been similarly converted.
"In due course, you may wish to consider why the defendant appears to have altered the structure of the Bruni pistol."
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-43483/Dando-killed-single-bullet.html
Barry is also a victim’
Sunday Express24 Jun 2007
“George admits he had a heavy plastic MP5 machine gun and an imitation Bruni made from die-cast metal. He claims he bought the replicas from a shop in West Sussex because he was a member of the Film Artistes Association, which deals with film and TV extras, and needed them as props.
-
New gun evidence
Barry George
Sunday Express 3 Sep 2006By James Murray
“MAJOR new doubts have been cast on the conviction of Barry George for the murder of TV presenter Jill Dando.
Two developments focus on a speck of gunpowder which was a crucial part of the case against him in 2001. A ballistics expert has claimed the speck discovered by police in a pocket of a blue Cecil Gee coat found at George’s flat did not even come from a gun.
Also, a former Crown Prosecution Service barrister has sent a confidential email to lawyers acting for George, who has always denied the murder, suggesting the speck might have come from a police firing range.
Venice- based Professor Marco Morin, who helps Italian police with ballistics analysis in mafia trials, has spent six months working for the BBC on the gunpowder evidence after being supplied exact details of the substance forensic experts found in George’s coat. Last night he told the Sunday Express: “It was said to be gunshot residue but I told the BBC that it was nothing of the sort. If anything it was something from exhaust fumes or smoke particles. It was definitely not gunshot residue.”
Prof Morin, a military historian, has written several books on gunpowder and firearms and has been involved in several high- profile Italian murder cases. He was also recently asked to contribute to a programme on the 1963 assassination of US President John F Kennedy.
Although he did not have the particle itself, he reconstructed it in his laboratory after being given details of its constituents.
The weapon used to shoot 37-yearold Crimewatch presenter Miss Dando on the doorstep of her London home in April 1999 has never been found. Police said the gunpowder speck was key evidence that George, 46, had concealed the murder weapon in his coat after the crime.
The Crown Prosecution Service barrister, who retired from the CPS in 2003, contacted a lawyer working for the Miscarriage of Justice Organisation, which is working closely with George’s lawyer Jeremy Moore. He passed the information to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, (CCRC) which will soon decide whether to refer the case back to the Court of Appeal based on the new evidence.
He told them: “Before I left the CPS a retiring senior Met police officer told me that the forensic team that examined Barry George’s flat was from Marylebone Police Station. It had an indoor firing range at that time and may still have. Like most police stations of size there is a canteen which is used by all Met staff and some visitors. Anyone using the range and anyone in the forensic team could have had close contact.”
In another development, the CCRC has interviewed key witness Susan Mayes, who picked George out of an identity parade a year after the murder.
Her evidence at the trial was that she had been on her way to work when she saw George in Gowan Avenue at 7am on the day of the murder. She described him as a stocky, slightly overweight man, with black shoulder-length hair, olive skin, no facial hair wearing a black suit with an open-necked white shirt.
Witnesses have given information to the commission questioning her account. There were claims that she was not working at the time but Ms Mayes told the Sunday Express : “They (the CCRC) asked me if I was working at the time. I was on my way to work when I saw what I saw.”
Lawyers for George have asked the CCRC to consider that on the day of the murder George’s hairstyle was distinctly short.
“Also, a former Crown Prosecution Service barrister has sent a confidential email to lawyers acting for George, who has always denied the murder, suggesting the speck might have come from a police firing range.
The Crown Prosecution Service barrister, who retired from the CPS in 2003, contacted a lawyer working for the Miscarriage of Justice Organisation, which is working closely with George’s lawyer Jeremy Moore. He passed the information to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, (CCRC) which will soon decide whether to refer the case back to the Court of Appeal based on the new evidence.
He told them: “Before I left the CPS a retiring senior Met police officer told me that the forensic team that examined Barry George’s flat was from Marylebone Police Station. It had an indoor firing range at that time and may still have. Like most police stations of size there is a canteen which is used by all Met staff and some visitors. Anyone using the range and anyone in the forensic team could have had close contact.”
-
New gun evidence
Barry George
Sunday Express 3 Sep 2006By James Murray
“MAJOR new doubts have been cast on the conviction of Barry George for the murder of TV presenter Jill Dando.
Two developments focus on a speck of gunpowder which was a crucial part of the case against him in 2001. A ballistics expert has claimed the speck discovered by police in a pocket of a blue Cecil Gee coat found at George’s flat did not even come from a gun.
Also, a former Crown Prosecution Service barrister has sent a confidential email to lawyers acting for George, who has always denied the murder, suggesting the speck might have come from a police firing range.
Venice- based Professor Marco Morin, who helps Italian police with ballistics analysis in mafia trials, has spent six months working for the BBC on the gunpowder evidence after being supplied exact details of the substance forensic experts found in George’s coat. Last night he told the Sunday Express: “It was said to be gunshot residue but I told the BBC that it was nothing of the sort. If anything it was something from exhaust fumes or smoke particles. It was definitely not gunshot residue.”
Prof Morin, a military historian, has written several books on gunpowder and firearms and has been involved in several high- profile Italian murder cases. He was also recently asked to contribute to a programme on the 1963 assassination of US President John F Kennedy.
Although he did not have the particle itself, he reconstructed it in his laboratory after being given details of its constituents.
The weapon used to shoot 37-yearold Crimewatch presenter Miss Dando on the doorstep of her London home in April 1999 has never been found. Police said the gunpowder speck was key evidence that George, 46, had concealed the murder weapon in his coat after the crime.
The Crown Prosecution Service barrister, who retired from the CPS in 2003, contacted a lawyer working for the Miscarriage of Justice Organisation, which is working closely with George’s lawyer Jeremy Moore. He passed the information to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, (CCRC) which will soon decide whether to refer the case back to the Court of Appeal based on the new evidence.
He told them: “Before I left the CPS a retiring senior Met police officer told me that the forensic team that examined Barry George’s flat was from Marylebone Police Station. It had an indoor firing range at that time and may still have. Like most police stations of size there is a canteen which is used by all Met staff and some visitors. Anyone using the range and anyone in the forensic team could have had close contact.”
In another development, the CCRC has interviewed key witness Susan Mayes, who picked George out of an identity parade a year after the murder.
Her evidence at the trial was that she had been on her way to work when she saw George in Gowan Avenue at 7am on the day of the murder. She described him as a stocky, slightly overweight man, with black shoulder-length hair, olive skin, no facial hair wearing a black suit with an open-necked white shirt.
Witnesses have given information to the commission questioning her account. There were claims that she was not working at the time but Ms Mayes told the Sunday Express : “They (the CCRC) asked me if I was working at the time. I was on my way to work when I saw what I saw.”
Lawyers for George have asked the CCRC to consider that on the day of the murder George’s hairstyle was distinctly short.
“Venice- based Professor Marco Morin, who helps Italian police with ballistics analysis in mafia trials, has spent six months working for the BBC on the gunpowder evidence after being supplied exact details of the substance forensic experts found in George’s coat. Last night he told the Sunday Express: “It was said to be gunshot residue but I told the BBC that it was nothing of the sort. If anything it was something from exhaust fumes or smoke particles. It was definitely not gunshot residue.”
Prof Morin, a military historian, has written several books on gunpowder and firearms and has been involved in several high- profile Italian murder cases. He was also recently asked to contribute to a programme on the 1963 assassination of US President John F Kennedy.
Although he did not have the particle itself, he reconstructed it in his laboratory after being given details of its constituents.
-
Former Scotland Yard detective Mark Williams-Thomas claimed that he knew the name of the hitman responsible but said they needed more information before they could investigate this claim[/b]
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48265204
https://mobile.twitter.com/cpfc102/status/1070038635804835841
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7000707/VIP-paedophile-ring-fantasist-brought-misery-high-profile-political-figures.html
https://mobile.twitter.com/Barristerblog/status/1128285204706222081?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/12/03/vip-paedophile-accuser-nick-named-first-time-carl-beech/
-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48265204
https://mobile.twitter.com/cpfc102/status/1070038635804835841
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7000707/VIP-paedophile-ring-fantasist-brought-misery-high-profile-political-figures.html
https://mobile.twitter.com/Barristerblog/status/1128285204706222081?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/12/03/vip-paedophile-accuser-nick-named-first-time-carl-beech/
https://mobile.twitter.com/JEMilneSky
-
https://mobile.twitter.com/JEMilneSky
“Mr Badenoch QC adds “Police found the beginnings of his ‘Memoirs’ and a document called ‘Too Many Secrets’.”
https://mobile.twitter.com/JEMilneSky/status/1128618975242399746
-
“Mr Badenoch QC adds “Police found the beginnings of his ‘Memoirs’ and a document called ‘Too Many Secrets’.”
https://mobile.twitter.com/JEMilneSky/status/1128618975242399746
“The sort of individual concerned only for himself, unconcerned with the impact on others;
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7030951/VIP-paedophile-ring-fantasist-known-Nick-created-fake-second-accuser-called-Fred.html
-
Troll Exposure blog:
“In 2003, Williams-Thomas was charged with blackmail, he was subsequently found not guilty by a jury, however that charge alone and the investigation around it should’ve been a red flag. Especially as evidence was found on Williams-Thomas’ computer(s) that he was offering to sell “victim” information to the media in 2001. “Victim” information which was basically confidential information which should’ve remained within the offices of … Surrey Police.
However, it didn’t raise a red flag.
“In 2009, Williams-Thomas presented a two part ITV documentary entitled “To Catch a Paedophile”. He and a production team were allowed access into police investigations and police units revealing the methods employed to catch such offenders. Interestingly the series director/producer of that documentary is Lesley Gardiner who was also the same producer/director of the Exposure programme and also of Williams-Thomas’ Investigator series. Draw your own conclusions from that.
What it does suggest however is that Gardiner and Williams-Thomas had an existing working relationship on a very specific topic.
March 2015 - Mark Williams Thomas
Police let Jill Dando down and now they MUST launch a new hunt for her killer
“The Mirror is launching a major series revealing the secrets behind the investigation into the murder of one of Britain’s best-loved TV presenters, Jill Dando.
“So after all the careful analysis I set about with my producer Lesley Gardiner to start to pull the strands together to make a documentary and build up this investigation with the Mirror.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/police-let-jill-dando-down-5415482
“DS Lewis called to the witness stand. Has been an officer for 19 years. In 2012 was with Wiltshire Police.
“He first learnt of a man called Carl Beech’s from a report from the MET police, a referral from Op Yewtree - the investigation into allegations against Jimmy Savile.
https://mobile.twitter.com/JEMilneSky
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Dan Didio: DC Comics to release blasphemous series about Jesus - Sign: (link: http://www.citizengo.org/en/md/167848-dc-comics-slated-release-blasphemous-series-about-jesus?tc=tw&tcid=53287472) citizengo.org/en/md/167848-d…
Why is it ok to offend Christians but not LGBT, Muhammad , Buddha, trans people? I think this is awful. I won’t be hurtful or disrespectful to any group...except paedophiles [/u]
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1086345633823408128
“There is probably no word in the English language that currently triggers a witch-hunt faster than this little gem: paedophile. https://www.legalcheek.com/2015/06/top-barrister-sparks-social-media-row-with-telly-copper-over-janner-trial-of-facts/
Troll Exposure blog
“Which brings me to another supposition and theory: that Williams-Thomas is at the forefront of a media and police campaign, he is the link between police and media. He fulfils his own stated ambition of being a “middle man” for such matters but by doing so he’s effectively removed the chances of fair trials in many of the cases which he’s leaked information about to the media.
The key to his need to do so is personal ambition in my opinion. However it needs a willing set of players around him, the Murdoch empire stand out as the main willing recipients, the police are clearly leaking operational material through him. Operation Yewtree was leaking more than a sieve with a massive rusted hole in the bottom. The public clamour for arrests and guilty verdicts was being tub-thumped by the actions of Williams-Thomas in leaking such material to the media. And in order to not make the connection to the Murdoch empire so obvious every now and again he would pass other details to the likes of the BBC or the Mirror Group. Spread the wealth.
Read more here:
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/05/04/may-the-force-be-with-the-force/
“At that time DS Lewis says he asked for clarification of details of his father and his immediate family. Reading from the police log, DS Lewis says Mr Beech disclosed the name of his step father and Jimmy Savile only.
https://mobile.twitter.com/JEMilneSky
-
“DS Lewis called to the witness stand. Has been an officer for 19 years. In 2012 was with Wiltshire Police.
“He first learnt of a man called Carl Beech’s from a report from the MET police, a referral from Op Yewtree - the investigation into allegations against Jimmy Savile.
https://mobile.twitter.com/JEMilneSky
Conversation
Mark Williams-Thomas
@mwilliamsthomas
Discussing at 10.50 on
@thismorning
with Barry George his wrongful conviction for the murder of Jill Dando in 1999 - whose case still remains unsolved .
10:18 am · 2 Aug 2018 · Twitter for iPhone
5
Retweets
56
Likes
Angie
@Angiebabes999
·
2 Aug 2018
Replying to
@mwilliamsthomas
and
@thismorning
Aren’t you afraid for your own life now you’ve said you have the name of the killer?
2
4
Mark Williams-Thomas
@mwilliamsthomas
·
2 Aug 2018
Hi - have lots of things in place - my work in general does mean I go after some dangerous people .
1
3
Angie
@Angiebabes999
·
2 Aug 2018
I just wondered how you’d deal with that. Scary stuff. Never thought Barry George was guilty of the murder, he was obsessed with her, but not capable of that. She knew things...& someone wanted her gone before she revealed them. IMO.
4
Diane MW
@didoh
·
2 Aug 2018
Replying to
@mwilliamsthomas
and
@thismorning
I never thought Barry George was guilty although his obsession with her was probably went a LONG way to him being convicted.
I was astounded he didn’t receive compensation for his wrongful imprisonment - that was another injustice!
2
6
Michelle Burgess
@chelleburgess
·
2 Aug 2018
He has various convictions for indecent assault and fraud, I don’t think he should be given airtime
3
3
Diane MW
@didoh
·
2 Aug 2018
IMO he has been treated appallingly. He was jailed for 8 years fgs for an horrendous crime he didn’t commit and that’s what’s being discussed this morning - his previous convictions are irrelevant to this and the possible reopening of the case.
1
2
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
2 Aug 2018
Thank you Diane. If Barry was in prison for this crime the killer was free...why do people not think of that implication? THE KILLER WAS FREE!
2
UK lock'N'load
@bulgar72
·
2 Aug 2018
Replying to
@mwilliamsthomas
and
@thismorning
He was the fall guy for the elite pedophile ring! They should of opened the case up as soon as they released him why haven’t they? One big cover up! They thought ppl would forget guess what we didn’t!!
2
2
HeyYou
@FandangoFlora
·
2 Aug 2018
Replying to
@mwilliamsthomas
and
@thismorning
You going to mention that she knew about the Elite Paedophile ring?
1
5
HeyYou
@FandangoFlora
·
2 Aug 2018
That’s a no then, even though it’s in the MSM. How strange. 🤔
1
stacey dobbs
@stacey85uk
·
2 Aug 2018
Replying to
@mwilliamsthomas
and
@thismorning
Question is what was Jill about to uncover that someone would want her dead?
1
6
This Tweet is unavailable
stacey dobbs
@stacey85uk
·
2 Aug 2018
👍🏻 seen and watched videos claiming exactly that
⫩ 𝕊 𝕚 𝕝 𝕧 𝕚 𝕒 ⫩ #TT30
@JerseyBird_
·
2 Aug 2018
Replying to
@mwilliamsthomas
and
@thismorning
I saw a tv prog years ago about #Dando being involved in trying to undo the apparent BBC’s coverup of their staff’s sexual abuse toward woman. I remember this same prog told of others trying to prove the cover-ups also met their maker in unexplained deaths. Any truth in this?
https://mobile.twitter.com/mwilliamsthomas/status/1024947488153907201
-
Barry George trial
“Photofit dispute
Mr George confirmed that he went to the offices of the Hammersmith and Fulham Action for Disability (Hafad) on the day Miss Dando was shot and returned there two days later.
He told police he had wanted to account for his movements as people had said he was similar in appearance to a photofit of the killer.
The prosecution says the photofit was only released four days after the murder.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1349115.stm
Carl Beech trial
“The agreed facts pertain to Carl Beech sending emails to the MoD and a primary school in Wiltshire trying to establish exactly where he lived and which school he attended in 1975/76
https://mobile.twitter.com/JEMilneSky
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Dan Didio: DC Comics to release blasphemous series about Jesus - Sign: (link: http://www.citizengo.org/en/md/167848-dc-comics-slated-release-blasphemous-series-about-jesus?tc=tw&tcid=53287472) citizengo.org/en/md/167848-d…
Why is it ok to offend Christians but not LGBT, Muhammad , Buddha, trans people? I think this is awful. I won’t be hurtful or disrespectful to any group...except paedophiles [/u]
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1086345633823408128
“There is probably no word in the English language that currently triggers a witch-hunt faster than this little gem: paedophile. https://www.legalcheek.com/2015/06/top-barrister-sparks-social-media-row-with-telly-copper-over-janner-trial-of-facts/
Troll Exposure blog
“Which brings me to another supposition and theory: that Williams-Thomas is at the forefront of a media and police campaign, he is the link between police and media. He fulfils his own stated ambition of being a “middle man” for such matters but by doing so he’s effectively removed the chances of fair trials in many of the cases which he’s leaked information about to the media.
The key to his need to do so is personal ambition in my opinion. However it needs a willing set of players around him, the Murdoch empire stand out as the main willing recipients, the police are clearly leaking operational material through him. Operation Yewtree was leaking more than a sieve with a massive rusted hole in the bottom. The public clamour for arrests and guilty verdicts was being tub-thumped by the actions of Williams-Thomas in leaking such material to the media. And in order to not make the connection to the Murdoch empire so obvious every now and again he would pass other details to the likes of the BBC or the Mirror Group. Spread the wealth.
Read more here:
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/05/04/may-the-force-be-with-the-force/
“Beech, who has been described at Newcastle Crown Court as a 'committed and manipulative paedophile', made the allegation in 2012
https://news.sky.com/story/carl-beech-westminster-vip-abuse-accuser-claimed-he-was-abused-by-jimmy-savile-11721409
-
“DS Lewis called to the witness stand. Has been an officer for 19 years. In 2012 was with Wiltshire Police.
“He first learnt of a man called Carl Beech’s from a report from the MET police, a referral from Op Yewtree - the investigation into allegations against Jimmy Savile.
https://mobile.twitter.com/JEMilneSky
THE PAEDOFILE: The strange silence of Mark Williams-Thomason the subject of JIm Davidson’s innocence
"Some of you may be wondering why Mark Williams-Thomas, expert Paedofinder General and all-round ignoramous, has not sued the comic Jim Davidson on the basis of what the now completely cleared “sex offender” wrote in his recent book about the affair No Further Action. This is the passage to which I refer:
Read more here:
https://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2014/08/11/the-paedofile-the-strange-silence-of-mark-williams-thomason-the-subject-of-jim-davidsons-innocence/
"....It seems to me(and my legal advisor) that Mr Davidson is saying two things in this extract:
1. Mark Williams-Thomas was working with Newscorp hacks on reportage of Davidson’s “case”, using information from Yewtree officers that he shouldn’t have had. This is an allegation which, if true, does represent less than ethical behaviour on Mr Willypuller’s part in his role as an ‘independent consultant’ – and criminal (albeit predictable) activity on the part of the Met officers on Yewtree.
2. He misled The Sun about the nature of Jim Davidson’s file….or was misled by Yewtree officers, and is thus something of an unreliable dumbo of a source. I’m torn on this one, as both explanations could well be entirely plausible.
Either way, it’s a clear case of bringing Stark Bilious-Toolkit’s reputation into question.
No Further Action - The Truth Behind the Smile
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=X5meCQAAQBAJ&pg=PT162&lpg=PT162&dq=jim+davidson+miscarriage+of+justice&source=bl&ots=zxshlQ5hGg&sig=eG2AEJDMo3rEyCll1b_qYllwhCk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi9m4mosf7dAhUizYUKHSbwBtUQ6AEwEXoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=jim%20davidson%20miscarriage%20of%20justice&f=false
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/operation-yewtree-solihull-investigator-who-6893200
-
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/operation-yewtree-solihull-investigator-who-6893200
https://outlawjimmy.com/grifters/survivor-or-storyteller/
-
“Beech, who has been described at Newcastle Crown Court as a 'committed and manipulative paedophile', made the allegation in 2012
https://news.sky.com/story/carl-beech-westminster-vip-abuse-accuser-claimed-he-was-abused-by-jimmy-savile-11721409
“Westminster VIP abuse accuser Carl Beech claimed he was targeted by Jimmy Savile
'Fantastist' who sparked £2m VIP paedophile ring probe 'said he'd been raped by Jimmy Savile but didn't mention other high-profile figures in first police interview'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7035899/Fantastist-sparked-paedophile-probe-didnt-mention-high-profile-figures-interview.html
-
“Westminster VIP abuse accuser Carl Beech claimed he was targeted by Jimmy Savile
'Fantastist' who sparked £2m VIP paedophile ring probe 'said he'd been raped by Jimmy Savile but didn't mention other high-profile figures in first police interview'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7035899/Fantastist-sparked-paedophile-probe-didnt-mention-high-profile-figures-interview.html
“AT THE end of February 2013, Williams-Thomas told a newspaper he was investigating sexual abuse by a ‘very significant individual’ at Elm Guest House in Barnes, South-West London. By this time, claims had been circulating on the internet that in the 1980s this had been a ‘gay brothel’ where children were abused, and that among those who stayed there were Sir Cliff and Leon Brittan, the former Tory Home Secretary.
One of their sources was a former social worker and convicted fraudster called Chris Fay. He had been trying to spread claims about Elm Guest House and ‘VIP paedophiles’ for many years. In 1990 he introduced ‘David’ – the fantasist who went on to accuse Sir Cliff – to a journalist called Gill Priestly, now deceased. In a series of taped interviews with her, David made astonishing claims: that he had been sexually assaulted by Lord Brittan, and ‘trafficked’ to Amsterdam, where he was forced to watch as children were raped and murdered to make ‘snuff’ porn movies.
Police documents disclosed by the Crown Prosecution Service and seen by this newspaper say Priestly played her tapes to Williams-Thomas while he was a serving police officer. The papers say that at the time police took no action and that in 2002, after Williams-Thomas left the police, she gave some of her tapes to him for ‘safe keeping’.
In 2013, then Detective Chief Inspector Paul Settle’s team spent more than 70 hours interviewing David, who made many of the same allegations. But Mr Settle says: ‘We knew very quickly the Elm Guest House claims were nonsense. David was very vulnerable and very suggestible, and his allegations were sheer fantasy.’
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6350331/Self-promoting-TV-detective-obsessed-celebrity-sex-abusers-helped-police-ruin-lives.html
-
“Then, in October 2013, the police records say, Williams-Thomas produced the tapes of Gill Priestly’s interviews with David. He approached Mr Settle’s boss, Detective Superintendent David Gray, and played them to him and a detective constable at the ITV studios. The full contents of the tapes have not been disclosed.
Mr Settle said: ‘We had already finished with David, but here was Williams-Thomas apparently trying to reincarnate him as a witness. It was quite apparent the tapes were the musings of a fantasist.’
However, others were taking David’s allegations seriously.
He was introduced to reporters from the now-defunct Exaro News website. This spectacularly unreliable witness became a source for multiple, lurid stories about the non-existent ‘Westminster paedophile ring’ used to support bogus claims of child rape and murder by Lord Brittan and others.
Eventually, these were debunked by a Panorama programme in 2015. David was to be one of its star witnesses, admitting he had made false allegations because he was suggestible and felt under pressure.
Williams-Thomas had promised to consider giving Panorama the Priestly tapes, but failed to do so, say BBC sources. Then, after David had been filmed, Williams-Thomas sent him an email, urging him either to insist on concealing his identity or not to appear at all, drafting messages that he suggested David should copy and send to the BBC.
‘DON’T tell the BBC we have spoken,’ he wrote, ‘just say you have spoken to a friend who has given you advice.’
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6350331/Self-promoting-TV-detective-obsessed-celebrity-sex-abusers-helped-police-ruin-lives.html
-
Man made errors plaque the criminal justice system *&^^& polluted by the contamination of confirmation bias
Dr Holly Greenwood
“Holly’s research interests are in Criminal Justice and Criminal Procedure with a particular focus on miscarriages of justice. Her PhD was the first empirical research to examine the development and operation of innocence projects in the UK, which are university based projects where students investigate claims of alleged wrongful conviction. The research examined how innocence projects constructed and understood a “miscarriage of justice” and explored the problems and challenges which they faced. It also drew on Luhmann’s Social Systems Theory as a theoretical framework for examining this.
https://www.swansea.ac.uk/staff/law/hollygreenwood/
Read Holly Greenwood’s research on Innocent Networks UK, Dr Michael Naughton, Professor Julie Price & Dr Dennis
Eady here: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa40034
and here https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa40032
Holly Greenwood Retweeted
JB Campaign LTD
@jbcampaignltd
TODAY: #JeremyBamber Campaigner
@tru68
& Patron Dr Eady will be speaking at the 16th
@UaInjustice
Conference: #MOJ (link: https://www.change.org/p/rt-hon-amber-rudd-mp-home-secretary-essex-police-release-all-documents-withheld-under-pii-to-jeremy-bamber-s-legal-defence/u/21588673) change.org/p/rt-hon-amber…?
https://mobile.twitter.com/jbcampaignltd/status/916597420854861824
Holly Greenwood
@HollyGreenwood8
·
27 Apr 2016
Several important questions raised, my phd research will cast further light on some of these issues when complete
University innocence projects: where are they now?
Only one conviction has ever been overturned on the strength of a university innocence project’s work in the UK – what’s going on? And what’s next for these projects?
theguardian.com
https://mobile.twitter.com/HollyGreenwood8/status/725345733034008576
By Jon Robins - April 2016 https://www.theguardian.com/law/2016/apr/27/university-innocence-projects-where-are-they-now
Greenwood, Holly. & Eady, Dennis. (in press). Re-evaluating post-conviction disclosure: a case for ‘better late than never’. International Journal of Law, Crime & Justice
https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa50369
https://www.bristol.ac.uk/spais/news/2018/the-barry-george-case-written-by-dr-michael-naughton.html
Dennis Eady - 7th Feb 2017
“The Jeremy Bamber case is perhaps the mother and father of illustrations of this resistance to disclosure (see www.jeremy-bamber.co.uk). After more than 30 years, the preferred option is to leave a potentially innocent man on a full life sentence rather than simply disclose material that could potentially exonerate him.
https://www.thejusticegap.com/disclosures-catch-22/
-
JILL DANDO MURDER Why haven’t they found my pal’s killer, says Sir Cliff
Daily Express25 Apr 2019By James Murray and John Twomey
“Michelle Diskin Bates, the sister of Barry George, appears alongside him. She is critical of a BBC documentary, aired earlier this month, which she says effectively put her brother on trial for a third time. Neither she nor her brother were interviewed for the BBC programme: “I feel balance has been partially restored by ITV’s investigation.”
Barry will travel from his home in Cork to watch it with his sister and they will appear on the Good Morning show today to discuss the case. Although an Old Bailey jury cleared him of murder, Barry’s name is still, a decade on, dragged into speculation about the death, says Michelle. Barry continues to protest his innocence. He says: “My conscience was clear. I know I hadn’t done it.”
For retired policeman Hamish Campbell, the officer who was in charge of the case, the key piece of missing evidence is the murder weapon – the handgun used to fire the modified sound-reducing bullet.With the passage of 20 years hopes of finding the gun have all but faded although Campbell hasn’t ruled it out.
David Wilson, a well-known TV criminologist who appears regularly on the BBC, believes a professional hitman shot Dando through the head on the doorstep of her home in Gowan Avenue, Fulham, just after 11.30am that day.
For his latest book, My Life with Murderers, Professor Wilson had a clandestine meeting with a professional hitman at a cafe, which backed up his theory.
The hitman said: “An amateur might shoot them in the body, might be a bit squeamish, one in the body first to see how it goes.
“That was someone who has killed before. Someone who has just walked up and boom. Probably tried for the second shot, couldn’t get it and just walked away.”
Former Scotland Yard detective Mark Williams-Thomas claimed that he knew the name of the hitman responsible but said they needed more information before they could investigate this claim
Mark Williams Thomas
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep[Name removed]1mX-6Ds
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xjDbaxSKLEQ
-
“On the way I read an article in the Sunday Express by James Murray. The headline read ‘FAMILY FEAR FOR DANDO’s KILLER’. It had a large photo of Jill Dando and inserts of Barry and Susan. It was another Michelle / MOJO story claiming that Barry was not getting the correct medication for his epilepsy. Margaret refused to look at the article.
Barry George had the support of the MOJO organisation behind him from the get go (Not dissimilar to Simon Hall at one time).
I’m of the opinion that without them and the propaganda put into the public domain George would not have overturned his conviction. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1419715.stm
-
Anger at legal compensation shakeup
Clarke's bid to overhaul law on wrong convictions attacked by justice groups - 2006
“Miscarriage of justice campaigners were enraged last night by plans to stop defendants walking free from the court of appeal after their convictions have been quashed on a technicality.
The announcement by the home secretary, Charles Clarke, was made as part of a package making a £5m a year cut in the £8m paid out annually in compensation to victims of miscarriages of justice. Mr Clarke said he wanted to see the change introduced in legislation as soon as possible.
One option is to introduce the Scottish "not proven" verdict into the English legal system. He said it was needed to put an end to the growth of a "small industry for the legal profession that has been giving away large amounts of money to individuals who do not deserve it".
The urgent government review will look at the statutory test used in the court of appeal to decide whether to quash a conviction. In particular, it will focus on whether an "error in the trial process" necessarily means a miscarriage of justice has occurred.
Mr Clarke acknowledged that a move to a "not proven" verdict would be a major change. "It would be a radical change. We are going to have a look at it. The time has come to assess it," he said.
The package of cuts to compensation payments will cap payments at a maximum of £500,000. He is also to introduce legislation empowering the compensation assessor to make deductions from the award if there are other criminal convictions in the case. He cited the example of a man serving nine years in prison for robbery convictions who had one of them quashed by the court of appeal and went on to receive £75,000 compensation.
But the proposals have angered miscarriage of justice campaigners. Gerry Conlon, of the Guildford four, who was wrongly convicted over an IRA bombing in 1974, said he was "absolutely horrified" by the package and called the compensation cuts a "penny-pinching, vote-catching exercise".
John McManus of MOJO, the campaigning organisation set up by Paddy Hill of the Birmingham six, said he was appalled that ministers appeared to be suggesting that those whose convictions were quashed were really criminals. He claimed that in many cases technical grounds were used to quash convictions to avoid the exposure of corrupt police officers.
"If the government want to do something about this compensation bill they should prosecute the corrupt police officers who have been involved. There have been at least 150 miscarriages of justice cases in the last 15 years but no police officers have ever been prosecuted."
But Mr Clarke believes that the growing compensation bill for miscarriage of justices has more to do with the failings of the English adversarial criminal justice system. He claimed yesterday that the system encouraged highly paid barristers funded by legal aid to play courtroom games in pursuit of compensation claims far beyond what was acceptable.
"This is not really about justice or righting wrongs in a fair way," said Mr Clarke. "I think the more the legal system clearly relates to the conduct of individuals who have done things or not done things and the less it relates to the technicalities of the legal process, the better.
"What individuals want to see is a legal system which correctly finds guilty those who are guilty and acquits those who are innocent, with respect to what they did or didn't do rather than whether or not the legal process was or was not correctly followed."
The proposal was first put forward by Lord Justice Auld in his review of the criminal courts in 2001, who said that "unhappily" the 1995 Criminal Appeal Act had led to the belief among some that an unfair trial should automatically be punished with an acquittal.
It also sparked an angry reaction from opposition MPs. The Liberal Democrat shadow attorney general, Simon Hughes, said an important criminal justice proposal seemed to have been smuggled on to the agenda under cover of an announcement on compensation.
"Criminal trials are supposed to clear up questions of guilt and not encourage suspicions to linger. Any review of the law must be conducted with extreme care. There are many people in Scotland who, with good reason, have deep misgivings about the 'not proven' verdict," said Mr Hughes.
The Conservatives also voiced doubts about the "not proven" verdict, saying it had come in for much criticism in Scotland. "We have a longstanding principle in this country of being innocent until proven guilty," said Dominic Grieve, the shadow attorney general.
"People want certainty and I am at a loss to understand why the home secretary might think this course of action necessary."
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2006/apr/20/constitution.ukcrime1
“What individuals want to see is a legal system which correctly finds guilty those who are guilty and acquits those who are innocent, with respect to what they did or didn't do rather than whether or not the legal process was or was not correctly followed."
The above article is from 2006.
Yet Michelle Diskin Bates claims to not have known her brother wouldn’t have been compensated on a technicality?
“The latest legal move, in which Mr George demanded compensation as a victim of a “'miscarriage of justice”, followed the dismissal of his claim by two High Court judges in January.
Barry George is not a victim of a miscarriage of justice.
“After today's ruling, Mr George's sister Michelle Diskin said outside the Royal Courts of Justice that the Court of Appeal judge's decision was a "travesty of justice".
With her brother standing by her side, she told reporters: "There never was any viable evidence against Barry.
"This whole case from April 2000 until today has been a smoke and mirrors exercise designed to placate a worried public, and give the impression that justice had been done. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/not-innocent-enough-to-be-compensated-barry-george-loses-legal-battle-for-compensation-over-wrongful-8697397.html
Contrary to what his sister claims, there was viable circumstantial evidence against him and there still is.
-
Mike Bourke (Barry George’s uncle)
I was later told that there were threats of legal action over the article and I let it be known that if so I would be a witness for the defendants. Fortunately that Pandora’s Box was never opened.
I saw just a little of the SKY News interview but I was not impressed by what I saw and heard. It seemed to me as if Barry was reciting from a script. I almost laughed as he earnestly said that he couldn’t begin to understand what the Dando family was going through. It just didn’t sound like something which he would say without being prompted, I felt they were not his words. I thought of the ‘idiot cards’ used by the BBC to prompt their interviewers on live shows such as ’Wogan’ back in the mid ‘80s. David James Smith later described the interview as cringe making and I have to agree.
When I opened the JfB e-mails I saw nasty derogatory messages which were intended for Michelle, something which had rarely ever happened up to this. One told her to take her lovely brother to Ireland and to keep him there. That is the sanitised version. It was quite a contrast from the reaction which followed his 2007 victory in the appeal court. I felt quite down in the dumps at the way things had suddenly turned around, and what should have been a joyful period at the successful end of the struggle instead seemed to have become sordid, unpleasant.
I felt quite bitter about it for a long while, and I was not alone in feeling like that. Some people put their professional reputations on the line and got no thanks for their efforts. Scott later told me that JfB’s website had received 978 hits on August 1st, 533 on the 2nd, and 369 on the 3rd. On October 1st I shut it down.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ltgorwROQfwC&pg=PA212&lpg=PA212&dq=Then+there+was+the+body+charged+with+monitoring+Barry+and+smoothing+his+path+back+into+society+under+a+Multi+Agency+Public+Protection+Agreement&source=bl&ots=Osy89OF-cJ&sig=ACfU3U0zgkLRZxktkcCyj-B_-VTf-1st0Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjP_uOK-dvhAhWssKQKHT4IBzYQ6AEwAHoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=Then%20there%20was%20the%20body%20charged%20with%20monitoring%20Barry%20and%20smoothing%20his%20path%20back%20into%20society%20under%20a%20Multi%20Agency%20Public%20Protection%20Agreement&f=false
So many red flags!
-
“Westminster VIP abuse accuser Carl Beech claimed he was targeted by Jimmy Savile
'Fantastist' who sparked £2m VIP paedophile ring probe 'said he'd been raped by Jimmy Savile but didn't mention other high-profile figures in first police interview'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7035899/Fantastist-sparked-paedophile-probe-didnt-mention-high-profile-figures-interview.html
More re Carl Beech trial https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/07/09/newcastle-day-35-defence-v/
-
Is this another example of paltering?
Here https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta2MqRKRcDs solicitor Jeremy Moore uses both the Colin Norris case and Barry George case in an attempt to explain statical errors within the CJS.
-
A New Commission Is Being Launched To Look At Miscarriages Of Justice
The commission is inviting written submissions and will be holding evidence sessions in Parliament. Its first hearing will be on Monday 15 July, when the CCRC will give evidence.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/emilydugan/westminster-commission-miscarriages-justice
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/miscarriages-of-justice-watchdog-faces-scrutiny-ktc39q0n3
https://mobile.twitter.com/APPGMJ
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀 Retweeted
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
2h
Replying to
@Zumber
and
@Elsie2127
Sadly, innocent until proven guilty-is dead. Barry George, via myself, warned people, but no one listened!
When you enter the justice system, they tell you you have nothing to prove. After you've left, they say you didn't prove your innocence. #catch22
“via myself” *&^^&
And it’s all because of cases like Barry George that the CJS is finally beginning to creak under the weight (imo)
Barry George didn’t prove his innocence! He overturned his wrongful conviction. There’s a difference between the two!
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀 Retweeted
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
21h
I wish Barry’s case was with these, he was the first person to fall foul of this injustice.
https://mobile.twitter.com/michelle_diskin?lang=en
NO he wasn’t!
Reminds me of how she claimed in her book someone coined a phrase
It’s good to know there aren’t many people who take her seriously and are also seeing the clearer bigger picture.
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀 Retweeted
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
2h
Replying to
@Zumber
and
@Elsie2127
Sadly, innocent until proven guilty-is dead. Barry George, via myself, warned people, but no one listened!
When you enter the justice system, they tell you you have nothing to prove. After you've left, they say you didn't prove your innocence. #catch22
“via myself” *&^^&
And it’s all because of cases like Barry George that the CJS is finally beginning to creak under the weight (imo)
Barry George didn’t prove his innocence! He overturned his wrongful conviction. There’s a difference between the two!
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀 Retweeted
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
21h
I wish Barry’s case was with these, he was the first person to fall foul of this injustice.
https://mobile.twitter.com/michelle_diskin?lang=en
NO he wasn’t!
Reminds me of how she claimed in her book someone coined a phrase
It’s good to know there aren’t many people who take her seriously and are also seeing the clearer bigger picture.
I wonder WHY no one listened
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀 Retweeted
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
21h
I wish Barry’s case was with these, he was the first person to fall foul of this injustice.
https://mobile.twitter.com/michelle_diskin?lang=en
NO he wasn’t!
Clearly they’ve seen the light.
-
More re Carl Beech trial https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/07/09/newcastle-day-35-defence-v/
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/07/09/newcastle-day-36-defence-vi/
-
A New Commission Is Being Launched To Look At Miscarriages Of Justice
The commission is inviting written submissions and will be holding evidence sessions in Parliament. Its first hearing will be on Monday 15 July, when the CCRC will give evidence.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/emilydugan/westminster-commission-miscarriages-justice
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/miscarriages-of-justice-watchdog-faces-scrutiny-ktc39q0n3
https://mobile.twitter.com/APPGMJ
Mojo Scotland
“We reproduce here an illuminating article published today on the website of The Justice Gap. In examining the self-understanding of the CCRC, as recently expressed by the incoming chair of the organisation, it exposes what we, and others in this field, can only see as an exercise in point-missing. The original article can be found here.
https://mojoscotland.org/referring-cases-of-wrongful-conviction-not-the-be-all-and-end-all-says-ccrc/
Helen Pitcher OBE
“I think perhaps too little attention is paid to the other outcomes of the Commission’s work, such as the considerable value we bring to the justice system in the de facto audit of the safety of convictions and correctness of sentences in each case we consider but do not refer, and the feedback we provide and warnings we give to other parts of the justice system when we see worrying trends.’
-
I wonder WHY no one listened
I don’t suppose she’s ever considered the WHY?
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
4h
'Justice is never served by the conviction of the innocent.'
THE JUSTICE TRAP: A Miscarriage of Justice is a Lifelong Sentence (link: https://bylinetimes.com/2019/07/11/the-justice-trap-a-miscarriage-of-justice-is-a-lifelong-sentence/) bylinetimes.com/2019/07/11/the… via
@BylineTimes
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1149619430961246208
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀 Retweeted
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
2h
Replying to
@Zumber
and
@Elsie2127
Sadly, innocent until proven guilty-is dead. Barry George, via myself, warned people, but no one listened!
When you enter the justice system, they tell you you have nothing to prove. After you've left, they say you didn't prove your innocence. #catch22
“via myself” *&^^&
And it’s all because of cases like Barry George that the CJS is finally beginning to creak under the weight (imo)
Barry George didn’t prove his innocence! He overturned his wrongful conviction. There’s a difference between the two!
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀 Retweeted
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
21h
I wish Barry’s case was with these, he was the first person to fall foul of this injustice.
https://mobile.twitter.com/michelle_diskin?lang=en
NO he wasn’t!
Reminds me of how she claimed in her book someone coined a phrase
It’s good to know there aren’t many people who take her seriously and are also seeing the clearer bigger picture.
Referring to Ian Glen QC, Michelle Diskin Bates stated in her book - ‘he coined the phrase “Not innocent enough.”
-
More re Carl Beech trial https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/07/09/newcastle-day-35-defence-v/
http://www.kingofhits.co.uk/component/option,com_kunena/Itemid,65/func,view/catid,2/id,190975/
-
Referring to Ian Glen QC, Michelle Diskin Bates stated in her book - ‘he coined the phrase “Not innocent enough.”
Conversation
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
I didn’t hear about this case - anyone else have info?
Teenager cleared of murder of Yousef Makki, 17, in Cheshire
Seventeen-year-old found not guilty of killing grammar school student
theguardian.com
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1149683962916343809
Another telling comment imo
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
Jul 9
Replying to
@m0wpg
@Elsie2127
and
@VictimsComm
Some people really do wear (selective) blinkers! Our justice system should be just, not biased.
-
Hacked Off
@hackinginquiry
·
Jul 8
“There are very very large sums of money being paid out by News Group, they are absolutely desperate to make sure that these cases do not come to open court where there are executives who might be held to account"
@stevenjbarnett
2:20
12.7K views
Embedded video
7
121
175
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
Jul 9
I still do not believe my phone was not part of this scandal. What? In one of the highest profile legal cases in recent history!
My phone was certainly hacked...but I have no recourse 🤬
1
1
1
William Beck
@WullieBeck
·
Jul 9
Sue them.
1
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@WullieBeck
@hackinginquiry
and
@stevenjbarnett
We asked the police, they said that Barry, myself and his legal team were not on the Hacked list.
7:08 PM · Jul 9, 2019 · Twitter for iPad
William Beck
@WullieBeck
·
Jul 9
Replying to
@Michelle_Diskin
@hackinginquiry
and
@stevenjbarnett
You just know they are telling lies and dont want to see you get compensation.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1148655209083744256
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
Jul 9
Replying to
@BlueCheezWhisky
I’m doing the same 😊 I talk about Christ and miscarriage of justice. Interested Joshua?
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@DrSusanYoung1
Tha ladies’ group I addressed today were visibly shaken to find Barry was not treated according to his medical/mental needs in prison.
Of course, some people really do believe the propaganda that prison is cushy.
7:35 PM · Jul 9, 2019 · Twitter for iPad
Professor Susan Young
@DrSusanYoung1
·
Jul 9
Replying to
@Michelle_Diskin
It’s shocking. I recall prison officers at the Old Bailey. They should all have been fired. He was refused medication and water. Some were deliberately confrontational, mocking and goading him. I have contemporaneous notes of it. Really must do something with that.
1
1
1
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
Jul 9
We should really try to meet, though we’re both so busy talking...we’d hardly find time 😄
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1148661978598137856
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@DrSusanYoung1
Tha ladies’ group I addressed today were visibly shaken to find Barry was not treated according to his medical/mental needs in prison.
Of course, some people really do believe the propaganda that prison is cushy.
7:35 PM · Jul 9, 2019 · Twitter for iPad
Professor Susan Young
@DrSusanYoung1
·
Jul 9
Replying to
@Michelle_Diskin
It’s shocking. I recall prison officers at the Old Bailey. They should all have been fired. He was refused medication and water. Some were deliberately confrontational, mocking and goading him. I have contemporaneous notes of it. Really must do something with that.
1
1
1
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
Jul 9
We should really try to meet, though we’re both so busy talking...we’d hardly find time 😄
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1148661978598137856
“Dr Susan Young, a clinical forensic psychologist, who specialises in working with murderers, has remained at George's side throughout his two trials and two appeals.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/aug/03/jilldando.mentalhealth
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7537797.stm
“She has worked at every level of security (community outreach, low, medium and high security, and in an open forensic rehabilitation ward) and provided assessment and consultation services at various prison establishments for both youths and adults. For 11 years, Susan’s clinical academic post was as an Honorary Consultant Clinical and Forensic Psychologist based Broadmoor Hospitalhttps://www.psychology-services.uk.com/susan-j-young
-
https://www.instagram.com/p/BpnTvrwD_dFXSM672_o-JgspDryVmRZb3XcIGY0/?igshid=edre50twhu2o
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
1h
😱 you don’t change/rewrite history...YOU LEARN FROM IT! Who is running these institutions, the inmates? #nonsensical
The Guardian
@guardian
· 1h
Top university split in row over erasing ‘racist’ science pioneers from the campus (link: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/13/ucl-inquiry-row-historical-racism-science-pioneers-rename-college-buildings?CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium=&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1563108402) theguardian.com/world/2019/jul
Says one of the patrons of Jeremy Bamber’s campaign who claimed:
“Becoming aware of a breaking-news story I began to listen in more closely. A siege was taking place at a farmhouse in England. The broadcaster relayed that five people were inside and there was great fear for their safety. As the story unfolded it became apparent that this was an older couple. A farmer and retired Magistrate, Nevill Bamber and his wife, June; their daughter, Sheila, and her six year old twin sons. Jeremy, their son, was outside with police who were trying to communicate with someone inside the house who had been seen pacing back and forth in front of an upstairs window and carrying a firearm.
https://jeremybamber.blogspot.com/2016/08/justice-is-never-served-by-conviction.html
-
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/07/09/newcastle-day-36-defence-vi/
Simon Warr on twitter doing a great job of tweeting from the Carl Beech trial in Newcastle
Prosecution: “Delusion is not the basis, but self-motivation. Deliberate creation, advancing falsehoods.
Beech has continually advanced falsehoods and misdirected the police. He has lied and misled - nothing is based on delusion.’
-
I don’t suppose she’s ever considered the WHY?
https://twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1151127793373044736e
-
https://twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1151127793373044736e
Michelle Diskin Bates states:
”Barry is guilty and I am complicit” Freudian slip perhaps? Psychological projection maybe?
-
Read Holly Greenwood’s research on Innocent Networks UK, Dr Michael Naughton, Professor Julie Price & Dr Dennis
Eady here: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa40034
https://mobile.twitter.com/michaeljnaughto
Account suspended ?
-
“Miscarriages of Justice Organisation - the Appeal of Barry George
The Appeal of Barry George, convicted last July of the murder of TV Presenter Jill Dando, will be heard on Monday July 15th, in Court 4 at Royal Courts of Justice. The Lord Chief Justice will preside over the Appeal proceedings.
MOJO has grave concerns over the safety of the conviction of Mr. George, having supported Barry and his family throughout the trial process and through to this Appeal.
Mr. Georges defence team, led by Michael Mansfield QC will challenge the identification and scientific evidence which was presented by the Crown at the trial.
The prosecution sought to turn non-identifications into positive identifications thereby turning totally negative evidence into positive evidence - an approach which conflicts with the background of the safeguards of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act procedures for identification parades, and the Codes of Practice governing them.
This will be an important principle for future cases where similar identification evidence becomes an issue. An important fact to bear in mind is always the inherent danger that this type of evidence greatly increases the real risk of a miscarriage of justice.
Similarly, the appeal will look closeley at the scientific issues and question the provenance of such evidence going before a jury. Contamination, police exhibit procedures and the integrity of the vital exhibit will be re-examined.
This Appeal will reveal the pollution of justice that has ocurred in this case and will demonstrate the exceptional efforts that have been made to identify them. Anyone who has a genuine interest in the administration of fair justice should follow the Appeal closely. There are lessons to be learned, MOJO has been educated and we consider we have been privileged to be able to offer our service and support to Mr. George, his family and the defence team.
As with all similar cases, our thoughts must also lie at this time, with the family of Jill Dando for whom these proceedings will be a painful reminder of their tragic loss. "Justice for Jill" is important to everyone.
Miscarriages of Justice Organisation
http://mojo.freehosting.net/
http://www.mojuk.org.uk/bulletins/barry.html
Barry George’s uncle states:
“I was quite correctly described as being estranged from the main George camp for suggesting that the MOJO outfit might be self-serving.
What was it Sandra Lean recently said about MOJO?
-
January 2017
Sandra lean claimed:
“Why should anyone accept claims by the very organisation which set Barry George up for conviction about whether or not he is a "risk?" Of course they're going to continue to blacken his name - their prized conviction was snatched away from them, and they did what they always do - continue to throw negative information into the public domain. The "great big light" referred to by gringo is there for all to see - phone hacking, Christopher Jefferies, Hillsborough etc - it doesn't take a lot of searching to see how much corruption and collusion is being, and has been, shoved under the rug, but it can't and won't stay there forever. http://jeremybamberforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,8126.msg384156.html#msg384156
There is no evidence whatsoever Barry George was set up!
Now that Barry George’s sister has published the fact her brother is still being monitored, maybe she’ll tell us why?
The Met Police and other agencies involved don’t appear to have made a public comment on this for over a decade?
PPANI Is what MAPPA is known as in Northern Ireland.
Interesting use of language which could equally apply to MOJO and the George case.
Their prize case which they snatched back from the CJS and presented to anyone who would listen as a miscarriage of justice
Gringo here http://jeremybamberforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,8126.msg384120.html#msg384120
That anyone can look at the Barry George case and imagine that it is about a guilty man "getting off" is simply not paying attention. There is a great big light being shone on police and media corruption and collusion. This collusion is in order to convict innocent people. To not see this is to be wilfully blind.
Instead of attacking Barry George's sister it would be more intellectually honest to question the role played by certain police officers and their stooges at the Sun et al.
Accusing his sister of "covering his guilt" is particularly loathsome especially seeing as you appear to base these slurs on nothing more than "belief".
-
Interesting use of language which could equally apply to MOJO and the George case.
Their prize case which they snatched back from the CJS and presented to anyone who would listen as a miscarriage of justice
Gringo here http://jeremybamberforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,8126.msg384120.html#msg384120
Symbiotic relationships
-
Symbiotic relationships
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7237167/Fantasist-Carl-Beech-invented-VIP-paedophile-ring-guilty-LYING.html
-
January 2017
Sandra lean claimed:
“Why should anyone accept claims by the very organisation which set Barry George up for conviction about whether or not he is a "risk?" Of course they're going to continue to blacken his name - their prized conviction was snatched away from them, and they did what they always do - continue to throw negative information into the public domain. The "great big light" referred to by gringo is there for all to see - phone hacking, Christopher Jefferies, Hillsborough etc - it doesn't take a lot of searching to see how much corruption and collusion is being, and has been, shoved under the rug, but it can't and won't stay there forever. http://jeremybamberforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,8126.msg384156.html#msg384156
-
“I wonder what Baroness Newlove would make of these circumstances. Seems George's previous victim(s) have been forgotten about.”
http://jeremybamberforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,8126.msg384297.html#msg384297
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/05/03/impartiality-is-key/
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7237167/Fantasist-Carl-Beech-invented-VIP-paedophile-ring-guilty-LYING.html
https://outlawjimmy.com/grifters/survivor-or-storyteller/
-
https://outlawjimmy.com/grifters/survivor-or-storyteller/
http://barristerblogger.com/2015/10/13/exaro-has-created-nothing-but-misery-and-confusion-its-time-for-it-to-shut-up/
-
Simon Warr on twitter doing a great job of tweeting from the Carl Beech trial in Newcastle
Prosecution: “Delusion is not the basis, but self-motivation. Deliberate creation, advancing falsehoods.
Beech has continually advanced falsehoods and misdirected the police. He has lied and misled - nothing is based on delusion.’
http://thewarrzone.blogspot.com/2019/07/prosecuting-carl-beech-just-start.html
-
Are you a victim of a genuine miscarriage of justice?
"In recent months, I have been working with the multi award winning investigative reporter, Mark Williams-Thomas, best known for his extraordinary investigative work leading to the exposure of Jimmy Savile. He has investigated, reviewed and reported on many of the biggest crime stories including: The Alps murders, Tia Sharp murder, Claudia Lawrence murder and the murder of Alice Gross, together with his work on the Oscar Pistorius trial in South Africa. His work has led to numerous awards, including two Royal Television Society Awards, a Broadcasting Press Guild Award and an International Peabody Award. He is also BAFTA nominated.
Mark is a highly skilled crime investigator. He has reviewed a number of high profile cases. He has a tenacious and meticulous approach to the cases he reviews, an approach which is seldom matched even by lawyers and those working in the criminal justice system. Mark’s reputation is built on his many successes and he has shown that he is not afraid to take on the establishment and uncover the truth.
Although much of Mark’s worked has focused on detecting crime, he has also reviewed many miscarriages of justice and is currently actively involved in some high-profile reviews with a view to reversing wrongful convictions and establishing the truth. As an example, he has worked on trying to assist Barry George, wrongly convicted of the murder of Jill Dando, and with his quest to obtain the justice it is strongly felt he deserves by getting compensation for having served a 9 year sentence for a crime he did not commit. He has been involved in a review of the disappearance of the Malaysian flight MH370 and is actively reviewing the murder conviction of a young dentist believed to have been wrongly convicted. It is no secret that Mark is a former police officer, but this has simply served to strengthen his ability to consider matters from both defence and prosecution perspectives when reviewing a case, which can only assist when looking at cases involving substantial injustice.
What is clear from Mark’s involvement in a case is not just his unrivalled approach to establishing what needs to be done to establish the truth, but how he achieves it. He has an extraordinary ability of understanding complex cases and establishing what went wrong at trial, and more importantly, what needs to be done. You only have to look at the resistance he must have faced when delving into the deep and murky world of Jimmy Savile when acknowledging just how successful he can be at uncovering the truth.
The significance of all this is that Mark and I have agreed to join forces with a view to reviewing 5 or so genuine miscarriages of justice. The cases we are looking to review need not be high profile, or even complex factually or legally, but simply where it is felt that with a further more detailed investigation, the truth can be exposed. It may be that various lines of enquiry need to be pursued which were perhaps considered not possible previously. This could be because witnesses would not come forward or could not be traced. It may be a case where there is a new theory to be explored as to who committed a crime that has resulted in the wrong person being convicted. It may be that enquiries need to be made of third parties who may hold and possess information that casts considerable doubt on the safety of a conviction. It may be that witnesses are out there who can be traced with a little digging who know the truth but simply need to be found. Equally, there may be concerns about a case that is still subject to an enquiry, and if charged a forensic investigation of the evidence leading to the charging decision may also be of great significance. As has been shown over the years, many overturned convictions in the court of appeal have resulted from a proper review of the unused evidence schedule. Many will know that this is a document prepared by the police and is often misleading, inaccurate or simply fails completely to record the full extent of an investigation. Lack of disclosure is a very common ground for appeal.
Mark and I will review the selected cases to uncover the fresh evidence that is needed to overturn a conviction. In addition, it may be that enquiries are received from suspects under investigation for serious offences where corruption or malpractice is alleged. It may be that our assistance in those cases and our intervention at an early stage can prevent wrongful conviction.
At first instance, those who wish to be considered for this should express their interest initially by writing to David Wells, Wells Burcombe. https://insidetime.org/are-you-a-victim-of-a-genuine-miscarriage-of-justice/
Michelle (Diskin) Bates says:
30th August 2017 at 8:45 am
A great great teaming. Miscarriage of justice victims need strong support and experienced, structured assistance to fight their convictions. Good luck with the new venture.
Michelle
(Barry George’s sister)
Cass says:
28th September 2017 at 2:42 pm
"I’m surprised David that as a qualified Solicitor and Barrister who has worked on some high profile cases that you haven’t done your homework on Mark Williams Thomas.
A bit of research will tell you that he was only a Detective for a year in Surrey then left, though I have heard he jumped before he was pushed.
He is not an expert in child protection, and a Masters in criminology, with no other post grad degree, doesn’t make him an expert in that field either.
His various CV’s about investigating or leading high profile cases are I would argue also untrue as Senior officers lead investigations.
Credit due for his dogged work in the Saville case, but he was invited on board by Merrion Jones after a lot of ground work was done. In fact he told Merrion by e-mail he was ‘keen to be involved’ as he started the Jonathan King investigation, which actually started after he left the force and was investigated by other officers.
Merrion thought MWT would be useful as an ex Surrey officer to find out if they had carried out an investigation into Saville. MWT agreed to ‘dig around’… it’s all in the Pollard Review.
As for ‘The Investigator’ the show revealed nothing that wasn’t already in the public domain and was edited to make MWT look good. It’s all in the Court of Appeal decision at http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2003/1840.html
Anyway I don’t wish to harp on, but I often wonder if those who purport to be what they are not actually have a strong belief in justice for others…. or simply a desire to boost their own ego and line their own pockets.
Purporting to those who have suffered the loss of loved ones to be a seasoned and experienced investigator is not for me in the interests of justice. It is called giving false hope… as he did in the Investigator.
If David, as MWT said himself, you ‘dig around’, you’ll come to see he’s not all that he purports to be. In fact why not ask him face to face and see what he says. He knows what it’s like to be grilled after standing trial for Blackmail and being found not guilty.
"Adding fuel to the fire was a British former policeman and TV celebrity, Mark Williams-Thomas, who made the 2012 TV documentary which exposed the crimes of Jimmy Savile. Working with UK lawyer David Wells, he travelled to KL and compiled – at a cost of £8,000 – an unofficial report for Ivana’s family. Last week Wells issued a press release, headlined: ‘Model’s fatal fall was no accident, conclude St Albans solicitor and private investigator duo.’ They say they have ‘no doubt’ that in Britain, Ivana’s death would be treated as homicide. https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-mail-on-sunday/20180401/281822874356022
https://quillette.com/2019/07/25/the-many-lies-of-carl-beech/
-
“Dwayne, who had always protested his innocence, had the good fortune to write to and involve the Innocence Project at Cardiff University. Over successive years volunteering law students studied the case, and considered various avenues which might lead to the overturning of the conviction. The case of Barry George [2007] EWCA Crim 2722 with its staunch criticisms of the standards which had applied to gun shot residue evidence, and its recognition of the important revision of those standards under the auspices of the FSS and in particular their lead scientist Angela Shaw, led to the students securing the services of a firearms expert to write a report on the impact of the Barry George decision on Dwayne George’s case. Detailed submissions to the CCRC were prepared by the many students, into all aspects of the case. Impressed by the work involved the CCRC themselves commissioned Angela Shaw to write a report on the GSR findings in the case, and the approach which had been adopted to them. As a result the Commission referred the case back to the Court of Appeal.
http://doughty-street-chambers.newsweaver.com/Appeals/1cisha3cvxh?a=1&p=456444&t=174031
Simon Hall had the same solicitor as Dwayne George.
It was this solicitor who helped Hall embellish his Guittard application https://insidetime.org/guittard-applications/
at my objection!
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
1h
😱 you don’t change/rewrite history...YOU LEARN FROM IT! Who is running these institutions, the inmates? #nonsensical
The Guardian
@guardian
· 1h
Top university split in row over erasing ‘racist’ science pioneers from the campus (link: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/13/ucl-inquiry-row-historical-racism-science-pioneers-rename-college-buildings?CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium=&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1563108402) theguardian.com/world/2019/jul
Says one of the patrons of Jeremy Bamber’s campaign who claimed:
“Becoming aware of a breaking-news story I began to listen in more closely. A siege was taking place at a farmhouse in England. The broadcaster relayed that five people were inside and there was great fear for their safety. As the story unfolded it became apparent that this was an older couple. A farmer and retired Magistrate, Nevill Bamber and his wife, June; their daughter, Sheila, and her six year old twin sons. Jeremy, their son, was outside with police who were trying to communicate with someone inside the house who had been seen pacing back and forth in front of an upstairs window and carrying a firearm.
https://jeremybamber.blogspot.com/2016/08/justice-is-never-served-by-conviction.html
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀 Retweeted
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Dear friends, please vote for "Stand Against Injustice" for book of the year. (link: https://forums.onlinebookclub.org/shelves/book.php?id=365463&boty=1) forums.onlinebookclub.org/shelves/book.p… #BOTY via
@TwBookClub
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀 Retweeted
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Dear friends, please vote for "Stand Against Injustice" for book of the year. (link: https://forums.onlinebookclub.org/shelves/book.php?id=365463&boty=1) forums.onlinebookclub.org/shelves/book.p… #BOTY via
@TwBookClub
Twitter have rules about these things I understand.
-
Twitter have rules about these things I understand.
Self promotion?
-
http://barristerblogger.com/2015/10/13/exaro-has-created-nothing-but-misery-and-confusion-its-time-for-it-to-shut-up/
http://jimcannotfixthis.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-man-whos-still-out-in-cold.html
-
https://twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1151127793373044736e
Following a recent public veiled threat aimed at me Michelle Diskin Bates appears to have incited the bloke in the byline of this article
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/13200185
-
Following a recent public veiled threat aimed at me Michelle Diskin Bates appears to have incited the bloke in the byline of this article
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/13200185
Michelle Diskin Bates to the bloke in the byline of above article, “she will be dealt with if necessary.”
-
Michelle Diskin Bates to the bloke in the byline of above article, “she will be dealt with if necessary.”
False allegations - incitement of others *&^^&
-
False allegations - incitement of others *&^^&
Seems my opinions and observations struck a chord but rather than rebuff them she chose to make up lies and incite others in the process - and a convicted criminal with form for doing so no less. *&^^&
-
Michelle Diskin Bates to the bloke in the byline of above article, “she will be dealt with if necessary.”
He, the convicted troll, asks Michelle Diskin Bates if she’s read his private messages to her - she gives him the thumbs up, indicating she’s read them
-
Michelle Diskin Bates to the bloke in the byline of above article, “she will be dealt with if necessary.”
She also makes claim about me ”but rather vulnerable”
And is now attempting to wriggle out of the fact she’s been caught out by claiming to him “No I haven’t seen anything” *&^^&
-
She also makes claim about me ”but rather vulnerable”
And is now attempting to wriggle out of the fact she’s been caught out by claiming to him “No I haven’t seen anything” *&^^&
Her further comments confirm she is the fraud I knew her to be
-
False allegations - incitement of others *&^^&
Veiled threats *&^^&
-
http://jimcannotfixthis.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-man-whos-still-out-in-cold.html
”The many lies of Carl Beech and the folly of his supporters” by barristerblogger
http://barristerblogger.com/2019/07/31/the-many-lies-of-carl-beech-and-the-folly-of-his-supporters/
-
Michelle Diskin Bates to the bloke in the byline of above article, “she will be dealt with if necessary.”
Veiled threats, false allegations, incitement of others and still she continues *&^^&
-
Veiled threats, false allegations, incitement of others and still she continues *&^^&
After leaving a psychiatric hospital, not long before her brother was arrested, she claimed she felt “slightly rebellious.”
Seems to me nothing much has changed and she thinks she can say and do as she pleases without recrimination?
-
We must do more to sift fact from fiction - david aaronovitch The Times
Democracy is in danger when falsehoods proliferate to such an extent that establishing the truth appears a futile task
“What’s true and what isn’t — and how much harm untruth can do in the public realm — is one of the great problems of our time. Last year the government identified the propagation of fake or inaccurate claims online as one of the biggest factors in the confusion.
Facebook has since employed independent groups of fact-checkers to examine how it deals with claims of inaccurate information on the platform. One British group is called Full Fact and, as The Times reported on Tuesday, it has published its interim findings
Read more here: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/we-must-do-more-to-sift-fact-from-fiction-sjflg78tk
-
Justice for Jimmy Saville
Carl Beech and Jimmy Savile - Part 2 by Rabbitaway
https://rabbitaway.blogspot.com/2019/08/carl-beech-and-jimmy-savile-part-2.html
(Part 1 https://rabbitaway.blogspot.com/2019/07/carl-beech-jimmy-savile-part-1.html)
-
Following a recent public veiled threat aimed at me Michelle Diskin Bates appears to have incited the bloke in the byline of this article
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/13200185
Michelle Diskin Bates to the bloke in the byline of above article, “she will be dealt with if necessary.”
“Christopher John Hobby, aka Kris Manalien, set up bogus websites in Mr Cracknell's name and claimed online he was a paedophile.
Last month Hobby, who is also an artist, was jailed for six months for harassment.
Michelle Diskin-Bates
“We know her Chris Hobby and she will be dealt with if necessary, but she has no power. Bringing her nonsense into the light shows it as ridiculous.
Shame, she is an intelligent woman, but rather vulnerable
“Psychological projection is a defence mechanism in which the human ego defends itself against unconscious impulses or qualities by denying their existence in themselves while attributing them to others.
-
“Christopher John Hobby, aka Kris Manalien, set up bogus websites in Mr Cracknell's name and claimed online he was a paedophile.
Last month Hobby, who is also an artist, was jailed for six months for harassment.
Michelle Diskin-Bates
“We know her Chris Hobby and she will be dealt with if necessary, but she has no power. Bringing her nonsense into the light shows it as ridiculous.
Shame, she is an intelligent woman, but rather vulnerable
“Psychological projection is a defence mechanism in which the human ego defends itself against unconscious impulses or qualities by denying their existence in themselves while attributing them to others.
I do hope she takes up James English invitation to go on his show
-
Twitter have rules about these things I understand.
How many accounts can one person have? https://m.facebook.com/pg/Not-Innocent-Enough-622876151178610/posts/?ref=page_internal&mt_nav=0
https://m.facebook.com/pg/standgainstInjustice/posts/?ref=page_internal&mt_nav=0
-
Michelle Diskin Bates starts her interview, “to be truthful......” *&^^&
https://m.youtube.com/watch?fbclid=IwAR2r9lBi-v7EsDNT_Qbn-YWP2XbKGCSCVPArHId-EV-h2C1Oi9pzxTXn-mY&v=Wrm6m-6ydAo
“Liars often overemphasize their truthfulness by adding words or phrases to a statement that are meant to make them sound more convincing. However, the actual effect is usually the opposite. By adding phrases that emphasize they’re telling the truth, the speaker loses credibility and weakens the argument.
Overemphasizing truthfulness includes phrases such as:
“To be honest”
“To tell you the truth”
“Believe me”
“Let me be clear”
“The fact is”
You may think these phrases will convince others of your reliability and you probably mean to bolster your integrity and accuracy, but this isn’t necessary if you’re being honest.
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/321282
-
“Christopher John Hobby, aka Kris Manalien, set up bogus websites in Mr Cracknell's name and claimed online he was a paedophile.
Last month Hobby, who is also an artist, was jailed for six months for harassment.
Michelle Diskin-Bates
“We know her Chris Hobby and she will be dealt with if necessary, but she has no power. Bringing her nonsense into the light shows it as ridiculous.
Shame, she is an intelligent woman, but rather vulnerable
“Psychological projection is a defence mechanism in which the human ego defends itself against unconscious impulses or qualities by denying their existence in themselves while attributing them to others.
Michelle Diskin Bates:
“I do think it’s important that I am clear, I will not engage with trolls, cyber-stalkers or those or do engage with them.
-
Twitter have rules about these things I understand.
Self promotion?
More and more people are starting to ask questions Angelo, especially after all what went on re the Carl Beech fiasco
-
How many accounts can one person have? https://m.facebook.com/pg/Not-Innocent-Enough-622876151178610/posts/?ref=page_internal&mt_nav=0
https://m.facebook.com/pg/standgainstInjustice/posts/?ref=page_internal&mt_nav=0
Michelle Diskin Bates states:
“There’s a special promo on my book on kindle. It’s free, but only for a few more days. Don’t miss out guys, a review is all I ask. *&^^&
The book is free to those with kindle unlimited.
There was no “special promo” but this is how people like her attempt to mislead.
She claims “a review is all I ask” as though she’s doing her readers a favour *&^^&
“Bringing her nonsense into the light shows it as ridiculous.” Indeed it does!
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7237167/Fantasist-Carl-Beech-invented-VIP-paedophile-ring-guilty-LYING.html
The Supporting Sadacts
Posted by TROLLEXPOSURE on AUGUST 3, 2019
“Earlier this month, Mark Williams-Thomas claimed, incorrectly and with an obviously very short memory, that he had never promoted the views or endorsed the claims of Carl Stephen Beech.
This tweet says otherwise:
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/08/03/the-supporting-sadacts/
-
http://barristerblogger.com/2015/10/13/exaro-has-created-nothing-but-misery-and-confusion-its-time-for-it-to-shut-up/
The Dark Helmet of David Hencke
Posted by TROLLEXPOSURE on 9th August 2019
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/2019/08/09/the-dark-helmet-of-david-hencke/
-
Barry George’s uncle states:
“I was quite correctly described as being estranged from the main George camp for suggesting that the MOJO outfit might be self-serving.
Interestingly it was Barry George’s uncle Michael Bourke who first enlisted the help of MOJO:
“On April 20 I wrote a letter to Paddy Hill, one of the Birmingham Six, who had formed a prisoner support group called MOJO. I had heard him being interviewed on RTE Radio and I was quite impressed. I wrote that I feared that Barry would be ‘stitched up’ and requested the help of MOJO.
-
Interestingly it was Barry George’s uncle Michael Bourke who first enlisted the help of MOJO:
“On April 20 I wrote a letter to Paddy Hill, one of the Birmingham Six, who had formed a prisoner support group called MOJO. I had heard him being interviewed on RTE Radio and I was quite impressed. I wrote that I feared that Barry would be ‘stitched up’ and requested the help of MOJO.
Michelle Diskin Bates writes about herself and Paddy Hill:
“As he watched, his heart was touched by the sight of a lone women walking in and out of court every day, assailed by news crews. He had heard enough of the evidence to believe a miscarriage of justice was about to take place but he could only help after conviction, not before, and then only if the defendant asked for help. However something struck Paddy about this case and that sad lonely figure on the screen and he came down to London.
-
Justice for Jimmy Saville
Carl Beech and Jimmy Savile - Part 2 by Rabbitaway
https://rabbitaway.blogspot.com/2019/08/carl-beech-and-jimmy-savile-part-2.html
(Part 1 https://rabbitaway.blogspot.com/2019/07/carl-beech-jimmy-savile-part-1.html)
A Private Eyefull ! by Rabbitaway
“Rosie Waterhouse is one of only TWO mainstream journalist's to have shown some genuine interest in Operation Yewtree, and I raise my hat to both of them. But, reading Rosie's and especially those references to Keir Starmer, took me back to a post I published in December 2013 wherein I postulated a possible motivation behind the authorities rush to judgement on Sir Jimmy. Could it be that Jimmy's death - right slap bang - in the midst of Starmer's - Rochdale mea culpa, was his (and others) chance to make good for their failure to help the Susie's ?
https://rabbitaway.blogspot.com/2019/08/a-private-eyefull_9.html
-
https://mobile.twitter.com/michaeljnaughto
Account suspended ?
Empowering Wrongful Convictions (EWC)
@wrongfulcons
Must-read book for all fighting a miscarriage of justice by an inspirational, fearless and indefatigable woman who will never cease in her quest for truth and justice for her brother, their family and his alleged victim. #wrongfulconvictions #miscarriagesofjustice #injustice https://twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1114144289871880192
https://mobile.twitter.com/wrongfulcons/status/1166616420060422144
Empowering Wrongful Convictions (EWC)
@wrongfulcons
New initiative being set up by Dr Michael Naughton: http://michaeljnaughton.com
Joined June 2019
-
Empowering Wrongful Convictions (EWC)
@wrongfulcons
Must-read book for all fighting a miscarriage of justice by an inspirational, fearless and indefatigable woman who will never cease in her quest for truth and justice for her brother, their family and his alleged victim. #wrongfulconvictions #miscarriagesofjustice #injustice https://twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1114144289871880192
https://mobile.twitter.com/wrongfulcons/status/1166616420060422144
Empowering Wrongful Convictions (EWC)
@wrongfulcons
New initiative being set up by Dr Michael Naughton: http://michaeljnaughton.com
Joined June 2019
Empowering Wrongful Convictions (EWC)
@wrongfulcons
·
3h
If
@ccrcupdate
cannot see the wrongfulness of
@EddieGilfoyle
conviction and refer it then what hope is there for any applicants? There is an urgent need to reform the CCRC or for it to be replaced with a body that can truly assist the innocent. #wrongfulconvictions
@APPGMJ
https://mobile.twitter.com/wrongfulcons/status/1169559820204224513
Empowering Wrongful Convictions (EWC)
@wrongfulcons
Many of us have been raising awareness of the problem of the
@ccrcupdate
real possibility test and how it acts against justice for innocent victims of #wrongfulconvictions for over 15 years. CCRC needs to be reformed or replaced with a body that can truly assist the innocent.
https://mobile.twitter.com/wrongfulcons/status/1169558155162017792
-
Empowering Wrongful Convictions (EWC)
@wrongfulcons
·
3h
If @ccrcupdate
cannot see the wrongfulness of
@EddieGilfoyle
conviction and refer it then what hope is there for any applicants? There is an urgent need to reform the CCRC or for it to be replaced with a body that can truly assist the innocent. #wrongfulconvictions
@APPGMJ
https://mobile.twitter.com/wrongfulcons/status/1169559820204224513
During this interview he slips up when he refers to Paula’s diaries saying; “she tried to commit suicide herself.”
Approx 2.12
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-16447836
“She tried to commit suicide herself”
http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=7310.msg550858#msg550858
-
“She tried to commit suicide herself”
http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=7310.msg550858#msg550858
Is this a subliminal confession?
-
Empowering Wrongful Convictions (EWC)
@wrongfulcons
Must-read book for all fighting a miscarriage of justice by an inspirational, fearless and indefatigable woman who will never cease in her quest for truth and justice for her brother, their family and his alleged victim. #wrongfulconvictions #miscarriagesofjustice #injustice https://twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1114144289871880192
https://mobile.twitter.com/wrongfulcons/status/1166616420060422144
Empowering Wrongful Convictions (EWC)
@wrongfulcons
New initiative being set up by Dr Michael Naughton: http://michaeljnaughton.com
Joined June 2019
Empowering Innocence
@Emp_Innocence
·
Sep 4
No - I’m with you and all other innocent victims of wrongful convictions and their families and supporters so that we can together get a system that is committed to the prevention and overturn of wrongful convictions. #whatweallowwillcontinue #wrongfulconvictions
Empowering Innocence
@Emp_Innocence
Thank you. The cause of #wrongfulconvictions needs more people committed to change as you are. Please watch this space for information about a meeting planned for November to formally launch EWC. It would be great if you & ALL those against wrong convictions could get involved.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Emp_Innocence
-
Empowering Innocence
@Emp_Innocence
·
Sep 4
No - I’m with you and all other innocent victims of wrongful convictions and their families and supporters so that we can together get a system that is committed to the prevention and overturn of wrongful convictions. #whatweallowwillcontinue #wrongfulconvictions
Empowering Innocence
@Emp_Innocence
Thank you. The cause of #wrongfulconvictions needs more people committed to change as you are. Please watch this space for information about a meeting planned for November to formally launch EWC. It would be great if you & ALL those against wrong convictions could get involved.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Emp_Innocence
CCRC
@ccrcupdate
Some recent tweets attacking the ethics and integrity of
@ccrcupdate
and its staff are offensive and wrong. Anyone who has spent time at the CCRC will testify to the fact that we are hardworking and committed to resolving miscarriages of justice …1/4
The recently published independent research by
@carolynhoyle1
is the result of years of work
@ccrcupdate
offices interacting with us. It describes an organisation that, while far from perfect, has integrity and is fundamentally decent, honest and dedicated to its work...2/4
Some of those impugning our motives and morals probably won’t want to read impartial and evidence-based opinion about the culture and standards at
@ccrcupdate
because the truth runs counter to the things they want to believe...3/4
@ccrcupdate
never claimed to be perfect; we know we're not and we are always trying to improve. It's legitimate to scrutinise our work and question our performance, but claims that we're uncaring, in it for the money and making decisions in bad faith are wrong and unhelpful. 4/4
https://mobile.twitter.com/ccrcupdate/with_replies
Empowering Innocence
@Emp_Innocence
·
2h
Great that
@ccrcupdate
is finally engaging with its critics but it "doth protest too much". If anyone is in any doubts about the failings of the CCRC in assisting innocent victims of #wrongfulconvictions see: http://michaeljnaughton.com/?page_id=876 & other books and articles on my website.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Emp_Innocence/status/1174309685261938690
-
Michelle Diskin Bates writes about herself and Paddy Hill:
“As he watched, his heart was touched by the sight of a lone women walking in and out of court every day, assailed by news crews. He had heard enough of the evidence to believe a miscarriage of justice was about to take place but he could only help after conviction, not before, and then only if the defendant asked for help. However something struck Paddy about this case and that sad lonely figure on the screen and he came down to London.
Here she’s referring to herself as “that sad lonely figure”
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
A really encouraging MJSS client conference in Friends House, London, The Miscarriages of Justice Support Service - RCJ Advice. I have been asked to write out my recommendations, as discussed today, and as suggested in my book,previously.
10:31 PM · Sep 17, 2019·Twitter for iPad
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1174073472051482628
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
I’m hopeful that the MJSS may attend the
@UaInjustice
conference in October. Their presence may be of assistance to struggling families of moj victims.
10:36 PM · Sep 17, 2019·Twitter for iPad
-
Empowering Innocence
@Emp_Innocence
·
Sep 4
No - I’m with you and all other innocent victims of wrongful convictions and their families and supporters so that we can together get a system that is committed to the prevention and overturn of wrongful convictions. #whatweallowwillcontinue #wrongfulconvictions
Empowering Innocence
@Emp_Innocence
Thank you. The cause of #wrongfulconvictions needs more people committed to change as you are. Please watch this space for information about a meeting planned for November to formally launch EWC. It would be great if you & ALL those against wrong convictions could get involved.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Emp_Innocence
Empowering Innocence
@Empow_Innocence
·
Sep 13
Hope is crucial for innocent victims of #wrongfulconvictions which includes families and friends. It’s what keeps you going. But, the
@ccrcupdate
increasingly offer little or almost no hope with over 99% of applicants being refused a referral back to the appeal courts.
Mick Geen
@J4BenGeen
·
Sep 13
Increasing referred to in Miscarriage of Justice circles as the Bastion of no Hope-Giving evidence to the HoC Commission the CCRC said they were happy with their own performance and felt comfort in the knowledge that the CoA also said that the CCRC were performing very well. 🙆♂️
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@J4BenGeen
@wrongfulcons
and
@ccrcupdate
😱 They have become part of ‘The System’. But they were set up to be apart from it. A tiger with no teeth or claws is a pussycat.
8:34 AM · Sep 17, 2019·Twitter for iPhone
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1173862821244952576
-
Here she’s referring to herself as “that sad lonely figure”
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
A really encouraging MJSS client conference in Friends House, London, The Miscarriages of Justice Support Service - RCJ Advice. I have been asked to write out my recommendations, as discussed today, and as suggested in my book,previously.
10:31 PM · Sep 17, 2019·Twitter for iPad
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1174073472051482628
Michelle Diskin Bates writes about herself and Paddy Hill:
“As he watched, his heart was touched by the sight of a lone women walking in and out of court every day, assailed by news crews. He had heard enough of the evidence to believe a miscarriage of justice was about to take place but he could only help after conviction, not before, and then only if the defendant asked for help. However something struck Paddy about this case and that sad lonely figure on the screen and he came down to London.
“A lone women?”
But Michelle Diskin (As she was known then) wasn’t on her own. Her Uncle Mike Burke, her mother and others were also in attendance.
Excerpts from Mike Bourke’s book:
“Mansfield was one of the top six defence lawyers in England, if not the best. The Daily Mail referred to him as a Champagne Socialist and he appeared to be hated by the Mail, some judges and lawyers. Jealously is said to be the reason for that. He represented the Price sisters who bombed the Old Bailey in 1973 destroying Mansfield’s car in the process. 27 QCs became unavailable but he took on the case. The Guildford 4 and Birmingham Six appeals were amongst many other of his high profile cases. Fortunately Barry got Mansfield but he was adamant that he would keep solicitor Marilyn Etienne. I was horrified as I strongly felt that he needed a highly experienced lawyer such as Peirce, and I didn’t know of Marilyn’s track record. Michelle visited Barry along with Margaret to try and persuade him to change but it was not to be.
I did notice over time a tendency in him to be a bit of a hypochondriac. Unfortunately he had a side to him which I had not been very aware of. I always thought of him as a more or less harmless character who was a bit of a fantasist but that was not quite the case. In early ’83 his mother told me that he was in prison on remand. At his trial in the Old Bailey he pleaded guilty to a serious offence in February 1982 and got thirty months in prison. As Barry is once again trying to get on with his life I have decided not to go into the details which have received much press coverage but I do recall reading in a newspaper at the time that he initially denied it but that the detective tripped him up by asking him if he spoke any German. Barry replied ‘Ich Verstain’, (I understand). It appears that he used the same expression to the unfortunate victim who was a student studying German. So it would seem that a clever detective had no trouble in tripping him up and getting to the truth. He served his time in Wormwood Scrubbs, Brixton and Grendon Underwood prisons. I visited him a couple of times along with his mother and Eddie. He was free again by Christmas 1984 and he seemed to settle down after that. He never spoke to me about the crime and I never asked but I read her own account in 2001 following his conviction for Jill Dando’s murder, and again in 2008 when she wrote that she doubted if Barry was a killer. Barry had a 125cc motorbike in the summer of 1986 which I thought was surprising given his epilepsy. It was a nice ‘bike and I had a spin on it. But one day a woman motorist pulled out in front of him and the ‘bike was wrecked. A taxi driver witnessed the accident and he wrote in a witness statement that ‘she didn’t give the poor fellow a chance’. I don’t think that he was seriously injured in the accident, just cuts and bruises and possibly a leg injury. After that he wisely decided to give up motorbikes and bought a mountain-bike.
-
“A lone women?”
But Michelle Diskin (As she was known then) wasn’t on her own. Her Uncle Mike Burke, her mother and others were also in attendance.
Excerpts from Mike Bourke’s book:
“Mansfield was one of the top six defence lawyers in England, if not the best. The Daily Mail referred to him as a Champagne Socialist and he appeared to be hated by the Mail, some judges and lawyers. Jealously is said to be the reason for that. He represented the Price sisters who bombed the Old Bailey in 1973 destroying Mansfield’s car in the process. 27 QCs became unavailable but he took on the case. The Guildford 4 and Birmingham Six appeals were amongst many other of his high profile cases. Fortunately Barry got Mansfield but he was adamant that he would keep solicitor Marilyn Etienne. I was horrified as I strongly felt that he needed a highly experienced lawyer such as Peirce, and I didn’t know of Marilyn’s track record. Michelle visited Barry along with Margaret to try and persuade him to change but it was not to be.
I did notice over time a tendency in him to be a bit of a hypochondriac. Unfortunately he had a side to him which I had not been very aware of. I always thought of him as a more or less harmless character who was a bit of a fantasist but that was not quite the case. In early ’83 his mother told me that he was in prison on remand. At his trial in the Old Bailey he pleaded guilty to a serious offence in February 1982 and got thirty months in prison. As Barry is once again trying to get on with his life I have decided not to go into the details which have received much press coverage but I do recall reading in a newspaper at the time that he initially denied it but that the detective tripped him up by asking him if he spoke any German. Barry replied ‘Ich Verstain’, (I understand). It appears that he used the same expression to the unfortunate victim who was a student studying German. So it would seem that a clever detective had no trouble in tripping him up and getting to the truth. He served his time in Wormwood Scrubbs, Brixton and Grendon Underwood prisons. I visited him a couple of times along with his mother and Eddie. He was free again by Christmas 1984 and he seemed to settle down after that. He never spoke to me about the crime and I never asked but I read her own account in 2001 following his conviction for Jill Dando’s murder, and again in 2008 when she wrote that she doubted if Barry was a killer. Barry had a 125cc motorbike in the summer of 1986 which I thought was surprising given his epilepsy. It was a nice ‘bike and I had a spin on it. But one day a woman motorist pulled out in front of him and the ‘bike was wrecked. A taxi driver witnessed the accident and he wrote in a witness statement that ‘she didn’t give the poor fellow a chance’. I don’t think that he was seriously injured in the accident, just cuts and bruises and possibly a leg injury. After that he wisely decided to give up motorbikes and bought a mountain-bike.
“Barry, too, suffers from epilepsy, and the condition - which was not properly diagnosed until shortly before the trial - may have contributed to the mental problems he seems to have developed.[/i]
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/jul/03/jilldando.media5
“It is now accepted that George does suffer from a mild form of epilepsy, though the experts are divided about its effects. Some believe George deliberately exaggerates the condition, others claim it has caused "severe brain dysfunction"
http://jeremybamberforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,8126.msg384497.html#msg384497
Barry George and epilepsy:
Wasn’t properly diagnosed until just before his trial yet his Uncle Mike seems to suggest otherwise?
So who diagnosed Barry George’s epilepsy and when exactly? What do his medical records state?
In the Eddie Gilfoyle case, “The Commission said that Professor Kopelman was content to accept that the claimant had been deprived of his medication during the trial, as the claimant alleged, and appeared to have based his conclusions largely on the claimant’s self-reporting.
Kopelman was also involved in the Barry George
http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=7310.msg550859#msg550859
“Staff at Heathermount, set in 14 idyllic acres in Sunningdale, Berkshire, remembered him as a "mummy's boy" who followed one of the matrons "like a lost lamb". The less academic pupils, like George, were encouraged to concentrate on woodwork, metalwork, weaving and gardening, and to perform in ambitious theatre productions, such as La Boheme and The Mikado.
It was here that George's obsession with celebrity began to emerge, insisting to friends and teachers that they should call him Paul Gadd, Gary Glitter's real name.
"He didn't just have posters on his walls like the other kids," said one former member of staff. "He knew every movement, song and dance."
At Heathermount, George may also have had his first contact with guns. In the spring of 1972 the school built a small-bore rifle range, much against the wishes of some parents and governors. Although it closed a year later, George would have known about and probably used the facility.
George often had "funny turns", but staff were not sure whether these episodes were real or feigned. Doctors examined him on two occasions between 1974 and 1976 and concluded there was nothing wrong.
It is now accepted that George does suffer from a mild form of epilepsy, though the experts are divided about its effects. Some believe George deliberately exaggerates the condition, others claim it has caused "severe brain dysfunction". https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/jul/03/jilldando.media5
“a mild form of epilepsy though the experts are divided about its effects
-
“A lone women?”
But Michelle Diskin (As she was known then) wasn’t on her own. Her Uncle Mike Burke, her mother and others were also in attendance.
Excerpts from Mike Bourke’s book:
“Mansfield was one of the top six defence lawyers in England, if not the best. The Daily Mail referred to him as a Champagne Socialist and he appeared to be hated by the Mail, some judges and lawyers. Jealously is said to be the reason for that. He represented the Price sisters who bombed the Old Bailey in 1973 destroying Mansfield’s car in the process. 27 QCs became unavailable but he took on the case. The Guildford 4 and Birmingham Six appeals were amongst many other of his high profile cases. Fortunately Barry got Mansfield but he was adamant that he would keep solicitor Marilyn Etienne. I was horrified as I strongly felt that he needed a highly experienced lawyer such as Peirce, and I didn’t know of Marilyn’s track record. Michelle visited Barry along with Margaret to try and persuade him to change but it was not to be.
I did notice over time a tendency in him to be a bit of a hypochondriac. Unfortunately he had a side to him which I had not been very aware of. I always thought of him as a more or less harmless character who was a bit of a fantasist but that was not quite the case. In early ’83 his mother told me that he was in prison on remand. At his trial in the Old Bailey he pleaded guilty to a serious offence in February 1982 and got thirty months in prison. As Barry is once again trying to get on with his life I have decided not to go into the details which have received much press coverage but I do recall reading in a newspaper at the time that he initially denied it but that the detective tripped him up by asking him if he spoke any German. Barry replied ‘Ich Verstain’, (I understand). It appears that he used the same expression to the unfortunate victim who was a student studying German. So it would seem that a clever detective had no trouble in tripping him up and getting to the truth. He served his time in Wormwood Scrubbs, Brixton and Grendon Underwood prisons. I visited him a couple of times along with his mother and Eddie. He was free again by Christmas 1984 and he seemed to settle down after that. He never spoke to me about the crime and I never asked but I read her own account in 2001 following his conviction for Jill Dando’s murder, and again in 2008 when she wrote that she doubted if Barry was a killer. Barry had a 125cc motorbike in the summer of 1986 which I thought was surprising given his epilepsy. It was a nice ‘bike and I had a spin on it. But one day a woman motorist pulled out in front of him and the ‘bike was wrecked. A taxi driver witnessed the accident and he wrote in a witness statement that ‘she didn’t give the poor fellow a chance’. I don’t think that he was seriously injured in the accident, just cuts and bruises and possibly a leg injury. After that he wisely decided to give up motorbikes and bought a mountain-bike.
“I returned to London on November 22 for the preliminary hearing at the Old Bailey on the 24th. Margaret was home from hospital now. I entered court via the Newgate entrance, following a few American visitors to the public gallery. I overheard one say ‘Gee, all those cameras, there must be some celebrity here today’. There appeared to be some confusion as the hearing started. Barry was late arriving and when he did nothing much seemed to be happening. Then Mansfield approached the dock and spoke quietly with Barry. Mansfield then nodded to the judge and the proceedings began. It was a short hearing and a provisional date for the trial was set, February 26. Later Michelle told me that Mansfield had thought that Barry was going to sack him hence the confusion in court. That was something that we would all have to come to terms with in the years which followed.
I met Margaret Renn later in the fish and chip shop in East Acton. She said that Barry would need all the family support he could get. She asked me if I would give her an interview, and I said probably not as I was unpopular enough with some of my family. The following day I went with Barry’s mother to Belmarsh prison. It was her first visit since the early summer when she was taken ill. She discovered that he was being punished due to being taken ill after the court case and giving a prison officer a back answer. He got two weeks solitary as a result, and the visit was cut to less than an hour.
Would be interesting to see if Barry George’s custody records match with:
“She discovered that he was being punished due to being taken ill after the court case and giving a prison officer a back answer. He got two weeks solitary as a result, and the visit was cut to less than an hour
-
Michelle Diskin Bates writes about herself and Paddy Hill:
“As he watched, his heart was touched by the sight of a lone women walking in and out of court every day, assailed by news crews. He had heard enough of the evidence to believe a miscarriage of justice was about to take place but he could only help after conviction, not before, and then only if the defendant asked for help. However something struck Paddy about this case and that sad lonely figure on the screen and he came down to London.
Here she’s referring to herself as “that sad lonely figure”
Excerpt from Mike Bourke’s book:
“The trial initially commenced on Monday February 26th 2001. Michelle and I entered The Old Bailey unnoticed. We were allowed into the main body of Court Number One rather than the public gallery which is the usual. We were allocated a bench which nobody else was allowed to occupy. I was amazed to see all the boxes of files relating to the case, about two hundred I estimated.
So did Michelle Diskin Bates and her uncle Michael Bourke enter the Old Bailey “unnoticed” or did Paddy Hill see “that sad lonely figure on the screen”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iJGmjFqFdE
A really good docu imo.
Anyone who watched the above documentary will know Michelle Diskin Bates was filmed getting in and out of the taxi with her mother and came across as anything but “a sad lonely figure” as described by herself in her book.
-
Here she’s referring to herself as “that sad lonely figure”
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
A really encouraging MJSS client conference in Friends House, London, The Miscarriages of Justice Support Service - RCJ Advice. I have been asked to write out my recommendations, as discussed today, and as suggested in my book,previously.
10:31 PM · Sep 17, 2019·Twitter for iPad
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1174073472051482628
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
I’m hopeful that the MJSS may attend the
@UaInjustice
conference in October. Their presence may be of assistance to struggling families of moj victims.
10:36 PM · Sep 17, 2019·Twitter for iPad
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
The improvement of client services is close to my heart for obvious reasons. Aftercare services to the wrongly convicted are, at best, abysmal. We need to pull together to make the necessary improvements.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1174073648640122881
There may be a handful of people taken in by the above claims but I’m not.
Another interesting factor - it appears to be the same handful of people who like and retweet her on twitter. ie: The “bamberettes” and William Beck.
William Beck
@WullieBeck
Jul 17
Replying to
@Michelle_Diskin
Name and shame them.
Some people are never happy.
William Beck
@WullieBeck
Jul 17
Replying to
@Michelle_Diskin
I know exactly who you are talking about.
Bit of a fruit cake who attacked everyone till a certain person was left without supporters.
A currant short of a fruit bun if you ask me.
Best just to ignore.
“A certain person” who turned out to be a dangerous murderer - who conned many people for over a decade. But let’s not let the facts get in the way.
I suggest his comments “bit of a fruit cake” and “a current short of a fruit bun” are his projections given the truth came to light in 2013 and he’ still appears unable to have joined the dots. *&^^&
-
CCRC
@ccrcupdate
Some recent tweets attacking the ethics and integrity of
@ccrcupdate
and its staff are offensive and wrong. Anyone who has spent time at the CCRC will testify to the fact that we are hardworking and committed to resolving miscarriages of justice …1/4
The recently published independent research by
@carolynhoyle1
is the result of years of work
@ccrcupdate
offices interacting with us. It describes an organisation that, while far from perfect, has integrity and is fundamentally decent, honest and dedicated to its work...2/4
Some of those impugning our motives and morals probably won’t want to read impartial and evidence-based opinion about the culture and standards at
@ccrcupdate
because the truth runs counter to the things they want to believe...3/4
@ccrcupdate
never claimed to be perfect; we know we're not and we are always trying to improve. It's legitimate to scrutinise our work and question our performance, but claims that we're uncaring, in it for the money and making decisions in bad faith are wrong and unhelpful. 4/4
https://mobile.twitter.com/ccrcupdate/with_replies
Empowering Innocence
@Emp_Innocence
·
2h
Great that
@ccrcupdate
is finally engaging with its critics but it "doth protest too much". If anyone is in any doubts about the failings of the CCRC in assisting innocent victims of #wrongfulconvictions see: http://michaeljnaughton.com/?page_id=876 & other books and articles on my website.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Emp_Innocence/status/1174309685261938690
Appears InsideJustice will be “working together” with the CCRC in the future. Seems they feel differently about the CCRC than Michael Naughton etc?
CCRC
@ccrcupdate
@ccrcupdate
Chairman Helen Pitcher was very pleased to be involved in the
@insidejusticeUK
Advisory Panel meeting yesterday. We look forward to working together.
https://mobile.twitter.com/ccrcupdate/status/1174619028238864384
-
Justice4J
@FreeMoore240805
It’s not only those falsely accused of rape who have been stitched up by inadequate, inept or corrupt policing and a rotten ‘justice’ system. Innocent prisoners are serving life sentences due to lack of disclosure.
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@lizyeld
and
@FreeMoore240805
Yes, Barry’s case was murder but, 18 years after his conviction we find a crucial piece of evidence was lost (not disclosed) that would have changed everything.
11:34 AM · Sep 9, 2019·Twitter for iPhone
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1171008986327539712
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
Sep 2
Barry is not mentioned in the article, why the video of him? He’s not connected to Jill Dando or the story. A photo of the tree would have been more relevant. 🌲
Student flats plan set for approval would see Jill Dando memorial tree moved - Devon Live
https://www.devonlive.com/news/celebs-tv/student-flats-plan-set-approval-3276592.amp?__twitter_impression=true
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1168659406969606146
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
Sep 2
Barry is not mentioned in the article, why the video of him? He’s not connected to Jill Dando or the story. A photo of the tree would have been more relevant. 🌲
Student flats plan set for approval would see Jill Dando memorial tree moved - Devon Live
https://www.devonlive.com/news/celebs-tv/student-flats-plan-set-approval-3276592.amp?__twitter_impression=true
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1168659406969606146
Interesting display of her thought process here given the fact she was up in arms over the fact the BBC failed to include her or her brother Barry George in their 20 year memorial dedicated to Jill Dando.
So up in arms in fact her and Barry were garnering attention over on ITV not long after.
https://mobile.twitter.com/itv/status/1121308688529219584?lang=en
Peter Jukes
@peterjukes
In all the discussion of #JillDando murder, little attention to HOW she was tracked. New evidence and analysis suggests phone hacking as likely as ‘lone stalker’. Will the Met now revisit the evidence?
https://mobile.twitter.com/peterjukes/status/1121558971037507585
Ms E
@shedgal1983
#JillDando Establishment stitch up/cover up. A woman actively investigating an elite paedophile ring which involved MPs, establishment, television stars, celebrities etc? As soon as she started digging her days were numbered. Any ideas
@theresa_may
? You ‘lost’ the files.
https://mobile.twitter.com/hashtag/jilldando?lang=en
Oliver Kirk Esq.
@Kirkabout
How could telling a jury of Barry George's aspbergers and brain damage allow the prosecution to adduce his previous convictions as Mansfield has just said? #jilldando
9:20 PM · Apr 25, 2019·Twitter for Android
https://mobile.twitter.com/Kirkabout/status/1121509328081625088
-
Prof David Wilson
@ProfDavidWilson
·
Apr 2
#jilldando #BBC1 my research with
@ProfLizYardley
and other colleagues at
@MyBCU
into contract killing showed that the doorstep of the victim was the favoured site for a professional, “Master” “hit”.
ProfElizabethYardley
@ProfLizYardley
Replying to
@ProfDavidWilson
and
@MyBCU
...and here’s a link to our paper
Hitmen and the Spaces of Contract Killing: The Doorstep Hitman
This exploratory paper considers the spaces where hits take place within Britain. It concentrates on those hits that have occurred on the doorstep of the victim and offers analysis of why this...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
10:20 PM · Apr 2, 2019·Twitter for iPhone
https://mobile.twitter.com/ProfLizYardley/status/1113189368456515585
Gunfire Graffiti UK
@MatthewSeiber
·
3 Apr
Replying to
@ProfDavidWilson
and
@Michelle_Diskin
I thought the documentary was excellent and well balanced. Contract killing? What was the perpetrators brief....If you happen to see Jill Dando, shoot her.
https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/wiley/hitmen-and-the-spaces-of-contract-killing-the-doorstep-hitman-9s3Q5RGiQw
-
According to Michelle Diskin Bates tweets, sister of Barry George
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Aug 30
See the following...
5 Indicators of an Evil Heart
I think one of the reasons we don’t “see” evil is because we find it so difficult to believe that evil individuals actually exist.https://www.crosswalk.com/slideshows/5-indicators-of-an-evil-heart.html?utm_source=Daily%20Bible%20Living&utm_campaign=Daily%20Bible%20Living%20-%20BibleStudyTools.com&utm_medium=email&utm_content=2919543&bcid=07ef3929ec562c88a74e36eaa82dc8db&recip=528911091%20
crosswalk.com
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Aug 30
1. (Psalms 5:8; 10:7; 58:3; 109:2–5; 140:2; Proverbs 6:13,14; 6:18,19; 12:13; 16:20; 16:27, 28; 30:14; Job 15:35; Jeremiah 18:18; Nehemiah 6:8; Micah 2:1; Matthew 12:34,35; Acts 6:11–13; 2 Peter 3:16)
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Aug 30
1. Evil hearts are experts at creating confusion and contention.
They twist the facts, mislead, lie, avoid taking responsibility, deny reality, make up stories, and withhold information.
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Aug 30
2. (Psalms 50:19; 52:2,3; 57:4; 59:7; 101:7; Proverbs 12:5; 26:23–26; 26:28; Job 20:12; Jeremiah 12:6; Matthew 26:59; Acts 6:11–13; Romans 16:17,18; 2 Corinthians 11:13,14; 2 Timothy 3:2–5; 3:13; Titus 1:10,16).
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Aug 30
2. But if you look at the fruit of their lives or the follow through of their words, you will find no real evidence of godly growth or change. It’s all smoke and mirrors.
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Aug 30
2. Evil hearts are experts at fooling others with their smooth speech and flattering words.
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Aug 30
3. They use Scripture to their own advantage but ignore and reject passages that might require self-correction and repentance. (Romans 2:8; Psalms 10; 36:1–4; 50:16–22; 54:5,6; 73:6–9; Proverbs 21:24; Jude 1:8–16).
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Aug 30
3. Evil hearts crave and demand control, and their highest authority is their own self-reference.
They reject feedback, real accountability, and make up their own rules to live by.
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
Aug 30
4. They demand warmth, forgiveness, and intimacy from those they have harmed with no empathy for the pain they have caused and no real intention of making amends or working hard to rebuild broken trust. (Proverbs 21:10; 1 Peter 2:16; Jude 1:4).
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Aug 30
4. Evil hearts play on the sympathies of good-willed people, often trumping the grace card.
They demand mercy but give none themselves.
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Aug 30
Evil hearts have no conscience, no remorse.
Slide 5 of 10
They do not struggle against sin or evil—they delight in it—all the while masquerading as someone of noble character. (Proverbs 2:14–15; 10:23; 12:10; 21:27,29; Isaiah 32:6; Romans 1:30; 2 Corinthians 11:13–15)
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/with_replies
-
.https://www.crosswalk.com/slideshows/5-indicators-of-an-evil-heart.html?utm_source=Daily%20Bible%20Living&utm_campaign=Daily%20Bible%20Living%20-%20BibleStudyTools.com&utm_medium=email&utm_content=2919543&bcid=07ef3929ec562c88a74e36eaa82dc8db&recip=528911091%20
crosswalk.com
What the article says is:
“As Christian counselors, pastors and people helpers we often have a hard time discerning between an evil heart and an ordinary sinner who messes up, who isn’t perfect, and full of weakness and sin.
I think one of the reasons we don’t “see” evil is because we find it so difficult to believe that evil individuals actually exist. We can’t imagine someone deceiving us with no conscience, hurting others with no remorse, spinning outrageous fabrications to ruin someone’s reputation, or pretending he or she is spiritually committed yet has no fear of God before his or her eyes.
The Bible clearly tells us that among God’s people there are wolves that wear sheep’s clothing (Jeremiah 23:14; Titus 1:10; Revelations 2:2). It’s true that every human heart is inclined toward sin (Romans 3:23), and that includes evil (Genesis 8:21; James 1:4). We all miss God’ mark of moral perfection. However, most ordinary sinners do not happily indulge evil urges, nor do we feel good about having them. We feel ashamed and guilty, rightly so (Romans 7:19–21). These things are not true of the evil heart.
Here are five indicators that you may be dealing with an evil heart rather than an ordinary sinful heart. If so, it requires a radically different treatment approach.
And what she missed out are:
“Do you know someone like this?
If you are working with someone who exhibits these characteristics, it’s important that you confront them head on. You must name evil for what it is. The longer you try to reason with them or show mercy towards them, the more you, as the Christian counselor, will become a pawn in his or her game.
They want you to believe that:
1) Their horrible actions should have no serious or painful consequences.
When they say “I’m sorry,” they look to you as the pastor or Christian counselor to be their advocate for amnesty with the person he or she has harmed. They believe grace means they are immediately granted immunity from the relational fallout of their serious sin. They believe forgiveness entitles them to full reconciliation and will pressure you and their victim to comply.
The Bible warns us saying, “But when grace is shown to the wicked, they do not learn righteousness; even in a land of uprightness they go on doing evil and do not regard the majesty of the Lord (Isaiah 26:10).
The Bible tells us that talking doesn’t wake up evil people, but painful consequences might. Jesus didn’t wake up the Pharisee’s with his talk nor did God’s counsel impact Cain (Genesis 4). In addition, the Bible shows us that when someone is truly sorry for the pain they have caused, he or she is eager to make amends to those they have harmed by their sin (see Zacchaeus’ response when he repented of his greed in Luke 19).
Tim Keller writes,
“If you have been the victim of a heinous crime. If you have suffered violence, and the perpetrator (or even the judge) says, ‘Sorry, can’t we just let it go?’ You would say, ‘No, that would be an injustice.’ Your refusal would rightly have nothing to do with bitterness or vengeance. If you have been badly wronged, you know that saying sorry is never enough. Something else is required—some kind of costly payment must be made to put things right.”1
As Biblical counselors let’s not collude with the evil one by turning our attention to the victim, requiring her to forgive, to forget, to trust again when there has been no evidence of inner change. Proverbs says, “Trusting in a treacherous man in time of trouble is like a bad tooth or a foot that slips” (Proverbs. 25:19). It’s foolishness.
The evil person will also try to get you to believe...
2) That if I talk like a gospel-believing Christian I am one, even if my actions don’t line up with my talk.
Slide 9 of 10
Remember, Satan masquerades as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:13–15). He knows more true doctrine than you or I will ever know, but his heart is wicked. Why? Because although he knows the truth, he does not believe it or live it.
The Bible has some strong words for those whose actions do not match their talk (1 John 3:17,18; Jeremiah 7:8,10; James 1:22, 26). John the Baptist said it best when he admonished the religious leaders, “Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God” (Luke 3:8).
If week after week you hear the talk but there is no change in the walk, you have every reason to question someone’s relationship with God.
Can an evil person really change?
Part of our maturity as spiritual leaders is that we have been trained to discern between good and evil. Why is that so important? It’s important because evil usually pretends to be good, and without discernment we can be easily fooled (Hebrews 5:14).
When you confront evil, chances are good that the evil heart will stop counseling with you because the darkness hates the light (John 3:20) and the foolish and evil heart reject correction (Proverbs 9:7,8). But that outcome is far better than allowing the evil heart to believe you are on his or her side, or that “he’s not that bad” or “that he’s really sorry” or “that he’s changing” when, in fact, he is not.
Daniel says, “[T]he wicked will continue to be wicked” (Daniel 12:10), which begs the question, do you think an evil person can really change?
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀 Retweeted
Elizabeth Yeld
@lizyeld
·
Aug 30
In the old days, motive was very important.
The only person with motive and reason for an outpouring of such irrational anger and desperation on such a terrifying scale was poor, sick Sheila. Her family were gently trying to persuade her to let her boys go into foster care.
https://mobile.twitter.com/lizyeld/status/1167408730973118466
-
Empowering Wrongful Convictions (EWC)
@wrongfulcons
Must-read book for all fighting a miscarriage of justice by an inspirational, fearless and indefatigable woman who will never cease in her quest for truth and justice for her brother, their family and his alleged victim. #wrongfulconvictions #miscarriagesofjustice #injustice https://twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1114144289871880192
https://mobile.twitter.com/wrongfulcons/status/1166616420060422144
Empowering Wrongful Convictions (EWC)
@wrongfulcons
New initiative being set up by Dr Michael Naughton: http://michaeljnaughton.com
Joined June 2019
ME TOO FALSELY ACCUSED
@metooFA
Replying to
@easyjail
@LynFAdtoo
and 5 others
There are also many inside who are maintaining innocence but aren't anything like innocent..... the best thing those who are innocent can do is maintain their dignity and self respect. Fortunately an awful lot of these guys have the love and support to allow this ....
5:18 PM · Sep 18, 2019·Twitter for Android
Empowering Innocence
@Empow_Innocence
Article that distinguishes between prisoners maintaining innocence who are not and those who might be: ‘Factual Innocence versus Legal Guilt: The Need for a New Pair of Spectacles to view the Problem of Life-Sentenced Prisoners Maintaining Innocence': http://innocencenetwork.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Michael_Naughton_Factual_Innocence_Legal_Guilt_PSJ_May_2008.pdf
https://mobile.twitter.com/Empow_Innocence/status/1174372722039803904
Factual Innocence versus Legal Guilt
The Need for a New Pair of Spectacles to view the Problem of Life-Sentenced Prisoners Maintaining Innocence by Dr Michael Naughton
http://www.innocencenetwork.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Michael_Naughton_Factual_Innocence_Legal_Guilt_PSJ_May_2008.pdf
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀 Retweeted
Elizabeth Yeld
@lizyeld
·
Aug 30
In the old days, motive was very important.
The only person with motive and reason for an outpouring of such irrational anger and desperation on such a terrifying scale was poor, sick Sheila. Her family were gently trying to persuade her to let her boys go into foster care.
https://mobile.twitter.com/lizyeld/status/1167408730973118466
https://mobile.twitter.com/ciabaudo/status/1001415659237138432?lang=en
“A middle aged man told a jury today that he was sexually abused by his German teacher at a Hemel Hempstead boarding school three decades ago.
He alleged he could smell alcohol on the breath of David Yeld when he climbed onto the bunk bed in his dormitory at the privately-run Westbrook Hay Preparatory School.
The teacher is said to have got under the duvet, pulled the 10-year-old’s pyjama trousers down and touched his penis, St Albans Crown Court heard.
David Yeld, 59, who now lives in Salcombe Regis, Devon, pleads not guilty to one charge of indecent assault between October 5 1982 and October 7 1983.
Giving evidence on a police video, the man, who is now 42, said he was on the top of a bunk bed to the right of a door in the dormitory after lights out sometime between 8 and 9pm.
He went on: “Someone came in. I saw Mr Yeld my German teacher. He stood there for a little while. He came up to the bed. You could smell alcohol on him. It was like he had been drinking beers.
“Then he climbed into my bed and got under the covers. He started to take my top off. I tried to get away. I was saying: ‘Stop’. I can’t remember if he said anything. He pulled my trousers down and started touching me.
“I think he was trying to kiss me. He had a horrible moustache. I wriggled down to the bottom of the bed. I don’t know if the other boys were asleep or pretending to be asleep. I got off the bed and ran out of the door.”
The man said he ran to the office of the then headmaster Andrew Wright.
The court then heard that Wright himself was to later kill himself after being accused of sexually abusing children.
Prosecutor Laura Blackband said the boy’s parents spoke to the head at the time. Mr Yeld was dismissed from the school, but they decided it was not in their child’s best interests to contact the police at that time. She said he went to the police in May 2013. “It has preyed on his mind and blighted his life to a degree,” she said.
The jury heard that Mr Yeld was arrested in June 2013. At the time he was working as a supply teacher. He refused to answer police questions on that occasion, but when he was interviewed a second time in February 2014, he said what happened was a “practical joke.”
Mr Yeld told the officer he had been drinking with the headmaster and had gone to the dormitory by mistake and decided to play a joke by grabbing the boy’s clothing. He denied any sexual activity.
https://www.hemeltoday.co.uk/news/man-claims-he-was-sexually-abused-by-german-teacher-at-boarding-school-30-years-ago-1-6596117
-
ME TOO FALSELY ACCUSED
@metooFA
Replying to
@easyjail
@LynFAdtoo
and 5 others
There are also many inside who are maintaining innocence but aren't anything like innocent..... the best thing those who are innocent can do is maintain their dignity and self respect. Fortunately an awful lot of these guys have the love and support to allow this ....
5:18 PM · Sep 18, 2019·Twitter for Android
Empowering Innocence
@Empow_Innocence
Article that distinguishes between prisoners maintaining innocence who are not and those who might be: ‘Factual Innocence versus Legal Guilt: The Need for a New Pair of Spectacles to view the Problem of Life-Sentenced Prisoners Maintaining Innocence': http://innocencenetwork.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Michael_Naughton_Factual_Innocence_Legal_Guilt_PSJ_May_2008.pdf
https://mobile.twitter.com/Empow_Innocence/status/1174372722039803904
Factual Innocence versus Legal Guilt
The Need for a New Pair of Spectacles to view the Problem of Life-Sentenced Prisoners Maintaining Innocence by Dr Michael Naughton
http://www.innocencenetwork.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Michael_Naughton_Factual_Innocence_Legal_Guilt_PSJ_May_2008.pdf
Imo Michael Naughton’s tweet(s) do not appear to be “empowering innocence”
Steven Oldfield
@StevenOldfield2
The CCRC are a corrupt bunch of gravy train dippers who prevent corrupt convictions from coming to light and it is about time people realised they exist to line their pockets and protect corrupt public officials.
Empowering Innocence
@Empow_Innocence
· 8h
Copious research has been conducted. The @ccrcupdate is fully aware & fully understands how s.13 (real possibility test) fails innocent applicants. Yet, it continues to deny & defend the indefensible. Mass public awareness raising initiatives are needed if there is to be change. https://twitter.com/hanksoff03/status/1174633717207314432
https://mobile.twitter.com/StevenOldfield2/status/1175024789917982720
Steven Oldfield
“A MAN caused the car his wife was driving to flip over and land on its roof when he pulled the handbrake after she refused to stop the vehicle during a row.
Steven Oldfield took the ‘highly irresponsible’ action in Southsea as his wife was giving him a lift to Fratton train station in Portsmouth so he could go to a rugby match at Twickenham.
After a trial, the 58-year-old retired sound engineer was found guilty of causing a danger to other road users by interfering with a motor vehicle.
Portsmouth Crown Court heard Oldfield was a passenger in the car being driven by his wife when an argument broke out.
A debate between the pair over picking up others or meeting other people en route, and what the best arrangement was for doing so, became heated during the journey to the station.
Oldfield eventually decided that he wanted to get out of the vehicle and shouted at his wife to stop the car.
Addressing Oldfield, Judge Roger Hetherington, sentencing, said: ‘The argument got rather heated to the point you decided that you wanted the car to stop and you wanted to get out of the car, and so you shouted at your wife to stop the car.’
He added: ‘You shouted at her to stop the car and when she didn’t you pulled on the handbrake sharply, causing the car to go out of control, hit a kerb and roll onto its roof in the middle of the street.’
The court head that Oldfield has spent his time doing worthwhile work with schools and other people, mainly on a voluntary basis, since he has retired.
He has no previous criminal convictions.
Judge Hetherington gave Oldfield a 12-month community order.
He was ordered to carry out 100 hours of unpaid work in the next year for committing the offence on April 27 last year.
He must pay £1,000 in court costs and was banned from driving for six months.
Judge Hetherington added: ‘It was fortunate indeed that someone was not seriously injured.
‘Your wife was slightly injured.
‘You yourself may have been slightly injured, but it was fortunate that
no other bystanders or other
vehicles were damaged or injured in any way.
‘Nevertheless it was a highly irresponsible thing to have done, for which there was no excuse whatsoever, and it could have caused a very serious accident.
I accept at the time you may have had a very stressful day the day before.’
Judge Hetherington added that there is no suggestion that Oldfield, of Lindley Avenue, in Southsea, who represented himself at the sentencing hearing, is a dangerous or careless driver.
But he said: ‘The court must take a serious view of these things.’
https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/crime/portsmouth-man-caused-car-to-flip-over-after-putting-on-handbrake-during-row-1-6326919/amp#click=https://t.co/Kci9EopJ95
“A husband who flipped the family car during a row with his wife after criticising her driving is fighting in court to prove he acted "reasonably".
Steven Oldfield and his wife Catherine were in their Kia Rio on the way to a rugby match in April 2013, with her at the wheel.
He said they had a "catastrophic disagreement" over her handling of the car and she would not stop and let him out.
As she accelerated, Mr Oldfield pulled on the handbrake - causing the car to "clip the kerb" and slide along the road on its side before rolling onto its roof.
Both husband and wife suffered minor injuries in the crash and Mr Oldfield, of Southsea, was arrested at the scene. He insisted that what he did was "reasonable" and that he had "no choice" but to pull on the handbrake.
However, he was convicted of causing danger to road users by interfering with a motor vehicle at Portsmouth Crown Court in August last year.
He was given a community order, with 100 hours of unpaid work, although that sentence was later reduced to a conditional discharge.
But Mr Oldfield said the criminal conviction has blighted his life and "destroyed" his business and asked London's Appeal Court to clear his name.
The court heard the married couple were driving to Fratton railway station, in Portsmouth, on their way to the Army and Navy rugby match at Twickenham on April 27, 2013.
Judge Roger Hetherington, at the crown court, described how a "rather heated argument" broke out between the couple over arrangements for picking up or meeting others en route.
Mr Oldfield eventually decided that he wanted to get out of the vehicle and "shouted at his wife to stop the car".
Outside the Appeal Court, Mr Oldfield said emotions in the car had been running high after a family funeral the day before the accident.
"I decided she was unfit to drive and told her we'd missed our train anyway... I tried to stop the car with the handbrake. I had no choice. My head made a large bulge in the roof," after the car flipped over, he said.
But, when passing sentence on Mr Oldfield, Judge Hetherington had told him: "It was fortunate indeed that someone was not seriously injured.
"It was fortunate that no other bystanders or other vehicles were damaged or injured in any way.
"Nevertheless it was a highly irresponsible thing to have done, for which there was no excuse whatsoever, and it could have caused a very serious accident."
Addressing the Appeal Court in person, Mr Oldfield criticised the accuracy of police evidence and insisted that his behaviour was reasonable.
Lady Justice Rafferty, sitting with Mr Justice William Davis and Judge David Stockdale QC dented his hopes, when she said: "The issue for the jury was very simple.
"Did Mr Oldfield have any reasonable cause to pull on the handbrake and did he do it in circumstances which it would have been obvious to a reasonable person were dangerous?"
Mr Oldfield had breached his "clear duty" to behave safely on the roads and there were "no grounds" on which to successfully challenge the jury's verdict. But outside court, Mr Oldfield vowed to fight on to clear his name.
He said he would now take his case before the Criminal Cases Review Commission, the independent body that investigates suspected miscarriages of justice.
He added: "What happened has destroyed my business. I'm a sound engineer and we worked a lot in schools and, after this, the phone just stopped ringing. All they saw was a monster who'd done this to his wife."
Mr Oldfield said he and his wife are "still very much together" and described their relationship as "fantastic".
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/12159695/Husband-so-concerned-by-wifes-bad-driving-flipped-their-car-onto-its-roof-by-pulling-on-handbrake.html
-
Imo Michael Naughton’s tweet(s) do not appear to be “empowering innocence”
Steven Oldfield
@StevenOldfield2
The CCRC are a corrupt bunch of gravy train dippers who prevent corrupt convictions from coming to light and it is about time people realised they exist to line their pockets and protect corrupt public officials.
Empowering Innocence
@Empow_Innocence
· 8h
Copious research has been conducted. The @ccrcupdate is fully aware & fully understands how s.13 (real possibility test) fails innocent applicants. Yet, it continues to deny & defend the indefensible. Mass public awareness raising initiatives are needed if there is to be change. https://twitter.com/hanksoff03/status/1174633717207314432
https://mobile.twitter.com/StevenOldfield2/status/1175024789917982720
Steven Oldfield
“A MAN caused the car his wife was driving to flip over and land on its roof when he pulled the handbrake after she refused to stop the vehicle during a row.
Steven Oldfield took the ‘highly irresponsible’ action in Southsea as his wife was giving him a lift to Fratton train station in Portsmouth so he could go to a rugby match at Twickenham.
After a trial, the 58-year-old retired sound engineer was found guilty of causing a danger to other road users by interfering with a motor vehicle.
Portsmouth Crown Court heard Oldfield was a passenger in the car being driven by his wife when an argument broke out.
A debate between the pair over picking up others or meeting other people en route, and what the best arrangement was for doing so, became heated during the journey to the station.
Oldfield eventually decided that he wanted to get out of the vehicle and shouted at his wife to stop the car.
Addressing Oldfield, Judge Roger Hetherington, sentencing, said: ‘The argument got rather heated to the point you decided that you wanted the car to stop and you wanted to get out of the car, and so you shouted at your wife to stop the car.’
He added: ‘You shouted at her to stop the car and when she didn’t you pulled on the handbrake sharply, causing the car to go out of control, hit a kerb and roll onto its roof in the middle of the street.’
The court head that Oldfield has spent his time doing worthwhile work with schools and other people, mainly on a voluntary basis, since he has retired.
He has no previous criminal convictions.
Judge Hetherington gave Oldfield a 12-month community order.
He was ordered to carry out 100 hours of unpaid work in the next year for committing the offence on April 27 last year.
He must pay £1,000 in court costs and was banned from driving for six months.
Judge Hetherington added: ‘It was fortunate indeed that someone was not seriously injured.
‘Your wife was slightly injured.
‘You yourself may have been slightly injured, but it was fortunate that
no other bystanders or other
vehicles were damaged or injured in any way.
‘Nevertheless it was a highly irresponsible thing to have done, for which there was no excuse whatsoever, and it could have caused a very serious accident.
I accept at the time you may have had a very stressful day the day before.’
Judge Hetherington added that there is no suggestion that Oldfield, of Lindley Avenue, in Southsea, who represented himself at the sentencing hearing, is a dangerous or careless driver.
But he said: ‘The court must take a serious view of these things.’
https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/crime/portsmouth-man-caused-car-to-flip-over-after-putting-on-handbrake-during-row-1-6326919/amp#click=https://t.co/Kci9EopJ95
“A husband who flipped the family car during a row with his wife after criticising her driving is fighting in court to prove he acted "reasonably".
Steven Oldfield and his wife Catherine were in their Kia Rio on the way to a rugby match in April 2013, with her at the wheel.
He said they had a "catastrophic disagreement" over her handling of the car and she would not stop and let him out.
As she accelerated, Mr Oldfield pulled on the handbrake - causing the car to "clip the kerb" and slide along the road on its side before rolling onto its roof.
Both husband and wife suffered minor injuries in the crash and Mr Oldfield, of Southsea, was arrested at the scene. He insisted that what he did was "reasonable" and that he had "no choice" but to pull on the handbrake.
However, he was convicted of causing danger to road users by interfering with a motor vehicle at Portsmouth Crown Court in August last year.
He was given a community order, with 100 hours of unpaid work, although that sentence was later reduced to a conditional discharge.
But Mr Oldfield said the criminal conviction has blighted his life and "destroyed" his business and asked London's Appeal Court to clear his name.
The court heard the married couple were driving to Fratton railway station, in Portsmouth, on their way to the Army and Navy rugby match at Twickenham on April 27, 2013.
Judge Roger Hetherington, at the crown court, described how a "rather heated argument" broke out between the couple over arrangements for picking up or meeting others en route.
Mr Oldfield eventually decided that he wanted to get out of the vehicle and "shouted at his wife to stop the car".
Outside the Appeal Court, Mr Oldfield said emotions in the car had been running high after a family funeral the day before the accident.
"I decided she was unfit to drive and told her we'd missed our train anyway... I tried to stop the car with the handbrake. I had no choice. My head made a large bulge in the roof," after the car flipped over, he said.
But, when passing sentence on Mr Oldfield, Judge Hetherington had told him: "It was fortunate indeed that someone was not seriously injured.
"It was fortunate that no other bystanders or other vehicles were damaged or injured in any way.
"Nevertheless it was a highly irresponsible thing to have done, for which there was no excuse whatsoever, and it could have caused a very serious accident."
Addressing the Appeal Court in person, Mr Oldfield criticised the accuracy of police evidence and insisted that his behaviour was reasonable.
Lady Justice Rafferty, sitting with Mr Justice William Davis and Judge David Stockdale QC dented his hopes, when she said: "The issue for the jury was very simple.
"Did Mr Oldfield have any reasonable cause to pull on the handbrake and did he do it in circumstances which it would have been obvious to a reasonable person were dangerous?"
Mr Oldfield had breached his "clear duty" to behave safely on the roads and there were "no grounds" on which to successfully challenge the jury's verdict. But outside court, Mr Oldfield vowed to fight on to clear his name.
He said he would now take his case before the Criminal Cases Review Commission, the independent body that investigates suspected miscarriages of justice.
He added: "What happened has destroyed my business. I'm a sound engineer and we worked a lot in schools and, after this, the phone just stopped ringing. All they saw was a monster who'd done this to his wife."
Mr Oldfield said he and his wife are "still very much together" and described their relationship as "fantastic".
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/12159695/Husband-so-concerned-by-wifes-bad-driving-flipped-their-car-onto-its-roof-by-pulling-on-handbrake.html
Steven Oldfield
@StevenOldfield2
Replying to
@crimlawuk
Judges have many biases as they are people who are tainted because of their station and the power they hold. My Trial Judge went on to falsify and deplete over a hundred pages of the T/Trans before they arrived at the Appeal Court so the independence of the Judiciary is a myth.
https://mobile.twitter.com/StevenOldfield2/status/1174636808635912192
-
Barry George and epilepsy:
Wasn’t properly diagnosed until just before his trial yet his Uncle Mike seems to suggest otherwise?
So who diagnosed Barry George’s epilepsy and when exactly? What do his medical records state?
In the Eddie Gilfoyle case, “The Commission said that Professor Kopelman was content to accept that the claimant had been deprived of his medication during the trial, as the claimant alleged, and appeared to have based his conclusions largely on the claimant’s self-reporting.
http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=7310.msg550859#msg550859
“Staff at Heathermount, set in 14 idyllic acres in Sunningdale, Berkshire, remembered him as a "mummy's boy" who followed one of the matrons "like a lost lamb". The less academic pupils, like George, were encouraged to concentrate on woodwork, metalwork, weaving and gardening, and to perform in ambitious theatre productions, such as La Boheme and The Mikado.
It was here that George's obsession with celebrity began to emerge, insisting to friends and teachers that they should call him Paul Gadd, Gary Glitter's real name.
"He didn't just have posters on his walls like the other kids," said one former member of staff. "He knew every movement, song and dance."
At Heathermount, George may also have had his first contact with guns. In the spring of 1972 the school built a small-bore rifle range, much against the wishes of some parents and governors. Although it closed a year later, George would have known about and probably used the facility.
George often had "funny turns", but staff were not sure whether these episodes were real or feigned. Doctors examined him on two occasions between 1974 and 1976 and concluded there was nothing wrong.
It is now accepted that George does suffer from a mild form of epilepsy, though the experts are divided about its effects. Some believe George deliberately exaggerates the condition, others claim it has caused "severe brain dysfunction". https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/jul/03/jilldando.media5
“a mild form of epilepsy though the experts are divided about its effects
“At his second trial, the defence produced analysis from neuropsychiatrist Professor Michael Kopelman who said Mr George had an IQ of 75, putting him in the lowest five per cent of the population
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/jill-dando-murder-theories-what-happened-who-barry-george-bbc-documentary-a8851491.html
Did Professor Kopelman rely on “self reporting” to form his opinion of Barry George’s IQ like he did re Eddie Gilfoyle?
-
We must do more to sift fact from fiction - david aaronovitch The Times
Democracy is in danger when falsehoods proliferate to such an extent that establishing the truth appears a futile task
“What’s true and what isn’t — and how much harm untruth can do in the public realm — is one of the great problems of our time. Last year the government identified the propagation of fake or inaccurate claims online as one of the biggest factors in the confusion.
Facebook has since employed independent groups of fact-checkers to examine how it deals with claims of inaccurate information on the platform. One British group is called Full Fact and, as The Times reported on Tuesday, it has published its interim findings
Read more here: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/we-must-do-more-to-sift-fact-from-fiction-sjflg78tk
Ben Emmerson QC
“It appeared to me that there was a significant risk that people with delusional personality disorders were being drawn into the moral panic that was circulating around rumours of abuse by prominent politicians.
There seemed to be a phenomenon of people making highly improbable copycat allegations on the back of the publicity surrounding certain high profile cases, such as that of Carl Beech.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/04/extremely-sceptical-allegations-made-carl-beech-outset/
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀 Retweeted
Elizabeth Yeld
@lizyeld
·
Aug 30
In the old days, motive was very important.
The only person with motive and reason for an outpouring of such irrational anger and desperation on such a terrifying scale was poor, sick Sheila. Her family were gently trying to persuade her to let her boys go into foster care.
https://mobile.twitter.com/lizyeld/status/1167408730973118466
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
Oct 6
I am so sorry people, my online stalker has been trawling through my tweets and has now added some of you to her rants. She seems to be pathologically against miscarriage of justice.
*No one is interacting on her page so please don’t you either. She’ll thrive and grow on that
AJ
@MoochAj
·
20h
Replying to
@Michelle_Diskin
There is always one that dropped off the tree too early !
William Beck
@WullieBeck
·
Oct 7
Replying to
@Michelle_Diskin
Who is she Michelle ?
A women who claims to be a ”child of god?”
According to Michelle Diskin Bates I’m ”pathologically against miscarriages of justice” which in itself is a totally unfounded and indeed bizarre statement to make.
However the above is yet further evidence of the fact her true colours and psychological projections are never far from the surface
She’s even included a screenshot of this site https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1180916307069411330
8@??)(
-
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
Oct 6
I am so sorry people, my online stalker has been trawling through my tweets and has now added some of you to her rants. She seems to be pathologically against miscarriage of justice.
*No one is interacting on her page so please don’t you either. She’ll thrive and grow on that
AJ
@MoochAj
·
20h
Replying to
@Michelle_Diskin
There is always one that dropped off the tree too early !
William Beck
@WullieBeck
·
Oct 7
Replying to
@Michelle_Diskin
Who is she Michelle ?
A women who claims to be a ”child of god?”
According to Michelle Diskin Bates I’m ”pathologically against miscarriages of justice” which in itself is a totally unfounded and indeed bizarre statement to make.
However the above is yet further evidence of the fact her true colours and psychological projections are never far from the surface
She’s even included a screenshot of this site https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1180916307069411330
8@??)(
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Sep 30
Replying to
@helen_a15
and
@IndiaWilloughby
I’m blocked by my online troll! I think she doesn’t want e to see how often she is defaming me 😃 It’s a crazy world.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1178713139577274369
Michelle Diskin Bates claims I’m her “online troll” yet I’ve got her blocked - as she confirms above? Absolutely bonkers! *&^^&
H;
@helen_a15
Sep 30
She. Trolled you?£ why?! X
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Sep 30
Replying to
@helen_a15
and
@IndiaWilloughby
I used the wrong word, she likes to tell people I don’t have any integrity, I’m a fraud. She has been doing this on a forum for years. Then she found me on here so started contacting others who are battling miscarriage of justice to tell them how bad I am. Go figure
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@helen_a15
and
@IndiaWilloughby
It’s a shame, she a very intelligent woman, she could be using her gift of intelligence for good purposes. Instead, she’s focusing on negatives. Damaged and bitter! 🥴
She refers to me as “damaged and bitter” & ”my online troll” and “she’s focusing on the negatives” then publicly admits to having “used the wrong word” but I’m “defaming” her?
Michelle Diskin Bates claims:
“she likes to tell people I don’t have any integrity, I’m a fraud. She has been doing this on a forum for years. Then she found me on here so started contacting others who are battling miscarriage of justice to tell them how bad I am. Go figure”
Yet another telling public statement which doesn’t appear to be going unnoticed by others I might add.
Would be interested to know who it is she claims I’ve contacted or started contacting?
-
Empowering Wrongful Convictions (EWC)
@wrongfulcons
Must-read book for all fighting a miscarriage of justice by an inspirational, fearless and indefatigable woman who will never cease in her quest for truth and justice for her brother, their family and his alleged victim. #wrongfulconvictions #miscarriagesofjustice #injustice https://twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1114144289871880192
https://mobile.twitter.com/wrongfulcons/status/1166616420060422144
Empowering Wrongful Convictions (EWC)
@wrongfulcons
New initiative being set up by Dr Michael Naughton: http://michaeljnaughton.com
Joined June 2019
Empowering the Innocent
@EmpowerInnocent
Oct 5
1/3 It does come across as harsh & I'm sorry for that. However, I have been working in this area for almost 20 years & have assessed many hundreds of claims of innocence & know that not all (possibly even most in my experience) of those claiming factual innocence are innocent.
Empowering the Innocent
@EmpowerInnocent
2/3 I also know that whilst some factually innocent victims of wrongful conviction & their loved ones may genuinely & legitimately be smashed to pieces by their experiences & not feel they have the strength to fight that the guilty innocent imposters will use this argument too. https://twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1180367316036526080
Empowering the Innocent
@EmpowerInnocent
Oct 5
3/3 It really is a tough one but I can only work with those willing to fight publicly & give it all that they have got like the B6, G4, Mike o' Brien did Paul Blackburn and Eddie Guilfoyle, Sue May, Wullie Beck, Ben Geen, Robin Garbutt, Carl Morgan, to name but a few, are doing
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent
“Robin Garbutt, 45, dialled 999 claiming that his wife, Diana, had been attacked in a break-in at their flat above the Post Office in Melsonby, North Yorks last March.
But tests showed that the 40-year-old had been dead for up to eight hours when he called and extensive inquiries found no witnesses to the apparent break-in, Teesside Crown Court heard.
The jury heard how the couple, who married in April 2003, had a troubled relationship and Mr Garbutt – who was described by his wife as “not into sex” – was also mired in debt at the time of the murder.
David Hatton QC, prosecuting, told the jury how Mr Garbutt dialled 999 shortly after 8.30am on March 23 last year exclaiming: “My wife’s been attacked, she’s gone a funny colour, there’s blood on the pillow.”
He told police that a man with a gun had walked into the shop where he had working and told him to switch off the lights, lock up and not do “anything stupid”, the jury heard.
The postmaster claimed that he had been forced to fill a holdall with cash from the safe.
When the robber left he went upstairs, where his wife had been having a lie-in, to find that she had been attacked, he claimed.
But when paramedics arrived they found blood had matted in her hair and reported that rigor mortis had already set in.
Analysis of the semi-digested remains of the fish and chips she had eaten the previous evening showed that she had died between 2am and 4.30am, the jury was told.
It was the second time in a year that Mr Garbutt had reported a robbery at the Post Office.
On the previous occasion, he claimed that £10,000 had been taken but none of the villagers had seen anything suspicious and police made no arrests, the jury heard.
“The prosecution maintain the defendant murdered his wife,” Mr Hatton told the jury, as he opened the case.
“We do not take on the responsibility of establishing a motive.
“Only two people knew what their relationship was really like and one of them is dead.
“Behind the facade of a happy and financially comfortable couple there were problems and all was not as it might have appeared on the surface to the public eye.”
He outlined how Mrs Garbutt, a former court official who had retrained as a postmistress when they took over the shop, had been unfaithful to her husband.
She had admitted to him that she had had sex with a man at a party in York in December 2008 while her husband slept upstairs, Mr Hatton said.
Mrs Garbutt also kissed the husband of a cousin at a family party in Wales.
She later wrote the man a note saying she felt “seedy” but raised the possibility that they could “start over without the emotional baggage”.
There were also flirtatious contacts on Facebook with a villager, with whom she also went for late-night cycle rides when Mr Garbutt was asleep.
She used to ask the man about his divorce and discuss her own private life, the court heard.
“She said the defendant wasn’t into sex and they were going to see a sex therapist,” said Mr Hatton.
Mrs Garbutt also used internet dating sites and had accessed her profile on the “Badoo” chat website the night before she was killed, the court heard.
He added that Mr Garbutt had run up £30,000 of debts on his credit cards and had recently bolstered his overdrawn current account by transferring large sums of cash he had received by special delivery post.
But a relief postmistress was due to take over the running of the shop for a few weeks when the couple went on holiday – potentially uncovering any discrepancy in the accounts, Mr Hatton said.
“The perception of the Melsonby villagers of a rosy and loving relationship was, say the prosecution, far from the full picture,” he added.
“Here was a man with increasing debt desperately trying not to outwardly fail in his business or his marriage.”
Mr Garbutt denies murder. The case continues
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8396054/Murdered-postmistress-Diana-Garbutt-cheated-on-husband-court-told.html
-
Empowering the Innocent
@EmpowerInnocent
Oct 16
Absolutely. But just how will such a factual innocence movement for the UK be achieved / realised? What vehicle? Who? When?
Quote Tweet
Mick Geen
@J4BenGeen
· Oct 15
A joint & coordinated effort is required if the innocence movement wants to be heard & noticed-All Orgs need to forget differences & become one for meetings & protests throughout the year-I Have supported @JENGbA protests in the past-We must all join ranks supporting such events! https://twitter.com/empowerinnocent/status/1181090266691842049…
Mick Geen
@J4BenGeen
Oct 16
Good start would be for key representatives from the innocent orgs and higher profile individual campaigners to meet & agree common & joint objectives-A few key figures would be needed to get the ball rolling-Would take a great deal of time & effort to get things progressing.
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@J4BenGeen
and
@EmpowerInnocent
We should meet up Mick.
6:53 PM · Oct 16, 2019·Twitter for iPad
Mick Geen
@J4BenGeen
Oct 16
Replying to
@Michelle_Diskin
and
@EmpowerInnocent
Let’s do that Michelle. I will DM you tomorrow morning.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1184527834120949761
-
Bayes and the Law - Norman Fenton, Martin Neil, and Daniel Berger
Excerpt:
“It is difficult to determine the extent to which the LR for presenting forensic evidence other than DNA has been used in courts. Although mostly unreported, we know of cases involving glass, fibres and soil matches, while articles now promote its use in fingerprint evidence (Alberink et al., 2014; Nuemann et al., 2011). The most impressive well-publicised success concerns its use in relation to firearm discharge residue (FDR) in (R. v. George, EWCA Crim 2722, 2007); the use of the LR in the appeal – showing that the FDR evidence had ‘no probative value’ was the reason granted for a retrial (in which George was found not guilty) with the FDR evidence deemed inadmissible. The appeal court ruling in this case (along with our concerns about the over-simplistic use of the LR that we return to in Section 4) is discussed in detail in (Fenton et al., 2013a).
However, while the R v George appeal judgment can be considered a major success for the use of Bayes, the 2010 UK Court of Appeal Ruling - known as (R v T, 2010) - dealt it a devastating blow. The ruling quashed a murder conviction in which the prosecution had relied heavily on footwear matching evidence presented using Bayes and the LR. Specifically, even though there was recognition that it was used for this purpose in Netherlands, Slovenia and Switzerland) points 86 and 90 of the ruling respectively assert:
“We are satisfied that in the area of footwear evidence, no attempt can realistically be made in the generality of cases to use a formula to calculate the probabilities. The practice has no sound basis”.
“It is quite clear that outside the field of DNA (and possibly other areas where there is a firm statistical base) this court has made it clear that Bayes’ theorem and likelihood ratios should not be used”
Given its potential to change the way forensic experts analyse and present evidence in court, there have been numerous articles criticising the ruling (Aitken and many other signatories, 2011; Berger et al., 2011; Morrison, 2012; Nordgaard et al., 2012; Redmayne et Berger, 2012). These papers recognise that there were weaknesses in the way the expert presented the probabilistic evidence (in particular not making clear that likelihood ratios for different aspects of the evidence were multiplied together to arrive at a composite likelihood ratio), but nevertheless express deep concern about the implications for the future presentation, by experts, of forensic evidence.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4934658/#!po=33.0769
-
Empowering the Innocent
@EmpowerInnocent
Oct 16
Absolutely. But just how will such a factual innocence movement for the UK be achieved / realised? What vehicle? Who? When?
Quote Tweet
Mick Geen
@J4BenGeen
· Oct 15
A joint & coordinated effort is required if the innocence movement wants to be heard & noticed-All Orgs need to forget differences & become one for meetings & protests throughout the year-I Have supported @JENGbA protests in the past-We must all join ranks supporting such events! https://twitter.com/empowerinnocent/status/1181090266691842049…
Mick Geen
@J4BenGeen
Oct 16
Good start would be for key representatives from the innocent orgs and higher profile individual campaigners to meet & agree common & joint objectives-A few key figures would be needed to get the ball rolling-Would take a great deal of time & effort to get things progressing.
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@J4BenGeen
and
@EmpowerInnocent
We should meet up Mick.
6:53 PM · Oct 16, 2019·Twitter for iPad
Mick Geen
@J4BenGeen
Oct 16
Replying to
@Michelle_Diskin
and
@EmpowerInnocent
Let’s do that Michelle. I will DM you tomorrow morning.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1184527834120949761
harryrag replied
Empowering the Innocent
@EmpowerInnocent
We investigated his claim of innocence to determine its truthfulness & helped get his case referred back to the CoA. We were told that he confessed & then committed suicide but have never seen any evidence that he murdered Joan Albert. How did he do it? The fibres didn’t match?
Quote Tweet
harryrag
@harryrag
3h
Replying to @EmpowerInnocent and @ccrcupdate
Michael Naughton supported convicted killer Simon Hall - who admitted he was guilty.
http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php/tjmk/comments/how_greg_hampikian_abuses_two_positions_of_trust_in_serially_misrepres…
1:34 PM · Oct 21, 2019·Twitter Web App
harryrag
@harryrag
4m
Replying to
@EmpowerInnocent
The defence claimed the fibres didn't match? Well, they would, wouldn't they? The Court of Appeal looked at the forensic evidence and upheld the murder conviction.
http://bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2011/4.html…
harryrag
@harryrag
2m
Replying to
@EmpowerInnocent
What evidence were you expecting? CCTV footage of Simon Hall murdering Joan Albert?
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1186259466725056512
Maybe Michael Naughton should ask Michelle Diskin Bates to explain - after all she accepted Simon Hall’s guilt and was so concerned she made the following public statement “this confession damages the credibility of all those still fighting for justice”
Maybe it’s time for Michelle Diskin Bates to explain in detail why she appeared able to accept Simon Hall’s guilt and why she felt compelled to write what she did when she did.
September 10, 2013 at 10:04 am
Michelle Diskin Bates stated:“As a family member of a terrible miscarriage of justice, the victim being Barry George, convicted of the murder of Jill Dando; the Simon Hall confession is a concern because it is already so difficult for true MOJs to be believed by the public; this confession damages the credibility of all those still fighting for justice. But this is just one case. The British Justice System makes many, many more errors when it choses to build its cases around a person, rather than on the actual evidence. One confession is not a comfortable situation for those fighting miscarriages of justice, but is it worse than keeping hundreds of innocents locked up for crimes they did not commit? All of us who choose to stand up for justice need to take this on the chin, and move on…back to those who deserve to have their cases reviewed and quashed. Our justice system uses ‘smoke and mirrors’, rather than real honest evidence to convict.
https://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/2019/05/13/telling-public-statement-made-by-michelle-diskin-bates-sister-of-barry-george-following-simon-halls-confession/
-
Maybe Michael Naughton should ask Michelle Diskin Bates to explain - after all she accepted Simon Hall’s guilt and was so concerned she made the following public statement “this confession damages the credibility of all those still fighting for justice”
Maybe it’s time for Michelle Diskin Bates to explain in detail why she appeared able to accept Simon Hall’s guilt and why she felt compelled to write what she did when she did.
September 10, 2013 at 10:04 am
Michelle Diskin Bates stated: “As a family member of a terrible miscarriage of justice, the victim being Barry George, convicted of the murder of Jill Dando; the Simon Hall confession is a concern because it is already so difficult for true MOJs to be believed by the public; this confession damages the credibility of all those still fighting for justice.
https://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/2019/05/13/telling-public-statement-made-by-michelle-diskin-bates-sister-of-barry-george-following-simon-halls-confession/
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
1h
My profile and photo shows exactly who I am, and my beliefs. Trolls hide behind strange names and snarky comments...but they eventually ‘out’ themselves in their unguarded comments 🤗
Living in the light, I have nothing to hide. Thank you Lord Jesus.
-
harryrag replied
Empowering the Innocent
@EmpowerInnocent
We investigated his claim of innocence to determine its truthfulness & helped get his case referred back to the CoA. We were told that he confessed & then committed suicide but have never seen any evidence that he murdered Joan Albert. How did he do it? The fibres didn’t match?
Quote Tweet
Maybe Michael Naughton should ask Michelle Diskin Bates to explain - after all she accepted Simon Hall’s guilt and was so concerned she made the following public statement “this confession damages the credibility of all those still fighting for justice”
Maybe it’s time for Michelle Diskin Bates to explain in detail why she appeared able to accept Simon Hall’s guilt and why she felt compelled to write what she did when she did.
September 10, 2013 at 10:04 am
Michelle Diskin Bates stated: “As a family member of a terrible miscarriage of justice, the victim being Barry George, convicted of the murder of Jill Dando; the Simon Hall confession is a concern because it is already so difficult for true MOJs to be believed by the public; this confession damages the credibility of all those still fighting for justice. But this is just one case. The British Justice System makes many, many more errors when it choses to build its cases around a person, rather than on the actual evidence. One confession is not a comfortable situation for those fighting miscarriages of justice, but is it worse than keeping hundreds of innocents locked up for crimes they did not commit? All of us who choose to stand up for justice need to take this on the chin, and move on…back to those who deserve to have their cases reviewed and quashed. Our justice system uses ‘smoke and mirrors’, rather than real honest evidence to convict.
https://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/2019/05/13/telling-public-statement-made-by-michelle-diskin-bates-sister-of-barry-george-following-simon-halls-confession/
What did Michelle Diskin Bates KNOW that people like Michael Naughton didn’t?
-
What did Michelle Diskin Bates KNOW that people like Michael Naughton didn’t?
What was it that Michelle Diskin Bates recognised back then re the Simon Hall case/campaign that the likes of Michael Naughton didn’t then nor appears to now?
Michelle Diskin Bates claims she has nothing to hide “Living in the light, I have nothing to hide. Thank you Lord Jesus.”
But that’s not a true statement is it Michelle?
-
harryrag replied
Empowering the Innocent
@EmpowerInnocent
We investigated his claim of innocence to determine its truthfulness & helped get his case referred back to the CoA. We were told that he confessed & then committed suicide but have never seen any evidence that he murdered Joan Albert. How did he do it? The fibres didn’t match?
Quote Tweet
harryrag
@harryrag
3h
Replying to @EmpowerInnocent and @ccrcupdate
Michael Naughton supported convicted killer Simon Hall - who admitted he was guilty.
http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php/tjmk/comments/how_greg_hampikian_abuses_two_positions_of_trust_in_serially_misrepres…
1:34 PM · Oct 21, 2019·Twitter Web App
harryrag
@harryrag
4m
Replying to
@EmpowerInnocent
The defence claimed the fibres didn't match? Well, they would, wouldn't they? The Court of Appeal looked at the forensic evidence and upheld the murder conviction.
http://bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2011/4.html…
harryrag
@harryrag
2m
Replying to
@EmpowerInnocent
What evidence were you expecting? CCTV footage of Simon Hall murdering Joan Albert?
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1186259466725056512
Maybe Michael Naughton should ask Michelle Diskin Bates to explain - after all she accepted Simon Hall’s guilt and was so concerned she made the following public statement “this confession damages the credibility of all those still fighting for justice”
Maybe it’s time for Michelle Diskin Bates to explain in detail why she appeared able to accept Simon Hall’s guilt and why she felt compelled to write what she did when she did.
September 10, 2013 at 10:04 am
Michelle Diskin Bates stated:“As a family member of a terrible miscarriage of justice, the victim being Barry George, convicted of the murder of Jill Dando; the Simon Hall confession is a concern because it is already so difficult for true MOJs to be believed by the public; this confession damages the credibility of all those still fighting for justice. But this is just one case. The British Justice System makes many, many more errors when it choses to build its cases around a person, rather than on the actual evidence. One confession is not a comfortable situation for those fighting miscarriages of justice, but is it worse than keeping hundreds of innocents locked up for crimes they did not commit? All of us who choose to stand up for justice need to take this on the chin, and move on…back to those who deserve to have their cases reviewed and quashed. Our justice system uses ‘smoke and mirrors’, rather than real honest evidence to convict.
https://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/2019/05/13/telling-public-statement-made-by-michelle-diskin-bates-sister-of-barry-george-following-simon-halls-confession/
William Beck
@WullieBeck
Replying to
@harryrag
@EmpowerInnocent
and
@ccrcupdate
How do you know Simon.Hall confessed ?
Have you seen a confirmed signed confession ?
1:56 AM · Oct 22, 2019·Twitter for Android
Empowering the Innocent
@EmpowerInnocent
2h
1/2 Thank you Wullie, but I suspect you are dealing with an ignorant troll. We never said that Simon Hall WAS innocent. Rather, we investigated his claim of innocence, which is a fundamentally different things, and showed the so called “evidence” to be totally discredited
Empowering the Innocent
@EmpowerInnocent
2h
2/2 We were informed by his wife that he had confessed & wrote to him for confirmation & to let us know HOW he did it. He did not reply. We have never seen a signed confession. But, even if he did confess, like many innocent victims do, HOW did he do it & where is the evidence?
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/with_replies
[William Beck
@WullieBeck
8h
Replying to
@harryrag
@EmpowerInnocent
and
@ccrcupdate
He never admitted he was guilty till after he lost his appeal.
Like I have said to you in another post how do you judge factual innocence ?
Michael found the flock fibre evidence to be flawed and Keir Starmer said without it the case collapsed.
harryrag
@harryrag
8h
Simon Hall was convicted of the murder on the totality of the evidence. He couldn’t account for the missing hour on the night of the murder, he gave conflicting statements to the police and he was linked to the murder by fibres found at the crime scene.
William Beck
@WullieBeck
7h
You know nothing about the flock fibre evidence.
It was totally discredited.
harryrag
@harryrag
7h
The fibre evidence wasn't totally discredited where it matters i.e. in court. Simon Hall confessed to killing Jean Albert. The end.
William Beck
@WullieBeck
7h
Show me the evidence he confessed to killing anyone.
I accept he committed suicide but have never seen a confirmed signed confession.
Heard his fruitcake wife say he confessed but seen no evidence to substantiate this.
harryrag
@harryrag
7h
His wife publicly campaigned for Simon Hall's release for years. What do you think changed her mind? His confession or something else?
William Beck
@WullieBeck
7h
Tell me you have seen a confirmed signed confession please and not just taking the word of his fruitcake wife.
https://mobile.twitter.com/harryrag/status/1186212373998325760
-
harryrag
@harryrag
Replying to
@WullieBeck
@EmpowerInnocent
and
@ccrcupdate
His wife publicly campaigned for Simon Hall's release for years. What do you think changed her mind? His confession or something else?
2:43 AM · Oct 22, 2019·Twitter Web App
William Beck
@WullieBeck
8h
Replying to
@harryrag
@EmpowerInnocent
and
@ccrcupdate
Tell me you have seen a confirmed signed confession please and not just taking the word of his fruitcake wife.
William Beck
@WullieBeck
7h
Replying to
@harryrag
@EmpowerInnocent
and
@ccrcupdate
Maybe she drove him to suicide.
You never know.
https://mobile.twitter.com/harryrag/status/1186458060639866883
-
harryrag
@harryrag
Replying to
@WullieBeck
@EmpowerInnocent
and
@ccrcupdate
His wife publicly campaigned for Simon Hall's release for years. What do you think changed her mind? His confession or something else?
2:43 AM · Oct 22, 2019·Twitter Web App
William Beck
@WullieBeck
8h
Replying to
@harryrag
@EmpowerInnocent
and
@ccrcupdate
Tell me you have seen a confirmed signed confession please and not just taking the word of his fruitcake wife.
William Beck
@WullieBeck
7h
Replying to
@harryrag
@EmpowerInnocent
and
@ccrcupdate
Maybe she drove him to suicide.
You never know.
https://mobile.twitter.com/harryrag/status/1186458060639866883
harryrag
@harryrag
8h
Boutflour was never a suspect. You have to consider all the pieces of evidence wholly - not separately and in isolation from the other pieces of evidence.
William Beck
@WullieBeck
8h
Boutflour was a regular visitor that used the guns.
Would be reasonable to conclude one would expect to perhaps find his blood or DNA on the Guns and to exclude Sheila if they shared same blood group.
harryrag
@harryrag
Replying to
@WullieBeck
@Michelle_Diskin
and 2 others
There's no credible evidence against Boutflour. Are you claiming he shot himself and that's how his blood allegedly ended up on the silencer? I'm struggling to follow your logic.
2:36 AM · Oct 22, 2019·Twitter Web App
William Beck
@WullieBeck
8h
Replying to
@harryrag
@Michelle_Diskin
and 2 others
His blood could have got on the silencer in a number of innocent ways was what I was saying.
You seem hell bent on trying to discredit this case can I ask what your interests are ?
William Beck
@WullieBeck
8h
Replying to
@harryrag
@Michelle_Diskin
and 2 others
Boutflour was not shot ya fruitcake
https://mobile.twitter.com/WullieBeck/status/1186558726326702080
.William Beck
@WullieBeck
Replying to
@harryrag
@EmpowerInnocent
and
@ccrcupdate
He never admitted he was guilty till after he lost his appeal.
Like I have said to you in another post how do you judge factual innocence ?
Michael found the flock fibre evidence to be flawed and Keir Starmer said without it the case collapsed.
1:54 AM · Oct 22, 2019·Twitter for Android
harryrag
@harryrag
9h
Replying to
@WullieBeck
@EmpowerInnocent
and
@ccrcupdate
He later confessed to killing Joan Albert and he admitted was “seriously violent” and said there had been “sexual aspects” to the murder.
His wife called him a “highly disturbed individual”.
William Beck
@WullieBeck
8h
So have you seen a confirmed signed confession or are you just taking his wifes word for it.
She thought he was that disturbed she could not wait to marry him in prison.
Speaks volumes about her assessment of disturbed individuals
https://mobile.twitter.com/WullieBeck/status/1186445679293538307
-
And again...
According to Michelle Diskin Bates tweets, sister of Barry George
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Aug 30
See the following...
5 Indicators of an Evil Heart
I think one of the reasons we don’t “see” evil is because we find it so difficult to believe that evil individuals actually exist.https://www.crosswalk.com/slideshows/5-indicators-of-an-evil-heart.html?utm_source=Daily%20Bible%20Living&utm_campaign=Daily%20Bible%20Living%20-%20BibleStudyTools.com&utm_medium=email&utm_content=2919543&bcid=07ef3929ec562c88a74e36eaa82dc8db&recip=528911091%20
crosswalk.com
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Aug 30
1. (Psalms 5:8; 10:7; 58:3; 109:2–5; 140:2; Proverbs 6:13,14; 6:18,19; 12:13; 16:20; 16:27, 28; 30:14; Job 15:35; Jeremiah 18:18; Nehemiah 6:8; Micah 2:1; Matthew 12:34,35; Acts 6:11–13; 2 Peter 3:16)
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Aug 30
1. Evil hearts are experts at creating confusion and contention.
They twist the facts, mislead, lie, avoid taking responsibility, deny reality, make up stories, and withhold information.
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Aug 30
2. (Psalms 50:19; 52:2,3; 57:4; 59:7; 101:7; Proverbs 12:5; 26:23–26; 26:28; Job 20:12; Jeremiah 12:6; Matthew 26:59; Acts 6:11–13; Romans 16:17,18; 2 Corinthians 11:13,14; 2 Timothy 3:2–5; 3:13; Titus 1:10,16).
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Aug 30
2. But if you look at the fruit of their lives or the follow through of their words, you will find no real evidence of godly growth or change. It’s all smoke and mirrors.
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Aug 30
2. Evil hearts are experts at fooling others with their smooth speech and flattering words.
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Aug 30
3. They use Scripture to their own advantage but ignore and reject passages that might require self-correction and repentance. (Romans 2:8; Psalms 10; 36:1–4; 50:16–22; 54:5,6; 73:6–9; Proverbs 21:24; Jude 1:8–16).
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Aug 30
3. Evil hearts crave and demand control, and their highest authority is their own self-reference.
They reject feedback, real accountability, and make up their own rules to live by.
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
·
Aug 30
4. They demand warmth, forgiveness, and intimacy from those they have harmed with no empathy for the pain they have caused and no real intention of making amends or working hard to rebuild broken trust. (Proverbs 21:10; 1 Peter 2:16; Jude 1:4).
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Aug 30
4. Evil hearts play on the sympathies of good-willed people, often trumping the grace card.
They demand mercy but give none themselves.
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Aug 30
Evil hearts have no conscience, no remorse.
Slide 5 of 10
They do not struggle against sin or evil—they delight in it—all the while masquerading as someone of noble character. (Proverbs 2:14–15; 10:23; 12:10; 21:27,29; Isaiah 32:6; Romans 1:30; 2 Corinthians 11:13–15)
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/with_replies
-
harryrag
@harryrag
8h
Boutflour was never a suspect. You have to consider all the pieces of evidence wholly - not separately and in isolation from the other pieces of evidence.
William Beck
@WullieBeck
8h
Boutflour was a regular visitor that used the guns.
Would be reasonable to conclude one would expect to perhaps find his blood or DNA on the Guns and to exclude Sheila if they shared same blood group.
harryrag
@harryrag
Replying to
@WullieBeck
@Michelle_Diskin
and 2 others
There's no credible evidence against Boutflour. Are you claiming he shot himself and that's how his blood allegedly ended up on the silencer? I'm struggling to follow your logic.
2:36 AM · Oct 22, 2019·Twitter Web App
William Beck
@WullieBeck
8h
Replying to
@harryrag
@Michelle_Diskin
and 2 others
His blood could have got on the silencer in a number of innocent ways was what I was saying.
You seem hell bent on trying to discredit this case can I ask what your interests are ?
William Beck
@WullieBeck
8h
Replying to
@harryrag
@Michelle_Diskin
and 2 others
Boutflour was not shot ya fruitcake
https://mobile.twitter.com/WullieBeck/status/1186558726326702080
.William Beck
@WullieBeck
Replying to
@harryrag
@EmpowerInnocent
and
@ccrcupdate
He never admitted he was guilty till after he lost his appeal.
Like I have said to you in another post how do you judge factual innocence ?
Michael found the flock fibre evidence to be flawed and Keir Starmer said without it the case collapsed.
1:54 AM · Oct 22, 2019·Twitter for Android
harryrag
@harryrag
9h
Replying to
@WullieBeck
@EmpowerInnocent
and
@ccrcupdate
He later confessed to killing Joan Albert and he admitted was “seriously violent” and said there had been “sexual aspects” to the murder.
His wife called him a “highly disturbed individual”.
William Beck
@WullieBeck
8h
So have you seen a confirmed signed confession or are you just taking his wifes word for it.
She thought he was that disturbed she could not wait to marry him in prison.
Speaks volumes about her assessment of disturbed individuals
https://mobile.twitter.com/WullieBeck/status/1186445679293538307
William Beck
@WullieBeck
Replying to
@harryrag
@EmpowerInnocent
and
@ccrcupdate
Did his wife only come out with the alleged confession evidence after he was dead or did she tell anyone while he was still alive ?
4:31 PM · Oct 22, 2019·Twitter for Android
https://mobile.twitter.com/WullieBeck/status/1186666462481735680
William Beck
@WullieBeck
2h
@harryrag
Still waiting for your proof Simon Hall confessed to murder.
Am I to assume your lack of evidence is because no such thing happened.
Did you get your info from Julie Mugford by any chamce ?
harryrag
@harryrag
2h
Simon Hall confessed to prison authorities. His wife accepted his confession and his naive and gullible supporters slinked off with egg on their faces and their tails between their legs. Case closed.
William Beck
@WullieBeck
Replying to
@harryrag
I presume this case is a sentimental one which you do not want to discuss judging by the way you keep signing it off with the words End Of and Case Closed.
Just reading between the lines.
3:09 PM · Oct 22, 2019·Twitter for Android
https://mobile.twitter.com/WullieBeck/status/1186645862203740160
-
harryrag
@harryrag
16h
Sheila was adopted and not related Boutflour.
William Beck
@WullieBeck
9h
Well even more alarming if he shared the same blood group.
harryrag
@harryrag
7h
You’re making a schoolboy error i.e. you’re considering each piece of evidence separately and in isolation from the other pieces of evidence. Julie Mugford’s testimony was compelling evidence against Jeremy Bamber.
William Beck
@WullieBeck
1h
Why was he not charged with hiring a hitman if her evidence was that compelling ?
harryrag
@harryrag
1h
Jeremy Bamber has got a roof over his head, he gets three square meals a day and I'm sure he keeps himself entertained seeing as he's a confirmed bachelor.
William Beck
@WullieBeck
Replying to
@harryrag
@Michelle_Diskin
and 2 others (the 2 others in this conversation are apparently Trudi Benjamin & Mark Newby)
A bit like yourself only you are a widow now cause you drove your newly wed husband to commit suicide.
6:18 PM · Oct 22, 2019·Twitter for Android https://mobile.twitter.com/WullieBeck/status/1186693373257801730[https://mobile.twitter.com/WullieBeck/status/1186693373257801730
harryrag
@harryrag
1h
Replying to
@WullieBeck
@Michelle_Diskin
and 2 others
Jeremy Bamber is going to spend the rest of his life in the slammer. Accept it, deal with it and move on.
William Beck
@WullieBeck
1h
Aye right we will accept this because you say so.
You obviously have a highly inflated ego of yourself if you think people will just believe this is correct Steffie.
https://mobile.twitter.com/harryrag/status/1186691654767534082
-
William Beck
@WullieBeck
Replying to
@harryrag
@EmpowerInnocent
and
@ccrcupdate
Did his wife only come out with the alleged confession evidence after he was dead or did she tell anyone while he was still alive ?
4:31 PM · Oct 22, 2019·Twitter for Android
https://mobile.twitter.com/WullieBeck/status/1186666462481735680
William Beck
@WullieBeck
2h
@harryrag
Still waiting for your proof Simon Hall confessed to murder.
Am I to assume your lack of evidence is because no such thing happened.
Did you get your info from Julie Mugford by any chamce ?
harryrag
@harryrag
2h
Simon Hall confessed to prison authorities. His wife accepted his confession and his naive and gullible supporters slinked off with egg on their faces and their tails between their legs. Case closed.
William Beck
@WullieBeck
Replying to
@harryrag
I presume this case is a sentimental one which you do not want to discuss judging by the way you keep signing it off with the words End Of and Case Closed.
Just reading between the lines.
3:09 PM · Oct 22, 2019·Twitter for Android
https://mobile.twitter.com/WullieBeck/status/1186645862203740160
I’ve no idea who harryrag is but it seems they are bringing all sorts to the fore by their tweeting
And it appears the CCRC have been given a front row seat 8((()*/
William Beck Retweeted
Damian Fahy
@fahy_damian
Replying to
@jbcampaignltd
I hope Jeremy Bamber case is referred back to the court of appeal & he wins his appeal & is released from prison he really deserves good news for once in his life he didn't get a fair trial in 1986 & Julie Mugfort should be ashamed of herself karma will come for her
8:26 PM · Oct 21, 2019·Twitter Web App
https://mobile.twitter.com/fahy_damian/status/1186363141929820161
-
harryrag replied
Empowering the Innocent
@EmpowerInnocent
We investigated his claim of innocence to determine its truthfulness & helped get his case referred back to the CoA. We were told that he confessed & then committed suicide but have never seen any evidence that he murdered Joan Albert. How did he do it? The fibres didn’t match?
Quote Tweet
harryrag
@harryrag
3h
Replying to @EmpowerInnocent and @ccrcupdate
Michael Naughton supported convicted killer Simon Hall - who admitted he was guilty.
http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php/tjmk/comments/how_greg_hampikian_abuses_two_positions_of_trust_in_serially_misrepres…
1:34 PM · Oct 21, 2019·Twitter Web App
harryrag
@harryrag
4m
Replying to
@EmpowerInnocent
The defence claimed the fibres didn't match? Well, they would, wouldn't they? The Court of Appeal looked at the forensic evidence and upheld the murder conviction.
http://bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2011/4.html…
harryrag
@harryrag
2m
Replying to
@EmpowerInnocent
What evidence were you expecting? CCTV footage of Simon Hall murdering Joan Albert?
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1186259466725056512
Maybe Michael Naughton should ask Michelle Diskin Bates to explain - after all she accepted Simon Hall’s guilt and was so concerned she made the following public statement “this confession damages the credibility of all those still fighting for justice”
Maybe it’s time for Michelle Diskin Bates to explain in detail why she appeared able to accept Simon Hall’s guilt and why she felt compelled to write what she did when she did.
September 10, 2013 at 10:04 am
Michelle Diskin Bates stated:“As a family member of a terrible miscarriage of justice, the victim being Barry George, convicted of the murder of Jill Dando; the Simon Hall confession is a concern because it is already so difficult for true MOJs to be believed by the public; this confession damages the credibility of all those still fighting for justice. But this is just one case. The British Justice System makes many, many more errors when it choses to build its cases around a person, rather than on the actual evidence. One confession is not a comfortable situation for those fighting miscarriages of justice, but is it worse than keeping hundreds of innocents locked up for crimes they did not commit? All of us who choose to stand up for justice need to take this on the chin, and move on…back to those who deserve to have their cases reviewed and quashed. Our justice system uses ‘smoke and mirrors’, rather than real honest evidence to convict.
https://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/2019/05/13/telling-public-statement-made-by-michelle-diskin-bates-sister-of-barry-george-following-simon-halls-confession/
6 years on and they still haven’t joined the dots *&^^&
Just goes to show “A Lie Can Travel Halfway Around the World While the Truth Is Putting On Its Shoes”
-
I’ve no idea who harryrag is but it seems they are bringing all sorts to the fore by their tweeting
And it appears the CCRC have been given a front row seat 8((()*/
William Beck Retweeted
Damian Fahy
@fahy_damian
Replying to
@jbcampaignltd
I hope Jeremy Bamber case is referred back to the court of appeal & he wins his appeal & is released from prison he really deserves good news for once in his life he didn't get a fair trial in 1986 & Julie Mugfort should be ashamed of herself karma will come for her
8:26 PM · Oct 21, 2019·Twitter Web App
https://mobile.twitter.com/fahy_damian/status/1186363141929820161
“Empowering alleged innocent victims of wrongful convictions with research, education & support
Project Director, Dr Michael Naughton, University of Bristol.”
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/with_replies
Empowering the Innocent. Project Director, Dr Michael Naughton, University of Bristol
@EmpowerInnocent
Oct 5
1/3 It does come across as harsh & I'm sorry for that. However, I have been working in this area for almost 20 years & have assessed many hundreds of claims of innocence & know that not all (possibly even most in my experience) of those claiming factual innocence are innocent.
Empowering the Innocent
@EmpowerInnocent
2/3 I also know that whilst some factually innocent victims of wrongful conviction & their loved ones may genuinely & legitimately be smashed to pieces by their experiences & not feel they have the strength to fight that the guilty innocent imposters will use this argument too. https://twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1180367316036526080
Empowering the Innocent
@EmpowerInnocent
Oct 5
3/3 It really is a tough one but I can only work with those willing to fight publicly & give it all that they have got like the B6, G4, Mike o' Brien did Paul Blackburn and Eddie Guilfoyle, Sue May, Wullie Beck, Ben Geen, Robin Garbutt, Carl Morgan, to name but a few, are doing
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent
Wullie Beck aka William Beck
-
Empowering the Innocent
@EmpowerInnocent
Oct 16
Absolutely. But just how will such a factual innocence movement for the UK be achieved / realised? What vehicle? Who? When?
Quote Tweet
Mick Geen
@J4BenGeen
· Oct 15
A joint & coordinated effort is required if the innocence movement wants to be heard & noticed-All Orgs need to forget differences & become one for meetings & protests throughout the year-I Have supported @JENGbA protests in the past-We must all join ranks supporting such events! https://twitter.com/empowerinnocent/status/1181090266691842049…
Mick Geen
@J4BenGeen
Oct 16
Good start would be for key representatives from the innocent orgs and higher profile individual campaigners to meet & agree common & joint objectives-A few key figures would be needed to get the ball rolling-Would take a great deal of time & effort to get things progressing.
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@J4BenGeen
and
@EmpowerInnocent
We should meet up Mick.
6:53 PM · Oct 16, 2019·Twitter for iPad
Mick Geen
@J4BenGeen
Oct 16
Replying to
@Michelle_Diskin
and
@EmpowerInnocent
Let’s do that Michelle. I will DM you tomorrow morning.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1184527834120949761
Mick Geen father of Ben Geen
“Benjamin Geen is in prison for life. Convicted for two murders and over a dozen cases of grievous bodily harm, the former nurse insists he is innocent and that the evidence against him is entirely coincidental.
“Norman Fenton is a professor of risk management information at Queen Mary London University.
And Ben Geen, he says, might be the victim of what he terms an 'exaggerated coincidence'.
'What you've got is apparently a highly unusual sequence of events happening at this particular hospital.
'If you looked at that individually—what is the probability that this particular nurse would be present at 18 respiratory arrest events at the same hospital within such a short period of time—the probability is incredibly low.'
But Fenton is 'almost certain' that similar patterns would have occurred in a given two-month period in thousands of hospitals across the UK.
'Think of it this way,' Fenton says. 'In most hospitals, the nurses tend to be on duty for at least 50 to 70 per cent of the recorded time.
'For any given nurse to be present at all of those events is still—again—a very, very low probability.
'But what you've got is, let's say, 100 nurses at any given hospital where one of these sequence of events has been observed—again, there is quite a high probability that at least one of them would have been present at all, in this case 18, such events.'
In other words, statistically speaking, Geen won the lottery twice—but it was the wrong kind of lottery.
When Geen's team appealed his conviction on statistical grounds, the court didn't agree with Hutton or Fenton's analyses, arguing that there was no need to statistically validate the opinion evidence of experts.
It's worth noting: neither Hutton nor Fenton were arguing that Geen was innocent, merely making the case for greater statistical rigour.
The court claimed that 'academic statistical opinion, however distinguished, is divorced from the actual facts'.
After all, real people—patients, jurors, healthcare professionals in the high pressure environment of A and E—have to react to a lot more than raw data.
But in the case of Geen, what were they reacting to?
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/healthreport/benjamin-geen-an-unusual-pattern/7287620
When ‘neutral’ evidence still has probative value (with implications from the Barry George Case)
Norman Fenton a,⁎, Daniel Berger a, David Lagnado b, Martin Neil a, Anne Hsu a
abstract
“The likelihood ratio (LR) is a probabilistic method that has been championed as a ‘simple rule’ for evaluating the probative value of forensic evidence in court. Intuitively, if the LR is greater than one then the evidence supports the prosecution hypothesis; if the LR is less than one it supports the defence hypothesis, and if the LR is equal to one then the evidence favours neither (and so is considered ‘neutral’—having no probative value). It can be shown by Bayes' theorem that this simple relationship only applies to pairs of hypotheses for which one is the negation of the other (i.e. to mutually exclusive and exhaustive hypotheses) and is not applicable otherwise. We show how easy it can be – even for evidence experts – to use pairs of hypotheses that they assume are mutually exclusive and exhaustive but are not, and hence to arrive at erroneous conclusions about the value of evidence using the LR. Furthermore, even when mutually exclusive and exhaustive hypotheses are used there are extreme restrictions as to what can be concluded about the probative value of evidence just from a LR. Most importantly, while the distinction between source-level hypotheses (such as defendant was/was not at the crime scene) and offence-level hypotheses (defendant is/is not guilty) is well known, it is not widely under- stood that a LR for evidence about the former generally has no bearing on the LR of the latter. We show for the first time (using Bayesian networks) the full impact of this problem, and conclude that it is only the LR of the offence level hypotheses that genuinely determines the probative value of the evidence. We investigate common scenarios in which evidence has a LR of one but still has significant probative value (i.e. is not neutral as is commonly assumed). As illustration we consider the ramifications of these points for the case of Barry George. The successful appeal against his conviction for the murder of Jill Dando was based primarily on the argument that the firearm discharge residue (FDR) evidence, assumed to support the prosecution hypothesis at the original trial, actually had a LR equal to one and hence was ‘neutral’. However, our review of the appeal transcript shows numerous examples of the problems with the use of hypotheses identified above. We show that if one were to follow the arguments recorded in the Appeal judgement verbatim, then contrary to the Appeal conclusion, the probative value of the FDR evidence may not have been neutral as was concluded.
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lagnado-lab/publications/lagnado/ScienceAndJustice.pdf
-
“Empowering alleged innocent victims of wrongful convictions with research, education & support
Project Director, Dr Michael Naughton, University of Bristol.”
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/with_replies
Wullie Beck aka William Beck
Max Hood
@godwontlikethis
46m
If there were the slightest doubt of guilt, I would be the first to protest. I have studied his case thoroughly and my conclusion, his defence doesn't hold up. The blood on the silencer was Sheila's: how did she put it back in cupboard after her death?
Quote Tweet
William Beck
@WullieBeck
9h
Replying to @godwontlikethis and @MarkNewbyqsj
There will never be a re-trial after so long has passed.
Bambers blood was not on the silencer but it could have been Boutflours.
I see this having a crucial part to play in overturning his conviction as jury told it could only come from Sheila Caffell.
Judge misdirected jury.
William Beck
@WullieBeck
40m
Why are you repeating the same arguments we heard from Mrs Hall ? (I’ve not argued with William Beck re the Bamber case!)
Max Hood
@godwontlikethis
34m
I know Bamber, he's the typical sociopath. I know equally innocent-looking murderers: it's the brain that is warped; not their appearance. He's nasty, greedy, selfish. Sheila would not have been able to give Neville a beating and shoot him, he would have tackled her in kitchen.
William Beck
@WullieBeck
Replying to
@godwontlikethis
The facts speak for themselves.
I see no credible evidence to base a conviction upon.
Michael O'Brien knows him too and supports him 110 percent.
I would rather listen to him.
6:02 PM · Oct 23, 2019·Twitter for Android
https://mobile.twitter.com/godwontlikethis/status/1187040282036068352
-
6 years on and they still haven’t joined the dots *&^^&
Just goes to show “A Lie Can Travel Halfway Around the World While the Truth Is Putting On Its Shoes”
William Beck
@WullieBeck
Replying to
@harryrag
@EmpowerInnocent
and
@ccrcupdate
His biggest supporter was the woman that went on to marry him she was that convinced of his innocence.
If true that he confessed to her them she must really feel like shit for not only supporting him but marrying him too..
2:34 PM · Oct 22, 2019·Twitter for Android
https://mobile.twitter.com/WullieBeck/status/1186636944643629062?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1186636944643629062&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpublish.twitter.com%2F%3Fquery%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Ftwitter.com%252FWullieBeck%252Fstatus%252F1186636944643629062%26widget%3DTweet
William Beck
@WullieBeck
Oct 22
So have you seen a confirmed signed confession or are you just taking his wifes word for it.
She thought he was that disturbed she could not wait to marry him in prison.
Speaks volumes about her assessment of disturbed individuals.
https://mobile.twitter.com/WullieBeck/status/1186453424122089473
-
Mick Geen father of Ben Geen
“Benjamin Geen is in prison for life. Convicted for two murders and over a dozen cases of grievous bodily harm, the former nurse insists he is innocent and that the evidence against him is entirely coincidental.
“Norman Fenton is a professor of risk management information at Queen Mary London University.
And Ben Geen, he says, might be the victim of what he terms an 'exaggerated coincidence'.
'What you've got is apparently a highly unusual sequence of events happening at this particular hospital.
'If you looked at that individually—what is the probability that this particular nurse would be present at 18 respiratory arrest events at the same hospital within such a short period of time—the probability is incredibly low.'
But Fenton is 'almost certain' that similar patterns would have occurred in a given two-month period in thousands of hospitals across the UK.
'Think of it this way,' Fenton says. 'In most hospitals, the nurses tend to be on duty for at least 50 to 70 per cent of the recorded time.
'For any given nurse to be present at all of those events is still—again—a very, very low probability.
'But what you've got is, let's say, 100 nurses at any given hospital where one of these sequence of events has been observed—again, there is quite a high probability that at least one of them would have been present at all, in this case 18, such events.'
In other words, statistically speaking, Geen won the lottery twice—but it was the wrong kind of lottery.
When Geen's team appealed his conviction on statistical grounds, the court didn't agree with Hutton or Fenton's analyses, arguing that there was no need to statistically validate the opinion evidence of experts.
It's worth noting: neither Hutton nor Fenton were arguing that Geen was innocent, merely making the case for greater statistical rigour.
The court claimed that 'academic statistical opinion, however distinguished, is divorced from the actual facts'.
After all, real people—patients, jurors, healthcare professionals in the high pressure environment of A and E—have to react to a lot more than raw data.
But in the case of Geen, what were they reacting to?
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/healthreport/benjamin-geen-an-unusual-pattern/7287620
When ‘neutral’ evidence still has probative value (with implications from the Barry George Case)
Norman Fenton a,⁎, Daniel Berger a, David Lagnado b, Martin Neil a, Anne Hsu a
abstract
“The likelihood ratio (LR) is a probabilistic method that has been championed as a ‘simple rule’ for evaluating the probative value of forensic evidence in court. Intuitively, if the LR is greater than one then the evidence supports the prosecution hypothesis; if the LR is less than one it supports the defence hypothesis, and if the LR is equal to one then the evidence favours neither (and so is considered ‘neutral’—having no probative value). It can be shown by Bayes' theorem that this simple relationship only applies to pairs of hypotheses for which one is the negation of the other (i.e. to mutually exclusive and exhaustive hypotheses) and is not applicable otherwise. We show how easy it can be – even for evidence experts – to use pairs of hypotheses that they assume are mutually exclusive and exhaustive but are not, and hence to arrive at erroneous conclusions about the value of evidence using the LR. Furthermore, even when mutually exclusive and exhaustive hypotheses are used there are extreme restrictions as to what can be concluded about the probative value of evidence just from a LR. Most importantly, while the distinction between source-level hypotheses (such as defendant was/was not at the crime scene) and offence-level hypotheses (defendant is/is not guilty) is well known, it is not widely under- stood that a LR for evidence about the former generally has no bearing on the LR of the latter. We show for the first time (using Bayesian networks) the full impact of this problem, and conclude that it is only the LR of the offence level hypotheses that genuinely determines the probative value of the evidence. We investigate common scenarios in which evidence has a LR of one but still has significant probative value (i.e. is not neutral as is commonly assumed). As illustration we consider the ramifications of these points for the case of Barry George. The successful appeal against his conviction for the murder of Jill Dando was based primarily on the argument that the firearm discharge residue (FDR) evidence, assumed to support the prosecution hypothesis at the original trial, actually had a LR equal to one and hence was ‘neutral’. However, our review of the appeal transcript shows numerous examples of the problems with the use of hypotheses identified above. We show that if one were to follow the arguments recorded in the Appeal judgement verbatim, then contrary to the Appeal conclusion, the probative value of the FDR evidence may not have been neutral as was concluded.
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lagnado-lab/publications/lagnado/ScienceAndJustice.pdf
Improving public understanding of probability and risk with special emphasis on its application to the law. Why Bayes theorem and Bayesian networks are needed
Confusion over the Likelihood Ratio by Professor Norman Fenton
“The 'Likelihood Ratio' (LR) has been dominating discussions at the third workshop in our Isaac Newton Institute Cambridge Programme Probability and Statistics in Forensic Science.
There have been many fine talks on the subject - and these talks will be available here for those not fortunate enough to be attending.
We have written before (see links at bottom) about some concerns with the use of the LR. For example, we feel there is often a desire to produce a single LR even when there are multiple different unknown hypotheses and dependent pieces of evidence (in such cases we feel the problem needs to be modelled as a Bayesian network)- see [1]. Based on the extensive discussions this week, I think it is worth recapping on another one of these concerns (namely when hypotheses are non-exhaustive).
To recap: The LR is a formula/method that is recommended for use by forensic scientists when presenting evidence - such as the fact that DNA collected at a crime scene is found to have a profile that matches the DNA profile of a defendant in a case. In general, the LR can a very good and simple method for communicating the impact of evidence (in this case on the hypothesis that the defendant is the source of the DNA found at the crime scene).
To compute the LR, the forensic expert is forced to consider the probability of finding the evidence under both the prosecution and defence hypotheses. So, if the prosecution hypothesis Hp is "Defendant is the source of the DNA found" and the defence hypothesis Hp is "Defendant is not the source of the DNA found" then we compute both the probability of the evidence given Hp - written P(E | Hp) - and the probability of the evidence given Hd - written P(E | Hd). The LR is simply the ratio of these two likelihoods, i.e. P(E | Hp) divided by P(E | Hd).
Full article here: https://probabilityandlaw.blogspot.com/2016/11/confusion-over-likelihood-ratio.html
-
harryrag replied
Empowering the Innocent
@EmpowerInnocent
We investigated his claim of innocence to determine its truthfulness & helped get his case referred back to the CoA. We were told that he confessed & then committed suicide but have never seen any evidence that he murdered Joan Albert. How did he do it? The fibres didn’t match?
Quote Tweet
When 'absence of forensic evidence' is not 'neutral' by Professor Norman Fenton (May 2019)
It is widely accepted that ‘evidence of absence’ (such as an alibi confirming that the defendant was not at the crime scene) is not the same as ‘absence of evidence’ (such as where there is no evidence about whether or not the defendant was at the crime scene). However, for forensic evidence, there is often confusion about these concepts. If DNA found at the crime scene does not match the defendant is that ‘evidence of absence’ or ‘absence of evidence’? It depends, of course, on the circumstances. If there is a high probability that the DNA found must have come from the person who committed the crime then this is clearly ‘evidence of absence’ - the fact that it does not match the defendant is highly probative in favour of the defence. On the other hand if the only DNA found at the crime scene is actually unrelated to the person who committed the crime, then this is clearly ‘absence of evidence’ – the fact that it does not match the defendant is no more probative for the defence than for the prosecution (so the evidence is ‘neutral’). The problem is that lawyers and forensic scientists often wrongly assume that absence ‘evidence of absence’ is ‘neutral’. This report (5 pages) includes a 'proof' (using a simple Bayesian network model) of how the experts get it wrong in a real example.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333056875_When_'absence_of_forensic_evidence'_is_not_'neutral'
-
Empowering the Innocent
@EmpowerInnocent
We investigated his claim of innocence to determine its truthfulness & helped get his case referred back to the CoA. We were told that he confessed & then committed suicide but have never seen any evidence that he murdered Joan Albert. How did he do it? The fibres didn’t match?
“Empowering alleged innocent victims of wrongful convictions with research, education & support
Project Director, Dr Michael Naughton, University of Bristol.”
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/with_replies
The problem facing many within the miscarriage of justice community/wrongful conviction arena is they don’t “naturally” “revise” their “(prior) belief about H“ as their denial wont allow them to face reality.
https://www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/~norman/papers/probability_puzzles/bayes_evidence.html
-
The problem facing many within the miscarriage of justice community/wrongful conviction arena is they don’t “naturally” “revise” their “(prior) belief about H“ as their denial wont allow them to face reality.
https://www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/~norman/papers/probability_puzzles/bayes_evidence.html
Nick Ross
“Most miscarriage of justice activists quietly bury embarrassing cases like that of Simon Hall,
https://www.nickross.com/blog/
-
Nick Ross
“Most miscarriage of justice activists quietly bury embarrassing cases like that of Simon Hall,
https://www.nickross.com/blog/
Who killed Jill Dando?
“Some argue that, never mind the layer upon layer of coincidences, Barry George simply could not have carried out a murder because he was too slow-witted. Tests showed he had an IQ of 75. That means low average intellectual capability; or to put it another way, roughly 1:12 of the population has his IQ or lower. It is no more unusual than an IQ of 125. Moreover, his record showed he was perfectly capable of functioning and planning:
https://www.nickross.com/who-killed-jill-dando/
-
Wrong man' convicted of Dando killing, says sister
“In an interview for ITV's Tonight With Trevor McDonald, Mrs Diskin derides the police investigation and pours scorn on the health system for not better protecting George.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-58143/Wrong-man-convicted-Dando-killing-says-sister.html
Michelle Diskin Bates claimed on Jeremy Vine here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0005v7y
“The media still get value from alluding to the fact that he might have been guilty" (of killing Jill Dando) “and the reason for that is simply because he didn't get any compensation".
Which imo is a classic example of someone yet again attempting to spread further fake news.
Barry George wasn’t compensated because Mr Justice Irwin said: “There was indeed a case upon which a reasonable jury, properly directed, could have convicted the claimant of murder.”
-
Michelle Diskin Bates claimed on Jeremy Vine here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0005v7y
“The media still get value from alluding to the fact that he might have been guilty" (of killing Jill Dando) “and the reason for that is simply because he didn't get any compensation".
Which imo is a classic example of someone yet again attempting to spread further fake news.
Barry George wasn’t compensated because Mr Justice Irwin said: “There was indeed a case upon which a reasonable jury, properly directed, could have convicted the claimant of murder.”
Barry George has failed to show he’s “clearly innocent” ergo he’s not a victim of a miscarriage of justice. Hence why his sisters book refers to a “wrongful conviction” and not a miscarriage of justice.
3.2 The meaning of “miscarriage of justice”
As set out above, in order to be eligible for compensation under the statutory scheme, the applicant must have been pardoned or had his conviction quashed on the grounds that “a new or newly discovered fact shows beyond reasonable doubt that there has been a miscarriage of justice”. The statutory scheme did not originally contain any definition of “miscarriage of justice”; however, this changed in March 2014 when the Government legislated to reverse the effect of a Supreme Court judgment.
new statutory definition
Section 175 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, which came into force on 13 March 2014, has reversed the effect of the judgments in Adams and Ali. It inserted a new subsection 1ZA into section 133 of the 1988 Act. Section 133(1ZA) now provides that there will have been a miscarriage of justice “if and only if the new or newly discovered fact shows beyond reasonable doubt that the person did not commit the offence”.
The new definition applies to the determination of any application for compensation made on or after 13 March 2014, and to applications made before that date but which had not finally been determined by the Secretary of State by that date.
The Ministry of Justice’s impact assessment for the change stated that it was being made to ensure that eligibility to the compensation scheme was limited to applicants who could show that they were clearly innocent. It stated that the intended effect was to lessen the burden on taxpayers and reduce unnecessary and expensive legal challenges to Government decisions to refuse compensation.
https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN02131/SN02131.pdf
-
Freed 'IRA man' loses claim for damages
“Nicholas Mullen, 54, was cleared by the Court of Appeal three years ago because of what it called a "blatant and extremely serious failure to adhere to the rule of law" by those responsible for bringing him to court.
In the High Court yesterday, Lord Justice Simon Brown said Mullen's "conviction had been secured at too high a price, but by no means does it follow that the claimant should also be financially compensated for the loss of his liberty".
The judge, upholding a decision by David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, to refuse him compensation, said Mullen was "not entitled to be treated for all the world as if he was entirely innocent".
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1385656/Freed-IRA-man-loses-claim-for-damages.html
And Barry George was hardly an innocent man given his previous for stalking women.
-
About the estate’s value according to Will Woodward.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/jul/07/willwoodward
About the Jill Dando Institute according to wiki https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UCL_Jill_Dando_Institute
-
Barry George has failed to show he’s “clearly innocent” ergo he’s not a victim of a miscarriage of justice. Hence why his sisters book refers to a “wrongful conviction” and not a miscarriage of justice.
Opinion: “Courts and Controversy – consequences of the Jefferies contempt case” – Brian Cathcart
4 09 2011
The UK press may show more restraint in reporting of high-profile cases if contempt laws are vigorously enforced, says Brian Cathcart.
The next time there is a sensational murder — something on the scale of the Ipswich or Soham cases — you may notice something different about the media coverage. Reporters may show restraint of a kind that is not familiar. In fact, they might actually obey the law.
The Contempt of Court Act of 1981 prohibits all but the most straightforward reporting in a crime case from the moment “proceedings are active”, in other words once someone is arrested. The idea is to ensure that coverage does not interfere with the course of justice, for instance by prejudicing the eventual jury. But for years, when a big, competitive story came along, many editors and reporters in national media simply ignored the Act and continued to publish often grotesque allegations about a suspect after arrest and even sometimes after they were charged. Think Colin Stagg, Barry George, Karen Matthews and others — and Stagg and George were later shown to be innocent
https://inforrm.org/2011/09/04/opinion-courts-and-controversy-consequences-of-the-jeffries-contempt-case-brian-cathcart/
“The conviction of Barry George for the murder of the TV presenter Jill Dando was one of the biggest stories of last year. But did he really do it? On the eve of George's appeal, Brian Cathcart shows how flimsy the evidence against him was https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/a-question-of-identity-183860.html
-
“The conviction of Barry George for the murder of the TV presenter Jill Dando was one of the biggest stories of last year. But did he really do it? On the eve of George's appeal, Brian Cathcart shows how flimsy the evidence against him was https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/a-question-of-identity-183860.html
Also on the eve of Barry George’s appeal James Murray for the Sunday Express (7th Nov 2007) published:
Fears for Jill’s ‘vulnerable’ killer on eve of his appeal
CONTROVERSY: Lawyers have cast doubt on Barry George’s 2001 conviction for murdering Jill Dando
FRIENDS and relatives of Barry George are becoming increasingly concerned for his welfare on the eve of his appeal against his conviction for killing TV presenter Jill Dando.
George, 47, has placed himself on the “ vulnerable prisoner” list at Belmarsh jail in south London.
That follows his transfer from high-security Whitemoor Prison in Cambridgeshire, in preparation for his three-day appeal hearing, which starts tomorrow at the Royal Courts of Justice.
Going on to the “vulnerable” list usually indicates that prisoners have become concerned about their safety or are feeling unwell.
Yesterday George’s sister Michelle Diskin had expected to visit him but was refused entry at Belmarsh on the grounds that he had gone on the list at Commission has cast doubt on a key piece of forensic evidence – a speck of firearms residue found in the pocket of George’s coat a year after Ms Dando was shot dead on her doorstep in Gowan Avenue, Fulham, south-west London, in April 1999.
George’s barrister, William Clegg, QC, will argue that the forensic science service itself has even cast doubt on the value of the evidence.
Police had originally said the speck matched firearms residue found on the hair and clothing of Miss Dando.
Janet Herbert, who was a juror in George’s original trial in 2001, told BBC1’s Panorama last week: “I just felt shocked that on that little evidence anybody could be locked away for the rest of their life.”
The foreman of the jury also told the programme that if the firearms evidence had been presented differently then they would have returned a different verdict. George’s solicitor Jeremy Moore said: “If the appeal is
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/sunday-express-1070/20071104/281724085194449
(Full article doesn’t appear to be available to copy from press reader)
-
Also on the eve of Barry George’s appeal James Murray for the Sunday Express (7th Nov 2007) published:
Fears for Jill’s ‘vulnerable’ killer on eve of his appeal
CONTROVERSY: Lawyers have cast doubt on Barry George’s 2001 conviction for murdering Jill Dando
FRIENDS and relatives of Barry George are becoming increasingly concerned for his welfare on the eve of his appeal against his conviction for killing TV presenter Jill Dando.
George, 47, has placed himself on the “ vulnerable prisoner” list at Belmarsh jail in south London.
That follows his transfer from high-security Whitemoor Prison in Cambridgeshire, in preparation for his three-day appeal hearing, which starts tomorrow at the Royal Courts of Justice.
Going on to the “vulnerable” list usually indicates that prisoners have become concerned about their safety or are feeling unwell.
Yesterday George’s sister Michelle Diskin had expected to visit him but was refused entry at Belmarsh on the grounds that he had gone on the list at Commission has cast doubt on a key piece of forensic evidence – a speck of firearms residue found in the pocket of George’s coat a year after Ms Dando was shot dead on her doorstep in Gowan Avenue, Fulham, south-west London, in April 1999.
George’s barrister, William Clegg, QC, will argue that the forensic science service itself has even cast doubt on the value of the evidence.
Police had originally said the speck matched firearms residue found on the hair and clothing of Miss Dando.
Janet Herbert, who was a juror in George’s original trial in 2001, told BBC1’s Panorama last week: “I just felt shocked that on that little evidence anybody could be locked away for the rest of their life.”
The foreman of the jury also told the programme that if the firearms evidence had been presented differently then they would have returned a different verdict. George’s solicitor Jeremy Moore said: “If the appeal is
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/sunday-express-1070/20071104/281724085194449
(Full article doesn’t appear to be available to copy from press reader)
Comes across as an attention seeking publicity stunt to me that James Murray got caught up in ?
-
Comes across as an attention seeking publicity stunt to me that James Murray got caught up in ?
James Murray again for the Sunday Express 19th October 2008 published:
Excerpt from article headed:George: I’m not stalking TV Kay
”Shortly after an Old Bailey jury cleared George of murdering BBC presenter Jill Dando on August 1, he was subject to a bidding war between rival news organisations.
A Sunday tabloid and Sky News he cycled to their studios in Isleworth, west London. He spoke to a person on security but did not ask for Miss Burley by name.
Last week Sky sent him a copy. Then it emerged that Miss Burley had gone to Scotland Yard alleging George might be stalking her. She is said to have been offered security at her home in north London.
Last night Surjit Singh Clair, George’s spokesman, said: “Barry can’t understand what all the fuss is about. The truth is that he has made one visit to the Sky studios to ask for a copy of the interview which they have now given him.
“It has now got to the stage where he will discuss the stories with his QC next week to consider what can be done about them.”
Scotland Yard confirmed they are investigating allegations by a woman
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/sunday-express-1070/20081019/283433482360399
-
Also on the eve of Barry George’s appeal James Murray for the Sunday Express (7th Nov 2007) published:
Fears for Jill’s ‘vulnerable’ killer on eve of his appeal
CONTROVERSY: Lawyers have cast doubt on Barry George’s 2001 conviction for murdering Jill Dando
FRIENDS and relatives of Barry George are becoming increasingly concerned for his welfare on the eve of his appeal against his conviction for killing TV presenter Jill Dando.
George, 47, has placed himself on the “ vulnerable prisoner” list at Belmarsh jail in south London.
That follows his transfer from high-security Whitemoor Prison in Cambridgeshire, in preparation for his three-day appeal hearing, which starts tomorrow at the Royal Courts of Justice.
Going on to the “vulnerable” list usually indicates that prisoners have become concerned about their safety or are feeling unwell.
Yesterday George’s sister Michelle Diskin had expected to visit him but was refused entry at Belmarsh on the grounds that he had gone on the list at Commission has cast doubt on a key piece of forensic evidence – a speck of firearms residue found in the pocket of George’s coat a year after Ms Dando was shot dead on her doorstep in Gowan Avenue, Fulham, south-west London, in April 1999.
George’s barrister, William Clegg, QC, will argue that the forensic science service itself has even cast doubt on the value of the evidence.
Police had originally said the speck matched firearms residue found on the hair and clothing of Miss Dando.
Janet Herbert, who was a juror in George’s original trial in 2001, told BBC1’s Panorama last week: “I just felt shocked that on that little evidence anybody could be locked away for the rest of their life.”
The foreman of the jury also told the programme that if the firearms evidence had been presented differently then they would have returned a different verdict. George’s solicitor Jeremy Moore said: “If the appeal is
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/sunday-express-1070/20071104/281724085194449
(Full article doesn’t appear to be available to copy from press reader)
The online article can be read here https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/24116/Fears-for-Jill-s-vulnerable-killer-on-eve-of-his-appeal
-
The online article can be read here https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/24116/Fears-for-Jill-s-vulnerable-killer-on-eve-of-his-appeal
Have previously posted the following By John McVicar (10:46PM BST 02 Aug 2008) writing for the Telegraph who sat through Barry George’s appeal
Analysis: Twists and turns that enabled Barry George to walk free
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2491147/Analysis-Twists-and-turns-that-enabled-Barry-George-to-walk-free.html
Excerpt:
“Mr George’s uncle, Michael Bourke, expected the worst. I spoke to Michael immediately after the verdict. He said: “We thought it was going to be guilty and when we saw the jury’s faces, not one of them showing they were for him, we just…” He hunched his shoulders to illustrate how they flinched.
When the “not guilty” came, Michelle Diskin, Mr George’s sister, was the only one of the three to show any emotion – she slammed the bench that was actually right behind where I was sitting and shouted an exultant, but still surprised, “Yes”.
-
Have previously posted the following By John McVicar (10:46PM BST 02 Aug 2008) writing for the Telegraph who sat through Barry George’s appeal
Analysis: Twists and turns that enabled Barry George to walk free
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2491147/Analysis-Twists-and-turns-that-enabled-Barry-George-to-walk-free.html
Excerpt:
“Mr George’s uncle, Michael Bourke, expected the worst. I spoke to Michael immediately after the verdict. He said: “We thought it was going to be guilty and when we saw the jury’s faces, not one of them showing they were for him, we just…” He hunched his shoulders to illustrate how they flinched.
When the “not guilty” came, Michelle Diskin, Mr George’s sister, was the only one of the three to show any emotion – she slammed the bench that was actually right behind where I was sitting and shouted an exultant, but still surprised, “Yes”.
Less than 2 weeks after the above article was published Michelle Diskin Bates stated to Mark Hugh’s for the Independent - the article was published on 16 August 2008 00:00
Excerpts
“But at the same time, Ms Diskin is anxious that Mr George gets back to normal as soon as possible. "Barry is fiercely independent, he always has been. He will need help in the coming months and years because he is bound to have post-traumatic stress disorder, but he also wants to do things on his own.
"At the moment that is difficult because of all the press attention. I am used to the photographers as I've dealt with them for eight years, but Barry isn't; he's been in a cell all that time.
"I wouldn't say he's now a celebrity, but he has become public property. That has upset me more than it has Barry. It seems that it isn't enough that he didn't kill Jill Dando, he still has to be part of some kind of media circus.
"He takes it all in his stride, but he doesn't like the attention. It would be a very strange type of person who would.".”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/michelle-diskin-life-on-the-outside-for-barry-george-898987.html
”But she is keen also to discuss the struggle her family endured during the eight years her brother was wrongly imprisoned.
She adds: "There were times my children could not leave their own house because of the hordes of photographers outside. We were inundated with calls from the media and had to screen all of them. We even had the phone tapped twice. My mother didn't leave her house for 13 days because of the media; she had to have neighbours pass food across the fence to her.
"Eventually she got so ill with stress that she didn't eat and drink. Luckily a vigilant relative realised what was going on. If it went on for any longer we probably would have lost her.
"The stress put a lot of strain on my body and it resulted in me having lumps in my breast. In those eight years I had two biopsies.
"When my husband, Patrick, died of a brain tumour in April 2007 I had decided to give up. It was too hard and I felt it was unfair on my three teenage children as they had lived with this for years. But when I told them they refused to let me stop."
-
Opinion: “Courts and Controversy – consequences of the Jefferies contempt case” – Brian Cathcart
4 09 2011
The UK press may show more restraint in reporting of high-profile cases if contempt laws are vigorously enforced, says Brian Cathcart.
The next time there is a sensational murder — something on the scale of the Ipswich or Soham cases — you may notice something different about the media coverage. Reporters may show restraint of a kind that is not familiar. In fact, they might actually obey the law.
The Contempt of Court Act of 1981 prohibits all but the most straightforward reporting in a crime case from the moment “proceedings are active”, in other words once someone is arrested. The idea is to ensure that coverage does not interfere with the course of justice, for instance by prejudicing the eventual jury. But for years, when a big, competitive story came along, many editors and reporters in national media simply ignored the Act and continued to publish often grotesque allegations about a suspect after arrest and even sometimes after they were charged. Think Colin Stagg, Barry George, Karen Matthews and others — and Stagg and George were later shown to be innocent
https://inforrm.org/2011/09/04/opinion-courts-and-controversy-consequences-of-the-jeffries-contempt-case-brian-cathcart/
“The conviction of Barry George for the murder of the TV presenter Jill Dando was one of the biggest stories of last year. But did he really do it? On the eve of George's appeal, Brian Cathcart shows how flimsy the evidence against him was https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/a-question-of-identity-183860.html
Panorama fronted by robber casts new doubt over Dando killer 4th Sept 2006
The BBC faced new allegations of dumbing down Panorama last night after it emerged that a convicted robber is to present a programme questioning the guilt of Jill Dando's killer.
Raphael Rowe, a member of the so-called M25 Three, will tomorrow (tues) present a special hour-long edition of the flagship current affairs programme which casts doubt on the 2001 conviction of Barry George.
It will suggest that key forensic evidence - gunshot residue allegedly from the murder weapon which was found in his coat pocket - may have been contaminated by police officers who searched George's home prior to his arrest.
The programme will feature evidence from forensic and ballistics experts and is expected to question the testimony of witnesses who claim to have seen George lurking in the area of Miss Dando's home on the day she was gunned down outside her home.
It is thought it may also feature a secretly recorded interview with George, who is serving life for Miss Dando's murder and claim that, because of his mental state, he was unable to carry out such an audacious killing in broad daylight.
His family and lawyers claim the unemployed, celebrity-obsessed loner – a convicted sex offender – was the victim of a miscarriage of justice.
The BBC's decision to broadcast a programme which could ultimately help George clear his name has sparked a fierce debate in the organisation.
A number of prominent figures at the Corporation are said to feel 'uneasy' that Panorama is questioning the guilt of the man convicted of murdering popular BBC presenter Miss Dando in Fulham, south-west London, in April 1999.
And eye-brows have been raised that 37-year-old 'investigative reporter' Rowe has been handed the job of fronting such a sensitive programme.
Rowe was himself convicted of murder and spent 12 years behind bars before being sensationally cleared after the Appeal Court ruled his conviction was unsafe.
Rowe, from South London, had been jailed in March 1990 along with Randolph Johnson and Michael Davis.
They were found guilty of murdering hairdresser Peter Hurburgh, 57, in December 1988 and carrying out a series of violent robberies around the M25 in Surrey.
In July 2000 the murder convictions and those relating to the M25 robberies were dramatically overturned at the Court of Appeal.
Lord Justice Mantell ruled that the prosecution had failed to disclose links between police and a paid informant which undermined its case.
Undisclosed police logs also revealed uncertainties about the colour of the three men who carried out the raids.
However the judges who freed him said the evidence against Rowe remained 'formidable', saying their decision was 'not a finding of innocence, far from it'.
Rowe has a string of other convictions for robbery and theft, including one for malicious wounding.
Soon after being released from prison, Rowe began training as a BBC journalist and in September 2001 landed a job as an investigative reporter for Radio 4's Today programme.
His documentary on the Dando case is easily his highest-profile work yet at the BBC.
It is thought he has liaised closely with George's family and lawyers, who have referred his case back to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which has the power to refer the case back to the Court of Appeal.
They believe evidence at his Old Bailey trial, particularly on identification, was either flawed or should have been ruled inadmissible.
In 2002 the Appeal Court said the seven-week trial had been fair and there remained a compelling case against George, of Crookham Road,Fulham.
A particle of firearm residue had been found in George's coat and a fibre found on Miss Dando was consistent with an article of his clothing.
George had falsely denied being associated with firearms, had shown an obsession with Miss Dando and other female TV presenters, had lied to police and had given a flawed alibi statement.
What the jury did not know before convicting George by a majority verdict after five days was that the gun fanatic had been fixated with Princess Diana.
In January 1983 the former Territorial Army soldier tried to break into Kensington Palace, carrying a 12-inch hunting knife, 50ft of rope and wearing military- style uniform.
At the time he was subject to a suspended prison sentence for an indecent assault.
Nor was the jury told he had a previous conviction for attempted rape, another for indecent assault and more for impersonating police officers.
In July it emerged that Panorama could be cut to 30 minutes, renewing fears that the world's longest-running current affairs programme is being dumbed down.
The proposed changes are being championed by Peter Fincham, controller of BBC1, who is understood to be keen on making the show more 'accessible'.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/panorama-fronted-by-robber-casts-new-doubt-over-dando-killer-7081769.html
-
How, on the day of Jill Dando’s murder, did Barry George know he looked “similar in appearance with her killer” if the police didn’t release the photofit until 4 days after?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1349115.stm
-
How, on the day of Jill Dando’s murder, did Barry George know he looked “similar in appearance with her killer” if the police didn’t release the photofit until 4 days after?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1349115.stm
Who did Barry George tell of his concerns of looking “similar in appearance with her killer”?
Were his family ever concerned about these similarities?
-
Michelle Diskin Bates (Sister of Barry George) is apparently claiming a possible connection between the Daniel Morgan murder with that of Jill Dando’s murder
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8619250/News-of-the-World-spied-on-detective-during-murder-inquiry.html
-
Michelle Diskin Bates (Sister of Barry George) is apparently claiming a possible connection between the Daniel Morgan murder with that of Jill Dando’s murder
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8619250/News-of-the-World-spied-on-detective-during-murder-inquiry.html
Peter Jukes byline times article here https://bylinetimes.com/2019/03/29/a-phone-hacking-hit-how-jill-dando-was-tracked-to-her-doorstep/ published on 29th March 2019 refers to Graham Johnson and Dan Evans article here https://bylinetimes.com/2019/03/29/blagged-to-death-how-scotland-yard-missed-crucial-clues-in-the-tabloid-targeting-of-jill-dando/ published the same day
-
“Undoubtedly, when persons are speaking on even terms and a charge is made, and the person charged says nothing, and expresses no indignation, and does nothing to repel the charge, that is some evidence to show that he admits the charge to be true.
Evidence in Context by Jonathon Doak
7.1 The “even terms” rule.
“Lenita Bailey was a customer at a hairdressers near the accused flat. She knew him and recalled a conversation with him. George came into the salon and claimed police were harassing him over the death of Jill Dando. He complained they had searched his home and his mothers house. Ms Bailey said to him: “Did you do it?” George remained silent and starred at the floor. She repeated the question twice more and asked him to look at her. At trial, she said: “His lips moved as if he were thinking of an answer but none was forthcoming. Her evidence of the discussion, or lack of it, was admitted, and George was convicted.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=JmDLCQAAQBAJ&pg=PT374&lpg=PT374&dq=lenita+bailey+barry+george&source=bl&ots=o2q28Nrf8W&sig=ACfU3U0U6Ar9JmuOb0wlSIVZgNXu2D_peQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiqntajzs_hAhXvVBUIHc3LCmsQ6AEwEXoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=lenita%20bailey%20barry%20george&f=false
Where is it written that any of Barry George’s family ask him if he’s guilty? They say he isn’t guilty - as though they are telling him he can’t be, but where do they ask him if he’s guilty?
-
Sept 2006
“A row has broken out over the basis of information used in a Panorama documentary about the murder of television presenter Jill Dando.
Award-winning journalist Don Hale has accused Raphael Rowe, the presenter of the programme, of using old material, a claim which Rowe strongly denies.
Hale told Press Gazette: "I'm accusing him of plagiarism to a certain extent. It's a 100 per cent lift of the information that was presented to the Criminal Cases Review Commission on 5 November, 2002.
"It gave the impression that Raphael and the BBC team had come up with this new evidence completely on their own, which is not the case."
The Panorama special, Jill Dando's Murder — The New Evidence, featured forensic analysis which questioned the only piece of scientific evidence against Barry George, the man jailed for murdering Dando.
In the programme, which attracted 4.6m viewers on Tuesday night, Rowe investigated if there was new relevant evidence that should have been heard by a jury, and gained exclusive access to case documents and exhibits.
Rowe told Press Gazette: "We as investigative journalists went out there and spoke to the most crucial witnesses, explored the most crucial elements of the case –— the scientific elements of the case as well as other pieces of evidence.
"We didn't do a paper exercise investigation, we spoke to people, we got to the heart of the issues surrounding the evidence."
According to Rowe, the only issue that was raised at the Court of Appeal was identification. The issue of contamination was also mentioned, but no new evidence was brought.
He said that the jury members and other witnesses who were also important to the trial told him they had not been approached by anybody since the case was first heard.
Hale was part of the team with MOJO [Miscarriages of Justice Organisation] that had conducted a lot of work on the case long before Raphael Rowe began investigating the murder two years ago. He said: "There was no acknowledgement or reference at all to the work that we had done as a team in preparation for this."
However, Rowe argued that the capability of MOJO was overestimated.
He said: "They gave us no information that was included in the programme. The information that the organisation MOJO gave us could not be stood up."
https://pressgazette.co.uk/hale-hits-out-over-dando-special/
What ”information” did MOJO give panorama that “could not be stood up”?
-
I wonder if Barry George and his sister ever got to the bottom of who the source(s) were for leaking “scare stories as she refers to them in her book, to the press?
Who was leaking “scare stories” to the MSM?
-
How, on the day of Jill Dando’s murder, did Barry George know he looked “similar in appearance with her killer” if the police didn’t release the photofit until 4 days after?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1349115.stm
Excerpt from ‘Who killed Jill Dando? by Nick Ross
“Personality disorders result in cognitive impairment, obsessions and narcissism, mostly resulting from genetic or physical damage, such as frontal lobe pathology, but sometimes from severe abuse. These disorders are not curable and so, until recently, even violent offenders were sent to prisons rather that to secure hospitals. Psychiatrists concede they can do nothing for them.
Mark Chapman, who killed John Lennon, suffered a form of personality disorder, and it’s not hard to see similarities in the way Jill was ambushed. Interestingly Chapman modelled his life on a hero of his (in his case, Holden Caulfield, a figure from The Catcher in the Rye) rather as Barry George had modelled himself on famous people, most recently a figure from Queen, which is why he had adopted the name Bulsara.
What are the chances of Jill being know to such a personality disordered person? The answer is almost 100%.
https://www.nickross.com/who-killed-jill-dando/
-
Less than 2 weeks after the above article was published Michelle Diskin Bates stated to Mark Hugh’s for the Independent - the article was published on 16 August 2008 00:00
Excerpts
“But at the same time, Ms Diskin is anxious that Mr George gets back to normal as soon as possible. "Barry is fiercely independent, he always has been. He will need help in the coming months and years because he is bound to have post-traumatic stress disorder, but he also wants to do things on his own.
"At the moment that is difficult because of all the press attention. I am used to the photographers as I've dealt with them for eight years, but Barry isn't; he's been in a cell all that time.
"I wouldn't say he's now a celebrity, but he has become public property. That has upset me more than it has Barry. It seems that it isn't enough that he didn't kill Jill Dando, he still has to be part of some kind of media circus.
"He takes it all in his stride, but he doesn't like the attention. It would be a very strange type of person who would.".”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/michelle-diskin-life-on-the-outside-for-barry-george-898987.html
Telling
-
You may want to consider John Warboys and his victims https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/01/victims-sexual-violence-john-worboys when you make the claims you do with regards public opinion and the media.
Barry George by passed the parole board once his conviction was overturned ( or so he thought) but he remained on MAPPA - and remains so to this day - unless someone knows otherwise please feel free to correct me.
I reiterate - Barry George's sister may make excuses for her brothers behaviour and the courts may have found him innocent for the murder of Jill Dando but he still poses a risk to the public
Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements or MAPPA is the process through which the police, probation and prison services work together with other agencies to assess and manage violent and sexual offenders in order to protect the public from harm
Barry George wasn’t deemed ‘innocent’ therefore the above should read, ‘the appeal court overturned his murder conviction deeming it ‘unsafe’ in law which in no way equates to innocence.
Worth reading some of the news articles from around the time his murder conviction was overturned with regards the use of the word ‘innocent’ and Barry George’s and his sisters claims around then.
'Black cab' rapist Worboys jailed for life - 17 December 2019
https://www.cps.gov.uk/cps/news/black-cab-rapist-worboys-jailed-life
-
QC DJ on the decks at Glastonbury - Mar 2008
“Once upon a time when a Queen's counsel heard the initials DJ, it would be a signal to swap his silk gown for a dinner jacket. Not any more.
"I'm going to DJ at Glastonbury," says Ian Glen QC. "I've played at the Grosvenor House hotel before, but never at Glastonbury. I play a mixture of house and reggae."
Glen, 56, will be "on the decks" when the nightclub Chinawhite takes over the festival's Left Field Stage. The event will raise money for the Miscarriage of Justice Organisation, of which he is a trustee.
The barrister knows the owner of Chinawhite through his licensing work. Although he also represents Spearmint Rhino, thankfully he assures me that he has no plans to perform a pole dance.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1582598/QC-DJ-on-the-decks-at-Glastonbury.html
October 2012
“Barry George today launched a test case bid to overturn a ''defective'' decision denying him compensation after he wrongly imprisoned for the murder of Jill Dando.
Mr George, 52, who was cleared after a retrial in 2008, is seeking a High Court ruling that could open the way for him to claim an award of up to £500,000.
His case is one of five test cases assembled for senior judges to decide who is now entitled to payments in ''miscarriages of justice'' cases following a landmark decision by the Supreme Court in May 2011.
Mr George's claim for damages for lost earnings and wrongful imprisonment was rejected by the Ministry of Justice on the grounds that he was not legally entitled to compensation.
That decision is being defended by Justice Secretary Chris Grayling in a three-day hearing at London's High Court.
Ian Glen QC, appearing for Mr George, is asking Mr Justice Beatson and Mr Justice Irwin to rule the decision to deny compensation ''defective and contrary to natural justice'' and a breach of the right to a fair trial under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The proceedings follow the Supreme Court's redefinition of the legal meaning of what constitutes a ''miscarriage of justice'' after debating when compensation should be paid to people wrongly convicted of crime.
Miss Dando was shot dead outside her home in Fulham in April 1999.
After his conviction in 2001, Mr George, of Fulham, west London, was acquitted of killing the 37-year-old BBC presenter at the 2008 retrial.
The case was referred to by one of the panel of nine Supreme Court justices who gave the landmark miscarriage of justice ruling.
Lord Hope described how a particle of ''firearms discharge'' matching particles found in the cartridge case of the bullet which killed Miss Dando, had been found in a pocket of a coat worn by Mr George.
Evidence about the ''firearms discharge'' particle and its significance were called into question following a review and Mr George's conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal in 2007 and the retrial ordered.
When found not guilty in 2008, the Crown Prosecution Service said he ''had the right to be regarded as innocent''.
In the Supreme Court ruling, the then president Lord Phillips said that the ''mere quashing'' of a conviction could not be a ''trigger for compensation''.
He said a ''miscarriage of justice'' occurred when a new fact ''so undermined'' prosecution evidence that no conviction could ''possibly be based upon it''.
He said the new ''test'' would not guarantee that all those entitled to compensation were ''in fact innocent''.
But it would ensure that when innocent defendants were convicted on discredited evidence they were not ''precluded'' from obtaining compensation because they could not prove their innocence beyond reasonable doubt.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9614673/Barry-George-battles-over-compensation-for-Jill-Dando-conviction.html
Would people like Sam Hallam and Victor Nealon have received compensation had it not been for the likes of Barry George?
-
Michelle Diskin Bates claimed,
“My world went into a tailspin in May of 2000, when my brother was arrested for one of the highest-profile crimes in Britain in recent years, the murder of Jill Dando, much-loved BBC presenter. My mum didn’t tell me because she thought it would all blow over and I wouldn’t need to be bothered with it; after all, it was a mistake. So, I heard it on the radio as I was getting ready to go to a ladies’ Bible study, and my life as I knew it fell apart. Nothing … could have prepared me for such a trauma. My nice peaceful life was replaced by a nightmare.
https://www.sortedmagazine.men/pardoned-by-alex-willmott-chief-features-writer/
In her book ‘Stand Against Injustice’ Michelle Diskin Bates refers to her time spent in a psychiatric facility a year or so before her brother Barry George’s arrest for the murder of Jill Dando. Did she really have a ‘nice peaceful life’ prior to her brothers arrest? She apparently claimed she’d kill herself if she were to return home?
What’s fact and what’s fiction?
She referred to her ‘hum drum’ life prior to her stay in a psychiatric facility but was this the root cause for why she was allegedly suicidal? Was she looking for excitement? Did being the face of the Barry George campaign, as referred to in her uncle Mikes book, give her the excitement she’d always craved?
What appeals to Michelle Diskin Bates by defending convicted murderers and does she really believe Sheila Caffell , given her mental health issues and fragility at the time, murdered her own children and adoptive parents then somehow killed herself?
-
Michelle Diskin Bates claimed,
“My world went into a tailspin in May of 2000, when my brother was arrested for one of the highest-profile crimes in Britain in recent years, the murder of Jill Dando, much-loved BBC presenter. My mum didn’t tell me because she thought it would all blow over and I wouldn’t need to be bothered with it; after all, it was a mistake. So, I heard it on the radio as I was getting ready to go to a ladies’ Bible study, and my life as I knew it fell apart. Nothing … could have prepared me for such a trauma. My nice peaceful life was replaced by a nightmare.
https://www.sortedmagazine.men/pardoned-by-alex-willmott-chief-features-writer/
In her book ‘Stand Against Injustice’ Michelle Diskin Bates refers to her time spent in a psychiatric facility a year or so before her brother Barry George’s arrest for the murder of Jill Dando. Did she really have a ‘nice peaceful life’ prior to her brothers arrest? She apparently claimed she’d kill herself if she were to return home?
What’s fact and what’s fiction?
She referred to her ‘hum drum’ life prior to her stay in a psychiatric facility but was this the root cause for why she was allegedly suicidal? Was she looking for excitement? Did being the face of the Barry George campaign, as referred to in her uncle Mikes book, give her the excitement she’d always craved?
What appeals to Michelle Diskin Bates by defending convicted murderers and does she really believe Sheila Caffell , given her mental health issues and fragility at the time, murdered her own children and adoptive parents then somehow killed herself?
Are these Michelle Diskin Bates psychological projections? Is this how she felt about her own life prior to her brothers arrest?
-
Are these Michelle Diskin Bates psychological projections? Is this how she felt about her own life prior to her brothers arrest?
She states here
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
I won’t back a claim unless I can see the case evidence...there is none linking Robin to his wife’s murder...but much pointing away - towards other hands. The murderer is walking free, and may even have killed again
Michelle Diskin Bates is a patron to the Jeremy Bamber campaign who are currently pushing for disclosures. This in itself yet again contradicts Diskin Bates.
And on September 10, 2013 at 10:04 am Michelle Diskin Bates posted the following comment on the justice gap website
“As a family member of a terrible miscarriage of justice, the victim being Barry George, convicted of the murder of Jill Dando; the Simon Hall confession is a concern because it is already so difficult for true MOJs to be believed by the public; this confession damages the credibility of all those still fighting for justice https://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/2019/05/13/telling-public-statement-made-by-michelle-diskin-bates-sister-of-barry-george-following-simon-halls-confession/
So what have all those individuals who once supported Simon Halls innocence and campaigned to overturn his conviction done in order to get their credibility back?
Michelle Diskin Bates has gone on to tell further bare faced lies about the Jeremy Bamber case, some of which can be found here http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=8088.msg567538#msg567538
What does she think this does to her credibility regarding her brothers case?
Dr Michael Naughton was Simon Halls representative (In place of a solicitor) when his guilt was exposed in 2013. What did Michael Naughton do following the discovery he’d been conned for all those years? He buried his head in the sand and went on to write the foreword to Michelle Diskin Bates book ‘Stand Against Injustice’
-
Are these Michelle Diskin Bates psychological projections? Is this how she felt about her own life prior to her brothers arrest?
Michelle Diskin Bates has recently been asked to speak at a conference by the association for women barristers in conjunction with MTC solicitors. Apparently she’s down to speak about her brothers ‘miscarriage of justice’ (Which the Supreme Court deemed he wasn’t) and will be speaking about how she has been affected. Should be an interesting conference, especially if she’s asked about her apparent lies and misleading nonsense.
Julia Smart QC is apparently another speaker alongside Michelle Diskin Bates. Julia Smart was defence counsel in the Liam Allen case on disclosure issues
-
In her book ‘Stand Against Injustice’ Michelle Diskin Bates refers to her time spent in a psychiatric facility a year or so before her brother Barry George’s arrest for the murder of Jill Dando. Did she really have a ‘nice peaceful life’ prior to her brothers arrest? She apparently claimed she’d kill herself if she were to return home?
Apparently she’s down to speak about her brothers ‘miscarriage of justice’ (Which the Supreme Court deemed he wasn’t) and will be speaking about how she has been affected.
What was Michelle Diskin Bates diagnosed with prior to her brother Barry’s arrest and how did this affect her life after she came out of the psychiatric facility?
And did she get a second or third opinion of her diagnoses like was given in her brothers case?
-
She states here
Michelle Diskin Bates is a patron to the Jeremy Bamber campaign who are currently pushing for disclosures. This in itself yet again contradicts Diskin Bates.
And on September 10, 2013 at 10:04 am Michelle Diskin Bates posted the following comment on the justice gap website
“As a family member of a terrible miscarriage of justice, the victim being Barry George, convicted of the murder of Jill Dando; the Simon Hall confession is a concern because it is already so difficult for true MOJs to be believed by the public; this confession damages the credibility of all those still fighting for justice https://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/2019/05/13/telling-public-statement-made-by-michelle-diskin-bates-sister-of-barry-george-following-simon-halls-confession/
So what have all those individuals who once supported Simon Halls innocence and campaigned to overturn his conviction done in order to get their credibility back?
Michelle Diskin Bates has gone on to tell further bare faced lies about the Jeremy Bamber case, some of which can be found here http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=8088.msg567538#msg567538
What does she think this does to her credibility regarding her brothers case?
Dr Michael Naughton was Simon Halls representative (In place of a solicitor) when his guilt was exposed in 2013. What did Michael Naughton do following the discovery he’d been conned for all those years? He buried his head in the sand and went on to write the foreword to Michelle Diskin Bates book ‘Stand Against Injustice’
Wouldn’t it have been wise to heed the words of ex CCRC Commissioner David Jessel following Simon Halls confession;
“....you always have to reserve a part of your brain for the possibility that the person you campaign for just might be guilty.” https://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/simon-hall-confession-a-time-to-take-stock-by-professor-julie-price-originally-published-by-jon-robins-of-the-justice-gap/
-
Michelle Diskin Bates on twitter states;
‘I believe I’ve had a malicious reviewer on Amazon, in the style of a recent troll to bring down my unbroken 5 reviews.
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
I can’t prove it so I can’t have it removed. The wording is certainly reminiscent of a troll. Wants to bring me down and undermine me.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1217171598366642177
Doesn’t this sound like a ‘control freak’?
Here’s the review I presume she’s referring to
1.0 out of 5 stars Too much god squad
6 January 2020
I tried to read this, but I found offensive the fact that the (ghost) writer seems to think that with a bit of praying everything would work out right. Admittedly I gave up after a few chapters, so it may have become a bit less fanciful later on.
@)(++(*
Yet further evidence people are seeing through the nonsense
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@hanksoff03
Thanks 😁 On a personal level im fine, but it’s frustrating to see the reviews others read being undermined by lies and innuendo. Hopefully more will come in to neutralise that one.
It’s a bit grrr...😡
7:53 pm · 14 Jan 2020·Twitter for iPad
-
Michelle Diskin Bates on twitter states;
‘I believe I’ve had a malicious reviewer on Amazon, in the style of a recent troll to bring down my unbroken 5 reviews.
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
I can’t prove it so I can’t have it removed. The wording is certainly reminiscent of a troll. Wants to bring me down and undermine me.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1217171598366642177
Doesn’t this sound like a ‘control freak’?
Here’s the review I presume she’s referring to
1.0 out of 5 stars Too much god squad
6 January 2020
I tried to read this, but I found offensive the fact that the (ghost) writer seems to think that with a bit of praying everything would work out right. Admittedly I gave up after a few chapters, so it may have become a bit less fanciful later on.
@)(++(*
Yet further evidence people are seeing through the nonsense
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@hanksoff03
Thanks 😁 On a personal level im fine, but it’s frustrating to see the reviews others read being undermined by lies and innuendo. Hopefully more will come in to neutralise that one.
It’s a bit grrr...😡
7:53 pm · 14 Jan 2020·Twitter for iPad
Anyone who disagrees with her or has a differing opinion apparently ”wants to bring me down and undermine me”
They are then labelled a ‘troll’ or accused of having ‘lost the plot’; which is how she referred to Hamish Campbell
-
Anyone who disagrees with her or has a differing opinion apparently ”wants to bring me down and undermine me”
They are then labelled a ‘troll’ or accused of having ‘lost the plot’; which is how she referred to Hamish Campbell
Wonder what her Uncle (Mike Bourke) thinks about her support and comments of mass murderer Jeremy Bamber?
Excerpt from Michelle Diskin Bates blog on mass murderer Jeremy Bamber titled “Justice is never served by the conviction of the innocent" by Michelle Bates on the 31st Anniversary of the tragedies
”It was well after midnight on August 6th 1985 and I couldn’t sleep. Switching on the T.V., I absent-mindedly tuned into a news channel. We were living in Co. Cork, in Southern Ireland, and I was joyfully awaiting the birth of our first child who was already overdue, making me feel restless; that was why I was up and about at such an hour.
Becoming aware of a breaking-news story I began to listen in more closely. A siege was taking place at a farmhouse in England. The broadcaster relayed that five people were inside and there was great fear for their safety. As the story unfolded it became apparent that this was an older couple. A farmer and retired Magistrate, Nevill Bamber and his wife, June; their daughter, Sheila, and her six year old twin sons. Jeremy, their son, was outside with police who were trying to communicate with someone inside the house who had been seen pacing back and forth in front of an upstairs window and carrying a firearm. The reporter said that police were reluctant to get too close to the house for fear of causing that person to become more agitated, thereby, escalating the danger to the family. I watched for an hour or so but there was no resolution and, heavily pregnant, I became exhausted and had to go off to bed.
Awaking early I was anxious for news, hopefully of a rescue, so I put the News on immediately. The siege was over, police had stormed the house and five bodies had been found inside. I was heartbroken, a whole family! My heart went out to the young man who had waited all night long with the police for news of his family; this was not what he wanted to hear.
My own child was born a few days later and I became engrossed in motherhood. It was a real shock to hear, sometime later, that the son, Jeremy Bamber, had been arrested for the killings…how was that possible when he was outside during the siege and everyone knew that? I presumed the police knew something we did not; there must have been strong evidence to convict a man of killing his entire family…I pushed my unease aside and got on with motherhood and my own life.
Since then I have revisited the facts of this case in light of so many high-profile miscarriage of justice cases coming to light, including that of my own brother, Barry George, for the murder of Jill Dando. More recently we’ve heard of the lies and cover-ups in the Hillsborough deaths and The Chilcot report exposing the same type of cover ups in the Iraqi war scandal. In the Bamber case I can find no evidence to convince me of the guilt of this man. Nothing that can account for a man languishing in jail for more than thirty years. How did a jury convict a young man without proof?
https://jeremybamber.blogspot.com/2016/08/justice-is-never-served-by-conviction.html
-
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
8h
#WhiteHouseFarm Great news,
@SCLomax’s book certainly clarified things for me. Good move @SCLomax
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/with_replies
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
1h
Replying to
@GrumpyGran1948
and
@tru68
Scott Lomax, he also wrote about Barry's case. He has a forensic mind. #WhiteHouseFarm
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
I must buy a new copy of @ScottLomax3 ’s re-released book about the truth of #WhiteHouseFarm and Jeremy Bamber. Can you put up a link, Scott?
10:42 PM · Jan 10, 2020·Twitter for iPad
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1215765903972892672
@)(++(* @)(++(* @)(++(*
“A couple of days later Michelle featured in an Irish evening newspaper,and appeared to dismiss Scott’s book, saying that a book would not get Barry out. I was disappointed by the dismissal....”
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ltgorwROQfwC&pg=PA127&lpg=PA127&dq=barry+george+scott+lomax&source=bl&ots=OsAb9RF0bH&sig=ACfU3U2vPUZj1WyEEq6lu9Tgf_3tYvC3UA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjSv8DsmvrmAhXjoXEKHQw6AuwQ6AEwCHoECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=barry%20george%20scott%20lomax&f=false
Courtesy of Mike Bourke (Uncle of Michelle Diskin Bates)
Mike Bourke states in his book ‘Mikes Story’ re Scott Lomax,
“In the afternoon I met Scott for the last time in Victoria where we had an afternoon drink in the Shakespeare pub. At about 15.00 Michelle phoned me from the hotel saying that they had just finished the interviews and asked me what I was doing. I said I was with Scott but could not talk further as the line went dead. At about 22.00 she again phoned me and asked if I knew Scott had written an article for the Sunday mirror. I explained that Scott was a writer and so it was to be expected that he might write something as he was also outside the Old Bailey when she and MOJO were speaking to the media. She said that Barry could lose money as a result and in the background I could hear him speaking quietly. But nobody had requested that I or Scott should remain silent.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ltgorwROQfwC&pg=PA205&lpg=PA205&dq=fight+to+clear+barry+george+michelle&source=bl&ots=OsAc3MB2cI&sig=ACfU3U3BUTuHoQQtlG6TVNhPpqylF1KDxg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiz8YrLpITnAhU6TRUIHYSxDlA4FBDoATADegQICRAB#v=onepage&q=fight%20to%20clear%20barry%20george%20michelle&f=false
-
Michelle Diskin Bates on twitter states;
‘I believe I’ve had a malicious reviewer on Amazon, in the style of a recent troll to bring down my unbroken 5 reviews.
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
I can’t prove it so I can’t have it removed. The wording is certainly reminiscent of a troll. Wants to bring me down and undermine me.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1217171598366642177
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@hanksoff03
Thanks 😁 On a personal level im fine, but it’s frustrating to see the reviews others read being undermined by lies and innuendo. Hopefully more will come in to neutralise that one.
It’s a bit grrr...😡
7:53 pm · 14 Jan 2020·Twitter for iPad
What an interesting projection...
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@hanksoff03
It’s worse than that! It is face saving, they might be brought into disrepute 😡🤬😡 We must believe their fairytale, they are the best.
10:13 PM · Jan 14, 2020·Twitter for iPad
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1217208061737291777
-
She states here
Michelle Diskin Bates is a patron to the Jeremy Bamber campaign who are currently pushing for disclosures. This in itself yet again contradicts Diskin Bates.
And on September 10, 2013 at 10:04 am Michelle Diskin Bates posted the following comment on the justice gap website
“As a family member of a terrible miscarriage of justice, the victim being Barry George, convicted of the murder of Jill Dando; the Simon Hall confession is a concern because it is already so difficult for true MOJs to be believed by the public; this confession damages the credibility of all those still fighting for justice https://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/2019/05/13/telling-public-statement-made-by-michelle-diskin-bates-sister-of-barry-george-following-simon-halls-confession/
So what have all those individuals who once supported Simon Halls innocence and campaigned to overturn his conviction done in order to get their credibility back?
Michelle Diskin Bates has gone on to tell further bare faced lies about the Jeremy Bamber case, some of which can be found here http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=8088.msg567538#msg567538
What does she think this does to her credibility regarding her brothers case?
Dr Michael Naughton was Simon Halls representative (In place of a solicitor) when his guilt was exposed in 2013. What did Michael Naughton do following the discovery he’d been conned for all those years? He buried his head in the sand and went on to write the foreword to Michelle Diskin Bates book ‘Stand Against Injustice’
“Almost two decades of research on miscarriages of justice and wrongful convictions, and over a decade of direct engagements with the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) with the Innocence Network UK (INUK) and the University of Bristol Innocence Project,
https://www.thejusticegap.com/please-forgive-me-but-i-wont-be-holding-my-breath/
Yet Dr Michael Naughton hasn’t recognised ‘innocent fraud’ being perpetuated in the UK. I don’t believe it!
Founder and Director
Dr Michael Naughton
Champions
Michael O’ Brien (one of three men who were wrongly convicted in the case known as the Cardiff Newsagent Three for the murder of Cardiff newsagent, Philip Saunders)
Michelle Bates (sister of Barry George who was wrongly convicted of the murder of British journalist, television presenter and newsreader, Jill Dando)
Case researchers
Amna Bokhari (2019 – )
Alisha Jackson (2019 – )
Malavika Ramanand (2019 – )
Ellen Rees (2019 – )
Bill Studholme (2019 – )
http://michaeljnaughton.com/?page_id=3707
-
“Almost two decades of research on miscarriages of justice and wrongful convictions, and over a decade of direct engagements with the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) with the Innocence Network UK (INUK) and the University of Bristol Innocence Project,
https://www.thejusticegap.com/please-forgive-me-but-i-wont-be-holding-my-breath/
Yet Dr Michael Naughton hasn’t recognised ‘innocent fraud’ being perpetuated in the UK. I don’t believe it!
Founder and Director
Dr Michael Naughton
Champions
Michael O’ Brien (one of three men who were wrongly convicted in the case known as the Cardiff Newsagent Three for the murder of Cardiff newsagent, Philip Saunders)
Michelle Bates (sister of Barry George who was wrongly convicted of the murder of British journalist, television presenter and newsreader, Jill Dando)
Case researchers
Amna Bokhari (2019 – )
Alisha Jackson (2019 – )
Malavika Ramanand (2019 – )
Ellen Rees (2019 – )
Bill Studholme (2019 – )
http://michaeljnaughton.com/?page_id=3707
Below is an excerpt from an article written by Dr Michael Naughton in May 2011 for the Law Gazette, headed,
‘There’s still scope for debate on miscarriage of justice compensation.’
“The judgement fails to settle contentious cases such as that of Barry George, who also had his application for compensation refused because of his failure to prove his innocence at his appeal.
This is despite the fact that, when he was acquitted at his retrial, the Crown Prosecution service declared that he had every right to be considered an innocent man”
https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/analysis/theres-still-scope-for-debate-on-miscarriage-of-justice-compensation/60579.article
The Crown Prosecution service (CPS) appear to have acted hastily when they made the statement outside of the courts re Barry George being ‘considered an innocent man.’
Lord Justice Beatson and Mr Justice Irwin said:
"There was indeed a case upon which a reasonable jury properly directed could have convicted the claimant of murder"
-
Below is an excerpt from an article written by Dr Michael Naughton in May 2011 for the Law Gazette, headed,
‘There’s still scope for debate on miscarriage of justice compensation.’
“The judgement fails to settle contentious cases such as that of Barry George, who also had his application for compensation refused because of his failure to prove his innocence at his appeal.
This is despite the fact that, when he was acquitted at his retrial, the Crown Prosecution service declared that he had every right to be considered an innocent man”
https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/analysis/theres-still-scope-for-debate-on-miscarriage-of-justice-compensation/60579.article
The Crown Prosecution service (CPS) appear to have acted hastily when they made the statement outside of the courts re Barry George being ‘considered an innocent man.’
Lord Justice Beatson and Mr Justice Irwin said:
"There was indeed a case upon which a reasonable jury properly directed could have convicted the claimant of murder"
‘This Blog is maintained by Mark Newby and Colleagues from QS Jordans
Our Track Record – Crown Court Cases
Miscarriage of Justice Compensation Challenge Against Government – Supreme Court [ judgment awaited ] + Successfully won last test case on the scheme in 2013 in Barry George and others v SSJ
https://crimejottings.com/about/
-
‘This Blog is maintained by Mark Newby and Colleagues from QS Jordans
Our Track Record – Crown Court Cases
Miscarriage of Justice Compensation Challenge Against Government – Supreme Court [ judgment awaited ] + Successfully won last test case on the scheme in 2013 in Barry George and others v SSJ
https://crimejottings.com/about/
The Adams ruling has subdivided miscarriages into three, possibly four, categories: first, where the applicant can effectively prove innocence; second, where there is evidence that undermines the safety of the conviction; third where the fresh evidence might be sufficient for the court to quash the conviction but there may be other evidence upon which a jury could still convict; and fourth, a purely technical quashing of a conviction.
Last month there was a three-day hearing in the high court considering compensation in a number of cases including Barry George, who spent eight years in prison after being wrongly convicted of the murder of TV presenter Jill Dando. "The public might think, as they watch someone being released from the court of appeal, that they would be compensated by the state for being wrongfully convicted and for all the time they have served in prison," comments Mark Newby, who specialises in miscarriage cases. The solicitor is representing Ian Lawless, one of the lead cases alongside George. "That expectation is invariably not met. Under the current Ministry of Justice scheme only one award has been made post-Adams."
Newby has another case stayed pending the ruling by the Strasbourg court on the Allen case. If the European court decides in favour of Allen, the lawyer believes this will help the other compensation cases, with the possible exception of category four cases.
The case originated in an application (no. 25424/09) against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by a British national, Ms Lorraine Allen (“the applicant”), on 29 April 2009.
2. The applicant, who had been granted legal aid, was represented by Stephensons, a firm of solicitors based in Wigan. The United Kingdom Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Ms Y. Ahmed, Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng#{"itemid":["001-122859"]}
-
Keith A Findley - “tunnel vision is the product of a variety of cognitive distortions, such as confirmation bias, hindsight bias, and outcome bias, which can impede accuracy in what we perceive and in how we interpret what we perceive”
"The public might think, as they watch someone being released from the court of appeal, that they would be compensated by the state for being wrongfully convicted and for all the time they have served in prison," comments Mark Newby, who specialises in miscarriage cases.
Last May Mark Newby wrote an article which was published in the justice gap, ironically, given the Barry George case as one example, he stated:
”No one wants to see a conviction overturned on technical grounds compensated”
https://www.thejusticegap.com/the-court-of-appeal-needs-to-acknowledge-miscarriages-of-justice-and-ensure-that-they-dont-occur-in-the-future/
-
Wonder what her Uncle (Mike Bourke) thinks about her support and comments of mass murderer Jeremy Bamber?
”It was well after midnight on August 6th 1985 and I couldn’t sleep. Switching on the T.V., I absent-mindedly tuned into a news channel. We were living in Co. Cork, in Southern Ireland, and I was joyfully awaiting the birth of our first child who was already overdue, making me feel restless; that was why I was up and about at such an hour.
Becoming aware of a breaking-news story I began to listen in more closely. A siege was taking place at a farmhouse in England. The broadcaster relayed that five people were inside and there was great fear for their safety. As the story unfolded it became apparent that this was an older couple. A farmer and retired Magistrate, Nevill Bamber and his wife, June; their daughter, Sheila, and her six year old twin sons. Jeremy, their son, was outside with police who were trying to communicate with someone inside the house who had been seen pacing back and forth in front of an upstairs window and carrying a firearm. The reporter said that police were reluctant to get too close to the house for fear of causing that person to become more agitated, thereby, escalating the danger to the family. I watched for an hour or so but there was no resolution and, heavily pregnant, I became exhausted and had to go off to bed.
Awaking early I was anxious for news, hopefully of a rescue, so I put the News on immediately. The siege was over, police had stormed the house and five bodies had been found inside. I was heartbroken, a whole family! My heart went out to the young man who had waited all night long with the police for news of his family; this was not what he wanted to hear.
My own child was born a few days later and I became engrossed in motherhood. It was a real shock to hear, sometime later, that the son, Jeremy Bamber, had been arrested for the killings…how was that possible when he was outside during the siege and everyone knew that? I presumed the police knew something we did not; there must have been strong evidence to convict a man of killing his entire family…I pushed my unease aside and got on with motherhood and my own life.
Since then I have revisited the facts of this case in light of so many high-profile miscarriage of justice cases coming to light, including that of my own brother, Barry George, for the murder of Jill Dando. More recently we’ve heard of the lies and cover-ups in the Hillsborough deaths and The Chilcot report exposing the same type of cover ups in the Iraqi war scandal. In the Bamber case I can find no evidence to convince me of the guilt of this man. Nothing that can account for a man languishing in jail for more than thirty years. How did a jury convict a young man without proof?
Excerpt from Michelle Diskin Bates blog on mass murderer Jeremy Bamber titled “Justice is never served by the conviction of the innocent" by Michelle Bates on the 31st Anniversary of the tragedies https://jeremybamber.blogspot.com/2016/08/justice-is-never-served-by-conviction.html (https://jeremybamber.blogspot.com/2016/08/justice-is-never-served-by-conviction.html)
the following excerpt is from Mark Newby’s 2012 speech (Given at the Richard Webster Memorial Lecture on the Danger of False Allegations in Society and their impact)
“Of Course the danger of false allegations has arisen for as long as human beings have lived together on this planet. Whilst I am no Bible basher it is worth that remembering that in Exodus 20:16 it was said:
“ You shall not bear false testimony against your neighbor “
https://www.qualitysolicitors.com/jordans/news/2012/11/false-allegations-mark-newby-delivers-richard-webster-memorial-lecture
What are peoples thoughts on Michelle Diskin Bates ‘false testimony’ above?
And what are Mark Newby’s thoughts?
-
Excerpt from Michelle Diskin Bates blog on mass murderer Jeremy Bamber titled “Justice is never served by the conviction of the innocent" by Michelle Bates on the 31st Anniversary of the tragedies https://jeremybamber.blogspot.com/2016/08/justice-is-never-served-by-conviction.html (https://jeremybamber.blogspot.com/2016/08/justice-is-never-served-by-conviction.html)
What are peoples thoughts on Michelle Diskin Bates ‘false testimony’ above?
And what are Mark Newby’s thoughts?
Founder and Director
Dr Michael Naughton
Champions
Michael O’ Brien (one of three men who were wrongly convicted in the case known as the Cardiff Newsagent Three for the murder of Cardiff newsagent, Philip Saunders)
Michelle Bates (sister of Barry George who was wrongly convicted of the murder of British journalist, television presenter and newsreader, Jill Dando)
http://michaeljnaughton.com/?page_id=3707
And Dr Michael Naughton’s?
-
And Dr Michael Naughton’s?
Worth listening to Dr Michael Naughton’s speech here https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P8EVLJNUGQM especially when he refers to ‘ethical behaviour’.
-
So why does Michelle Diskin Bates choose to rewrite history?
Excerpt from Michelle Diskin Bates blog on mass murderer Jeremy Bamber titled “Justice is never served by the conviction of the innocent" by Michelle Bates on the 31st Anniversary of the tragedies https://jeremybamber.blogspot.com/2016/08/justice-is-never-served-by-conviction.html (https://jeremybamber.blogspot.com/2016/08/justice-is-never-served-by-conviction.html)
What are peoples thoughts on Michelle Diskin Bates ‘false testimony’ above?
And what are Mark Newby’s thoughts?
‘Leigh Chambers guest is Michelle Diskin Bates whose memoir Stand Against Injustice details her fight to clear the name of her brother, Barry George, wrongly convicted for the murder of Jill Dando. We also hear from former circuit judge, Peter Murphy, on his latest legal thriller One Law For The Rest Of Us. And children’s..
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/bookmark-michelle-diskin-bates/id796334747?i=1000431434365
Rewriting history does not help her cause
“Dr Shepherd said it was not possible to say what position Miss Dando was in when shot.
"It could have been in a position which allowed the firearm to be arranged so that it could be placed to her left temple and allowed to track through to the right."
A gunman standing to her left could have been either right or left-handed, he told the court.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-46217/Jills-death-instant.html
I’ve long been of the opinion she’s highly narcissistic
“A narcissist can be a great storyteller. They captivate you with tales of personal triumphs, heroism, even selflessness. But it’s when you look behind the curtain that you discover they’ve rewritten history. Not only are they living in a fantasy, you believed all their self-mythology.
Narcissists are overly occupied with themselves. They exaggerate their achievements and use clever tactics to make themselves feel superior. Ever entitled, they tend to manipulate and exploit others, then rationalize their actions to shirk responsibility or blame. If a narcissist isn’t currently being praised, they are planning or waiting for the next moment when they will be praised.
https://psychcentral.com/blog/separating-the-narcissists-delusion-from-reality/
I once wrongly believed in Michelle Diskin Bates ‘mythology;’ I wrongly believed in the ‘mythology’ that is the ‘wrongful conviction’ arena.
Barry George had overturned his murder conviction by the time I came into contact with her but when I looked ’behind the curtain’ things weren’t how they appeared.
Michael Bourkes book https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mikes-Story-Battle-George-murder/dp/1907163441 was also an eye opener and tells a different story to ‘Stand Against Injustice’. I skim read ‘Mikes Story’ last year and recommend it to anyone interested in ‘Barry George’s campaign.’
-
I find this an extremely naive and gullible move by Michael Naughton https://www.bristol.ac.uk/law/news/2018/dr-michael-naughton-introduces-new-book.html
The need for due diligence isn’t needed solely whilst using Twitter. http://michaeljnaughton.com/?p=1542
Michael Naughton claims;
“Earlier this month (August 2017), a row erupted on my Twitter timeline of the like I have not previously witnessed amongst what might loosely be called the ‘prison reform community’, comprised of former prisoners, family members of currently serving and former prisoners, prison lawyers, students and academics.
But that’s not entirely true is it Dr Naughton? You were once very familiar with the fallings out of the varying ‘prison reform community’, comprised of former prisoners, family members of currently serving and former prisoners, prison lawyers, students and academics. and were once yourself very much caught up in it.
Remember this https://www.theguardian.com/law/2011/jan/09/innocence-project-conviction-hilary-swank - the Higham burglary, the knife, Campbell Malone, Lynn Hall, Shaun Hall, Steffie Bon, Sandra Lean, Billy Middleton, Mike O’Brien, etc?
Barry George’s campaign has been blighted with similar such experiences but there has been a conscience attempt at covering up these rows, which are glaringly obvious when you compare and contrast Michelle Diskin Bates book with that of her uncle Mike’s and begin to read between the lines of the many newspaper articles and other mediums used to promote the fallacies.
Michael Naughton goes on:
“I immediately put his name into Google on my phone to very quickly find that he was convicted of a highly publicised and most pernicious and disturbing gendered crime against a young woman, the like of which would certainly make most (particularly women) want to steer clear of him altogether.
WHAT about Barry George’s highly publicised and proven crimes? Shall we sweep them under the carpet and pretend they never happened? What rehabilitation did he receive, if any? It might be worth researching the Barry George case and all the individuals involved because when you do, all is not as it seems and Michelle Diskin Bates narrative stops adding up. The case against her brother becomes much clearer and plausible.
Dr Michael Naughton states,
“I have learned, though, that the truly innocent (and I accept that there are always exceptions to every rule but, generally speaking) tend to be very public about their alleged wrongful convictions and happy for any opportunity to tell their version of events to anyone who will listen so that the truth can come out and their names can be cleared.”
Absolute nonsense!
The ‘truly’ guilty, many of them themselves highly narcissistic, have no qualms being ‘very public about their alleged wrongful convictions and are happy for any opportunity to tell their version of events to anyone who will listen’
-
Wonder what her Uncle (Mike Bourke) thinks about her support and comments of mass murderer Jeremy Bamber?
Excerpt from Michelle Diskin Bates blog on mass murderer Jeremy Bamber titled “Justice is never served by the conviction of the innocent" by Michelle Bates on the 31st Anniversary of the tragedies
”It was well after midnight on August 6th 1985 and I couldn’t sleep. Switching on the T.V., I absent-mindedly tuned into a news channel. We were living in Co. Cork, in Southern Ireland, and I was joyfully awaiting the birth of our first child who was already overdue, making me feel restless; that was why I was up and about at such an hour.
Becoming aware of a breaking-news story I began to listen in more closely. A siege was taking place at a farmhouse in England. The broadcaster relayed that five people were inside and there was great fear for their safety. As the story unfolded it became apparent that this was an older couple. A farmer and retired Magistrate, Nevill Bamber and his wife, June; their daughter, Sheila, and her six year old twin sons. Jeremy, their son, was outside with police who were trying to communicate with someone inside the house who had been seen pacing back and forth in front of an upstairs window and carrying a firearm. The reporter said that police were reluctant to get too close to the house for fear of causing that person to become more agitated, thereby, escalating the danger to the family. I watched for an hour or so but there was no resolution and, heavily pregnant, I became exhausted and had to go off to bed.
Awaking early I was anxious for news, hopefully of a rescue, so I put the News on immediately. The siege was over, police had stormed the house and five bodies had been found inside. I was heartbroken, a whole family! My heart went out to the young man who had waited all night long with the police for news of his family; this was not what he wanted to hear.
My own child was born a few days later and I became engrossed in motherhood. It was a real shock to hear, sometime later, that the son, Jeremy Bamber, had been arrested for the killings…how was that possible when he was outside during the siege and everyone knew that? I presumed the police knew something we did not; there must have been strong evidence to convict a man of killing his entire family…I pushed my unease aside and got on with motherhood and my own life.
Since then I have revisited the facts of this case in light of so many high-profile miscarriage of justice cases coming to light, including that of my own brother, Barry George, for the murder of Jill Dando. More recently we’ve heard of the lies and cover-ups in the Hillsborough deaths and The Chilcot report exposing the same type of cover ups in the Iraqi war scandal. In the Bamber case I can find no evidence to convince me of the guilt of this man. Nothing that can account for a man languishing in jail for more than thirty years. How did a jury convict a young man without proof?
https://jeremybamber.blogspot.com/2016/08/justice-is-never-served-by-conviction.html
can you deal with common sense?
@YouCommon
Replying to
@Michelle_Diskin
You watched it live on 24 hour news on your flat screen TV didn't you?
In 1985..
I trust your judgement! 🤣
12:30 AM · Jan 17, 2020·Twitter Web App
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Jan 17
Replying to
@YouCommon
Another troll post…you could use your intelligence and creativity for good - you’ve chosen to hurt people who are hurting! Shame on you 😡
https://mobile.twitter.com/YouCommon/status/1217967278463033344
-
‘Leigh Chambers guest is Michelle Diskin Bates whose memoir Stand Against Injustice details her fight to clear the name of her brother, Barry George, wrongly convicted for the murder of Jill Dando. We also hear from former circuit judge, Peter Murphy, on his latest legal thriller One Law For The Rest Of Us. And children’s..
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/bookmark-michelle-diskin-bates/id796334747?i=1000431434365
Michelle Diskin Bates refers to Dr Michael Naughton as ‘inspirational’ in her radio interview.
And when she tells her story of hearing of her brother Barry George’s arrest, her first thought was to phone the radio station ? to find out if it was true
Worth listening to hear her reaction to ex circuit Judge Peter Murphys interview
Leigh Chambers asks: ‘Michelle, Peter there talking about police corruption
You’ve never said in your book that it was corruption that ended with Barry’s conviction
Why, why do you think Barry was the target?
Michelle Diskin Bates replies: “I couldn’t say it was corruption because I had no proof of that and I didn’t want my book to not have integrity I wanted people to be able to trust what I was writing
integrity
/ɪnˈtɛɡrɪti/
noun
1.
the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles.
So honest and such strong moral principles she’s even prepared to rewrite history for convicted mass murderer Jeremy Bamber *&^^&
-
Worth listening to Dr Michael Naughton’s speech here https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P8EVLJNUGQM especially when he refers to ‘ethical behaviour’.
Dr Michael Naughton states here https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VBzW5_7xtI4 @ around 10.10
“I’ve written several articles about harm”
“.....we don’t won’t errors because they are harmful, there is a progressive dynamic element to errors, if you are open to embracing the error and learning from it”
No mention of the Simon Hall case no mention of ‘innocent fraud’
So when does Dr Michael Naughton plan to embrace his errors and learn from them and what impact does the ‘progressive dynamic element’ have on the public, the criminal justice system and the ‘wrongful conviction’ arena?
-
So when does Dr Michael Naughton plan to embrace his errors and learn from them and what impact does the ‘progressive dynamic element’ have on the public, the criminal justice system and the ‘wrongful conviction’ arena?
The ‘progressive dynamic element’ Dr Michael Naughton refers to has appeared static to me for years and is evidenced by not only his behaviour but by the behaviour of many within the moj arena
Man wrongly convicted of murder fails in bid to get police officer prosecuted
Excerpt:
“Crucial to their conviction was testimony given by Detective Inspector Stuart Lewis, who claimed he overheard a shouted conversation between Mr O’Brien and Mr Sherwood while they were in cells at the city’s Canton police station. The conversation appeared to amount to a confession that they had committed the murder.
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/michael-obrien-man-wrongly-convicted-6350640
Dr Michael Naughton phoned me after Simon Hall confessed. He and Gabe Tan appeared to have accepted Halls guilt. Gabe Tan was really upset according to Michael. He said he never wanted to hear the name Simon Hall again.
So what changed for Michael Naughton between then and now?
‘Dr Michael Naughton told how he received a letter last week from Hall's wife Stephanie telling him her husband had admitted the murder and asking him to close the case down.
"We are not shocked - we are alive to the possibility that a lot of people who say they are innocent are not.
"We are looking for needles in haystacks in our project.
"It is quite sad in terms of the waste of resources and the distress to (Mrs Albert's) family members when it turns out like this."
And the "thousands of hours" Bristol law students have spent on the Hall case, said Dr Naughton, could easily have been spent on "somebody else's case".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-23630287
Have stated before, I didn’t write a letter to Michael Naughton this is a lie, I emailed him (With the help and assistance of Neil Bellis)
If Simon Hall could con Dr Michael Naughton for all those years how many others has he been conned by?
More importantly is Dr Michael Naughton the type of individual to hold his hands up and admit when he’s been conned? He doesn’t appear to be to me.
I recall when the CCRC referred Simon Hall's case back in 2009. There was a dispute between Campbell Malone and Michael Naughton. I was in the middle of it all, wrongly believing Hall was innocent. The dispute came up again at the COA in 2010. It was about the knife evidence, which the CCRC hadn't referred on.
Private Eye in November 2009, made public that other evidence which could positively prove Simon Hall’s innocence was uncovered by the University of Bristol Innocence Project investigation. This relates to another burglary which occurred on the night of Joan Albert’s murder, just ten minutes away from where she lived.
‘Crucially, students uncovered a statement by a witness, who did not give evidence at trial, who identified the murder weapon as similar, if not identical, to the one that had gone missing from the burgled house: it had the same colour handle, length of blade and rivets on the knife handle. Simon Hall, who has evidence that he was out all night with his friends on the night/morning of Joan Albert’s murder could not have committed the burglary and obtain the knife which could have been used to kill her.
In addition, the schedule of unused material made reference to DNA profile(s) belonging to ‘more than one person’ that were found on the handle of the knife. This DNA evidence has never been disclosed, despite requests from Simon Hall’s original defence solicitor. It is our contention that if it incriminated Simon Hall the DNA profile(s) would have been disclosed and used at trial by the prosecution.
However, within weeks of the University of Bristol Innocence Project highlighting the existence of this evidence, the Criminal Cases Review Commission announced that it was referring his case back to the Court of Appeal on grounds of the possible unreliability of the fibre evidence.
But, the Criminal Cases Review Commission did not fully investigate the possible evidential value of the DNA profile(s) and the witness who identified the murder weapon prior to referring Mr Hall’s case.
This undoubtedly diminished the possible impact that the evidence could have had on the appeal had it been fully explored. As such, although the evidence of the knife and burglary was included as a supplementary ground of appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, it is perhaps not surprising that it did not feature at all in Simon Hall’s appeal.
The failure to fully investigate the DNA profile(s) and the identification of the murder weapon as stolen from the other burglary highlights the extent to which the criminal justice system is not concerned with innocence or guilt.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission and the Court of Appeal generally only consider evidence that was not available or adduced at the time of the trial or in previous appeals. Under the existing system the evidence relating to the other burglary will not be able to be used in any subsequent applications to the Criminal Cases Review Commission or feature in any future appeals.
Until such time as the criminal justice system takes claims of innocence seriously and seeks the truth of whether alleged victims of wrongful convictions are innocent or not, it seems that the door is closed on the evidence which could exonerate Simon Hall entirely and potentially even lead to the conviction of the real perpetrator(s) of Joan Albert’s murder." https://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2010/7432.html
Simon Hall was guilty. He wasn't involved in the Higham burglary because he was too busy with his mate elsewhere burgling Zenith. What many of us had presumed regarding the knife evidence was wrong. The knife found at the murder scene had not been stolen. It came from the kitchen drawer of Hall's victim.
And Dr Michael Naughton appears to have made no effort whatsoever to revise his methodology which is quite clearly flawed and highly misleading
Dr Michael Naughton for example came up with his 'Typology of Prisoners Maintaining Innocence'. He categorises prisoners who maintain innocence into five groups:
Has Dr Michael Naughton ever revised his ‘typology of prisoners maintaining innocence’ ? The answer is no but why did he choose to not include a category for the ‘con artists and wolves in sheep’s clothing’ in the first place?
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
Nov 23, 2019
We need to be very careful not have wolves in sheep's clothing amongst us who claim that they are innocent when they are not and which discredits the innocence movement and the chances of the genuinely innocent overturning their wrongful convictions: http://innocencenetwork.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Michael_Naughton_Factual_Innocence_Legal_Guilt_PSJ_May_2008.pdf
https://mobile.twitter.com/SofaAssoc/status/1198343477744095237
He gave the following speech in 2007 where he refers to his ‘Typology of Prisoners Maintaining Innocence'.
Confronting an uncomfortable truth: Not all victims of alleged false accusations will be innocent!
Excerpts:
‘This short article reports on some of the main points of the talk that I gave at the F.A.C.T. Winter Conference 2007, St Chad's, Birmingham. It questions F.A.C.T.’s central claim that the vast majority of complaints of child abuse made against carers and teachers are fabricated and/or exaggerated. It provides an outline of the ‘typology of prisoners maintaining innocence’ that I have created to assist the efforts of the Innocence Network UK (INUK) to ensure that member innocence projects do not receive unreliable referrals for their case investigations. It, then, puts the ‘typology’ to work, proposing that F.A.C.T. confronts the uncomfortable truth that some F.A.C.T. members may not be innocent, that some members of F.A.C.T. may be supporting alleged innocent victims of false accusation who may not be innocent, and that F.A.C.T. should devise means to identify members who may not be innocent to ensure that it supports only those that are likely to be innocent. Following this, the article engages with the two main responses to my talk in the discussion that followed – that F.A.C.T. takes members on trust that they did not abuse the children that they were accused of abusing, and that to engage in identifying potential abusers within the membership of F.A.C.T. is tantamount to ‘cowering to power’
“The typology of prisoners maintaining innocence (which is also relevant to alleged victims of wrongful conviction who do not receive a custodial sentence) is a work-in-progress construction that I have devised as part of my work with the Innocence Network UK (INUK) in an attempt to provide reliable referrals to member innocence projects for further investigation. It stems, equally, from my concerns that befall all who attempt to support alleged innocent victims of wrongful convictions, i.e. the accusation that we believe and take on trust (discussed further in the next section) that all alleged victims are innocent. In this sense, the typology of prisoners maintaining innocence is a practical demonstration that we (the INUK) do not just believe all who claim innocence but, rather, employ a rigorous screening process that separates prisoners (or alleged innocent victims of wrongful conviction) who are clearly not innocent from those that may be innocent.
https://www.fbga.redguitars.co.uk/michaelNaughtonNov07.pdf
Dr Michael Naughton was Simon Halls representative (In place of a solicitor) when his guilt was exposed in 2013. What did Michael Naughton do following the discovery he’d been conned for all those years? He buried his head in the sand and went on to write the foreword to Michelle Diskin Bates book ‘Stand Against Injustice’
But on what basis did Dr Michael Naughton choose to write the forward of Michelle Diskin Bates book?
Barry George hasn’t proved he’s factually innocent and surely if Michael Naughton knows something the rest of us don’t he would have vocalised it, after all proof of factual innocence in the Barry George case could help him with his claim to compensation.
Why has Dr Michael Naughton chosen to take such a gamble?
-
Why has Dr Michael Naughton chosen to take such a gamble?
By Dr Michael Naughton
‘It must be acknowledged that successful appeals are not evidence of innocence.’
Conclusion
‘The reasons why prisoners maintain innocence are complex and varied: although all prisoners are legally guilty, and most will also be factually guilty, it is equally true that some prisoners who say that they are innocent are likely to be factually innocent. In devising and deploying the typology of prisoners maintaining innocence, the INUK keeps sight of the various
categories of prisoners maintaining innocence who are not innocent and the limits of the criminal justice system that mean that innocent people can be wrongly convicted and may remain unable to overturn their convictions. It is an attempt to marry up the entirely legitimate concerns of those against the wrongful conviction and imprisonment of the innocent with the equally valid concerns of those that attempt to deal with
so-called ‘deniers’ who will not confront their guilt whilst they are in prison and demonstrate a reduced risk of re-offending. The idea is to present the beginnings of a new way of thinking about the problem of prisoners maintaining innocence in the hope that new forms of action are devised and proactively deployed that might more appropriately deal with prisoners who say that they are innocent.
INUK’s typology of prisoners maintaining innocence helps to clarify the different meanings of ‘innocence’ and ‘guilt’ between prisoners maintaining innocence and staff in prisons and the Parole Board, providing a new vocabulary so that the different positions are more clearly understood. As such, it could be utilised for educative purposes to assist prisoners maintaining innocence and prison and parole staff alike to understand the basis and validity of claims of innocence, even facilitating compliance with sentence plans and offence-related programmes by prisoners who realise why they are not innocent. Most crucially, it could be embraced by the post-conviction system to separate the various types of prisoners maintaining innocence as part of the wider remit of contributing to the underpinning goals of the criminal justice system — protecting the innocent and promoting confidence that the system is fair.
http://www.innocencenetwork.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Michael_Naughton_Factual_Innocence_Legal_Guilt_PSJ_May_2008.pdf
-
on September 10, 2013 at 10:04 am Michelle Diskin Bates posted the following comment on the justice gap website
“As a family member of a terrible miscarriage of justice, the victim being Barry George, convicted of the murder of Jill Dando; the Simon Hall confession is a concern because it is already so difficult for true MOJs to be believed by the public; this confession damages the credibility of all those still fighting for justice https://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/2019/05/13/telling-public-statement-made-by-michelle-diskin-bates-sister-of-barry-george-following-simon-halls-confession/
So what have all those individuals who once supported Simon Halls innocence and campaigned to overturn his conviction done in order to get their credibility back?
Michelle Diskin Bates has gone on to tell further bare faced lies about the Jeremy Bamber case, some of which can be found here http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=8088.msg567538#msg567538
What does she think this does to her credibility regarding her brothers case?
Dr Michael Naughton was Simon Halls representative (In place of a solicitor) when his guilt was exposed in 2013. What did Michael Naughton do following the discovery he’d been conned for all those years? He buried his head in the sand and went on to write the foreword to Michelle Diskin Bates book ‘Stand Against Injustice’
Dr Michael Naughton recently stated:
‘Finally, if it is found that an alleged innocent victim of wrongful conviction in a case featured by ETI is not innocent, ETI will cease involvement with the case and any information about the case will deleted from its website. (sic)
http://michaeljnaughton.com/?page_id=3785
No mention of how he will deal with false claims made by people like Michelle Diskin Bates who he refers to as ‘champions’?
Champions
Michelle Bates (sister of Barry George who was wrongly convicted of the murder of British journalist, television presenter and newsreader, Jill Dando)
http://michaeljnaughton.com/?page_id=3707
However if Michelle Diskin Bates *false claims about the Jeremy Bamber case date back to 1985, how many porkies has she told from then to now and what does this say her about her credibility, judgement and integrity?
And even though it has been pointed out to her both here and elsewhere that nighttime TV didn’t exist in 1985 she has chosen to stand by these false claims and carry on regardless.
*People should be mindful of the fact 5 people were murdered (including 6 year old sleeping twin boys) and Michelle Diskin Bates has chosen to make these false claims publicly in support of a man she has never met
-
on September 10, 2013 at 10:04 am Michelle Diskin Bates posted the following comment on the justice gap website
“As a family member of a terrible miscarriage of justice, the victim being Barry George, convicted of the murder of Jill Dando; the Simon Hall confession is a concern because it is already so difficult for true MOJs to be believed by the public; this confession damages the credibility of all those still fighting for justice https://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/2019/05/13/telling-public-statement-made-by-michelle-diskin-bates-sister-of-barry-george-following-simon-halls-confession/
And what about the credibility of those individuals who’s murder convictions were overturned based on confessional evidence for example? How reliable is ‘expert’ opinion in these types of cases?
“It was through his clinical casework in the late 1970s, many years before the Criminal Cases Review Commission was established, that MacKeith became concerned about cases of wrongful conviction arising from false confessions under police interrogation.
He teamed up with a colleague at the Institute of Psychiatry, Dr (now Professor) Gisli Gudjonsson, a psychologist, and their joint research studies and thorough casework were crucial in demonstrating, in the face of substantial initial scepticism, the existence of false confessions: how they arise, and the potential unreliability of criminal convictions based on uncorroborated confessions alone.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1561145/James-MacKeith.html
And who monitors and investigates these cases/individuals once their convictions have been deemed ‘unsafe’ by the CoA?
What protections are in place?
We know from Michelle Diskin Bates book ‘Stand Against Injustice’ that her brother Barry George is still monitored under MAPPA but what about all the others?
-
And what about the credibility of those individuals who’s murder convictions were overturned based on confessional evidence for example? How reliable is ‘expert’ opinion in these types of cases?
I’m of the opinion Dr Michael Naughton won’t openly debate Simon Halls confession because it calls into question cases like that of Michael O’Brien who’s murder conviction was overturned based on ‘confessional evidence’ and it will open up a can of worms he quite clearly wants to avoid at all costs; as it appears do many others.
Michael O’Brien is another bare faced liar who’s been caught out
1999
‘Michael O'Brien has had plenty of time to choose his words carefully. Jailed 11 years ago for a murder he always insisted he did not commit, he and two others yesterday had their convictions quashed by the Court of Appeal.
Standing outside the court yesterday, Mr O'Brien, said: "I have got mixed feelings. I am pleased that my name has been cleared but I also feel for the victim's family. We know who the real killer is - his name has been mentioned in court. It is up to the police to arrest him."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/court-frees-three-over-killing-of-newsagent-739755.html
2008
“I don’t know who killed Mr Saunders, but I certainly have my suspicions about a man who has a violent past, and who once told me in the street that I couldn’t prove anything. I would like the police to pursue that line of inquiry.”
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/obrien-not-guilty-says-lie-2150029.amp?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar&__twitter_impression=true
David Jessel stated in 2013:
“It is a lesson for INUK that you always have to reserve a part of your brain for the possibility that the person you campaign for just might be guilty. A belief in innocence is vital, but not to the exclusion of key critical faculties. I’d like to hear from Michael Naughton on this.
So where do we all go from here – especially in a climate where more innocent people are likely to end up in prison? What’s needed is some sort of breakthrough in a whole category of cases; just as matters such as convictions based on identification, duff forensics or confessions made an impact that went beyond individual cases,
https://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/simon-hall-confession-a-time-to-take-stock-by-professor-julie-price-originally-published-by-jon-robins-of-the-justice-gap/
But what he didn’t appear to recognise then was that there already had been ‘breakthroughs in a whole category of cases’ and that the factually guilty has been jumping on the bandwagon of these types of cases for years.
The prison gossip grapevine is rife, ask Michael O’Brien. As is the ‘wrongful conviction’ arena - ask Hannah Quirk who today tweeted in response to the following news article https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/31/magazine/bloodstain-pattern-analysis-timeline.html?smid=tw-share
Dr Hannah Quirk
@HannahQuirk1
Replying to
@BarryAJFisher
and
@ctmccartney
@jomillington_v1
@insidejusticeUK
4:23 PM · Jan 19, 2020·Twitter Web App
https://mobile.twitter.com/HannahQuirk1/status/1218932040235737090
Excerpt:
’Testimony from bloodstain-pattern analysts is now accepted in courts throughout the country. But in recent years, some scientists and legal scholars have questioned the training of these experts, as well as the validity of the field itself. How did a niche, unproven discipline gain a hold in the American justice system and proliferate state by state?
The modern era of bloodstain-pattern analysis began when a small group of scientists and forensic investigators started testifying in cases, as experts in a new technique. Some of them went on to train hundreds of police officers, investigators and crime-lab technicians — many of whom began to testify as well. When defendants appealed the legitimacy of the experts’ testimony, the cases made their way to state appeals courts. Once one court ruled such testimony admissible, other states’ courts followed suit, often citing their predecessors’ decisions. When discussing the reliability or accuracy of the technique, judges typically relied on their own — or the testifying expert’s own — assessment. Rarely, if ever, have courts required objective proof of bloodstain-pattern analysis’ accuracy.
This is what David Jessel appears to have meant by,
‘some sort of breakthrough in a whole category of cases; just as matters such as convictions based on identification, duff forensics or confessions made an impact that went beyond individual cases,
-
The prison gossip grapevine is rife, ask Michael O’Brien. As is the ‘wrongful conviction’ arena - ask Hannah Quirk who today tweeted in response to the following news article https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/31/magazine/bloodstain-pattern-analysis-timeline.html?smid=tw-share
Dr Hannah Quirk
@HannahQuirk1
Replying to
@BarryAJFisher
and
@ctmccartney
@jomillington_v1
@insidejusticeUK
4:23 PM · Jan 19, 2020·Twitter Web App
https://mobile.twitter.com/HannahQuirk1/status/1218932040235737090
Excerpt:
’Testimony from bloodstain-pattern analysts is now accepted in courts throughout the country. But in recent years, some scientists and legal scholars have questioned the training of these experts, as well as the validity of the field itself. How did a niche, unproven discipline gain a hold in the American justice system and proliferate state by state?
The modern era of bloodstain-pattern analysis began when a small group of scientists and forensic investigators started testifying in cases, as experts in a new technique. Some of them went on to train hundreds of police officers, investigators and crime-lab technicians — many of whom began to testify as well. When defendants appealed the legitimacy of the experts’ testimony, the cases made their way to state appeals courts. Once one court ruled such testimony admissible, other states’ courts followed suit, often citing their predecessors’ decisions. When discussing the reliability or accuracy of the technique, judges typically relied on their own — or the testifying expert’s own — assessment. Rarely, if ever, have courts required objective proof of bloodstain-pattern analysis’ accuracy.
This is what David Jessel appears to have meant by,
‘some sort of breakthrough in a whole category of cases; just as matters such as convictions based on identification, duff forensics or confessions made an impact that went beyond individual cases,
Hannah Quirk here https://mobile.twitter.com/BarryAJFisher/status/1218790693851656192 copied in/tweeted to
Carole McCartney who blogs for an international ‘wrongful conviction’ forum https://wrongfulconvictionsblog.org/
Jo Millington https://mobile.twitter.com/jomillington_v1 who some forum members may remember from her TV work on blood pattern analysis https://www.bafs.org.uk/media/attachments/2019/06/05/jo-millington-dec-2019.pdf
and Inside Justice run by Louise Shorter https://www.insidejustice.co.uk/articles/new-developments-in-blood-evidence-detection/136
By Duncan Campbell,
“Where now for wrongful convictions? Louise Shorter, a former producer on Rough Justice, sees a glimmer of hope. She now works for Inside Justice, the investigative unit attached to the prisoners’ newspaper Inside Time, that was set up in 2010 to investigate wrongful convictions. She acknowledges the current difficulties: “Unravelling a miscarriage of justice case can take a decade or more. Television wants a beginning, middle and end to any story and wants it now, and that’s hard to achieve when the criminal justice wheels turn so very slowly.”
Yet Shorter says that her phone has been ringing off the hook following two successful American ventures: the podcast Serial and the Netflix series Making a Murderer. In September, she presented the two-part BBC documentary Conviction: Murder at the Station, in which she investigated the case of Roger Kearney, who protests his innocence of the murder of his lover Paula Poolton. Her body was found in her car at Southampton train station in 2008. “The media finally latched on to what the public has known for years: real-life whodunnits – or did-they-do-its – always have been and remain immensely popular,” Shorter says.
As Wang Yam awaits his appeal hearing and hundreds of others hope that their cases are heard, let us hope that she is right and that we have not returned to the days when only a “loony MP” or the “mischievous and futile” could challenge the law.
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2017/02/rough-justice-who-looking-out-wrongfully-convicted
Wang Yam lost his appeal to the European Court of Human Rights last week https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/01/16/chinese-criminal-convicted-murdering-reclusive-author-following/
https://www.wntv.uk/european-court-of-human-rights/
The CCRC referred his murder conviction to the CoA in April 2016 https://ccrc.gov.uk/wang-yam/
another article of interest can be found here http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=73.msg570523#msg570523
“In the mean time, Collins hopes that The Innocence Audit will open people's eyes to what goes on behind the scenes when activists are fighting to secure exonerations. "Our study is producing evidence that Innocence Fraud is real," Collins says. "But it can be corrected with education and better standards of care for post-conviction activists and litigators. The ends cannot justify the means when the means are fraudulent."
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2015/05/prweb12701214.htl
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ZEOwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA273&lpg=PA273&dq=the+innocence+audit+john+collins&source=bl&ots=fhmDscsrNl&sig=ACfU3U3JQEhYoe2SnFPdRCnkZWDGmTWvKA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjk-ejynpDnAhVQasAKHf_ODuIQ6AEwA3oECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=the%20innocence%20audit%20john%20collins&f=false
If people like Dr Michael Naughton genuinely cared about injustice and helping the factually innocent he would have carried out something like the ‘innocence audit’ following Simon Halls confession
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ZEOwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA273&lpg=PA273&dq=the+innocence+audit+john+collins&source=bl&ots=fhmDscsrNl&sig=ACfU3U3JQEhYoe2SnFPdRCnkZWDGmTWvKA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjk-ejynpDnAhVQasAKHf_ODuIQ6AEwA3oECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=the%20innocence%20audit%20john%20collins&f=false
the fact he doesn’t appear to have done so and is seen carrying on regardless leaves me to believe he is part of the problem not the solution and as such cannot and should not be trusted.
-
I didn't say that I have concluded that Bamber's was a flimsy conviction. If you re-read what I stated, that part of my post was a justification for the way the system protects people against, and provides relief for, unsafe convictions. Sometimes culpable people do need to be acquitted or have their convictions quashed. These 'errors of impunity' are a price for ensuring we are all protected against, or at least minimally-disadvantaged by, the converse evil: state impunity.
Btw, I'm convinced the Barry George case is an example of an error of impunity
"Errors of impunity is a term used in Brian Forst's book Errors of Justice and in Robert Bohm's introduction to a special edition of The Journal of Criminal Justice on miscarriages of justice. They are defined as lapses that result in criminals either remaining at large or receiving sanctions that are below a socially optimal level.[1][2] If convicting an innocent person, called a miscarriage of justice, is a Type I error for falsely identifying culpability (a "false positive"), then an error of impunity would be a Type II error of failing to find a culpable person guilty (a "false negative").
https://www.revolvy.com/page/Errors-of-impunity
From my point of view the error of impunity in this case; impunity meaning "exemption from punishment or freedom from the injurious consequences of an action, is that Jeremy Bamber is quite clearly not being monitored adequately by HM prison and probation services and this error or lapse has allowed him (and prisoners like him) to con, exploit, manipulate etc people outside of prison.
The impunity enjoyed by Bamber and prisoners like him needs addressing with immediate effect. He may be exempt from punishment for his exploitation of people outside of prison currently but that doesn't mean things won't change in the future.
-
Excerpt from Michelle Diskin Bates blog on mass murderer Jeremy Bamber titled “Justice is never served by the conviction of the innocent" on the 31st Anniversary of the tragedies
https://jeremybamber.blogspot.com/2016/08/justice-is-never-served-by-conviction.html
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@MatthewYoung7
@AndyGcrime
and
@rjmyers
I’ve followed this case since it unfolded in 1985. Unless the TV news bulletins taped over all of their coverage, they should have evidence of how it all played out. I remember hearing that no one was allowed near, in case they caused the person inside to become upset.
7:45 PM · Jan 21, 2020·Twitter for iPad
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1219707691934810113
-
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
3h
Replying to
@J4BenGeen
@Elsie2127
and
@EmpowerInnocent
This is why organisations such as #EmpowerInnocent, and people who highlight miscarriage of justice are so important. If we'd known all of this, before, we might have acted differently for our loved ones. It's why I wrote my book; to enlighten others.
Image https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1219951884070539264
Oh but you’re not
-
harryrag replied
Empowering the Innocent
@EmpowerInnocent
We investigated his claim of innocence to determine its truthfulness & helped get his case referred back to the CoA. We were told that he confessed & then committed suicide but have never seen any evidence that he murdered Joan Albert. How did he do it? The fibres didn’t match?
Quote Tweet
harryrag
@harryrag
3h
Replying to @EmpowerInnocent and @ccrcupdate
Michael Naughton supported convicted killer Simon Hall - who admitted he was guilty.
http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php/tjmk/comments/how_greg_hampikian_abuses_two_positions_of_trust_in_serially_misrepres…
1:34 PM · Oct 21, 2019·Twitter Web App
harryrag
@harryrag
4m
Replying to
@EmpowerInnocent
The defence claimed the fibres didn't match? Well, they would, wouldn't they? The Court of Appeal looked at the forensic evidence and upheld the murder conviction.
http://bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2011/4.html…
harryrag
@harryrag
2m
Replying to
@EmpowerInnocent
What evidence were you expecting? CCTV footage of Simon Hall murdering Joan Albert?
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1186259466725056512
“Empowering alleged innocent victims of wrongful convictions with research, education & support
Project Director, Dr Michael Naughton, University of Bristol.”
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/with_replies
The problem facing many within the miscarriage of justice community/wrongful conviction arena is they don’t “naturally” “revise” their “(prior) belief about H“ as their denial wont allow them to face reality.
https://www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/~norman/papers/probability_puzzles/bayes_evidence.html
Who’s behind this I wonder?
Private Eye Magazine
@PrivateEyeNews
A motive that's been proven not to exist; a total lack of DNA evidence; a "lost" clump of hair from the crime scene and a weapon which is mysteriously absent from video footage: the new edition of Private Eye explores an extraordinary possible miscarriage of justice. In shops now
1:58 PM · Jan 22, 2020·Twitter Web App
https://mobile.twitter.com/PrivateEyeNews/status/1219982614012014592
Seems PrivateEye learned little following the exposure of Simon Halls guilt
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
Following their coverage of PO/Horizon case
@PrivateEyeNews
Private Eye magazine has covered our http://RobinGarbuttOfficial.com shocking miscarriage of justice and headlined it "Appeal on the Horizon" - Please get out and buy it - This is great news for all xx
11:16 AM · Jan 22, 2020·Twitter Web App
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
The piece in Private Eye today really does lend support for Robin Garbutt’s 3rd application to the
@ccrcupdate to refer his conviction for the murder of his wife, Diana, back to the Court of Appeal. Eyes on now firmly on the @ccrcupdate to see how it responds.
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1219989949623275525
‘Robin Garbutt, 46, was jailed for life in April 2011 and ordered to serve a minimum of 20 years in prison.
His trial heard he beat his 40-year-old wife Diana to death in their home above the village store in Melsonby, North Yorkshire, in March 2010.
Three Court of Appeal judges in London said his conviction was safe.
A jury at Teesside Crown Court heard he battered his wife to death in their bedroom before opening their post office and shop.
During the trial, Garbutt claimed an intruder with a gun told him "don't do anything stupid, we've got your wife" before robbing him as he worked, and that moments later he discovered his wife's body in bed in their living quarters.
The fresh material relied on in the appeal related to Post Office records going back to 2004.
Garbutt's trial had been told that part of the reason he killed his wife was that he feared his theft of thousands of pounds from the post office they ran was about to be discovered.
It was submitted on Garbutt's behalf that the pattern shown by the records "cannot be relied upon as demonstrating thefts of Post Office cash".
Announcing the court's decision to reject the challenge, Lord Justice Hughes accepted that if the jury had had the full records, "it would have supported the defendant in something that he said, namely that he had always held large sums in the safe, and the jury would have been likely to take a different view of his credibility generally".
But he added: "The premise on which this appeal has so well been argued is that the jury may have proceeded from theft to murder.
"We have asked ourselves anxiously whether that might be so. We are clear that it cannot be."
He said the court was "quite satisfied that the possibility of there having been the robbery which the defendant described must have been rejected quite independently of the financial evidence".
Lord Justice Hughes concluded: "We are quite satisfied that this conviction is not unsafe and that the late disclosure of the additional Post Office records does not render it so.
"The appeal must accordingly be dismissed."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-18195427
-
Wrongful conviction reforms in the US and the UK: Taking stock
Press release issued: 3 May 2017
‘Dr Michael Naughton and Professor C. Ronald Huff highlight the problems of wrongful convictions and miscarriages of justice in new chapter of "Current Problems of the Penal Law and Criminology," (Plywaczewski, E. and Guzik-Makaruk, E.)
The past few decades have seen a growing interest in, and concern about, the problem of wrongful convictions and miscarriages of justice in many common law jurisdictions. This interest is reflected in scholarly research, in public opinion polls, and in reforms designed to prevent such miscarriages of justice.
Although this trend is clear, there has been less progress in cross-national research focusing on how wrongful convictions occur in different criminal justice systems and what those nations are doing to reduce such errors.
This article discusses the problem of wrongful convictions in the United States and the United Kingdom. It provides an analysis of the effectiveness and shortcomings of recent reform efforts and offers recommendations for future reforms.
A key driver in the U.S. has been the work of The Innocence Project, a national litigation and public policy organisation dedicated to exonerating innocent wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing to determine the truthfulness or otherwise of alleged wrongful convictions.
In sharp contrast to the ways in which alleged wrongful convictions are dealt with in the U.S. DNA is not a dominant feature in attempts to overturn alleged wrongful convictions in the UK or in influencing the reforms that have flowed from them.
The new chapter examines the differences in approach - and how this impacts a person's ability to overturn their conviction.
https://www.bristol.ac.uk/law/news/2017/new-book-chapter-by-dr-michael-naughton-and-professor-c-ronald-huff.html
“A stern warning was issued to crime laboratory administrators that some post-conviction exonerations may have been secured by innocence activists using malicious tactics, or 'innocence fraud', creating potential public safety threats as convicted felons are released from prison.”
https://www.prweb.com/releases/2015/05/prweb12701214.htm
What are Dr Michael Naughton’s thoughts on ‘innocent fraud’ and what has his research thrown up in this area?
-
Who’s behind this I wonder?
Private Eye Magazine
@PrivateEyeNews
A motive that's been proven not to exist; a total lack of DNA evidence; a "lost" clump of hair from the crime scene and a weapon which is mysteriously absent from video footage: the new edition of Private Eye explores an extraordinary possible miscarriage of justice. In shops now
1:58 PM · Jan 22, 2020·Twitter Web App
https://mobile.twitter.com/PrivateEyeNews/status/1219982614012014592
Seems PrivateEye learned little following the exposure of Simon Halls guilt
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
Following their coverage of PO/Horizon case
@PrivateEyeNews
Private Eye magazine has covered our http://RobinGarbuttOfficial.com shocking miscarriage of justice and headlined it "Appeal on the Horizon" - Please get out and buy it - This is great news for all xx
11:16 AM · Jan 22, 2020·Twitter Web App
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
The piece in Private Eye today really does lend support for Robin Garbutt’s 3rd application to the
@ccrcupdate to refer his conviction for the murder of his wife, Diana, back to the Court of Appeal. Eyes on now firmly on the @ccrcupdate to see how it responds.
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1219989949623275525
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
3h
Thank you @EmpowerInnocent for empowering Robin and many others. You know how much this means to http://RobinGarbuttOfficial.com having @PrivateEyeNews covering the case. Hope it helps Robin+so many others x
https://mobile.twitter.com/hanksoff03/status/1220000722282074112
Silly man *&^^&
-
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
3h
Thank you @EmpowerInnocent for empowering Robin and many others. You know how much this means to http://RobinGarbuttOfficial.com having @PrivateEyeNews covering the case. Hope it helps Robin+so many others x
https://mobile.twitter.com/hanksoff03/status/1220000722282074112
Silly man *&^^&
Criminal Cases Review Commission comes under fire by Jon Robins
January 21 2010
“The case of Simon Hall, who was convicted in 2003 of the murder of Joan Albert, 79, has recently been referred to the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC). It is the first time that an alleged miscarriage of justice has found its way to the court because of the investigatory efforts of law students.
Since 2006 Hall’s verdict has been investigated by students at the University of Bristol’s Innocence Project under the supervision of Dr Michael Naughton, a law lecturer.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/criminal-cases-review-commission-comes-under-fire-kg3zg35nrxc
“The University of Bristol Innocence Project is critical of the way in which the Criminal Cases Review Commission had handled its review of Simon Hall’s case.
"Private Eye in November 2009, made public that other evidence which could positively prove Simon Hall’s innocence was uncovered by the University of Bristol Innocence Project investigation. This relates to another burglary which occurred on the night of Joan Albert’s murder, just ten minutes away from where she lived.
"Crucially, students uncovered a statement by a witness, who did not give evidence at trial, who identified the murder weapon as similar, if not identical, to the one that had gone missing from the burgled house: it had the same colour handle, length of blade and rivets on the knife handle. Simon Hall, who has evidence that he was out all night with his friends on the night/morning of Joan Albert’s murder could not have committed the burglary and obtain the knife which could have been used to kill her.
https://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2010/7432.html
-
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
54m
Replying to
@francescrook
@LindaMulcahy7
and
@TheHowardLeague
Absolutely, at Barry George’s retrial for the murder of Jill Dando, a witness did a dock identification! 😱 Pointing she said...it was the defendant I saw. He was unanimously found NOT GUILTY.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1220059542563840000
-
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
The piece in Private Eye today really does lend support for Robin Garbutt’s 3rd application to the
@ccrcupdate to refer his conviction for the murder of his wife, Diana, back to the Court of Appeal. Eyes on now firmly on the @ccrcupdate to see how it responds.
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1219989949623275525
It really doesn’t!
‘The chilling 999 call made by a 'cold-blooded' shopkeeper hours after he bludgeoned his postmistress wife to death was released today after he was jailed for life.
In what would turn into a web of lies - described by a judge as 'pure humbug' - Robin Garbutt told an emergency operator that armed robbers had attacked his wife Diana.
But a jury at Teesside Crown Court rejected the 45-year-old's repeated story that a raider with a gun told him ‘don't do anything stupid, we've got your wife’.
Garbutt, who had already served 60 customers before dialling 999 at 8.37am, had in fact battered Diana to death with an iron bar as she lay in bed up to six hours earlier.
He also told police that the robbers had stolen £10,000 from the shop in the village of Melsonby, North Yorkshire.
But it later emerged that the couple were heavily in debt, including a credit card bill of £30,000, and that Garbutt had known his wife had cheated on him with several men.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1378499/Postmaster-Robin-Garbutt-blamed-robbers-murder-wife-Diana.html
‘A POSTMASTER who pretended to be a devoted husband was jailed yesterday for battering his cheating wife to death.
Robin Garbutt, 45, beat Diana, 40, with a metal bar as she slept then blamed it on a robber.
He was found out when undigested fish and chips proved she died earlier in Melsonby, North Yorks.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/postmaster-robin-garbutt-jailed-for-murdering-178445
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
3h
Excellent Michelle
@Michelle_Diskin
Your book is essential reading, as are the books of others who know first hand that when you are fighting to overturn a wrongful conviction you need to educate yourself on what you are up against & what you need to do to obtain justice.https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/with_replies
It isn’t but I would suggest people read it (free to download at Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stand-Against-Injustice-Michelle-Diskin/dp/1910786241)
According to JB Cachilla for Christian today, there are ‘3 ways Christians manipulate people without knowing it’
Whether or not Michelle Diskin Bates knows it or not (I’ve long suspected she does) I found her story ticked each one
JB Cachilla states,
“One of the things that Christians should avoid doing, then, is to manipulate people. Deceiving people for the purpose of acquiring something or having someone do something is a wrong thing to do. God Himself does not manipulate us into doing His will, so why should we?
That said, there are some Christians who manipulate the unsuspecting and the naïve. There are some Christians, on the other hand, who didn't want to manipulate people, but their actions and words still are deceitful and manipulative. Either way, we should be careful with them.
How Christians manipulate others
If you're a Christian who doesn't know if you're already being manipulated, or if you're a Christian serious in making sure you don't manipulate others, here are some common ways Christians manipulate people.
1) Using the name of God to make people believe what you say
If there's one way Christians use God's name in vain, it's to manipulate others. There are some who use God's name to convince people to believe them, or simply listen to them.
When a person keeps saying "God said" or "thus says the Lord" every time he or she starts explaining something, be careful. The Lord Jesus Himself said that many will come in His name, but they are fakes. They don't deserve our ears.
2) Quoting the Bible to back one's claim
Another way Christians manipulate others is by using God's word to back their claim. Peter said these people "twist [Scripture] to their own destruction" (see 2 Peter 3:16).
One common example is when an abusive husband demands that his wife respect and submit to him according to Ephesians 5:22, ignoring verse 25 that says he must love his wife like Christ loved the church. This can also happen the other way around, with an abusive wife.
Greedy ministers are also another example. They keep talking about tithes and offerings (Malachi 3:10) in order to get more money. They also emphasize their authority over the flock (Romans 13:1), forgetting that they are charged to take care of them (1 Peter 5:1-4) and not abuse them (Ezekiel 34:1-10).
3) Acting religious to make people think you're ok
This one is highly self-defeating. Many Christians act religious in an attempt to hide their struggles and failures. Using a language called "Christianese," such believers may or may not know it but they are operating under pride.
When they commit sin, for example, they start talking about grace and God's forgiveness. But when someone else falls, they suddenly focus on holiness and God's judgment. This, my friends, is hypocrisy at its finest.
Such people do this to gain the admiration of the naïve. They do this to get the spotlight. Again, they may or may not know it, but they are actually lying to themselves and to others.
https://christiantoday.com/article/3-ways-christians-manipulate-people-without-knowing-it/119819.htm
Dr Michael Naughton states in his foreword of Michelle Diskin Bates book ‘Stand Against Injustice’
‘For Michelle, it was a moral obligation that she could not turn away from in good conscience: she says that she knew her brother was innocent and had to stand with him no matter what it cost or what sacrifices had to be made. At the extreme, this involved being away from her three young children and husband in Ireland at vital times in their own lives to be with her brother in England, which is presented as something that she had no choice but to do as it was what God wanted.
This reference to her Christian faith is something that gels well with my experience of other primary and secondary victims of wrongful conviction and imprisonment, particularly those I have met in the United States, who seem more able to survive and move beyond the devastation that miscarriages of justice can and do inflict, and rebuild their lives in ways that those without faith seem less able to do.’
-
from Mark Newby’s
“Of Course the danger of false allegations has arisen for as long as human beings have lived together on this planet. Whilst I am no Bible basher it is worth that remembering that in Exodus 20:16 it was said:
“ You shall not bear false testimony against your neighbor “
https://www.qualitysolicitors.com/jordans/news/2012/11/false-allegations-mark-newby-delivers-richard-webster-memorial-lecture
Worth listening to Dr Michael Naughton’s speech here https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P8EVLJNUGQM especially when he refers to ‘ethical behaviour’.
How Christians manipulate others
1) Using the name of God to make people believe what you say
2) Quoting the Bible to back one's claim
3) Acting religious to make people think you're ok
This one is highly self-defeating. Many Christians act religious in an attempt to hide their struggles and failures. Using a language called "Christianese," such believers may or may not know it but they are operating under pride.
When they commit sin, for example, they start talking about grace and God's forgiveness. But when someone else falls, they suddenly focus on holiness and God's judgment. This, my friends, is hypocrisy at its finest.
Such people do this to gain the admiration of the naïve. They do this to get the spotlight. Again, they may or may not know it, but they are actually lying to themselves and to others.[/i]
https://christiantoday.com/article/3-ways-christians-manipulate-people-without-knowing-it/119819.htm
Dr Michael Naughton states in his foreword of Michelle Diskin Bates book ‘Stand Against Injustice’
‘For Michelle, it was a moral obligation that she could not turn away from in good conscience: she says that she knew her brother was innocent and had to stand with him no matter what it cost or what sacrifices had to be made. At the extreme, this involved being away from her three young children and husband in Ireland at vital times in their own lives to be with her brother in England, which is presented as something that she had no choice but to do as it was what God wanted.
Mark Newby quotes “You shall not bear false testimony against your neighbor “
Unless you are Michelle Diskin Bates patron to the Jeremy Bamber campaign
Dr Michael Naughton stated“she had no choice but to do as it was what God wanted”
Did ‘God’ also tell Michelle Diskin Bates to lie about having watched non existent nighttime TV back in 1985?
Further excerpt from Dr Michael Naughton’s foreword;
‘This may well explain another feature of the book which sets it apart from others of the same genre. Written with great integrity and without even a hint of self pity or hatred towards, or vengeance against those responsible for causing her brothers wrongful conviction or who played a part in preventing its overturn or are currently refusing him compensation. Michelle has a clear focus to simply tell the truth, warts and all.’
“For Michelle, it was a moral obligation that she could not turn away from in good conscience:”
From my viewpoint, her ‘moral conscience’ appears off-kilter, her ‘good conscience’ is highly questionable and her ‘moral obligation’ seems self serving as indeed does Michael Naughton’s.
Incidentally the ‘biblical definition’ of a hypocrite is ’a person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that he or she does not actually possess, especially a person whose actions belie stated beliefs.
@ approx 5.05 here https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P8EVLJNUGQM
Re ‘false testimony’ Dr Michael Naughton states,
‘What’s interesting about that case is Tony Wild who actually did the deal with the prison officers and the police to give this false testimony, we only know about this because he stepped forward when he became a born again Christian and said he couldn’t live with his conscience about what he’d done to Dudley and Maynard. What’s interesting was he wasn’t that much of a believer in God because he wanted anonymity and protection before he admitted that he’d actually given this false testimony.
He goes on (@ around 11.30)
‘Now the thing is when we’re thinking about the question of innocence, a successful appeal against a criminal conviction is not evidence of innocence. Yeah but what this does is it shows us what the key flaws in our system are that the innocent can fall prey to.
Um, so then we’re looking at the appeal system to see, you know, how does the appeal system actually help the innocent who are actually caught up in this. Because of system rightly doesn’t care if you’re innocent or guilty, it’s about process.
I mean it’s, it doesn’t really take a view on guilt or innocence. The criminal trial is about guilt or not guilt to the specific charge that you’ve been charged with.......”]
-
Criminal Cases Review Commission comes under fire by Jon Robins
January 21 2010
“The case of Simon Hall, who was convicted in 2003 of the murder of Joan Albert, 79, has recently been referred to the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC). It is the first time that an alleged miscarriage of justice has found its way to the court because of the investigatory efforts of law students.
Since 2006 Hall’s verdict has been investigated by students at the University of Bristol’s Innocence Project under the supervision of Dr Michael Naughton, a law lecturer.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/criminal-cases-review-commission-comes-under-fire-kg3zg35nrxc
“The University of Bristol Innocence Project is critical of the way in which the Criminal Cases Review Commission had handled its review of Simon Hall’s case.
"Private Eye in November 2009, made public that other evidence which could positively prove Simon Hall’s innocence was uncovered by the University of Bristol Innocence Project investigation. This relates to another burglary which occurred on the night of Joan Albert’s murder, just ten minutes away from where she lived.
"Crucially, students uncovered a statement by a witness, who did not give evidence at trial, who identified the murder weapon as similar, if not identical, to the one that had gone missing from the burgled house: it had the same colour handle, length of blade and rivets on the knife handle. Simon Hall, who has evidence that he was out all night with his friends on the night/morning of Joan Albert’s murder could not have committed the burglary and obtain the knife which could have been used to kill her.
https://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2010/7432.html
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
If not Robin Garbutt (and other alleged innocent victims of wrongful convictions) who? If not now, when?
@ccrcupdate
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1220234272348557317
-
Mark Newby quotes “You shall not bear false testimony against your neighbor “
Unless you are Michelle Diskin Bates patron to the Jeremy Bamber campaign
Dr Michael Naughton stated“she had no choice but to do as it was what God wanted”
Did ‘God’ also tell Michelle Diskin Bates to lie about having watched non existent nighttime TV back in 1985?
Further excerpt from Dr Michael Naughton’s foreword;
‘This may well explain another feature of the book which sets it apart from others of the same genre. Written with great integrity and without even a hint of self pity or hatred towards, or vengeance against those responsible for causing her brothers wrongful conviction or who played a part in preventing its overturn or are currently refusing him compensation. Michelle has a clear focus to simply tell the truth, warts and all.’
“For Michelle, it was a moral obligation that she could not turn away from in good conscience:”
From my viewpoint, her ‘moral conscience’ appears off-kilter, her ‘good conscience’ is highly questionable and her ‘moral obligation’ seems self serving as indeed does Michael Naughton’s.
Incidentally the ‘biblical definition’ of a hypocrite is ’a person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that he or she does not actually possess, especially a person whose actions belie stated beliefs.
@ approx 5.05 here
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P8EVLJNUGQM
Re ‘false testimony’ Dr Michael Naughton states,
‘What’s interesting about that case is Tony Wild who actually did the deal with the prison officers and the police to give this false testimony, we only know about this because he stepped forward when he became a born again Christian and said he couldn’t live with his conscience about what he’d done to Dudley and Maynard. What’s interesting was he wasn’t that much of a believer in God because he wanted anonymity and protection before he admitted that he’d actually given this false testimony.
Duncan Campbell then crime correspondent for the Guardian met with Tony Wild, here’s his version and assessment,
‘Then, out of the blue, in 1995, Wild got in touch. He had become a born-again Christian and was still troubled by the case. He had seen Maynard on one of the documentaries and "he struck me as a very sad figure and I wanted to help him". We met again on the south coast. This time he was much more explicit.
Wild had been facing charges on a series of armed robberies when he decided to give evidence against Maynard and Dudley. "I myself was facing a long time in prison - one of my co-defendants got 20 years," he told me. "I was regarded as of the same seriousness as him.
"I was very naive. I tried to put myself on the mercy of the court and the police and tried to buy goodwill, so to speak. I knew that if I gave evidence it would win me favours. It was indicated that I would receive a short sentence." He concluded:
"I went to court with a bag of lies and offered them as evidence... I have a strong belief that my part tipped things."
He struck me as genuinely troubled by what had happened. No money was ever asked for or paid.
His admission was run as a front-page story in the Guardian. Again he was interviewed by the police, but on the advice of a lawyer he said nothing to them - he did not want to go to jail for perjury. Dudley, through his lawyers, wrote to the home secretary asking for the case to be reviewed. Seven months later the home secretary wrote back, declining to do so. The case languished again. Then the criminal cases review commission looked again at some of the interviews between the accused and the police, and started timing them. Could they really have been conducted in the time claimed? A fresh avenue for appeal was opened up. Wild was approached again. This time he was offered immunity from prosecution if he agreed to tell the truth. Here is what he said:
"I would like to make it clear that the whole of my evidence against Reg Dudley, Bob Maynard and other co-defendants was entirely false in so far as it relates to comments made by them that were incriminatory."
He specified his reason for giving false evidence: that he would get a shorter sentence. He gave evidence that ways had been suggested for him to adjust the evidence to fit the facts. Today the case finally goes to the appeal court, where Wild is due to give evidence - an act of some courage, despite what he did so long ago.
full story here https://www.theguardian.com/g2/story/0,3604,752376,00.html
Dr Michael Naughton’s assessment on Tony Wild was, “he wasn’t that much of a believer in God because he wanted anonymity and protection before he admitted that he’d actually given this false testimony.”
-
“A stern warning was issued to crime laboratory administrators that some post-conviction exonerations may have been secured by innocence activists using malicious tactics, or 'innocence fraud', creating potential public safety threats as convicted felons are released from prison.”
https://www.prweb.com/releases/2015/05/prweb12701214.htm
“When I ask her whether his vulnerable status was taken into consideration during the trial she explains that Barry’s lawyer – Michael Mansfield QC – took the decision not to tell the jury about his mental health problems because the prosecution insisted his previous convictions be included also.
“A conviction against women could well have prejudiced the trial,” she says.
https://www.premierchristianity.com/Past-Issues/2019/April-2019/My-brother-was-wrongly-convicted-of-murdering-Jill-Dando
In October 2018 we became aware, via Michelle Diskin Bates book, that Barry George is still being monitored under MAPPA.
Maybe Michelle Diskin Bates will explain why that is and why she’s chosen not to fight this, as she claimed her brother did ‘using his own money’ and lost.
What danger/s does Barry George still pose?
-
“When I ask her whether his vulnerable status was taken into consideration during the trial she explains that Barry’s lawyer – Michael Mansfield QC – took the decision not to tell the jury about his mental health problems because the prosecution insisted his previous convictions be included also.
“A conviction against women could well have prejudiced the trial,” she says.
https://www.premierchristianity.com/Past-Issues/2019/April-2019/My-brother-was-wrongly-convicted-of-murdering-Jill-Dando
Michael Mansfield QC was asked here https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Mbl[Name removed]nSaOKg @ approx 6.40
‘With today’s advances in forensics, could any of your cases had a different outcome?’
(Worth a listen if interested in Bamber’s recent BS) he refers ‘miscarriages of justice’ cases and something he calls the ‘noble rot’ (which is also the name of a wine bar in the west end) and talks about ‘prejudices and preconditions of who was guilty’
He’s then asked,
“Is it frustrating when you feel the full truth hasn’t been revealed during a trial”
He states,
“I think with every case whatever the result the full truth, some cases reveal the full truth, but often there’s a bigger story to be told.. and I think in all cases the bigger story always surfaces. (Certainly did in the Simon Hall case) Now it may not happen within the lifetime of the person concerned, so it may be historical... a revelation, there are historical revelations.. um..you know surfacing all the time.’
He then talks of the Diana inquest and Jean-Paul James Anderson here:
‘Mohamed Al-Fayed alleged in his July 2005 statement to Operation Paget, and at other times, as a means of causing the Mercedes to swerve and thereby crash into the side of the tunnel. Al-Fayed further alleged that the Fiat Uno was owned by a French photojournalist named Jean-Paul James Andanson,[69] a security services agent according to Fayed,[24] who had photographed Diana while she was at his villa in St. Tropez in July 1997. Andanson's death in May 2000, Al-Fayed claimed, was either due to guilt over what he had done or because he was assassinated by the French or British security services to silence him was being used by MI6
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Diana,_Princess_of_Wales_conspiracy_theories#White_Fiat_Uno_and_James_Andanson
and refers to Jean-Paul James Anderson’s suicide, stating ‘the last thing you do is burn yourself alive’ but sadly some people do and I’ve met several family members where their loved ones have committed suicide and ended their life in this way. Then there’s the case where on the 8th December 2014 a prison officer from HMP Wayland died ‘after his car was found alight in a lay-by on the B1147 at Etling Green. https://www.derehamtimes.co.uk/news/dereham-prison-officer-battled-with-depression-before-suicide-1-4278828
Michael Mansfield QC views and prior beliefs on this type of suicide may have since changed, especially in light of the fact he has since been personally affected by suicide https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=G6eZABLh9JA
He goes on to say,
“you’ve got to break down the image”
The ‘image’ I once had regarding the Barry George case is very different to the ‘image’ I hold now.
If Barry George were as ‘vulnerable’ and as ‘mentally impaired’ as his sister has attempted to have us believe all these years he wouldn’t have been living on his own at the time of the murder for starters. And if she genuinely had concerns for him then as she’s claimed, why was she estranged from him for 12 years?
How did he possess the ability to go to HAFAD to ‘complain’ as she claims he was doing on the day of Jill Dando’s murder and why on that same day was he concerned about looking like the prime suspect unless he was the prime suspect?
Dando accused 'set up alibi' at health centre by Nick Hopkins 15 May 2001
“The man accused of murdering Jill Dando told staff at a health centre that he was worried because he looked like the prime suspect and had been intimidated by the police on another occasion, the Old Bailey heard yesterday.
Barry George, 41, went to Hammersmith and Fulham Action for Disability (Hafad) on the day Ms Dando died in April 1999 and returned there two days later. On the first occasion, he turned up at the centre without an appointment and seemed highly agitated, the jury was told.
Elaine Hutton, the finance director of Hafad, said she had listened to parts of a conversation between George and her colleague Susan Bicknell at the office, in Greswell Street, Fulham, west London.
"I was not listening to the exact wording of the conversation between them. He was quite agitated. I was aware I might need to step in and help," said Ms Hutton.
She said George had a carrier bag of letters expressing dissatisfaction for some of the services he had received from the medical profession in general. She said her colleague had tried to stay calm and focused. She could not deal with him that day and was eventually able to placate him.
-
Michael Mansfield QC was asked here https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Mbl[Name removed]nSaOKg @ approx 6.40
‘With today’s advances in forensics, could any of your cases had a different outcome?’
(Worth a listen if interested in Bamber’s recent BS) he refers ‘miscarriages of justice’ cases and something he calls the ‘noble rot’ (which is also the name of a wine bar in the west end) and talks about ‘prejudices and preconditions of who was guilty’
He’s then asked,
“Is it frustrating when you feel the full truth hasn’t been revealed during a trial”
He states,
“I think with every case whatever the result the full truth, some cases reveal the full truth, but often there’s a bigger story to be told.. and I think in all cases the bigger story always surfaces. (Certainly did in the Simon Hall case) Now it may not happen within the lifetime of the person concerned, so it may be historical... a revelation, there are historical revelations.. um..you know surfacing all the time.’
He then talks of the Diana inquest and Jean-Paul James Anderson here:
‘Mohamed Al-Fayed alleged in his July 2005 statement to Operation Paget, and at other times, as a means of causing the Mercedes to swerve and thereby crash into the side of the tunnel. Al-Fayed further alleged that the Fiat Uno was owned by a French photojournalist named Jean-Paul James Andanson,[69] a security services agent according to Fayed,[24] who had photographed Diana while she was at his villa in St. Tropez in July 1997. Andanson's death in May 2000, Al-Fayed claimed, was either due to guilt over what he had done or because he was assassinated by the French or British security services to silence him was being used by MI6
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Diana,_Princess_of_Wales_conspiracy_theories#White_Fiat_Uno_and_James_Andanson
and refers to Jean-Paul James Anderson’s suicide, stating ‘the last thing you do is burn yourself alive’ but sadly some people do and I’ve met several family members where their loved ones have committed suicide and ended their life in this way. Then there’s the case where on the 8th December 2014 a prison officer from HMP Wayland died ‘after his car was found alight in a lay-by on the B1147 at Etling Green. https://www.derehamtimes.co.uk/news/dereham-prison-officer-battled-with-depression-before-suicide-1-4278828
Michael Mansfield QC views and prior beliefs on this type of suicide may have since changed, especially in light of the fact he has since been personally affected by suicide https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=G6eZABLh9JA
He goes on to say,
“you’ve got to break down the image”
The ‘image’ I once had regarding the Barry George case is very different to the ‘image’ I hold now.
If Barry George were as ‘vulnerable’ and as ‘mentally impaired’ as his sister has attempted to have us believe all these years he wouldn’t have been living on his own at the time of the murder for starters. And if she genuinely had concerns for him then as she’s claimed, why was she estranged from him for 12 years?
How did he possess the ability to go to HAFAD to ‘complain’ as she claims he was doing on the day of Jill Dando’s murder and why on that same day was he concerned about looking like the prime suspect unless he was the prime suspect?
Or maybe they haven’t ?
2017
https://www.nmplive.co.uk/blog/michael-mansfield-interview
-
Michael Mansfield QC was asked here https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Mbl[Name removed]nSaOKg @ approx 6.40
‘With today’s advances in forensics, could any of your cases had a different outcome?’
Michael Mansfield QC states,
‘In order to decide if a case I did say 30 years ago could have had a different outcome, I would obviously have to go back and find the scientists to have a look at the evidence and tell me whether they think they could have had a different outcome. Potentially, with the advent of DNA and so on, yes.
I say potentially because I personally feel there has been too much reliance placed on forensic science because it’s not written in tablets of stone. At the end of the day, science, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. So, it is as much an art as it is a science. Mistakes are made – fingerprinting mistakes, DNA mistakes, it’s not that the science is fallible. The science itself is infallible. Our hands and fingers are all different, so that is not the problem. The problem is not in the science of comparing the twirls and whirls of my little finger with what’s on the piece of paper, because clearly they are capable of being compared, the problem is who does the comparison and what is it they are comparing? Are they looking at the same items and are the same number of the RICH characteristic, used to be 16, are they the same? So you begin to see how the subjective element of science intrudes and that it’s not as objective as one imagines.
Therefore, the answer to your question is that I really don’t know whether science would have made a huge difference. The difference doesn’t lie within science, it lies within another field, in which all of us – lawyers and judges and legislators – have slowly woken up
https://www.nmplive.co.uk/blog/michael-mansfield-interview
There’s no evidence anywhere to suggest Barry George was ‘fitted up’ and even his sister agrees to this; there’s no proof even after 20 odd years!
Leigh Chambers asks: ‘Michelle, Peter there talking about police corruption
You’ve never said in your book that it was corruption that ended with Barry’s conviction
Why, why do you think Barry was the target?
Michelle Diskin Bates replies: “I couldn’t say it was corruption because I had no proof of that and I didn’t want my book to not have integrity I wanted people to be able to trust what I was writing
But what there is proof of is Barry George’s chameleon like behaviour, his use of alternative identities; one in which he was previously convicted under. He was caught by police following women in the weeks prior to his arrest.
How could Barry George’s name have been flagged up by police if this wasn’t the name he’d been using?
-
Michael Mansfield QC states,
‘In order to decide if a case I did say 30 years ago could have had a different outcome, I would obviously have to go back and find the scientists to have a look at the evidence and tell me whether they think they could have had a different outcome. Potentially, with the advent of DNA and so on, yes.
I say potentially because I personally feel there has been too much reliance placed on forensic science because it’s not written in tablets of stone. At the end of the day, science, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. So, it is as much an art as it is a science. Mistakes are made – fingerprinting mistakes, DNA mistakes, it’s not that the science is fallible. The science itself is infallible. Our hands and fingers are all different, so that is not the problem. The problem is not in the science of comparing the twirls and whirls of my little finger with what’s on the piece of paper, because clearly they are capable of being compared, the problem is who does the comparison and what is it they are comparing? Are they looking at the same items and are the same number of the RICH characteristic, used to be 16, are they the same? So you begin to see how the subjective element of science intrudes and that it’s not as objective as one imagines.
Therefore, the answer to your question is that I really don’t know whether science would have made a huge difference. The difference doesn’t lie within science, it lies within another field, in which all of us – lawyers and judges and legislators – have slowly woken up
https://www.nmplive.co.uk/blog/michael-mansfield-interview
There’s no evidence anywhere to suggest Barry George was ‘fitted up’ and even his sister agrees to this; there’s no proof even after 20 odd years!
But what there is proof of is Barry George’s chameleon like behaviour, his use of alternative identities; one in which he was previously convicted under. He was caught by police following women in the weeks prior to his arrest.
How could Barry George’s name have been flagged up by police if this wasn’t the name he’d been using?
Scientists are a bit like lawyers then, each one potentially as useless as the next.
-
Scientists are a bit like lawyers then, each one potentially as useless as the next.
Here’s Mr Mansfield on his politics https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wZ_67uydbJY and renaming his lecture,
‘Under the radar’
-
I’m of the opinion Dr Michael Naughton won’t openly debate Simon Halls confession because it calls into question cases like that of Michael O’Brien who’s murder conviction was overturned based on ‘confessional evidence’ and it will open up a can of worms he quite clearly wants to avoid at all costs; as it appears do many others.
So instead he appears to have latched onto others cases using that same ‘ole chestnut, not dissimilar to what Sandra Lean appears to have done with cases like Matthew Hamlen etc
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
3h
So many problems & unanswered questions with the conviction of Robin Garbutt for the murder of his wife, Diana, yet the @ccrcupdate have so far rejected 2 applications. Let’s hope that it fares better with his 3rd. If Robin Garbutt is innocent the real murderer remains at large.
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1220687788900786179
If people like Dr Michael Naughton genuinely cared about injustice and helping the factually innocent he would have carried out something like the ‘innocence audit’ following Simon Halls confession
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ZEOwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA273&lpg=PA273&dq=the+innocence+audit+john+collins&source=bl&ots=fhmDscsrNl&sig=ACfU3U3JQEhYoe2SnFPdRCnkZWDGmTWvKA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjk-ejynpDnAhVQasAKHf_ODuIQ6AEwA3oECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=the%20innocence%20audit%20john%20collins&f=false
the fact he doesn’t appear to have done so and is seen carrying on regardless leaves me to believe he is part of the problem not the solution and as such cannot and should not be trusted.
Doesn’t mean he hasn’t and appearances can be deceptive
Why doesn’t Michael Naughton tell Robin Garbutt and those campaigning for him to publicise the CCRC’s previous statements of reasons. Let the public be the judge.
Instead he appears to be leading people like hanksoff03 up the garden path and some of us know where that leads.
-
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
3h
Replying to
@J4BenGeen
@Elsie2127
and
@EmpowerInnocent
This is why organisations such as #EmpowerInnocent, and people who highlight miscarriage of justice are so important. If we'd known all of this, before, we might have acted differently for our loved ones. It's why I wrote my book; to enlighten others.
Image https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1219951884070539264
Oh but you’re not
https://fakeologist.com/forums/topic/the-assassination-of-tv-host-jill-dando-26499/
March 2014
”Wonder where they tucked George away since his “arrest” in May 2000. Supposedly since his 2008 “release” he’s been living with his older sister Michelle Diskin in Ballincollig, a one-horse town in Co Cork. Seems a bit close-knit, and too close to Blighty – and Blighty Media -for comfort.
Sim-sister Michelle Diskin is a suitably slippery fish. In her photo albums on her Farcebook page, we find a very simmy looking family. And not one pic of her beloved brother Barry! Even though he moved out to Ireland after his acquittal “to be near us”..”so we could support him” &c, says big sis Michelle. Bazza ate his Xmas lunch on his tod then, eh?!
Nutwork hasn’t even bothered to synchronise the press reports and the social media accounts for Michelle Diskin. According to the Brummie Mail (see above) and fecesbook, Michelle is still living with Barry and her three adult kids in Co Cork. But on Twitter, she’s now living in Northampton with new fella Peter Bates. (Michelle’s first hubby Irishman Pat Diskin “died 2007 of a brain tumour”, for those who’d forgotten!)
And don’t you just love this (solitary) wedding photo posted up on facebook by Michelle Diskin and new husband Peter Bates..
THAT is the best snap they could find of their lovely day!?
Married on paper, but keeping the new hubby under wraps, or her options open?! And, no surprise, there’s no sign of Barry at the wedding, either. But maybe it was him behind the camera?!…
-
I’m of the opinion Dr Michael Naughton won’t openly debate Simon Halls confession because it calls into question cases like that of Michael O’Brien who’s murder conviction was overturned based on ‘confessional evidence’ and it will open up a can of worms he quite clearly wants to avoid at all costs; as it appears do many others.
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
It is shameful that Cheshire police refuse to apologise to Paul Blackburn for his 25 years in prison, but they have no shame. They simply don’t care: “Police reject judge's call to apologise over wrongful conviction.”
Police reject judge's call to apologise over wrongful conviction
Evidence of Cheshire force that led to 1978 imprisonment of Paul Blackburn ‘absurd’
theguardian.com
5:54 AM · Jan 14, 2020·Twitter for iPhone
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1216961832625287168
The Paul Blackburn case reminds me in parts to that of Stephen Downing. The police appear to be suggesting there aren’t other suspects?!
However Michael Naughton needs to look at his own behaviour before casting aspersions. The fact he chooses to not publicly discuss ‘innocent fraud’ suggests to me his personal agenda/s outweigh the truth!?
A doctor calls -- Dr Eric Shepherd, a man who can suss the psychology of the police station - 23 February 1994
Excerpt:
‘And while Dr Shepherd has become to the police 'the man they love to hate' (according to the Police Review), he may soon turn into 'the man they can't forget' to the legal profession.In conjunction with members of the Law Society's criminal law committee, Dr Shepherd has just produced a large training package on police station skills for solicitors' representatives.Its publication could not have come at a more opportune time, with research from the University of Warwick purporting to show a woeful inability on the part of legal advisers to counteract dubious police interviewing tactics.But what really gave the profession a kick in the pants was the Legal Aid Board's decision that all non-qualified legal representatives (except trainee solicitors) should pass a test and be registered by early next year if they were to continue to receive payment from public funds.Dr Shepherd's expertise was commissioned and the end result was Police Station Skills for Legal Advisers.
https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/a-doctor-calls-dr-eric-shepherd-a-man-who-can-suss-the-psychology-of-the-police-station-/19495.article
REGINA V BLACKBURN (Paul)
Introduction
1. On 18th December 1978, in the Chester Crown Court before Bristow J, the appellant, Paul Blackburn, who was then aged 15, was convicted of attempted murder and attempted b....ry. On the first of those counts he was sentenced to detention for life, with a two year concurrent sentence of detention for the other offence. An application by him for leave to appeal against conviction and sentence was refused by the single judge and a renewed application to like effect was dismissed by the Full Court on 17th March 1981.
2. In 1996 the Secretary of State refused to refer the case to the Court of Appeal under section 17 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968 ("the 1968 Act").
3. The appellant was eventually released in March 2003, having served over 24 years.
4. His conviction now comes before this court as a result of a reference dated 9th August 2004 by the Criminal Cases Review Commission under section 9 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1995. By virtue of that same section the reference is to be treated as an appeal by Mr Blackburn under section 1 of the 1968 Act.
The factual context
5. The charges faced by the appellant arose out of a vicious assault on a nine year old boy, "L". There was no doubt that someone had carried out such an assault. The issue at trial was whether it had been the appellant.
6. The attack took place on the afternoon of Sunday 25th June 1978, probably at around 4.30 pm. The victim, L, was walking by a canal near an area known as Seven Arches, Great Sankey, Warrington, when he was accosted by a youth who threatened him with a knife. L was made to go with the youth to a nearby disused sewage works, where he was forced into a brick shelter. There he was made to remove his clothes and to perform oral sex on the youth, who then attempted to commit anal rape on him, ejaculating down the victim's leg. The victim was then kicked repeatedly and stabbed before being covered with a board and a large quantity of heavy bricks.
7. When the victim failed to return home the police were informed and a search commenced. The following day, some 28 hours after the attack, he was found still concealed in the disused sewage works. He was alive but badly injured. It was patently a horrific attack.
8. The appellant's home was about 600 yards from Seven Arches. In fact, in 1978 he was at an approved school known as Red Bank, where he had been sent by court order for offences of burglary and arson. That order was a secure care order and the appellant was in the secure unit at the approved school. But on the weekend of 24th/25th June that year he was on home leave. He was then aged 14. At his home there were four siblings, including a 16 year old brother, Fred. Another older brother, Harry, lived with his wife at another address in Great Sankey which also was within walking distance of the scene of the crime.
9. The victim was found at about 9 pm on the Monday. Tuesday's Daily Mirror reported that he had been found alive but gave no description of the attacker. A local newspaper, the Post & Chronicle, that evening gave a description, including a reference to long gingery brown curly hair, a description repeated in another local paper on the Friday. The appellant at trial denied seeing either of these two local papers. The possible relevance of this was that there was evidence at trial about the appellant having asked to have his hair cut at Red Bank approved school. This evidence came from two members of staff at the school, Mrs Forrester and Mrs Selby, in the form of witness statements taken on 7th August 1978, some six weeks later. Mrs Forrester testified that on Tuesday 27th June the appellant had asked her to cut his hair, which was unusual for him. Mrs Selby's evidence was that this was on Monday 26th June, which would have been before any press report that L had been found alive, but she also said that on the Friday of that week he had requested her to cut his hair again, saying that Mrs Forrester had not made a good job of it.
10. The appellant was first interviewed by the police on 3rd July 1978, just after his fifteenth birthday. He gave a witness statement in which he said that he had been at his home on the relevant Sunday for the whole afternoon. He was again interviewed on 13th July and made a second witness statement in which he stated that he was with a friend, Tony Chadwick, until 1.30 pm and then returned home. He said that later that afternoon he again went out and returned at about 4.10 pm. On 14th July 1978 he was questioned by Detective Chief Inspector White and Detective Inspector Marsh for a period of two hours, not under caution, regarding the discrepancies in his previous accounts and was told that he fitted the description of the attacker. On this occasion he refused to take part in an identification parade or to provide hair samples and was verbally abusive towards the officers.
11. Meanwhile, on 12th July the police had interviewed the appellant's brothers, Fred and Harry Blackburn. Fred Blackburn initially confessed to the attack but retracted his confession shortly after his mother was allowed to speak to him.
12. At other stages in the course of these events two other youths also confessed to the attack but subsequently withdrew their confessions.
13. Then on 21st July 1978, DCI White and DI Marsh returned to Red Bank school to interview the appellant again. By now the officers had information about an apparently somewhat similar attack at Irlam involving the appellant two years before. In his evidence at trial, DI Marsh was to say that by 21st July, the date of this interview, the appellant was the principal suspect, "my number 1". The appellant was interviewed by the officers in the presence of Mr Frederick McVitie, the house warden. There is no evidence that the appellant was told at any stage before or during this interview that he was entitled to legal advice, and no solicitor was present at any stage during the lengthy interview.
14. The interview was conducted in three stages. The first began at 9.30 am. Between then and 11.15 am the appellant made a further witness statement, giving another detailed account of his movements on Sunday 25th June. He and Mr McVitie then signed that statement. At about 11.20 am the second stage began, during which the appellant was questioned by the officers under caution. He was questioned about discrepancies between his statements and between his statements and those of others. Then the officers went on to refer to the Irlam events in 1976, when the appellant and another boy had been convicted of actual bodily harm on two nine year old boys. It was now said to the appellant that the incident had gone beyond a physical assault and had involved forcing the two boys to suck each other's penis and to try to commit b....ry with each other. The appellant was told that the police now had statements from the two boys and another boy who witnessed it. The officers denied, during the course of a voir dire, that they had told the appellant that there might be further charges arising out of the 1976 events, whereas the appellant at the voir dire said that DCI White had been shouting at him and saying that if he did not come clean he would be charged both with the attack on L and with further charges arising from the 1976 incident. Mr McVitie's evidence on the voir dire was that the officers did say that there was a possibility of a further charge arising out of the 1976 incident but he did not get the message that this was a threat.
15. In any event, at 12.40 pm during this fourth interview, immediately after these references to the 1976 incident, the appellant dropped his head and began to cry. He said "Yes, it was me -- give me a minute". He then looked at Mr McVitie, who said words to the effect: "It's up to you, Paul, the officers only want the truth".
The submissions of the parties
23. What is said on behalf of the appellant is that his admissions, whether oral or written, were obtained in circumstances which were likely to render them unreliable and they should therefore have been excluded.
Mr Owen QC submits that the court must judge that issue in the light of current standards of fairness and of our present knowledge of the phenomenon of false confessions. He refers to a number of authorities to that effect, including Roberts (unreported, 19th March 1998) and Abid Hussain [2005] EWCA Crim 31.The point was made in the latter case at paragraph 28 that, where there was a breach of the rules in force at the time of trial, the significance of that breach is to be assessed according to the present-day approach.
27. The Crown resisted the appellant's application to call fresh evidence by Dr Eric Shepherd, a consultant forensic psychologist, who has extensive experience of interrogation methods and of their effects. Lord Carlile QC, on behalf of the Crown, did not question Dr Shepherd's expertise, but argued that his evidence was not admissible because it did not address matters outside the range of experience of a jury. Dr Shepherd, said Lord Carlile, would merely be giving general evidence about how 15 year old boys might react to lengthy questioning. Moreover, there was no suggestion here of any abnormal disorder on the part of the appellant, who had not even been examined or interviewed by Dr Shepherd before the latter had written his report. The Crown placed some reliance on a passage from the case of O'Brien, Hall and Sherwood [2000] Crim LR 676, which suggested that, in cases where the expert evidence related to the existence of an abnormal disorder on the part of the accused, the disorder had to be of a kind which might render the confession unreliable.
28. We ruled during the hearing that Dr Shepherd's evidence was admissible and we received it under section 23. His evidence concerns the phenomenon of false confessions and the circumstances in which research has shown that a vulnerable individual, after a prolonged period of questioning, may give what is termed a coerced compliant confession. It seemed to the court that this was a topic which would generally fall outside the normal range of experience of a jury and that it was therefore one on which expert evidence was properly admissible. The case of O'Brien has little bearing on this issue. The passage there relied on by Lord Carlile applies where there is some evidence about an abnormal disorder on the part of the accused. That is not this case. O'Brien was not intended to be a comprehensive statement as to the circumstances when expert evidence will be admissible on the reliability of a confession.
https://www.casemine.com/judgement/uk/5b46f2072c94e0775e7f0c08
Conviction unsafe on man who spent 25 years in prison
‘The Court of Appeal did not address the issue of his guilt or innocence yesterday, but Lord Justice Keene, sitting with Mr Justice Newman and Mr Justice Walker, accepted that he did not receive a fair trial at Chester Crown Court in 1978 and that his conviction was therefore unsafe.
Mr Blackburn's lawyer, Glyn Maddocks, said it was a major miscarriage of justice. "It is a disgrace. How can this happen in a civilised society?
"The trial judge said Paul should serve six to 10 years. Well, he was still there 16 years later. He got lost in the system. It is appalling."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1490753/Conviction-unsafe-on-man-who-spent-25-years-in-prison.html
CCRC
@ccrcupdate
Paul Blackburn's case was referred for appeal by @ccrcupdate in 2004 and his conviction was quashed in 2005. This article and associated podcast about his struggle to get an apology from the police.
The Guardian @guardian Jan 13
Police reject judge's call to apologise over wrongful conviction https://theguardian.com/law/2020/jan/13/police-reject-judges-call-to-apologise-over-wrongful-conviction utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium=&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1578896509…
10:41 AM · Jan 13, 2020·Twitter Web App
https://mobile.twitter.com/ccrcupdate/status/1216671705541816320
-
Consultant solicitor Glynn Maddocks talking of the Paul Blackburn case@ approx 25.30 here https://www.lawsociety.org.uk/practice-areas/human-rights/interview-with-glyn-maddocks/
states,
“.....but his confession was interesting in as much as he used words that no 14 year old with his educational background would ever have used”
Paul Blackburn (14 years old)
"Yes, it was me -- give me a minute"
If Paul Blackburn wasn’t responsible, who was?
Mr Maddocks goes on to say,
“I say this without doubt, he’s the most strong willed person I’ve ever come across”.
But couldn’t someone like Charles Salvador (better known as Charles Bronson) be described this way?
‘Charles Salvador, previously known as Charles Bronson, has been in prison for most of the last 45 years and wants to waive his right to privacy and for his next parole hearing to be held in ‘the full public glare’.
or Jeremy Bamber?
strong-willed
/ˌstrɒŋˈwɪld/
adjective
determined to do as one wants even if other people advise against it
Who knew Paul Blackburn when he was 14 years old and what was he like back then? What did psychology reports suggest?
What does Paul Blackburn say he was like as a 14 year old?
The appellant's home was about 600 yards from Seven Arches. In fact, in 1978 he was at an approved school known as Red Bank, where he had been sent by court order for offences of burglary and arson. That order was a secure care order and the appellant was in the secure unit at the approved school. But on the weekend of 24th/25th June that year he was on home leave.
What was behind his offending behaviour at such a young age?
And if Paul Blackburn didn’t complete any offending behaviour work, how was he rehabilitated for his previous offending behaviour, or did he ‘grow out of it’ whilst in prison?
‘The Guardians Peter Walker reported on Paul’s case a decade ago and it’s a story he’s been unable to shake’
He states,
“At the time I was completely struck by both by the appalling injustice of his case also by what a fascinating person he was.
He is someone who is completely self educated, he came from a very chaotic background but educated himself in prison. Fought against the system, won this appeal.
He’s very stubborn, he’s fiercely charismatic , he’s very very bright and I always wanted to come back to the case to see where Paul was now, 10 years on.”
https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2020/jan/13/why-did-paul-blackburn-spend-25-years-jail-for-crime-didnt-commit
Paul Blackburn was friendly with Stephanie Bon, who I know visited and stayed with him at his house on the coast some years ago. I’d be interested for Mr Blackburn to share his experiences, especially to see if the rumours were true or not?! (Many of which came from Simon Hall, though there were photos of them both)
“It's only been a few months now since I've had my own house. Before that I just flitted from place to place to place," says Blackburn, now a lean, crop-haired 45-year-old with greying stubble. "I've lived on sofas on floors, lived on the streets, lived in tents. Anything, anywhere, just not to stand still.
"I couldn't stand still. I was too afraid. Too afraid of what might happen if I stood still as I thought I would end up killing myself. That was the biggest worry when I got out of prison, that there would be nobody left to fight, and I'd just commit suicide, that it was the fight which was keeping me going.
"I still have nightmares. I wake up and there's a person-sized pool of sweat on the bedsheets."
I'd been locked up since I was 15 years old. I'm now getting out at the age of 40. Never mind the movie, I was a 40-year-old virgin. It was scary shit for me. And there was nobody there to help me. My probation officer was decent in her way but she was embarrassed to speak to me about some things."
Self-educated, charismatic and fiercely articulate, Blackburn has forged something of a post-prison role addressing academics and professional conferences about his experiences, and what can be learned from them.
But any initial impression of composed self-assuredness is deeply misleading. Beset since he left jail by intermittent drug and alcohol abuse, an inability to form lasting relationships and what he calls "a serious, serious problem" of contemplating suicide, Blackburn's ordeal moulded him into a mass of contradictions.
“For 25 years I pretty much lived totally within my own head," he says. "My emotions have been cut off completely pretty much my whole life. To open up to another person and be open – I didn't know how to do it."
"There has never been anything official, and there never, ever will be," Blackburn says. "So far we've had one letter back from the [Cheshire police] which basically says: 'Tough shit, f..k off. We're admitting nothing and we never will.'"
“It was real good cop, bad cop stuff. All very obvious, but when you're a kid it's terrifying," Blackburn says.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/jun/09/paul-blackburn-wrongly-convicted
Thought they were both ‘bad cops’?
Would be interested to hear how ‘terrifying’ it was for Paul Blackburn when he ‘started fires and committed burglary’ as ‘a kid’ (offences of burglary and arson) and who the victims of these crimes were?
‘Blackburn's ordeal moulded him into a mass of contradictions’
This for me on its own is a red flag, however I’d like to hear Paul Blackburn’s thoughts on the exposure of Simon Halls guilt.
-
If people like Dr Michael Naughton genuinely cared about injustice and helping the factually innocent he would have carried out something like the ‘innocence audit’ following Simon Halls confession
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ZEOwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA273&lpg=PA273&dq=the+innocence+audit+john+collins&source=bl&ots=fhmDscsrNl&sig=ACfU3U3JQEhYoe2SnFPdRCnkZWDGmTWvKA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjk-ejynpDnAhVQasAKHf_ODuIQ6AEwA3oECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=the%20innocence%20audit%20john%20collins&f=false
the fact he doesn’t appear to have done so and is seen carrying on regardless leaves me to believe he is part of the problem not the solution and as such cannot and should not be trusted.
2020
‘Has anyone at the CCRC got the time, please?’
reads the header of an article written by Dr Michael Naughton, published today on (honorary Dr) Jon Robins Justice Gap website here https://www.thejusticegap.com/has-anyone-at-the-ccrc-got-the-time-please/
Dr Michael Naughton states,
‘I was astonished to learn earlier this week that the CCRC keeps no records at all on how much time that it spends working on cases’
Maybe he’s been too busy calculating and recording his own time?
2013
‘And the "thousands of hours" Bristol law students have spent on the Hall case, said Dr Naughton, could easily have been spent on "somebody else's case".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-23630287
Surely this would have flagged up during Carolyn Hoyle and Mai Sato’s ‘in-depth analysis of case files and interviews the authors scrutinize the Commission’s operational practices, its working rules and assumptions
https://ccrc.gov.uk/research-at-the-ccrc/published-research-on-the-ccrc/ or weren’t these questions asked?
Michael Naughton goes on,
‘The CCRC’s response also means that applicants are unable to evaluate the thoroughness, or otherwise, of reviews into lines of inquiry that they request in their applications.
But, despite this, applicants are expected to simply ‘trust’ that CCRC case review managers are managing their cases ‘effectively’.
Well, trust is something that must be earned and with 99% of applications currently being rejected by the CCRC (here) it is not something that alleged miscarriage of justice victims and the organisations and groups that support them feel inclined to do”
Would be interested to hear why Dr Michael Naughton seems to be suggesting he trusted the CCRC even after discovering Simon Hall had conned them and their review processes all the way to the CoA and his case was under further review when his guilt was exposed in 2013
He concludes,
“It just may, however, have the effect of further enhancing notions that the CCRC is a law unto itself that obscures rather than illuminates justice, which could, hopefully, strengthen the Empowering the Innocent (see here) campaign for its reform or replacement with a body that is fit for the purpose of assisting innocent victims to overturn their wrongful convictions.”
‘a law unto itself that obscures rather than illuminates justice’ which for me, given the circumstances, in itself is an extremely interesting psychological projection
justice
/ˈdʒʌstɪs/
noun
1.
just behaviour or treatment.
"a concern for justice, peace, and genuine respect for people"
The CCRC doesn’t look at factual innocence or factual guilt, as Dr Michael Naughton well knows.
Their website claims,
‘The Criminal Cases Review Commission is the public body responsible for investigating alleged miscarriages of criminal justice in England, Wales and Northern Ireland https://ccrc.gov.uk/
‘The Criminal Cases Review Commission is the independent organisation set up to investigate suspected miscarriages of justice from magistrates courts, the Crown Court in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and the Court Martial and Service Civilian Court. https://ccrc.gov.uk/about-us/
Twitter response to Dr Michael Naughton’s article:
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
2h
I think my heart broke a little bit more when I read this Michael
@EmpowerInnocent
... should more ask the same question as Mick
@J4BenGeen
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
2h
Oh my gosh, how can this be? All the years of hard work on http://RobinGarbuttOfficial.com`s case+the powers that be don`t even keep records...
“The irony of his second trial was that, in many ways, the very evidence used to portray Mr George as a killer echoed the facts employed in his defence. The Crown insisted that his obsessive behaviour proved he was Ms Dando's murderer but his supporters were equally adamant such failings pointed to a man incapable of carrying out an efficient, cold-blooded murder.
His sister, Michelle Diskin, insisted he was simply a "vulnerable, naive" eccentric, and a psychiatrist called by the defence said his ability to plan and organise tasks was abnormally low, in the bottom 1 per cent of the country.
-
http://“In 1981 George was again trying to make headlines. Somehow he persuaded a stadium in Derby to stage a stunt in which he jumped over a row of double decker buses on his rollerskates.
The stadium sold hundreds of tickets for the event. At the last moment having seen the platform and ramp which had been constructed George tried to back down but plucked up courage and managed to complete the leap
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/jul/03/jilldando.media5
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-1890544/Video-Barry-George-attempts-rollerskate-four-double-decker-buses.html
In the video Barry George, who was going by the name Steve Majors at the time, initially claimed he’d never practiced before but as the interview progresses he then claims to have been planning and practicing for 4 years.
Early on in the interview the journalist calls him ‘a ’nutter’ which may well be where the media and the courts got this description.
‘In court it was said he was a "local nutter" with a personality disorder but his family said he was a "naive eccentric".
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/life/books/why-barry-george-is-still-haunted-by-his-wrongful-conviction-of-jill-dandos-murder-and-how-he-joined-mourners-in-belfast-to-say-farewell-to-gerry-conlon-37567516.html
“But George was not just a performer. He could be predator too.
In March 1980 an actress called June Elvin, who had appeared in Ealing films and the police series Z Cars, was confronted by a man as she walked into the entrance hall of her block of flats in Barons Court, west London.
"He pulled open one side of the gates to the lift, I did the other," she said. "It was a tiny lift with only room for two. Halfway up he stopped the lift and attacked me. He tried to touch me, to put my hand up my skirt. I screamed and shouted and fought back."
The man fled when a friend of Ms Elvin's heard the commotion and ran to help.
Though he was acquitted of this offence in June 1981, George was convicted of assaulting another woman.
According to reports of this case, George followed the civil servant and asked her out. When she rejected him, he grabbed her breasts and tried to put his hand up her skirt. He received a three-month suspended prison sentence.
Nevertheless, in late 1981 and early 1982 he was stopped by police on three different occasions over allegations that he was harassing women.
Are these the actions of a ‘naive eccentric’ ?
“Michelle's book doesn't focus entirely on her brother's case. She says she also wrote it to inform the public about "what the justice system is doing" and she has also highlighted a number of other cases of miscarriage of justice which concern her.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-1890544/Video-Barry-George-attempts-rollerskate-four-double-decker-buses.html
Lol @)(++(*
Well done Bazza 8@??)(
Would be interested to know if Holly Goodhead would praise Barry George’s ‘darker side’ ?
“The irony of his second trial was that, in many ways, the very evidence used to portray Mr George as a killer echoed the facts employed in his defence.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/bizarre-life-of-a-fantasist-caught-in-the-wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time-883240.html
I’ve long been of the firm opinion Barry George’s campaign of ‘innocence’ has been nothing more than an illusion
Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
4h
Good grief...people don’t have enough work to do! #getalife There are more important things to get agitated about than TV presenters https://mobile.twitter.com/EveningStandard/status/1118094287059603456
The irony of this comment appears lost on Michelle Diskin Bates supporters
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
3h
Replying to
@J4BenGeen
@Elsie2127
and
@EmpowerInnocent
This is why organisations such as #EmpowerInnocent, and people who highlight miscarriage of justice are so important. If we'd known all of this, before, we might have acted differently for our loved ones. It's why I wrote my book; to enlighten others.
Image https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1219951884070539264
Who’s playing who or are they playing each other?
What does Michelle Diskin Bates mean when she claims, to Dr Michael Naughton,
“If we’d known all of this before, we might have acted differently for our loved ones”
‘known‘ all what before and how would she have ‘acted differently’?
There’s no evidence anywhere to suggest Barry George was ‘fitted up’ and even his sister agrees to this; there’s no proof even after 20 odd years!
Michael Mansfield QC is asked here
https://www.nmplive.co.uk/blog/michael-mansfield-interview
‘Is it frustrating when you feel the full truth hasn’t been revealed during a trial?
He states,
“I think that in every case, whatever the result - some cases reveal the full truth but often there is a bigger story to be told, and I think in all cases the bigger story always surfaces. Now, it may not happen within the lifetime of the person concerned, so it may be historical revelations, and there are historical revelations that surface all the time.
-
I’ve long been of the firm opinion Barry George’s campaign of ‘innocence’ has been nothing more than an illusion
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
3h
Replying to
@J4BenGeen
@Elsie2127
and
@EmpowerInnocent
This is why organisations such as #EmpowerInnocent, and people who highlight miscarriage of justice are so important. If we'd known all of this, before, we might have acted differently for our loved ones. It's why I wrote my book; to enlighten others.
Image https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1219951884070539264
What does Michelle Diskin Bates mean when she claims, to Dr Michael Naughton,
“If we’d known all of this before, we might have acted differently for our loved ones”
‘known‘ all what before and how would she have ‘acted differently’?
To fully understand the above tweet it might be helpful to show the circumstances that form the setting for the statement made by Michelle Diskin Bates
Mick,
Things are not going to change unless we speak out about the obstacles that we face in the CoA and the CCRC-I've been part of the problem living with their failure for years and not speaking out-No More! Everybody in the same situation needs to shout and they need to shout loud!
Linda
‘Completely agree Mick. Surely #CCRC & #COA are there to ensure #miscarriagesofjustice are investigated thoroughly& #victims of #miscarriagesofjustice &their families are supported&compensated.
Seems they’ve forgotten their duty is to protect the public NOT the #justicesystem
Mick,
‘A lesson we learnt the hard way-We did the decent thing & trusted the system-What a huge mistake-Anybody in the early stages of a similar situation needs to start shouting & making waves now-If you don't the system will kick you in the teeth & let you down badly-@EmpowerInnocent
Michelle Diskin Bates
‘This is why organisations such as #EmpowerInnocent, and people who highlight miscarriage of justice are so important. If we'd known all of this, before, we might have acted differently for our loved ones. It's why I wrote my book; to enlighten others.
And enlighten some of us she has
-
What does Michelle Diskin Bates mean when she claims, to Dr Michael Naughton,
“If we’d known all of this before, we might have acted differently for our loved ones”
‘known‘ all what before and how would she have ‘acted differently’?
Michelle Diskin Bates
‘This is why organisations such as #EmpowerInnocent, and people who highlight miscarriage of justice are so important. If we'd known all of this, before, we might have acted differently for our loved ones. It's why I wrote my book; to enlighten others.
And enlighten some of us she has
And some she clearly hasn’t
Dr Michael Naughton stated“she had no choice but to do as it was what God wanted”
Did ‘God’ also tell Michelle Diskin Bates to lie about having watched non existent nighttime TV back in 1985?
Further excerpt from Dr Michael Naughton’s foreword;
‘This may well explain another feature of the book which sets it apart from others of the same genre. Written with great integrity and without even a hint of self pity or hatred towards, or vengeance against those responsible for causing her brothers wrongful conviction or who played a part in preventing its overturn or are currently refusing him compensation. Michelle has a clear focus to simply tell the truth, warts and all.’
“For Michelle, it was a moral obligation that she could not turn away from in good conscience:”
Michelle Diskin Bates claims Dr Michael Naughton or ‘#Empowerinnocent’ as per the name of his new campaign,
“is so important”
Dr Michael Naughton was conned by Simon Hall a ‘dangerous and disturbed’ individual for years - to date he has chosen to not hold his hands up to having been conned.
On 10th September 2013 Michelle Diskin Bates stated,
“Aa family member of a terrible miscarriage of justice, the victim being Barry George, convicted of the murder of Jill Dando; the Simon Hall confession is a concern because it is already so difficult for true MOJs to be believed by the public; this confession damages the credibility of all those still fighting for justice. But this is just one case. The British Justice System makes many, many more errors when it choses to build its cases around a person, rather than on the actual evidence. One confession is not a comfortable situation for those fighting miscarriages of justice,
https://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/simon-hall-confession-a-time-to-take-stock-by-professor-julie-price-originally-published-by-jon-robins-of-the-justice-gap/
So if ‘the Simon Hall confession’ were a ‘concern’ to Michelle Diskin Bates and if as she claims it ‘damages the credibility of all those still fighting for justice’ how have people like her and Dr Michael Naughton repaired and renewed their credibility ?
And why wasn’t it a ‘comfortable situation’ for Michelle Diskin Bates? What exactly was she uncomfortable about?
And why did she choose to state, ‘The British Justice System makes many, many more errors when it choses to build its cases around a person’
Did she view ‘the Simon Hall confession’ as an ‘error’ of ‘the British justice system’ ?
She states, ‘is already so difficult for true MOJs to be believed by the public’
What does she mean by a ‘true MOJ’? What’s a ‘true MOJ’
Barry George was found to not to be the victim of a miscarriage of justice
2013
“In a judgment which raises the question of a distinction in the judicial system between acquittal and a declaration of innocence, two High Court judges said there were no new facts in Mr George’s case which would have meant he could never have been convicted. Lord Justice Beatson and Mr Justice Irwin said: “There was indeed a case upon which a reasonable jury, properly directed, could have convicted the claimant of murder.”
“Legal experts said the ruling was about “shutting down” the flow of compensation and was unfair on Mr George who is considered innocent of Ms Dando’s death in the public mind.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/eight-years-in-prison-but-barry-george-is-refused-compensation-8467485.html
Not in my mind he isn’t - the illusion is clear to me
2016
Since then I have revisited the facts of this case in light of so many high-profile miscarriage of justice cases coming to light, including that of my own brother, Barry George, for the murder of Jill Dando.
https://jeremybamber.blogspot.com/2016/08/justice-is-never-served-by-conviction.html
Another disingenuous statement by Michelle Diskin Bates *&^^&
‘The court said a miscarriage of justice was when a new fact showed evidence was "so undermined that no conviction could possibly be based upon it".
To date, people who have been wrongfully convicted have been entitled to compensation only if they can show there has been a "miscarriage of justice".
But the meaning of the phrase had been unclear since a Law Lords ruling in 2004 which came up with different definitions.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13356120
Michelle Diskin Bates is still attempting to disingenuously promote her brother Barry George’s ‘unsafe’ murder conviction
‘The distinguished speakers are:
Michelle Diskin-Bates
Author of Stand Against Injustice and Campaigner, Speaking about how she was affected by a miscarriage of justice as the sister of Barry George.
https://www.womenbarristers.com/miscarriages-of-justice-and-criminal-deportations-conference/
-
Carole McCartney who blogs for an international ‘wrongful conviction’ forum https://wrongfulconvictionsblog.org/
and Inside Justice run by Louise Shorter https://www.insidejustice.co.uk/articles/new-developments-in-blood-evidence-detection/136
By Duncan Campbell,
“Where now for wrongful convictions? Louise Shorter, a former producer on Rough Justice, sees a glimmer of hope. She now works for Inside Justice, the investigative unit attached to the prisoners’ newspaper Inside Time, that was set up in 2010 to investigate wrongful convictions. She acknowledges the current difficulties: “Unravelling a miscarriage of justice case can take a decade or more. Television wants a beginning, middle and end to any story and wants it now, and that’s hard to achieve when the criminal justice wheels turn so very slowly.”
Yet Shorter says that her phone has been ringing off the hook following two successful American ventures: the podcast Serial and the Netflix series Making a Murderer. In September, she presented the two-part BBC documentary Conviction: Murder at the Station, in which she investigated the case of Roger Kearney, who protests his innocence of the murder of his lover Paula Poolton. Her body was found in her car at Southampton train station in 2008. “The media finally latched on to what the public has known for years: real-life whodunnits – or did-they-do-its – always have been and remain immensely popular,” Shorter says.
Law students at Northumbria University are working with the charity Inside Justice and carrying out a survey on ‘post conviction retention and disclosure of evidence’
supervising is Professor Carole McCartney
https://wrongfulconvictionsblog.org/2015/05/07/lab-director-says-innocence-fraud-when-innocence-organizations-free-guilty-people-is-a-threat/
How accurate will the survey results be if Jeremy Bamber supporters complete the survey anonymously multiple times?
Carole McCartney states via twitter:
‘Need to get as many sols/barristers/miscarriage of justice campaigners as possible! Would be hugely appreciative of RTs! Data could lead to vital changes. Thanks
Comments here looked a bit suspect
https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/cps-asks-for-local-support-to-improve-disclosure/5102875.article
-
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
3h
Replying to
@J4BenGeen
@Elsie2127
and
@EmpowerInnocent
This is why organisations such as #EmpowerInnocent, and people who highlight miscarriage of justice are so important. If we'd known all of this, before, we might have acted differently for our loved ones. It's why I wrote my book; to enlighten others.
Image https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1219951884070539264
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
2h
I think my heart broke a little bit more when I read this Michael
@EmpowerInnocent
... should more ask the same question as Mick
@J4BenGeen
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
5h
We wouldn't know about this without Mick Geen's FOI request and we all need to keep asking as many questions that we can think of with FOIs and data protection requests to find out what other failings there are that we don't know about and just how bad things really are.
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1222435850363068417
Sending the murder conviction of a guilty man (Simon Hall) back to the Court of Appeal not good enough then.
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
5h
Sorry to hear about yet another alleged innocent victim of wrongful conviction. If you are at the
@ccrcupdate stage, see the Empowering the Innocent campaign that you may wish to apply to join: http://michaeljnaughton.com/?page_id=3652
The need for due diligence isn’t needed solely whilst using Twitter. http://michaeljnaughton.com/?p=1542
Michael Naughton goes on:
“I immediately put his name into Google on my phone to very quickly find that he was convicted of a highly publicised and most pernicious and disturbing gendered crime against a young woman, the like of which would certainly make most (particularly women) want to steer clear of him altogether.
The ‘alleged innocent victim of wrongful conviction’ case being that of Alan Evans https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/06/alan-evans-guilty-wife-murder-fall
@imbackingal
@imbackingal1
Our sons case is flawed with discrepancies like Robins, no dna , no cause of death, missing phone data, conflict of interest etc etc etc. Like his case the real perpetrators are still at large being protected by the police and no doubt enjoying their freedom
“Their wish to see their son released from prison now rests with the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC).
The body investigates suspected miscarriages of justice and if experts discover inconsistencies with evidence in the case, they could call for a re-trial.
Evans' parents Keith and Sue have fought tirelessly to try and prove their son is not a killer and helped compile information to assist the CCRC.
https://www.expressandstar.com/news/crime/2016/10/27/parents-of-kidderminster-killer-alan-evans-hope-for-a-re-trial/
-
Michelle Diskin Bates is still attempting to disingenuously promote her brother Barry George’s ‘unsafe’ murder conviction
‘The distinguished speakers are:
Michelle Diskin-Bates
Author of Stand Against Injustice and Campaigner, Speaking about how she was affected by a miscarriage of justice as the sister of Barry George.
https://www.womenbarristers.com/miscarriages-of-justice-and-criminal-deportations-conference/
Found this random tweet telling https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1222521838934351874
excerpt from the book “Stand Against Injustice by Michelle Diskin Bates
“Someone highly educated and deemed worthy by dint of her expertise had viewed me and seen a real person, not the shadow I had become.
-
How, on the day of Jill Dando’s murder, did Barry George know he looked “similar in appearance with her killer” if the police didn’t release the photofit until 4 days after?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1349115.stm
“If people saw me in Gowan Avenue, where she lived, before that day it was because my old doctor was there and not for any other reason. It was not because I was stalking Jill.
'At first when I was questioned I forgot the name of the road because I'd changed doctors. I didn't know that I'd been in Gowan Avenue - but clearly I had.'
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/dando-murder-police-to-launch-cold-case-review-of-2100-original-suspects-6816041.html
-
Hannah Quirk
‘The Count of Monte Cristo, To Kill a Mockingbird, 10 Rillington Place and The Shawshank Redemption are among the classics. Television programmes, The Court of Last Resort, Rough Justice and World in Action raised public awareness that mistakes can happen and uncovered some of the evidence that led to convictions being quashed. That all changed with the surprise popularity of TV documentaries such as Netflix’s Making a Murderer and The Staircase.
But what’s it like to work with law professors who are on the side of the wrongly accused and convicted in real life? King’s Reader in Criminal Law, Dr Hannah Quirk, has been closely following those cases by hosting a series of talks with the attorneys Laura Nirider and Steven Drizin from Making a Murderer and David Rudolf from The Staircase. Hannah recently returned from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival where she took part in conversational events with the attorneys about the circumstances in which miscarriages occur. Here’s her story:
So, what’s it like interviewing the lawyers who have shot to fame by taking on these cases?
It is the closest I’ve ever got to being cool! Every night after the shows, there was a line of people wanting to meet them, talk about their cases and thank them for the work they are doing.
Even though my job was to facilitate the discussion, I shamelessly basked in the reflected kudos! But seriously, it was really inspiring to hear about their work. David is an attorney with a decades-long career representing people most in need of help in civil liberties and criminal cases. Steve and Laura show the best of what academics do: scholarly research, public and political engagement and inspiring students. It must be really odd for them to suddenly have people approaching them in the streets, but they are very gracious about it. A taxi driver refused to take the fare when he recognised Steve and Laura, so they gave him a ticket for the show. I am slightly obsessed with miscarriages of justice, so it was a dream job for me.
What sparked your interest in those cases?
Like millions of people across the world, I watched the first series of Making a Murderer over Christmas 2015. It told the story of Steven Avery. He had spent 18 years in prison for rape and attempted murder until the Innocence Project helped to prove his innocence. He was the first man to be exonerated in Illinois, America, by DNA testing. I already knew of his case because he filed a $36 million civil lawsuit against the county, but two years later he was arrested for the murder of Teresa Halbach. As part of their investigations, the police interrogated Avery’s 16-year-old nephew, Brendan Dassey, who confessed to helping his uncle commit the crime. He was fed the details by the police and clearly had no idea of what he had admitted to – when the interview finished, he asked the police if he could go back to school as he had a project to hand in. The programme was beautifully shot and structured, but was especially intriguing because, unlike previous programmes of this type, we do not know if Steven Avery is guilty or not.
I had already been gripped by the Serial podcast. I came to The Staircase a bit later and found it riveting for the insights into how the case was defended and the ‘did he/didn’t he’ puzzle. It was also a painful reminder of the human cost of these cases. The toll it took on Michael Peterson’s adopted daughters who had already lost their mothers was agonising to watch. The Staircase is unusual in that it shows a wealthy white man claiming to have been wrongly convicted. Far more of these cases involve poor people who cannot afford adequate legal representation and those from minority ethnic and underprivileged groups.
How did you get involved in both series?
Dean Strang and Jerry Buting (Steven Avery’s attorneys) did some shows over here a few years ago. They were looking for an academic working in the area to interview them and I jumped at the chance. My main research interest is miscarriages of justice. I used to work for the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) in Birmingham, the first state-funded body in the world set up to investigate claims of wrongful conviction. I did a few shows with them and carried on when Steve, Laura and David came over later.
In how far does the UK law system differ from the US?
In 2005, I spent six months working at the Innocence Project New Orleans, a non-profit organisation that works to free wrongly convicted life-sentenced prisoners in Mississippi and Louisiana, the state with the highest number of prisoners serving life without parole in the world. My plan was to compare how wrongful convictions are dealt with in England and Wales by the CCRC, and the USA but I realised, pretty much on the first day there, that there was too great a disparity.
Significant reforms were introduced in England and Wales, in part following high profile miscarriages of justice in the 1970s. Suspects are much better protected here now. Unlike in England and Wales, the Wisconsin police were allowed to arrest Brendan Dassey at school and to question him without an appropriate adult or lawyer. The police in America are also allowed to lie to suspects. They are trained to extract confessions using something called the ‘Reid Technique’. It is highly effective at gaining truthful confessions – but runs a high risk of eliciting false confessions too.
Mistakes happen in every system. For the most part, nobody working in the criminal justice system here wants errors to occur. The corruption cases we saw in the 1980s with units such as the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad seem to be a thing of the past, although convictions have been quashed recently due to allegations of tampering at a forensics laboratory. There are strict rules in place and much better training of police officers regarding their behaviour in interviews. Mistakes are much more likely to occur due to the budget cuts that the criminal justice system has experienced – a 20% cut in police funding, 30% for the CPS. Standards have fallen since the Forensic Science Service was closed. Some of the consequences are highlighted in The Secret Barrister’s surprise bestseller, Stories of the Law and How it is Broken
What can be learned from the cases?
It’s an important combination. For most people watching the shows it is just entertainment, but we have to remember that these are real people caught up in a system that reflects and represents us. I was struck by one of the questions we were asked one night which was, ‘what are the main characters doing now?’ as though it was a drama rather than a documentary. Steve Drizin has worked for years in helping the courts to understand the risks of false confessions through his academic work. We know that young people and those with learning difficulties are more likely to confess falsely. More states now have laws requiring interviews to be recorded and for juveniles to have ‘appropriate adults’ supporting them in interview – they all should have this. In a neat twist, Brendan’s confession was only filmed because the courts had ordered this to happen in a previous case Steve had won.
Society wise, these cases have launched miscarriages of justice back into the public consciousness. That gives a narrow window to use these shows to effect lasting change, some police training agencies are using Brendan Dassey’s interview as an example of how not to question a suspect.
The media focus has been on American cases. This year the Emmy awards recognised When They See Us, about the Central Park Five case, and a reminder of Donald Trump’s notorious advert in New York newspapers at the time, calling for the death penalty to be reinstated.
In the UK it is important we do not just think miscarriages of justice are something that happened a long time ago or only happen in America. For a long time, politicians thought that being ‘tough on crime’ was a vote winner and introduced policies that have made it harder to get a fair trial. Most people do not realise that anyone with an annual household disposable income of over about £22,000 will not qualify for legal aid in the magistrates’ court (£37,500 in the Crown Court). If they are acquitted, having paid possibly a five or six figure sum for legal representation, reimbursement will be at the much lower legal aid rates. This ‘innocence tax’ has seen acquitted defendants forced to exhaust their life savings and be forced to sell their homes. Another concern is that within a decade, it may be impossible to find a solicitor in some areas as firms are going out of business as criminal work is paid so badly and young solicitors cannot afford to enter or stay in the profession.
I have been fascinated by wrongful convictions for years. Making a Murderer has focused public attention on this topic in an unprecedented way, but interest will fade, and television companies will move onto the next issue. I hope people will want to know more about injustice. The Justice Gap carries lots of informative articles on the subject and how to campaign against it. Amnesty International has a campaigning guide for cases in other countries and the Innocence Project offers possible actions to take. Politicians need to hear from their constituents that we care about justice. Ask your MP if he or she is part of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Miscarriages of Justice.
Progress in the criminal justice system nearly always comes in the wake of public concern about miscarriages of justice. Hopefully Steve, Laura and David will be back for another tour with good news.
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/when-fiction-turns-into-fact
-
‘Blackburn's ordeal moulded him into a mass of contradictions’
This for me on its own is a red flag, however I’d like to hear Paul Blackburn’s thoughts on the exposure of Simon Halls guilt.
Would be interested to learn whether or not Paul Blackburn is/was monitored by the authorities after his murder conviction was deemed ‘unsafe’ by the Court of Appeal - this was and is the case for Barry George
-
2020
‘Has anyone at the CCRC got the time, please?’
reads the header of an article written by Dr Michael Naughton, published today on (honorary Dr) Jon Robins Justice Gap website here https://www.thejusticegap.com/has-anyone-at-the-ccrc-got-the-time-please/
Dr Michael Naughton states,
‘I was astonished to learn earlier this week that the CCRC keeps no records at all on how much time that it spends working on cases’
Maybe he’s been too busy calculating and recording his own time?
2013
‘And the "thousands of hours" Bristol law students have spent on the Hall case, said Dr Naughton, could easily have been spent on "somebody else's case".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-23630287
Surely this would have flagged up during Carolyn Hoyle and Mai Sato’s ‘in-depth analysis of case files and interviews the authors scrutinize the Commission’s operational practices, its working rules and assumptions
https://ccrc.gov.uk/research-at-the-ccrc/published-research-on-the-ccrc/ or weren’t these questions asked?
REASONS TO DOUBT: WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS AND THE CRIMINAL CASES REVIEW COMMISSION
Excerpts:
“This book about the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) is a treasure trove of information. Lawyers who represent applicants to the CCRC may find it especially of interest, offering insights that could help their work.
Carolyn Hoyle is professor of criminology in Oxford; Mai Sato is associate professor at the University of Reading. Their book is based on a four-year empirical study, both qualitative and quantitative, of decision-making by commissioners and staff, including 90 interviews, a staff survey and analysis of the CCRC’s internal guidance documents. A sample of 146 cases, some already closed, some ongoing during the research, was studied in detail.
A principal focus of the book was to examine how the CCRC and its staff go about making the decision whether to investigate a case or to refer a case to the Court of Appeal (CA). The CCRC refers 1–4% of its approximately 1,400 applications per year and subjects just over half to full and thorough investigation.
Safety not innocence is the test
The authors emphasise that the Criminal Appeal Act 1995 requires the CCRC to refer to the Court cases that offer a real possibility that the conviction will be quashed. While the CCRC and its staff might be affected by whether they believed the applicant to be factually innocent, their focus therefore had to be on whether there was anything new which would enable the CA to find the conviction to be unsafe. That created unavoidable tensions with campaigners convinced that an applicant whose case had not been referred was innocent. The authors reject the suggestion that the CCRC’s reviews are mere safety checks (p323). One gets a clear sense of a determination to do the job as well as it can be done given the huge caseload and always inadequate resources.
When to refer?
The CCRC naturally closely followed the ebb and flow of CA decisions, adjusting its referral decisions to what it perceived to be the court’s approach to the real possibility test. But the authors detected ‘some evidence of shared deference to the court . . . that seemed to go beyond the legal mandate or matters of efficiency’ (p66).
What goes into decision-making?
Decisions to refer or not to refer were the result of a complex process, heavily involving discretion, which included the experience, expertise and personality of the individuals involved and their working assumptions. The legal position was only one of the factors. The authors draw throughout on Keith Hawkins’ theoretical framework of the process of decision-making in his Law as Last Resort (Oxford University Press, 2002), using Hawkins’ technical terms ‘field’, ‘surround’, and ‘frame’.
The CCRC naturally likes to think that it is consistent in its decision-making. When the researchers showed variability in decision-making, their data ‘were met with scepticism and defensiveness’ (p48). An applicant ‘would be alarmed to discover his case was assigned to a commissioner described by colleagues as “anti-applicant”, “a wildcard” or “very summary in instinct”—no doubt preferring a commissioner described as “exploratory”, “liberal” and “thorough”’ (p92).
But considerable efforts were made to improve consistency. Between 2011 and 2017, for instance, there were three changes in the way in which cases were screened. Until 2013, every case was screened in or out by a single commissioner. In 2013, staff group leaders were given responsibility for assisting commissioners and in 2017, case review managers (CRMs) too became involved in the screening out of cases. This ‘helps mitigate idiosyncratic decision-making by commissioners’ (p113).
Police misconduct unlikely to lead to a referral
The CA’s jurisprudence showing that it was unlikely to quash a conviction on the grounds just of police misconduct was reflected in the CCRC’s decision-making. Commission staff had sought to assure the authors that police misconduct (as opposed to incompetence or inefficiency) in fact was rare today. The authors suggest that the CCRC was ‘a little too complacent here in assuming that institutionalized corruption and misconduct by police is rare’ (p199). In any event, police and prosecution failure to disclose evidence was much more likely to cause miscarriages of justice.
A generous approach to allowing further submissions & reapplications
Applicants are advised about provisional decisions and can make further submissions. There is no limit to the number of reapplications. In a telling observation the authors suggest that this generous policy helps to maintain the CCRC’s legitimacy in the eyes of applicants—and even their representatives.
‘If we shift our focus away from the goal of the applicant—to have his or her case referred back to the court—and towards the bulk of the Commission’s cases, we recognise that it is not an organisation defined by its ability to refer cases. It is an organisation that deals primarily with closure. In this sense investing time and effort in providing procedural justice to applicants whose cases are turned down could be just as important, if not more so, than investing the resources on successful outcomes for a very few’ (p299).
Engagement with stakeholders, the media, other criminal justice institutions & applicants & their legal representatives
The authors trace the gradual development of the CCRC’s more outward-looking role. They welcome in particular its growing willingness to engage in critical reflection on shortcomings in the criminal justice system: ‘t is well placed to provide evidence of failings across the justice system and should not shy away from raising awareness and making recommendations’ (p326).
The final verdict
‘It would be nothing short of an own goal for critics to fight to remove the Commission from our struggling criminal justice system or for the government to fail to fund it adequately’ (p338).
Michael Zander QC is Emeritus Professor, LSE
https://www.newlawjournal.co.uk/content/book-review-reasons-to-doubt-wrongful-convictions-and-the-criminal-cases-review-commission
“Almost two decades of research on miscarriages of justice and wrongful convictions, and over a decade of direct engagements with the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) with the Innocence Network UK (INUK) and the University of Bristol Innocence Project,
https://www.thejusticegap.com/please-forgive-me-but-i-wont-be-holding-my-breath/
Yet Dr Michael Naughton hasn’t recognised ‘innocent fraud’ being perpetuated in the UK. I don’t believe it!
Founder and Director
Dr Michael Naughton
Champions
Michael O’ Brien (one of three men who were wrongly convicted in the case known as the Cardiff Newsagent Three for the murder of Cardiff newsagent, Philip Saunders)
Michelle Bates (sister of Barry George who was wrongly convicted of the murder of British journalist, television presenter and newsreader, Jill Dando)
http://michaeljnaughton.com/?page_id=3707
Here’s Michael Zander QC from April 2012
https://www.thejusticegap.com/zander-on-the-ccrc/
-
Mark Newby quotes “You shall not bear false testimony against your neighbor “
Unless you are Michelle Diskin Bates patron to the Jeremy Bamber campaign
Dr Michael Naughton stated“she had no choice but to do as it was what God wanted”
Did ‘God’ also tell Michelle Diskin Bates to lie about having watched non existent nighttime TV back in 1985?
Further excerpt from Dr Michael Naughton’s foreword;
‘This may well explain another feature of the book which sets it apart from others of the same genre. Written with great integrity and without even a hint of self pity or hatred towards, or vengeance against those responsible for causing her brothers wrongful conviction or who played a part in preventing its overturn or are currently refusing him compensation. Michelle has a clear focus to simply tell the truth, warts and all.’
“For Michelle, it was a moral obligation that she could not turn away from in good conscience:”
From my viewpoint, her ‘moral conscience’ appears off-kilter, her ‘good conscience’ is highly questionable and her ‘moral obligation’ seems self serving as indeed does Michael Naughton’s.
Incidentally the ‘biblical definition’ of a hypocrite is ’a person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that he or she does not actually possess, especially a person whose actions belie stated beliefs.
And did ‘god’ tell Michelle Diskin Bates, sister of Barry George, to ‘call out’ all those people who ask questions or hold opposing views and opinions to hers as ‘trolls’ ?
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@AndrewS56773798
@JBamberFacebook
and
@TheSun
Troll alert! You’re outed 🤗
12:53 AM · Jan 30, 2020·Twitter for iPad
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1222684225138241543
-
So instead he appears to have latched onto others cases using that same ‘ole chestnut, not dissimilar to what Sandra Lean appears to have done with cases like Matthew Hamlen etc
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
3h
So many problems & unanswered questions with the conviction of Robin Garbutt for the murder of his wife, Diana, yet the @ccrcupdate have so far rejected 2 applications. Let’s hope that it fares better with his 3rd. If Robin Garbutt is innocent the real murderer remains at large.
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1220687788900786179
Doesn’t mean he hasn’t and appearances can be deceptive
Why doesn’t Michael Naughton tell Robin Garbutt and those campaigning for him to publicise the CCRC’s previous statements of reasons. Let the public be the judge.
Instead he appears to be leading people like hanksoff03 up the garden path and some of us know where that leads.
And here’s Barry George’s sister scaremongering with rumours of a possible serial killer on the loose and showing she too appears to have learned nothing from the Simon Hall fiasco
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
1h
The real killer is still at large and my have killed again. #StandAgainstInjustice
Robin Garbutt submits third application for review of Melsonby post office murder charge | The Northern Echo
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1222861251216318464
Robin Garbutt submits third application for review of Melsonby post office murder charge
“We have been supported by lawyers and journalists who believe, like us, that Robin was wrongfully convicted.”
https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/18196643.robin-garbutt-submits-third-application-review-melsonby-post-office-murder-charge/
The above article includes the ‘empowering the innocent’ photograph of Michael’s O’Brien and Naughton along with Michelle Diskin Bates
Dr Michael Naughton states via twitter
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
13 Jan
Great to hear. Alleged innocent victims of wrongful convictions like Robin Garbutt who have been rejected by the
@ccrcupdate are in the fight of their lives. They must be empowered to take control of their cases & use the media to pressure the system to give them justice.
-
In response to a tweet made by
APPEAL
@C4CrimAppeals
5h
Derek Bentley was innocent and hanged in 1953.
"What has our justice system learned from making the ultimate mistake? Can we be sure that it is capable of averting such catastrophes today?
The answer is absolutely not."
Us in
@TimesLaw
this morning 👉
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1222851696512192515
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@C4CrimAppeals
and
@TimesLaw
As we know nothing has changed, in fact there is an arrogance towards anyone who DARES to suggest otherwise. Sadly, it wouldn’t be all that hard to sort out, but it would need a change of heart first. Innocence has no place in our ‘Justice’ system, only who wins the chess game 😢
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@Michelle_Diskin
@C4CrimAppeals
and
@TimesLaw
We trusted in the great British justice system but look at what it did to us. Worse...it has since squashed us underfoot like annoying bugs. #nojustice here!
-
%56&
Scientists are a bit like lawyers then, each one potentially as useless as the next.
Couldn’t interest you in this then?
APPG on Miscarriages of Justice
@APPGMJ
Forensic Science and Miscarriages of Justice - 4 February 2020. The APPGMJ returns for 2020.
Hear from:
@ProfRuthMorgan
Louise Shorter
@insidejusticeUK
&
@ctmccartney
Prof Angela Gallop CBE
@ForensicAccess
Dr Gill Tully, Forensic Science Regulator
3:27 PM · Jan 30, 2020·Twitter Web App
APPG on Miscarriages of Justice
@APPGMJ
4m
Replying to
@APPGMJ
Forensic evidence can be key to wrongful convictions. After
@LordsSTCom
's 2019 report finding 'failings in the use of science in the criminal justice system', join the APPG and learn more. Chaired by
@hammersmithandy
16.30-18.15, CR16
@HouseofCommons
RSVP: alex@appeal.org.uk
https://mobile.twitter.com/APPGMJ/status/1222904192873816067
Angela Gallop assisted the defence in the Barry George case
(Angela Shaw NOT Angela Gallop assisted the defence in the Barry George case - Angela Gallops colleague Roger Robson also assisted the defence in the Barry George case
Angela Shaw = GSR expert in both ‘George’ cases
Angela Gallop = ‘principle author’ alongside Roger Robson who also worked on both the Barry George and Simon Hall cases re fibres https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/written-evidence-submitted-forensic-access-house-commons-dave-king
R v SIMON JOHN HALL http://www.homepage-link.to/justice/Hall/index.html)
Gill Tully is the governments current Forensic Science Regulator https://www.gov.uk/government/people/gill-tully
I once wrote an open letter to the previous regulator, Andrew Rennison - in November 2013 he became a Commissioner at the CCRC
‘Five new Commissioners have been appointed to the Criminal Cases Review Commission and the Chair of the Commission has been reappointed.
The newly appointed Commissioners are Alexandra Marks, Dr Sharon Persaud, David James Smith, Liz Calderbank and Andrew Rennison. Richard Foster CBE, who joined the Commission as Chair in November 2008, has been reappointed to serve for a further five years (see below for biographies of the Chair and each of the new Commissioners).
https://ccrc.gov.uk/five-new-commissioners-appointed-to-the-criminal-cases-review-commission/
-
Dr Michael Naughton states via twitter
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
13 Jan
Great to hear. Alleged innocent victims of wrongful convictions like Robin Garbutt who have been rejected by the
@ccrcupdate are in the fight of their lives. They must be empowered to take control of their cases & use the media to pressure the system to give them justice
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
Freedom for http://RobinGarbuttOfficial.com -
@EmpowerInnocent in this article too : )
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
Well done, Jane! This is great for raising Robin’s profile and keeping pressure on the CCRC and hopes alive. Keep up the fantastic work!
Empowering the Innocent (ETI) Retweeted
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
13h
Thank you Michael...full of hope that the CCRC will this time see the truth + innocence of http://RobinGarbuttOfficial.com + swiftly get him to the CofA. Surely they`ll want2do the right thing+demonstrate their willingness2see justice no longer delayed on this tragic wrongful conviction
-
‘I have been fascinated by wrongful convictions for years. Making a Murderer has focused public attention on this topic in an unprecedented way, but interest will fade, and television companies will move onto the next issue. I hope people will want to know more about injustice. The Justice Gap carries lots of informative articles on the subject and how to campaign against it. Amnesty International has a campaigning guide for cases in other countries and the Innocence Project offers possible actions to take. Politicians need to hear from their constituents that we care about justice. Ask your MP if he or she is part of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Miscarriages of Justice.
Progress in the criminal justice system nearly always comes in the wake of public concern about miscarriages of justice. Hopefully Steve, Laura and David will be back for another tour with good news.
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/when-fiction-turns-into-fact
Steven A Drizin
@SDrizin
When fiction turns into fact | Feature from King's College London https://kcl.ac.uk/when-fiction-turns-into-fact#.XZuyk_7fMmI.twitter…
@HannahQuirk1
was our go-to moderator in England & the UK. Dr. Quirk's brilliant, funny, and fun to hang out with. She also knows an injustice when she sees one. #bringbrendanhome
Dr Hannah Quirk
@HannahQuirk1
Oct 8, 2019
Replying to
@SDrizin
Thanks so much Steve. Can I be moderator when you come over here to tell us how you got Brendan home?
https://mobile.twitter.com/SDrizin/status/1181326232023162880
Justice – and compensation – denied by new legislation by Hannah Quirk - April 2014
Excerpts:
‘Is a victim of a miscarriage of justice somebody, such as Stefan Kiszko who forensic evidence proved was innocent of any involvement in the rape and murder of a schoolgirl? Or is it Sally Clarke, whose conviction for murdering her babies was quashed because of evidence which cast doubt on her conviction, but did not prove her innocence? Or is it Nicholas Mullen, whose conviction for running an IRA ‘bomb-factory’ was overturned because the government had acted unlawfully in extraditing him for trial?
Following legal challenges by those denied compensation, including Barry George, who was wrongly convicted of the murder of Jill Dando, the government is seeking to narrow the test. It argues that this change will bring clarity and save money. Opponents argue that it will be challenged in the courts and is wrong in principle.
The new test will define a miscarriage of justice as occurring when “if and only if the new or newly discovered fact shows beyond reasonable doubt that the person did not commit the offence.”
On the face of it, this is a straightforward test. The problem is that few of the most notorious miscarriages of justice would meet this standard of proof.
The Court of Appeal looks at the ‘safety’ of a conviction – it very rarely says that a successful appellant is innocent. Short of new DNA evidence, very few new facts will establish innocence – most will just make it impossible to be sure that the jury would have convicted.
“There is obviously a spectrum of harm when a conviction is overturned, but this could be reflected in the amount of compensation paid rather than making the scheme so narrow.
It is wrong in principle, and potentially contravenes the European Convention on Human Rights, to expect somebody to prove their innocence and it contravenes the separation of powers for politicians to decide if a person is innocent or not.
This latest legal change is a retrograde, mean-spirited and potentially unlawful measure. It will damage British justice and the individuals involved in these cases. As Lord Pannick expressed it so eloquently in the House of Lords debate: “[there is] nothing more likely to keep open the sore of a regrettable miscarriage of justice.”
http://blog.policy.manchester.ac.uk/featured/2014/04/justice-and-compensation-denied-by-new-legislation/
Hannah Quirk appears to be suggesting in her tweet to Steven Drizin she holds a firm belief of innocence in his (Brendans) case further supported by the fact her name appears on his ‘pardon letter’ here https://patch.com/wisconsin/waukesha/full-list-250-who-signed-brendan-dassey-pardon-letter
Full List Of 250 Who Signed Brendan Dassey Pardon Letter
‘This week, attorneys representing Brendan Dassey say nearly 250 people – including a wide range of retired U.S. government officials and some of the nation's most prominent legal and political experts – wrote Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers in support of Dassey's petition for executive clemency.
“Can I be moderator when you come over here to tell us how you got Brendan home?”
Though when it comes to UK cases she appears to not to want to openly commit herself; but why?
Regarding ‘Justice – and compensation – denied by new legislation’ Hannah Quirk concludes,
‘It will damage British justice and the individuals involved in these cases.’
But what exactly does she mean by this?
How will it ‘damage British justice’ ?
And who are the ‘individuals involved in these cases’ referred to?
How has the Barry George’s ‘unsafe’ murder conviction damaged ‘British justice’ and what ‘harm’ has it caused ?
-
Hannah Quirk appears to be suggesting in her tweet to Steven Drizin she holds a firm belief of innocence in his (Brendans) case further supported by the fact her name appears on his ‘pardon letter’ here https://patch.com/wisconsin/waukesha/full-list-250-who-signed-brendan-dassey-pardon-letter
Full List Of 250 Who Signed Brendan Dassey Pardon Letter
‘This week, attorneys representing Brendan Dassey say nearly 250 people – including a wide range of retired U.S. government officials and some of the nation's most prominent legal and political experts – wrote Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers in support of Dassey's petition for executive clemency.
Hannah Quirk:
‘I am an academic with a particular interest in miscarriages of justice. I look at how changes to the criminal law and criminal evidence increase the risk of wrongful convictions and how the criminal justice system then investigates and responds to such cases. I also have an interest in sentencing. I am an Academic Fellow of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple. I sit on the editorial boards of The Criminal Law Review and Legal Studies. I am a trustee of Transform Justice and the Sentencing Academy. I regularly appear in the media discussing topical criminal justice issues.
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/hannah-quirk-22770230
Other names which appears alongside Hannah Quirks are:
Gisli Gudjonsson, Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), Emeritus Professor, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London
and
Amanda Knox, Exoneree (Italy, 4 years in prison)
http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=628.0
-
Justice – and compensation – denied by new legislation by Hannah Quirk - April 2014
Excerpts:
‘Is a victim of a miscarriage of justice somebody, such as Stefan Kiszko who forensic evidence proved was innocent of any involvement in the rape and murder of a schoolgirl? Or is it Sally Clarke, whose conviction for murdering her babies was quashed because of evidence which cast doubt on her conviction, but did not prove her innocence? Or is it Nicholas Mullen, whose conviction for running an IRA ‘bomb-factory’ was overturned because the government had acted unlawfully in extraditing him for trial?
Following legal challenges by those denied compensation, including Barry George, who was wrongly convicted of the murder of Jill Dando, the government is seeking to narrow the test. It argues that this change will bring clarity and save money. Opponents argue that it will be challenged in the courts and is wrong in principle.
The new test will define a miscarriage of justice as occurring when “if and only if the new or newly discovered fact shows beyond reasonable doubt that the person did not commit the offence.”
On the face of it, this is a straightforward test. The problem is that few of the most notorious miscarriages of justice would meet this standard of proof.
The Court of Appeal looks at the ‘safety’ of a conviction – it very rarely says that a successful appellant is innocent. Short of new DNA evidence, very few new facts will establish innocence – most will just make it impossible to be sure that the jury would have convicted.
“There is obviously a spectrum of harm when a conviction is overturned, but this could be reflected in the amount of compensation paid rather than making the scheme so narrow.
It is wrong in principle, and potentially contravenes the European Convention on Human Rights, to expect somebody to prove their innocence and it contravenes the separation of powers for politicians to decide if a person is innocent or not.
This latest legal change is a retrograde, mean-spirited and potentially unlawful measure. It will damage British justice and the individuals involved in these cases. As Lord Pannick expressed it so eloquently in the House of Lords debate: “[there is] nothing more likely to keep open the sore of a regrettable miscarriage of justice.”
http://blog.policy.manchester.ac.uk/featured/2014/04/justice-and-compensation-denied-by-new-legislation/
‘The Supreme Court on Compensation for Miscarriages of Justice: Is it better that ten innocents are denied compensation than one guilty person receives it? by Hannah Quirk and Marny Requa
The Modern Law Review
Vol. 75, No. 3 (MAY 2012), pp. 387-400
Abstract:
‘The Supreme Court determined that a 'fresh approach' was needed in an attempt to bring some clarity to the issue of the eligibility for compensation of those who have had their convictions quashed by the Court of Appeal. The definition that the majority agreed upon was that 'a new fact will show that a miscarriage of justice has occurred when it so undermines the evidence against the defendant that no conviction could possibly be based upon it'. This article argues that the judgment suffers from a failure to consider the purpose of the legislation; that it is unclear whether the test is normative or historical and that this presents a particular problem in cases relating to the Northern Ireland conflict. The Court focuses on the guilt of the appellant and excludes from its consideration any notion of culpability by the state, which is a cause for concern.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/41682857?seq=1
What about cases where it appears not to be linked to the ‘culpability of the state’?
-
Who didn’t kill Jill Dando courtesy of Gunfire Graffiti (Updated - 3rd Jan 2020)
Excerpts:
‘We passed the 20th anniversary of the murder of journalist Jill Dando in April 2019. The lead Metropolitan Police investigator at the time, Detective Chief Inspector Hamish Campbell now believes that no new evidence will ever be found. He and his team are accused of, “not having the faintest idea”, who killed Jill Dando. Barry George, the “local nutter”, was set up. Nothing could be further from the truth. Campbell was sniped at by so called experts educated on a diet of crime fiction. Real world hitmen are not Bond and Bourne or the likes of Max von Sydow in the Sydney Pollack film, Three days of the Condor.
‘On the 19th March 2011 Sian O’Callaghan was reported missing in Swindon, Wiltshire. Her body was found on the 24th March. She had been murdered by a Swindon taxi driver, Christopher Halliwell. In the days prior to his arrest, Halliwell had affixed missing posters in the rear window of his car. An interesting behavioural trait that mirrored the actions of Barry George.
‘He continued an interest in firearms and shooting and had attempted to secure full membership with a London gun club but was unsuccessful. Clearly his mental illness issues were stopping him from ultimately succeeding but they weren’t preventing him from trying. He had sufficient cognitive aptitude and orientation to focus on and pursue his interests.
‘Perhaps Barry George was what we perceived and saw, his own creation; a hopeless lie, the dark masculine “hitman” perpetrator and then the targeted suspect turning himself into a hapless victim of injustice. But he can’t be both. We are all entitled to our opinions but we can’t invent our own facts. Barry George continues to be a lost and tormented individual.
http://gunfire-graffiti.co.uk/who-didnt-kill-jill-dando/
-
‘A jury at his second trial last year found him not guilty in a unanimous verdict and George was released and made the subject of a Mappa order
https://amp.theguardian.com/uk/2009/nov/29/barry-george-jill-dando?__twitter_impression=true
The paradox of Barry George’s ‘unsafe’ murder conviction
Gunfire Graffiti
‘Perhaps Barry George was what we perceived and saw, his own creation; a hopeless lie, the dark masculine “hitman” perpetrator and then the targeted suspect turning himself into a hapless victim of injustice.
http://gunfire-graffiti.co.uk/who-didnt-kill-jill-dando/
-
APPG on Miscarriages of Justice
@APPGMJ
Forensic Science and Miscarriages of Justice - 4 February 2020. The APPGMJ returns for 2020.
Hear from:
@ProfRuthMorgan
Louise Shorter
@insidejusticeUK
&
@ctmccartney
Prof Angela Gallop CBE
@ForensicAccess
Dr Gill Tully, Forensic Science Regulator
3:27 PM · Jan 30, 2020·Twitter Web App
APPG on Miscarriages of Justice
@APPGMJ
4m
Replying to
@APPGMJ
Forensic evidence can be key to wrongful convictions. After
@LordsSTCom
's 2019 report finding 'failings in the use of science in the criminal justice system', join the APPG and learn more. Chaired by
@hammersmithandy
16.30-18.15, CR16
@HouseofCommons
RSVP: alex@appeal.org.uk
https://mobile.twitter.com/APPGMJ/status/1222904192873816067/
Inside Justice
@insidejusticeUK
Jan 24
Today is a huge day for the family of David Reece and the #insidejustice team. At 10am this morning a full appeal hearing will be heard at The Royal Courts of Justice. Wish us all luck!
https://mobile.twitter.com/insidejusticeUK/status/1220647732391632897
‘Appeal judges dismiss convicted drug dealer’s attempt to clear name‘by Tom Wright for the Justice Gap
27th January 2020
Excerpts:
‘Reece’s was taken up the legal charity Inside Justice. After the hearing chief exec Louise Shorter commented: ‘We disagree with the decision, of course. I hope we will regroup, take a long hard look at the case as a whole and decide if there is anything else at all that we can investigate which might help David avoid spending the next decade, or more, in prison.’
The Reece family, present in court on Friday, expressed their dismay and disillusion at the outcome of the hearing, shaking their heads at the judgment and vowing to continue the fight to clear David’s name.
The ground of appeal argued before the Appeal judges centred on the assertion the trial judge had erred in his summing up. During the course of the original trial the prosecution applied to introduce evidence of Reece’s previous conviction for drug importation offences in Belgium in 2011.
The prosecution argued the similarity of the two offences demonstrated Reece had a propensity to commit crimes of this nature. However, Reece argued that despite pleading guilty to the Belgian offences he did not know of the existence of the drugs until they were discovered by Belgian customs officers. Mark Harries QC submitted that the trial judge’s handling of this matter was deficient when directing the jury.
At trial the judge had not invited the jury to consider that if Reece was unaware of the existence of the drugs in the Belgian case then the prosecution would not be able to demonstrate he had a propensity to commit such crimes. In the absence of such an instruction to the jury, Harries asserted Reece’s conviction must be unsafe as this evidence of bad character tainted his whole credibility.
Delivering the judgment of the whole court, Lord Justice Singh rejected this argument, dismissing the appeal. The court ruled that in the absence of further evidence Reece’s claim to lack knowledge of the drugs, and his acceptance of the Belgian conviction, did not require any specific instructions to the jury.
Furthermore, Lord Justice Singh intimated that even if the Court had been minded to accept that the judge erred in his summing up in relation to the Belgian case, they would have nevertheless affirmed the safety of the conviction on the basis of the prosecution’s circumstantial case against Reece. (Sic)
https://www.thejusticegap.com/appeal-judges-dismiss-convicted-drug-dealers-attempt-to-clear-name/
R v Reece 2020] EWCA Crim 44
https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2020/44.html&query=(Reece)+AND+(Bailey)
-
CCRC
@ccrcupdate
Paul Blackburn's case was referred for appeal by @ccrcupdate in 2004 and his conviction was quashed in 2005. This article and associated podcast about his struggle to get an apology from the police.
The Guardian @guardian Jan 13
Police reject judge's call to apologise over wrongful conviction https://theguardian.com/law/2020/jan/13/police-reject-judges-call-to-apologise-over-wrongful-conviction utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium=&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1578896509…
10:41 AM · Jan 13, 2020·Twitter Web App
https://mobile.twitter.com/ccrcupdate/status/1216671705541816320
Paul Blackburn alludes to his alleged lack of memory several times during his interview with Peter Walker above.
Deceptive people often claim lack of memory as a way to cover the truth. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/let-their-words-do-the-talking/201611/5-things-people-commonly-say-when-theyre-lying
The interview also highlights the ‘life on Mars’ comment made by Paul Blackburn’s solicitor Glyn Maddocks,
2009
‘A solicitor has condemned police for using a "Life on Mars excuse" after they refused to apologise to a man jailed wrongly for 25 years by saying that rules and methods were very different at the time of the original investigation.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/nov/04/paul-blackburn-cheshire-police
In 2012 Jon Robins (founder of the Justice Gap) refers to it here https://www.thejusticegap.com/wrongly-accused-who-is-responsible-for-investigating-miscarriages/ promoting ‘Wrongly accused: who is responsible for investigating miscarriages of justice?’
‘Since the creation of the CCRC it seems fair to say concern over miscarriages of justice appears to have slipped from the radar of public consciousness. The topic has been consigned to some distant ‘Life on Mars’ past. The media, which did so much of the spadework exposing the notorious miscarriages through the 1970s and 1980s through for example the BBC’s Rough Justice, has long given up. The broadcaster pulled the plug on Rough Justice after 25 years in 2007, Michael Jackson, chief exec of Channel 4, dismissed Trial & Error, which also investigated miscarriages, and its subject matter as a ‘bit 1980s’.
Similarly Hannah Quirk refers to ‘life on Mars’ in her Sept 2014 article headed,
‘The end of innocence, and the chance of a new beginning’
in the justice gap here https://www.thejusticegap.com/end-innocence-new-beginning/ where she claims,
‘In this country, a range of measures governing the collection and use of evidence has reduced the most egregious errors – the television series Life on Mars was founded on the audience recognising how policing had changed since the 1970s. Unlike in the USA, very few cases turn on DNA analysis which means that most appeals are on the basis of unsafety – we can never know with certainty whether the individuals were factually innocent or not.’
-
APPG on Miscarriages of Justice
@APPGMJ
Forensic Science and Miscarriages of Justice - 4 February 2020. The APPGMJ returns for 2020.
Hear from:
@ProfRuthMorgan
Louise Shorter
@insidejusticeUK
&
@ctmccartney
Prof Angela Gallop CBE
@ForensicAccess
Dr Gill Tully, Forensic Science Regulator
3:27 PM · Jan 30, 2020·Twitter Web App
APPG on Miscarriages of Justice
@APPGMJ
4m
Replying to
@APPGMJ
Forensic evidence can be key to wrongful convictions. After
@LordsSTCom
's 2019 report finding 'failings in the use of science in the criminal justice system', join the APPG and learn more. Chaired by
@hammersmithandy
16.30-18.15, CR16
@HouseofCommons
RSVP: alex@appeal.org.uk
https://mobile.twitter.com/APPGMJ/status/1222904192873816067
Public Lecture Series: Professor Carole McCartney
The Forensic Science Paradox
‘Those among us with an interest in forensic science or wrongful convictions, fictional or otherwise, do not struggle for entertainment. Indeed, our interests can often be catered for in the very same TV series or movie, with forensic science having become indelibly linked with wrongful convictions.
One can never be sure however, whether the forensic scientist is going to be the antagonist, or ally. Such dualism poses a challenge to researchers and reformers. Should forensic science be encouraged as a powerful antidote to wrongful convictions, or would the safer policy be to leave the ‘CSI’ kit at home and avoid potential injustice?
This lecture will explain this ‘forensic science paradox’: as cause and cure of wrongful convictions, and suggest solutions to mitigate the risks posed by reliance upon forensic science.
https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/about-us/news-events/events/2020/03/carole-mccartney-public-lecture/
-
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
Freedom for http://RobinGarbuttOfficial.com -
@EmpowerInnocent in this article too : )
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
Well done, Jane! This is great for raising Robin’s profile and keeping pressure on the CCRC and hopes alive. Keep up the fantastic work!
Empowering the Innocent (ETI) Retweeted
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
13h
Thank you Michael...full of hope that the CCRC will this time see the truth + innocence of http://RobinGarbuttOfficial.com + swiftly get him to the CofA. Surely they`ll want2do the right thing+demonstrate their willingness2see justice no longer delayed on this tragic wrongful conviction
Reece Dinsdale
@reece_dinsdale
Jan 21
People’s lives were destroyed by this.
Please sign the petition and demand a full judicial inquiry.
#PostOfficeTrial
http://chng.it/qnD8fn4r via
@UKChange
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Jan 21
Replying to
@reece_dinsdale
and
@UKChange
Thanks to this corrupt fiasco a man had it used in evidence in a murder trial, to take his good reputation. He was found guilty but is innocent. #freerobingarbut
maria
@mariaspears
Replying to
@Michelle_Diskin
@reece_dinsdale
and
@UKChange
Can you explain further? #interested
https://mobile.twitter.com/mariaspears/status/1219880204727996416
‘His family and friends, including Jane Metcalfe, who has spoken publicly about what she believes is his wrongful conviction, are hopeful that following the "Post Office Horizon" case, more weight will be put behind a potential appeal.
Last year, the Post Office admitted it “got things wrong in our dealings with a number of postmasters” and is to pay almost £58m to settle the dispute.
A group of 550 claimants had joined a civil action to win compensation last year, alleging the Horizon IT system – which was installed between 1999 and 2000 – contained a large number of defects and led to many wrongly being accused of fraud.
Ms Metcalfe said she hopes the Horizon case would work in Garbutt’s favour as one of the lines of prosecution had been that he had been stealing from the Post Office.
She said: “We have been supported by lawyers and journalists who believe, like us, that Robin was wrongfully convicted.
“Robin has applied to the the Criminal Case Review Commission for the third time in the hope his case can be reopened. We believe there is a mountain of evidence to support Robin, so we hope this time the CCRC will agree to investigate.”
Last year, Ms Metcalfe who knows Garbutt from when he lived in York, spoke at a vigil at the Royal Courts of Justice in London attended by more than 100 people. She also spoke to a big crowd at the Innovation of Justice conference at the University of Law in the city, and has also attended events at Bristol University.
She said: "The event in Bristol was taken by Doctor Michael Naughton, founder of `Empowering the Innocent'. He has chosen a handful of cases that he and his team want to use as examples of shocking miscarriages. He is calling for urgent reform of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) or for it to be replaced with a new group that is fit for the purpose of assisting innocent victims to overturn their wrongful convictions.”
Robin Garbutts 999 call to the police https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BJFgCQNRsQE
Robin Garbutt police interview https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1FOJmgKyrxw
Robin Garbutt states,
“do you know what, I knew straight away we I was going to be robbed, I just knew it cos.. obviously.. you know.. and I wasn’t even worried.. do you know.. I know it sounds stupid but .. the first time I was absolutely shitting a brick and this time.. but.. the first thing he said to me.. straight away was.. he said er don’t do anything stupid we’ve got your wife and er he said turn the lights off and er lock the door.. so I er um I er went back to Blah blah
“he handed me a um a black hold-all and er he said put the money in the bag I think or put the money from the safe.. I can’t rem.. put the money in the bag I think he said.. erm..so I just walked into the post office.. he followed behind me Blah blah
“I put the money in the hold-all, there was something else in there already.. blah blah. I noticed when I put the money in blah blah.. I emptied.. put my till money in.. nothing in there just peanuts.. you know., a hundred quid..
Back Porch Media Productions
@media_porch
Jan 30
Having studied this case I truly cannot believe he is still in prison Robin Garbutt is the victim here!! Missing clump of hair from evidence, the man was a scapegoat pure and simple
https://mobile.twitter.com/media_porch/status/1222948613271232519
Black porch media productions claim on their website;
‘We research and produce documentaries, screen plays and films. We are currently working to produce a documentary to expose the failings of the British Justice System in regard to a terrible miscarriage of justice against ...
https://backporchmediaprod.wixsite.com/website
Black porch media productions claim here https://www.starnow.co.uk/backporchmediaproductions there are a ‘growing production compamy’
To date they have produced - nothing
In the meantime
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
This sounds a bit like the recent PO/Horizon case where over 500 subpostmasters were stealing: It was an unbelievable number and it was unbelievable err because it wasn`t true...
https://mobile.twitter.com/hanksoff03/status/1223709115979116546
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀 Retweeted
JB Campaign LTD
@jbcampaignltd
Jan 30
#JeremyBamber's Patrons & Supporters
All fighting for justice for Jeremy!
https://jeremy-bamber.co.uk/patrons-and-supporters…
#WhiteHouseFarm
https://mobile.twitter.com/jbcampaignltd/status/1222994303049510928
-
Michelle Diskin Bates has recently been asked to speak at a conference by the association for women barristers in conjunction with MTC solicitors. Apparently she’s down to speak about her brothers ‘miscarriage of justice’ (Which the Supreme Court deemed he wasn’t) and will be speaking about how she has been affected. Should be an interesting conference, especially if she’s asked about her apparent lies and misleading nonsense.
Julia Smart QC is apparently another speaker alongside Michelle Diskin Bates. Julia Smart was defence counsel in the Liam Allen case on disclosure issues
For anyone interested,
Liam Allen, Matthew Scott, Harriet Wistrich, Nina Burrowes, Laura Hoyano and Lucy Hall were on this mornings BBC ‘The Big Questions’ with Nicky Campbell https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000f2c2/the-big-questions-series-13-episode-1
The debate - ‘Is the justice system unfair to rape victims?’
Barry George raped me by my mum's door, then said sorry
”As 'misfit' Barry George began his life as a free man today - having spent eight years in jail - a woman told of how he raped her 25 years ago.
Karen Gray was a 20-year-old university languages student, when she was attacked and raped by George in the stairwell of a block of flats in West London.
But the Old Bailey jury were not permitted to hear the details of his vile attack on Miss Gray as she reached home - as it may have prejudiced his trial.
George was a stranger who followed her in the street, told her he was in the RAF, tried to hold her hand and spoke a few German phrases to impress her.
She thought he was a harmless oddball, 'a sad case' and didn't feel threatened or frightened by him.
But when he followed her into the block of flats where her mother lived, he changed.
The Old Bailey jury heard that George was incapable of planning or carrying out a series of actions without panicking or triggering an epileptic fit.
Nine years after the shooting of TV presenter Jill Dando on her own doorstep, and seven years after he was convicted of the crime, the jury took less than two days to acquit him.
As he walked from court a free man, Miss Dando's family are now facing the probability that her murder will never be solved.
But what the jury were not permitted to hear was the details of his vile attack on Miss Gray as she reached home.
On the stairs of a block of flats, George overpowered her, smothered her screams with his hand over her nose and mouth and ripped down her jeans to rape her.
As he left, he said 'sorry' before making for the nearest underground station and disappearing. He was not caught for a year.
It is hard to equate this glimpse of George the determined sex attacker with the man portrayed in court and by his family as a victim.
Read more here: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/barry-george-raped-me-by-my-mums-door-then-said-sorry-6890558.html
Michelle Bates
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@neill_bob
@CommonsJustice
and
@cpsuk
Don’t let Alison Saunders make this about rape cases. Non disclosure in OTHER cases, too. Dando/George case, I have the letters to prove that. Jeremy Bamber case is an abomination. Noncompliance by police, they refuse to disclose evidence.
@Bambertweets
@tru68
@michaeljnaughto
7:36 am · 27 Jan 2018 https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/957155274485219328
So if ‘disclosure’ in the Barry George case could prove her brothers innocence, why hasn’t Michelle Diskin Bates highlighted this?
What evidence exists to prove her brother isn’t a risk to women in particular?
Why hasn’t Dr Michael Naughton highlighted the alleged ‘disclosure’ issue claimed by Michelle Diskin Bates in the Barry George case here?
‘Why the current DPP must be replaced with immediate effect and a royal commission on disclosure is urgently needed [with postscript] Jan 2018
https://legalresearch.blogs.bris.ac.uk/2018/01/why-the-current-dpp-must-be-replaced-with-immediate-effect-and-a-royal-commission-on-disclosure-is-urgently-needed/
-
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
Freedom for http://RobinGarbuttOfficial.com -
@EmpowerInnocent in this article too : )
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
Well done, Jane! This is great for raising Robin’s profile and keeping pressure on the CCRC and hopes alive. Keep up the fantastic work!
Empowering the Innocent (ETI) Retweeted
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
13h
Thank you Michael...full of hope that the CCRC will this time see the truth + innocence of http://RobinGarbuttOfficial.com + swiftly get him to the CofA. Surely they`ll want2do the right thing+demonstrate their willingness2see justice no longer delayed on this tragic wrongful conviction
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
I keep hearing a little voice in my ear `Knowledge is power` - So I`m learning as much as I can - So much to learn - Freedom for http://RobinGarbuttOfficial.com
https://mobile.twitter.com/hanksoff03/status/1223992378333310979
-
2013
“In a judgment which raises the question of a distinction in the judicial system between acquittal and a declaration of innocence, two High Court judges said there were no new facts in Mr George’s case which would have meant he could never have been convicted. Lord Justice Beatson and Mr Justice Irwin said: “There was indeed a case upon which a reasonable jury, properly directed, could have convicted the claimant of murder.”
“Legal experts said the ruling was about “shutting down” the flow of compensation and was unfair on Mr George who is considered innocent of Ms Dando’s death in the public mind.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/eight-years-in-prison-but-barry-george-is-refused-compensation-8467485.html
Not in my mind he isn’t - the illusion is clear to me
The Illusory Truth Effect: Why We Believe Fake News, Conspiracy Theories and Propaganda
Excerpts:
“The illusory truth effect comes down to processing fluency. When a thought is easier to process, it requires our brains to use less energy, which leads us to prefer it.
“The illusory truth effect is one factor in why fabricated news stories sometimes gain traction and have a wide impact. When this happens, our knee-jerk reaction can be to assume that anyone who believes fake news must be unusually gullible or outright stupid. Evan Davis writes in Post Truth,
“Never before has there been a stronger sense that fellow citizens have been duped and that we are all suffering the consequences of their intellectual vulnerability.”
As Davis goes on to write, this assumption isn’t helpful for anyone. We can’t begin to understand why people believe seemingly ludicrous news stories until we consider some of the psychological reasons why this might happen.
Fake news falls under the umbrella of “information pollution,” which also includes news items that misrepresent information, take it out of context, parody it, fail to check facts or do background research, or take claims from unreliable sources at face value. Some of this news gets published on otherwise credible, well-respected news sites due to simple oversight. Some goes on parody sites that never purport to tell the truth, yet are occasionally mistaken for serious reporting. Some shows up on sites that replicate the look and feel of credible sources, using similar web design and web addresses. And some fake news comes from sites dedicated entirely to spreading misinformation, without any pretense of being anything else.
A lot of information pollution falls somewhere in between the extremes that tend to get the most attention. It’s the result of people being overworked or in a hurry and unable to do the due diligence that reliable journalism requires. It’s what happens when we hastily tweet something or mention it in a blog post and don’t realize it’s not quite true. It extends to miscited quotes, doctored photographs, fiction books masquerading as memoirs, or misleading statistics.
The signal to noise ratio is so skewed that we have a hard time figuring out what to pay attention to and what we should ignore. No one has time to verify everything they read online. No one. (And no, offline media certainly isn’t perfect either.) Our information processing capabilities are not infinite and the more we consume, the harder it becomes to assess its value.
Moreover, we’re often far outside our circle of competence, reading about topics we don’t have the expertise in to assess accuracy in any meaningful way. This drip-drip of information pollution is not harmless. Like air pollution, it builds up over time and the more we’re exposed to it, the more likely we are to end up picking up false beliefs which are then hard to shift. For instance, a lot of people believe that crime, especially the violent kind, is on an upward trend year by year—in a 2016 study by Pew Research, 57% of Americans believed crime had worsened since 2008. This despite violent crime having actually fallen by nearly a fifth during that time. This false belief may stem from the fact that violent crime receives a disproportional amount of media coverage, giving it wide and repeated exposure.
Read more here https://fs.blog/2020/02/illusory-truth-effect/
-
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
I keep hearing a little voice in my ear `Knowledge is power` - So I`m learning as much as I can - So much to learn - Freedom for http://RobinGarbuttOfficial.com
https://mobile.twitter.com/hanksoff03/status/1223992378333310979
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
I don`t want2but I worry so much that some decision-makers in our broken CJS appear to be without compassion...these factually innocents are real people snatched, kidnapped from their families+it`s as if everyone wants to rescue them, except those that actually have the power to
https://mobile.twitter.com/hanksoff03/status/1222219475795267584
This women is being duped by more than Robin Garbutt
-
Dr Michael Naughton was conned by Simon Hall a ‘dangerous and disturbed’ individual for years - to date he has chosen to not hold his hands up to having been conned.
On 10th September 2013 Michelle Diskin Bates stated,
“As a family member of a terrible miscarriage of justice, the victim being Barry George, convicted of the murder of Jill Dando; the Simon Hall confession is a concern because it is already so difficult for true MOJs to be believed by the public; this confession damages the credibility of all those still fighting for justice. But this is just one case. The British Justice System makes many, many more errors when it choses to build its cases around a person, rather than on the actual evidence. One confession is not a comfortable situation for those fighting miscarriages of justice,
https://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/simon-hall-confession-a-time-to-take-stock-by-professor-julie-price-originally-published-by-jon-robins-of-the-justice-gap/
So if ‘the Simon Hall confession’ were a ‘concern’ to Michelle Diskin Bates and if as she claims it ‘damages the credibility of all those still fighting for justice’ how have people like her and Dr Michael Naughton repaired and renewed their credibility ?
“A Time To Take Stock” by Professor Julie Price (Published 5 Sep 2013)
Excerpt:
‘Gobsmacked’, some said. Others were ‘Stunned’, writes Julie Price. But whatever the language of choice for miscarriage of justice observers, the common reaction to Simon Hall’s confession last month was:
‘We didn’t see that coming.’
Setting aside any questions (and there are many) (still have no idea what the many questions were as she’s never asked any as far as I’m aware)as to the circumstances surrounding his confession after maintaining innocence for 12 years, this turn of events will not have helped the cases of genuine victims of wrongful conviction, as suggested in early reactions from the ‘no smoke without fire’ brigade. (nor the ‘credibility of all those still fighting for justice’ says Michelle Diskin Bates)
Roch Reply #5 on: August 08, 2013, 11:00:AM »
Wow. Gobsmacked. I never followed the case in any detail but I imagine many will be shocked at this.
http://jeremybamberforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,4548.msg186597.html#msg186597
So was Professor Julie Price ‘lurking’ on the Jeremy Bamber forum or was someone passing comments made on the forum to her; or was Roch’s comment coincidental and she’d heard it elsewhere?
In May 2015 Dr Dennis Eady had an article published in the Justice Gap headed,
‘The problem lies with the Court of Appeal. It always did’ (Did it though?)
Excerpts:
“Michael Zander flagged up research by Dr Steven Heaton which found some nine out 10 applications to the CCRC had no prospects of ever being looked at by the CCRC because (in his words) ‘nothing is advanced by way of reasoning—no evidence, no material, nothing to go on’. That left just 10% and, of that number, some 3.5% were referred to the Court of Appeal. The Heaton study focused on 147 such cases where the CCRC did not refer and identified 26 cases where there was concern of a miscarriage of justice. Of that number, Dr Heaton came to the conclusion that the CCRC was absolutely right not to refer them. ‘That is a very important finding in a really serious piece of research,’ Zander said.
It was a view that was at odds with the experience of practitioners on the frontline such as Dennis Eady and Michael Naughton and solicitors Glyn Maddocks and Mark Newby. (‘frontline’ or most vocal?)
https://www.thejusticegap.com/problem-lies-court-appeal-always/
https://www.thejusticegap.com/we-need-our-innocence-projects-now-more-than-ever/
Professor Julie Price comments at foot of above article:
Julie Price says:
May 13, 2015 at 3:22 pm
“......Michael Naughton will, I’m sure, likewise take responsibility for other aspects of its failure.” Wonder what Julie Price is making of his ‘empowering the innocent’ campaign?
2016 article by Jon Robins
“Small wonder then that innocence projects boast just one major success story since their inception 12 years ago. In that case, the hard graft of Cardiff law students saw the appeal court overturn Dwaine George’s murder conviction in 2014. A result like this is an undeniable triumph for the students involved: https://www.legalcheek.com/2016/04/legal-commentator-voices-concerns-over-challenges-facing-university-innocence-projects-in-damning-new-article/
“Professor Julie Price said it was "a significant day".
"It demonstrates that universities are about more than research, and can show public impact from innovative teaching and learning," she said.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-30395753
Not for Daniel Dales mum it wasn’t
'Who pulled the trigger?': Mum of Daniel Dale calls on freed Dwaine George to name her son’s murderer
‘Lynn Hales said: "George has now claimed to be a reformed man. If that is true he should tell the police who did this"https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/who-pulled-trigger-mum-daniel-8257691
Have Julie Price, the Cardiff law students and co helped Lynn Hale get justice for her son Daniel?
Excerpts:
In December 2018 Professor Julie Price had an article published on the Justice Gap website headed,
‘This conference is about hope. We are the people who have to make the change’
“Innovation of Justice came to Manchester last month, the brainchild of Liam Allan. Liam is the media’s non-disclosure ‘poster boy’ who spent two years in a limbo that could so easily have seen him wrongfully convicted of rape. (The CCRC’s ex ‘poster boy’ Michael O’Brien was also in attendance though there’s no mention of him in the article , instead there’s a photo of him alongside Professor Claire McGourlay)
A definite theme emerged from the heart-rending stories of the powerful speakers – that ‘ordinary’ members of the public have no idea about the multiple, serious, problems with the criminal justice system. The Secret Barrister has re-scratched the surface, but there is a pressing need to work together to find a way of getting the message out there, and to engage politicians.
‘If it could happen to Liam, it could happen to anyone,’ said his barrister Julia Smart. Her ‘kitchen table epiphany’ was a stroke of good fortune that could so easily instead have seen Liam serving a 10 years plus prison sentence for something he hadn’t done.
These conferences are as impressive and uplifting as they are deeply troubling and depressing, because of the consistency of the message and experience: deja vu comes around – again. They expose the ongoing deep-rooted intellectual dishonesty (ahem) of a system that is hell bent on saving the reputation (ahem) of the establishment at the expense of destroying the lives of many innocent people and their loved ones. And, outside of audiences typical of this one, no-one seems really to be listening. (why could that be I wonder?)
“Eddie and Sue must have called upon huge reserves of personal restraint (don’t let his probation officer hear that) when they heard David James Smith, a recent former CCRC Commissioner, read from a script that could have been written for him by the CCRC’s public relations office. Liam, admirably, thanked Mr Smith for his courage in speaking at the Manchester conference, being in a clear minority in that room. But I personally cannot resist concluding that Mr Smith was, far more than I have seen previously, out of his comfort zone at this conference. (or just not buying it maybe?) He has regularly attended many public events flying the CCRC flag – fair play to him for that.
But I was left with the distinct impression this time that his justification of the CCRC’s role and recent decisions was unsustainable and disingenuous – no more than lip service. To me, it seemed that he was not comfortable with what he was saying. (or not comfortable with what he heard?) His words were a hollow irrelevance to the incredulous audience, who were far more impressed and engaged by the building momentum of the other speakers’ diverse stories on the same haunting theme (suspect that’ll be short lived) – our justice system isn’t working.
......... We have seen and heard all of this before. (Haven’t we just) In the university world, we had huge hope and excitement when the Innocence Network UK (INUK) under Dr Michael Naughton’s leadership emerged 14 years ago. (“good leaders surround themselves with good people, but GREAT leaders surround themselves with people who are even better than they are.”)
https://www.thejusticegap.com/this-conference-is-about-hope-we-are-the-people-who-have-to-make-the-change/
How Cardiff students proved a man convicted of murder was innocent
“There were also similarities with the case of Barry George who was cleared of the murder of Jill Dando.
Applying the new standards, the tiny amount of material found on the coat could not have any evidential value, Mr Wood said.
He put forward evidence from an expert, Angela Shaw, who said it was not enough to support the weak identification evidence in the case.
“Professor Price said: "The evidence against him [Mr George] was very weak in the first place.
"Once we cast doubt on the gunshot evidence, the other evidence used to convict him meant that his conviction was unsafe. (Might want to point that out to the journo claiming in his headline he’s ‘innocent’)
"Dwaine was articulate and a pleasure to work with - he helped our students present the case to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), and his story remained the same from day one."
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/how-cardiff-students-proved-man-15508697
Video includes interviews with Forensic consultant Philip Boyce and Duaine George
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjAndx_8dF8
Forensic consultant Philip Boyce, alongside Mark Williams Thomas here https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VeLsEeE0zTI
The voice identification aspect of the Duaine George case is referred to here https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=cfgvDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT112&lpg=PT112&dq=duaine+george+murder+manchester&source=bl&ots=2iTX-3Ygo8&sig=ACfU3U2EJql2p_U0n4KlhWxvHavVx1XDag&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEw[Name removed]vajo4LbnAhVNURUIHdg7BzE4FBDoATAIegQICRAB#v=onepage&q=duaine%20george%20murder%20manchester&f=false though the author claims Daniel Dales murder was ‘probably’ linked to him giving evidence in a murder trial - police appeared to have ruled this out
-
Mike Bourke states in his book ‘Mikes Story’ re Scott Lomax,
“In the afternoon I met Scott for the last time in Victoria where we had an afternoon drink in the Shakespeare pub. At about 15.00 Michelle phoned me from the hotel saying that they had just finished the interviews and asked me what I was doing. I said I was with Scott but could not talk further as the line went dead. At about 22.00 she again phoned me and asked if I knew Scott had written an article for the Sunday mirror. I explained that Scott was a writer and so it was to be expected that he might write something as he was also outside the Old Bailey when she and MOJO were speaking to the media. She said that Barry could lose money as a result and in the background I could hear him speaking quietly. But nobody had requested that I or Scott should remain silent.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ltgorwROQfwC&pg=PA205&lpg=PA205&dq=fight+to+clear+barry+george+michelle&source=bl&ots=OsAc3MB2cI&sig=ACfU3U3BUTuHoQQtlG6TVNhPpqylF1KDxg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiz8YrLpITnAhU6TRUIHYSxDlA4FBDoATADegQICRAB#v=onepage&q=fight%20to%20clear%20barry%20george%20michelle&f=false
-
Mike Bourke states in his book ‘Mikes Story’ re Scott Lomax,
“In the afternoon I met Scott for the last time in Victoria where we had an afternoon drink in the Shakespeare pub. At about 15.00 Michelle phoned me from the hotel saying that they had just finished the interviews and asked me what I was doing. I said I was with Scott but could not talk further as the line went dead. At about 22.00 she again phoned me and asked if I knew Scott had written an article for the Sunday mirror. I explained that Scott was a writer and so it was to be expected that he might write something as he was also outside the Old Bailey when she and MOJO were speaking to the media. She said that Barry could lose money as a result and in the background I could hear him speaking quietly. But nobody had requested that I or Scott should remain silent.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ltgorwROQfwC&pg=PA205&lpg=PA205&dq=fight+to+clear+barry+george+michelle&source=bl&ots=OsAc3MB2cI&sig=ACfU3U3BUTuHoQQtlG6TVNhPpqylF1KDxg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiz8YrLpITnAhU6TRUIHYSxDlA4FBDoATADegQICRAB#v=onepage&q=fight%20to%20clear%20barry%20george%20michelle&f=false
Excerpt:
“An author who questioned the guilt of the man jailed for killing TV presenter Jill Dando has written a book about notorious Essex murderer Jeremy Bamber.
Doubts raised in books by Scott Lomax about the case against Barry George were proved well-founded when the 48-year-old was cleared at a retrial, seven years after his conviction.
The crime writer has now turned his attention to investigating the case of Bamber, 47, who is in prison for life for shooting dead five members of his family at White House Farm in Tolleshunt D’Arcy back in 1985.
https://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/3694499.essex-bamber-murder-new-book/
well founded
adjective
(especially of a suspicion or belief) based on good evidence or reasons
Excerpt from Scott Lomax - Simon Hall’s Fight For Freedom
“Medical examination of the body revealed that Joan’s murderer had bizarrely inflicted wounds upon her after a significant period of time had elapsed following her death. An estimate suggested the unnecessary wounds had been inflicted up to half an hour after the crime, showing the killer had spent some time around the body. This, in addition to the location and nature of wounds on the body, has suggested the possibility the murder was in some way sexually motivated, with the murderer gaining sexual gratification from spending time with the corpse.
https://therealmrshspoofblog.wordpress.com/2016/04/13/simon-halls-fight-for-freedom-by-scott-lomax/
Whatever Scott Lomax uncovered re the above in the Simon Hall case, he never shared with his readers.
And to date he’s remained tight lipped; publicly anyway - but why?
Michelle Diskin Bates recently claimed of Scott Lomaxs book on Jeremy Bamber;
”certainly clarified things for me. Good move”
Michelle Diskin Bates uncle Michael Bourke wrote about his nieces concerns over an article written by Scott Lomax following his retrial. He claimed she was worried that , “Barry could lose money as a result”
What was meant by this comment exactly?
Did she mean only her and Barry were allowed to talk to the media?
And why does it appear her focus was on money at this time?
Surely she would have been too overwhelmed to think of anything other than her brother and his well being?
Of Scott Lomax, Michelle Diskin Bates also claimed, “He has a forensic mind.”
What does she mean by this?
forensic means:
/fəˈrɛnsɪk/
adjective
1.
relating to or denoting the application of scientific methods and techniques to the investigation of crime.
He certainly never appeared to have applied his ‘forensic mind’ in the Simon Hall case. Actually that’s not fair, he did but never seemed to explore them further. Why? Why did he dismiss the ‘sexual aspect’ so readily?
So why is Michelle Diskin really promoting Scott Lomaxs book on the Bamber case; especially after publicly stating,
“As a family member of a terrible miscarriage of justice, the victim being Barry George, convicted of the murder of Jill Dando; the Simon Hall confession is a concern because it is already so difficult for true MOJs to be believed by the public; this confession damages the credibility of all those still fighting for justice
Are we really to believe she never read Scott Lomaxs “Simon Hall’s Fight For Freedom”article?
Maybe she hasn’t?
I’ve never read Scott Lomaxs books so have no idea if ‘his forensic mind’ shows through in them nor if the ‘forensic mind’ to which Michelle Diskin Bates appears similar in comparison to her own
I do however know Scott Lomax has never publicly admitted to having been conned by Simon Hall nor of the campaign being run by others on Halls behalf at the time (Before my time). He’s never, as far as I’m aware, shared his thoughts on the confession etc.
I was told by both Sandra lean and Simon Hall in a round about way to steer clear of him. So I did.
-
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
I keep hearing a little voice in my ear `Knowledge is power` - So I`m learning as much as I can - So much to learn - Freedom for http://RobinGarbuttOfficial.com
https://mobile.twitter.com/hanksoff03/status/1223992378333310979
Hanksoff03 has highlighted in the above Dr Michael Naughton’s book,
‘The Innocent and the Criminal Justice System’
An excerpt reads:
‘What is perhaps more relevant for this discussion is not the inculpatory limits of the forensic evidence against Barry George but that the way the police embarked on what can only be described as a ‘suspect-led policing’ operation, focusing entirely on manufacturing an incriminating case against him with circumstantial evidence to increase the possibility of obtaining a conviction. Having identified George as a ‘loner’ and a ‘misfit’ who lived near to the crime scene, he almost inevitably became a potential suspect in the eyes of the police.
To establish a motive, they trawled through 800 newspapers George had hoarded at his flat and found eight stories relating to Ms Dando, which they then presented as evidence of his ‘obsession’ with her (see Bloxham 2008). To establish that Barry George was capable of carrying out the shooting, reference was made to him joining the Territorial army almost 20 years earlier, although he left the following year before completing his basic training. Reference was also made to gun magazines and books on firearms found at his home, also dating from the 1980 (see Lomax 2003).
Eamonn O’Neill (2010) analysis seems apposite in explaining the psychological reasons why police officers construct cases in this way. As he argued, we tend to see what we are looking for, what we want to see, and as this relates to police investigations they often work from an approach that he termed ‘hypothesis in’. That is, finding evidence to support a premeditated hypothesis of guilt, rather than from the ‘facts out’, i.e neutrally assessing the evidence to ascertain what might have occurred (O’Neill 2006:10).
This phenomenon is well established in wrongful convictions studies and is commonly termed ‘tunnel vision’. In an extensive analysis in the context of the United States, Findley and Scott (2006: 292) defined tunnel vision as follows:
‘Tunnel vision is a natural human tendency that has particularly pernicious effects in the criminal justice system. Tunnel vision in this context is generally understood to mean that “compendium of common heuristics and logical fallacies,” to which we are all susceptible, that lead actors in the criminal justice system to “focus on a suspect, select and filter the evidence that will ‘build a case’ for conviction, while ignoring or suppressing evidence that points away from guilt” (Martin, 2006, p. 848). This process leads investigators, prosecutors, judges, and defense lawyers alike to focus on a particular conclusion and then filter all evidence in a case through the lens provided by that conclusion. Through that filter, all information supporting the adopted conclusion is elevated in significance, viewed as consistent with the other evidence, and deemed relevant and probative. Evidence inconsistent with the chosen theory is easily overlooked or dismissed as irrelevant, incredible, or unreliable. Properly understood, tunnel vision is more often the product of the human condition as well as institutional and cultural pressures, than of maliciousness or indifference’
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=zsi9CgAAQBAJ&pg=PT77&lpg=PT77&dq=eamonn+o%27neill+barry+george&source=bl&ots=UOPzk43Siw&sig=ACfU3U3BxiLm9bcgT4lXuqJsDlh3-vRFRQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiM_N7X5LfnAhXkpHEKHScGDhEQ6AEwDnoECAUQAQ#v=onepage&q=eamonn%20o'neill%20barry%20george&f=false
Michelle Diskin Bates refers to Dr Michael Naughton as ‘inspirational’ in her radio interview.
Leigh Chambers asks: ‘Michelle, Peter there talking about police corruption
You’ve never said in your book that it was corruption that ended with Barry’s conviction
Why, why do you think Barry was the target?
Michelle Diskin Bates replies: “I couldn’t say it was corruption because I had no proof of that and I didn’t want my book to not have integrity I wanted people to be able to trust what I was writing
integrity
/ɪnˈtɛɡrɪti/
noun
1.
the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles.
Michelle Diskin Bates didn’t need to write about police ‘corruption’ in her book Stand Against Injustice because others, like Dr Michael Naughton for example, had already alluded to it it theirs.
‘....the police embarked on what can only be described as a ‘suspect-led policing’ operation, focusing entirely on manufacturing an incriminating case against him with circumstantial evidence to increase the possibility of obtaining a conviction’
The ‘illusionary truth effect’ got off the ground around the time Barry George was arrested.
-
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
I keep hearing a little voice in my ear `Knowledge is power` - So I`m learning as much as I can - So much to learn - Freedom for http://RobinGarbuttOfficial.com
https://mobile.twitter.com/hanksoff03/status/1223992378333310979
William Beck
@WullieBeck
Jan 25
Replying to
@PrivateEyeNews
Who would believe evidence could go missing ?
Only muppets.
There is a reason for clumps of hair going missing.
It did not match the accused.
William Beck
@WullieBeck
Jan 29
Replying to
@PrivateEyeNews
The judge and jury were mislead on 2 crucial planks of evidence if it is now in doubt.
This should be enough to overturn the conviction.
All too often experts are giving evidence outwith their expertise.
William Beck
@WullieBeck
Jan 25
Replying to
@PrivateEyeNews
With the hair mysteriously disappearing can it be said Garbutt had a fair hearing.
When evidence against 8 police officers disappeared in the Cardiff case CPS dropped the case.
Why is the same not happening here ?
There’s a blog on the Robin Garbutt case here https://andrewashman.blogspot.com/
In 2016 the author says of themselves;
‘Hello everyone
I am a freelance writer based in the UK. I took a break for a while but am back now and ready to really dig my heels in.
I am ready to undertake most forms of writing work from commercial writing, research analysis, content writing, ghost writing, dissertations, scripts, case studies, creative pieces, article writing, etc
You can find me on freelancer.co.uk: https://www.freelancer.co.uk/u/andrewashman.html
I am currently working on two writing projects:
1, I am researching stories whereby young people's lives have been influenced by rap culture and have become involved in drugs and / or crime as a result. I am already writing a screenplay with this story line based on a real life story but would love to hear from others and gather further information
2, I have been asked to research and write articles about the "Military romance scams" that are growing every day online mainly being run by very clever scammers from Africa, particularly Nigeria. I will be posting blogs on these and other subjects here
If you need a writer just pop me out an e-mail to
https://andrewashman.blogspot.com/2016/
The author also blogs about ‘injustice’ https://andrewashman.blogspot.com/2019/02/time-to-stop-miscarriages-of-justice-i.html
and states,
‘Please note: I am a professional and therefore NEVER do rushed deadlines, I expect to be allowed to a quality job in a reasonable time frame
You can contact me via e-mail or inbox here or by telephone
Oh and lastly i don't work for free $7 per hour is minimum price for professional work
Wonder how much the Robin Garbutt blog cost or was it a freebie?
-
APPG on Miscarriages of Justice
@APPGMJ
Forensic Science and Miscarriages of Justice - 4 February 2020. The APPGMJ returns for 2020.
Hear from:
@ProfRuthMorgan
Louise Shorter
@insidejusticeUK
&
@ctmccartney
Prof Angela Gallop CBE
@ForensicAccess
Dr Gill Tully, Forensic Science Regulator
3:27 PM · Jan 30, 2020·Twitter Web App
APPG on Miscarriages of Justice
@APPGMJ
4m
Replying to
@APPGMJ
Forensic evidence can be key to wrongful convictions. After
@LordsSTCom
's 2019 report finding 'failings in the use of science in the criminal justice system', join the APPG and learn more. Chaired by
@hammersmithandy
16.30-18.15, CR16
@HouseofCommons
RSVP: alex@appeal.org.uk
https://mobile.twitter.com/APPGMJ/status/1222904192873816067
CCRC
@ccrcupdate
Looks like an interesting discussion on forensic science at the @APPGMJ meeting today.
@ccrcupdate is looking forward to it.
https://mobile.twitter.com/ccrcupdate/status/1224724912952266752
TED talk with Professor Ruth Morgan - ‘The dangers of misinterpreted forensic evidence’
You vs Science
Not all of us are going to commit a crime, but every single one of us could be accused of one, says Ruth.
Ruth paints the scenario – you sit in a seat at a cinema for example. A stand of your hair falls out and the hair is picked up by the clothing of the next person to sit in that seat. You leave the cinema and go home none the wiser. But that same night, the person who your hair is now attached to goes and commits a crime. Your hair is left at the scene, linking you to the crime. You’re stood in court while the expert explains to the judge how your hair, your DNA, is cast iron proof you committed the crime. But you know you’re innocent.
This, sadly, is a scenario too many people are all too familiar with.
Misinterpretation of forensic evidence is the biggest problem facing forensic science
For Ruth, forensic science is undeniably a technological success story. We can now identify smaller traces of material, more accurately and quicker than ever before.
But, forensic science has got a problem. It’s a problem that has gone under the radar and it’s a problem that has the potential to impact thousands of innocent people.
Ruth shared a shocking fact - 96% of forensic evidence is misinterpreted. That tells us forensic science has got a problem that technology alone can’t fix.
What we really need to know is if we find gunshot residue on you, how did it get there and when did it get there. Ruth explained the issue: that, at the moment, we don’t have the data that we need to be able to answer that question sufficiently.
Forensic science evidence isn’t always going to be interpreted accurately – so we need a change.
For Ruth, we need to change what our primary focus is, from being on what something is and who it belongs to, and we need to get serious about getting the answers we need to the ‘how’ and the ‘when’.
If we can do that, then we will have the opportunity to dramatically reduce the chances of evidence being misinterpreted.
We need to do that so that each one of us never has to stand in court as that innocent person in the dock.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xclg8ikPAvI
https://o-behave.tumblr.com/post/173319397192/nudgestock-2018-professor-ruth-morgan
Ruth Morgan
Excerpts:
‘Imagine you’re in court, accused of a crime that you know you didn’t commit. Now imagine a scientist takes the stand and starts explaining to the court how your DNA is on the murder weapon. (This sounds very similar to the old Simon Hall campaign website)
Forensic science is nothing short of a technological success story; it is possible to detect and identify forensic traces at greater levels of resolution and accuracy than ever before, and we can capture, retain and search more data than at any other time in history. These capabilities are transforming what forensic science can do. However, at the same time, forensic science is facing a huge challenge.
Forensic science sits at the intersection of science, law, policing, government and policy. It is a complex ecosystem that has competing demands and drivers to deliver science to assist the justice system. A recent inquiry by the House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee in the UK recognized that forensic science is in a state of crisis, to such a degree that it is undermining trust in our justice systems. This crisis is multifaceted, and while some of the results of the crisis have been reported, such as miscarriages of justice, instances of malpractice, and failures of quality standards, there is an aspect of the crisis that has been overlooked. A recent study in the UK identified all the cases upheld by the Court of Appeal where criminal evidence was critical in the original trial over a seven-year period. In 22% of those cases, the evidence was misinterpreted. These cases are only the tip of the iceberg and indicate a broader root cause of the crisis forensic science is facing.
‘Given how the justice system shapes our societies, the stakes are far too high to ignore the crisis in forensic science. The integrity of the forensic science system is critical to the delivery of justice and public trust, and so this is an urgent challenge for the global community. Like plastics in our oceans, this is a problem that has gone under the radar for far too long. The time for action is now.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/09/why-forensic-science-is-in-crisis-and-how-we-can-fix-it/
-
APPG on Miscarriages of Justice
@APPGMJ
Forensic Science and Miscarriages of Justice - 4 February 2020. The APPGMJ returns for 2020.
Hear from:
@ProfRuthMorgan
Louise Shorter
@insidejusticeUK
&
@ctmccartney
Prof Angela Gallop CBE
@ForensicAccess
Dr Gill Tully, Forensic Science Regulator
3:27 PM · Jan 30, 2020·Twitter Web App
APPG on Miscarriages of Justice
@APPGMJ
4m
Replying to
@APPGMJ
Forensic evidence can be key to wrongful convictions. After
@LordsSTCom
's 2019 report finding 'failings in the use of science in the criminal justice system', join the APPG and learn more. Chaired by
@hammersmithandy
16.30-18.15, CR16
@HouseofCommons
RSVP: alex@appeal.org.uk
https://mobile.twitter.com/APPGMJ/status/1222904192873816067
Angela Gallop assisted the defence in the Barry George case
APPEAL
@C4CrimAppeals
Professor Angela Gallop tells @APPGMJ that with fragmentation of forensic science, “There’s a risk of getting an incomplete picture” of cases.
4 key findings:
1.Fragmentation - lack of a joined up approach
2.Reduced accountability and responsibility
3.The model of the private market is unstable
4.More investment in research is needed in forensic science
Change and action are needed now.
“We’re forgetting how to solve complex cases,” Professor Angela Gallop says, because of lack of holistic approach.
‘Forensic Science Regulator Dr Gillian Tully warns that increased sensitivity of DNA testing brings increased risk of contamination.
‘Lack of “Time and money are big issues in forensic science,” says Forensic Science Regulator Dr Gillian Tully.
‘Forensic Science Regulator Dr Gillian Tully says they’ve launched a confidential reporting line.
‘We need statutory regulation” of forensic science, says Dr Gillian Tully.
“Whenever you have people, you get errors,” Forensic Science Regulator Dr Gillian Tully says.
“We need to make sure the disclosure process... is working well,” says Forensic Science Regulator Dr Gillian Tully.
‘Forensic science can be really helpful in correcting miscarriages of justice, but it can also sometimes cause them, says Forensic Science Regulator Dr Gillian Tully.
Professor Angela Gallop:
“I would rather forensic science weren’t used in court than that it is used badly.”
“It is dangerous and promotes miscarriages of justice”
‘There should be an automatic defence review where ever forensic science is critical” in a case, Professor Angela Gallop says.
‘Professor Angela Gallop tells @APPGMJ ought to be a discussion about police insourcing of forensics. “We shouldn’t be sleepwalking into it.”
‘Digital forensics is the “largest single challenge” facing forensic science and police investigation, says Professor Angela Gallop.
https://mobile.twitter.com/C4CrimAppeals/status/1224745787860582402
April 2015
‘There is a growing sense of crisis inside the world of forensic science. Recent high profile cases such as Jill Dando and Amanda Knox have highlighted serious problems with the way testing is carried out. Techniques from fingerprint analysis to DNA identification have been found wanting, as cases collapse and are overturned. Plummeting forensic spending by police forces has left a newly privatised industry in England and Wales on the brink of failure. In this series, science journalist Linda Geddes investigates why forensic science has fallen into crisis, and what can be done to restore confidence in the field.
Programme 1: The UK was once a world leader in forensic research, with DNA fingerprinting invented at the University of Leicester in 1984, a technique which revolutionised the investigation of crime. Now forensic scientists claim we are falling dangerously behind the rest of the world in terms of research and development, relying on outdated equipment and unvalidated techniques. Linda Geddes hears from leading researchers who are speaking out to try and prevent more miscarriages of justice.
including comments from Tiernan Coyle https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b05r3tf1
May 2015
FORENSICS: CRISIS, WHAT CRISIS?
Forensics: crisis, what crisis?
A recent three-part series on BBC Radio 4 sought to investigate the perceived loss of confidence in forensic science and how it might be reversed. Forensics in Crisis is currently available on iPlayer at www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05stg0j#auto.
Journalist Linda Geddes interviewed scientists, police chiefs and lawyers, and cited past cases involving forensics, to argue that problems have arisen in three respects:
1. Some forensic techniques are not sufficiently supported by data, i.e. there is an inadequate research base.
2. Not all the forensic analysis that could and should be performed, is being requested by prosecutors and defence, and the spectrum is likely to continue to narrow.
3. The presentation of forensic evidence in court is always a matter of subjective expert opinion, allowing interpretation and evaluation by counsel and jury.
Whilst the series had a pretty good stab at identifying the problems, it rather shied away from how they might be rectified, save for encouraging research, expanding services and augmenting analysis, all of which would require financial investment in these times of continuing austerity.
Episode One, Crisis in Research, discussed miscarriages of justice that have resulted from evidence presented as scientific fact but unsubstantiated by research, starting with Barry George’s 2001 conviction for killing Jill Dando, which centred on a speck of gun residue found in his pocket. George was found not guilty at retrial, when it was agreed that the speck may have been transferred from firearms officers involved in the investigation.
In a second British case to undermine forensic evidence, former Scottish detective Shirley McKie was wrongly accused of visiting a murder scene. A subsequent inquiry exposed serious weaknesses in fingerprint evidence.
In the US, the flawed identification technique of hair morphology was used by the FBI to secure over 2000 convictions after which more than a dozen individuals have been executed. Donald Gates was convicted of murder on hair morphology evidence, an FBI expert claiming that there was a 1 in 10,000 probability that the hair came from anyone else but there was no data to support that. “That’s simply a made-up number,†said Peter Neufeld, co-founder of the Innocence Project. [See also News Round-Up, week ending 24.4.15: Guilty by a Hair in the News section of this site.]
A report by the National Academy of Sciences in 2009 concluded that bad science was to blame. Niamh NicDaeid, Professor of Forensic Science at the University of Dundee, said the NAS Report confirmed what many experts had feared, that there were deficiencies particularly in the interpretation of different findings, including fibre and hair examination. The same techniques are in use worldwide.
In the UK, hair analysis has been treated with scepticism, particularly since the development of DNA ‘fingerprinting’ by Sir Alec Jeffreys, but the closure of the Forensic Science Service in 2012 and its subsequent replacement by a private market has led to a dearth of research in the field.
Without research, often lengthy and costly, forensic techniques cannot be developed and validated. Tiernan Coyle, fibre analyst and owner of forensic firm Contact Traces, discussed the loss of a research budget. Naimh NicDaeid agreed, emphasising the particular need for a research basis when justice depends on forensic science. Former Labour MP Andrew Miller voiced concerns over likely wrongful convictions resulting from the lack of regulation of private forensic laboratories, the lack of coordination of primary research and the fragmentation of analytical work in individual cases. Inside Justice is aware that funding is available to police units; the Metropolitan Police won a bid for £6million for forensic research from the Police Innovation Fund last year but it is the small independent labs, undertaking defence and appeal work, with specialist techniques that can’t compete in the current climate.
The Home Office sent a statement to the programme explaining the financial basis for closing the FSS and trumpeting the success of DNA matching, but Angela Gallop of Forensic Access stressed the need for research in areas of forensics other than DNA analysis.
In the US, the vast majority of forensic work is handled by police-run laboratories. In the UK there are growing concerns over in-house testing and prosecution-bias. The second Radio 4 programme, Crisis in the Lab, described how established but expensive forensic techniques are falling by the wayside in favour of fingerprinting, DNA profile matching and digital forensics.
Predatory paedophile Umesh Kulasingham was eventually convicted with forensic textile techniques, the use of which may be dying out. One expert spoke of her fears for the future: “I think forensic science will be increasingly dumbed down to such an extent that we will just be doing the absolute basics.â€
Fibre evidence, involving analysis of thousands of individual fibres, has been crucial in many high profile murder cases, including those of Damilola Taylor and Stephen Lawrence, and in the Soham killings. Tiernan Coyle was concerned that this field of forensics and others, such as toxicology, are under threat, with numbers of competent practitioners decimated. Part of the problem is access and testing of evidence by police in-house laboratories, not all of which are accredited and therefore may not have sufficient expertise in all forensic techniques.
Chief Constable Chris Sims, lead for Forensic Science in the National Police Chiefs Council, was not surprised at the relative drop in popularity of forensic techniques like fibre analysis but voiced concerned lest such expertise be lost.
An anonymous former police scientist considered the UK criminal justice system not best served with decisions over choice of technique being subject to budgetary constraints.
Professor Bob Green of the University of Kent concurred. Evidence is consequently going unchecked, meaning cases may be dropped and justice not served. Chris Sims disagreed, justifying in-house analysis, but Angela Gallop did not feel the police were best placed to objectively decide on submission of evidence for forensic analysis.
Interpretation of fingerprints, always in-house, is coming under the same accreditation processes as other forensic science, following cases like that of Shirley McKie.
Accreditation is compulsory for private labs but though police labs have to be accredited too, the system is less transparent on penalties for not doing so and the system does not cover everything, such as the selection of evidence for submission.
The third and final programme of the series, Crisis in Court, considered the potential for forensic evidence to be misrepresented or misinterpreted in court, citing the eventual acquittal of Amanda Knox and Raffaelle Sollecito of the murder of Meredith Kercher. Their earlier conviction hinged on DNA evidence. DNA matching is often held up as the gold standard of forensic identification but, as Tracy Alexander has explained in an earlier article for Inside Justice (DNA: Did Not Attend), it is not entirely objective and should never stand alone.
UCL Cognitive Neuroscientist Dr Itiel Dror conducted a study of objectivity in DNA matching and found it to be anything but, despite the advent of computer software programmes. Ian Evett, of Principal Forensic Services, described how interpretation of partial DNA profiles from real-life crime scenes is fraught with complications involving small quantities, degradation and contamination.
To obtain a DNA profile, highly variable regions in the sample are ‘bookmarked’ and amplified, and peaks identified.
Rudi Guede’s fingerprint was found in Meredith Kercher’s blood and his DNA found in the rented room where she was killed. Professor Peter Gill explained how DNA detection has improved since he and Alec Jeffreys first developed the technique. This improvement allowed prosecutors to identify minute traces of Meredith Kercher’s DNA on a knife found in Sollecito’s apartment, the programme explained, despite no preliminary chemical detection of blood. Amanda Knox’s DNA was also found on the knife and this was evidence enough to convict the two, in combination with what the court accepted was contamination of an exhibit by Scene of Crime Officers; Kercher’s bra clasp, with Sollecito’s DNA.
Linda Geddes also described the cases of Merseyside taxi driver, David ‘Flaky’ Butler, who spent eight months on remand for murder after transfer of his DNA, and Devonian Adam Scott, who was accused of rape after a forensic sample was contaminated with his. However, Professor Paul Roberts of the University of Nottingham maintained that much of scientific evidence is as good as there can be, but emphasised that no evidence is ever conclusive or infallible.
Peter Gill is convinced that a prosecution bias exists in the private market now in the UK, certainly with the emergence of streamlined reports which were designed to expedite results but which contain no expert opinion as to their weight and relevance. He ended with a warning:
We are in danger of sleepwalking into another serious round of miscarriages of justice.
https://www.insidejustice.co.uk/articles/forensics-crisis-what-crisis/115
-
APPEAL
@C4CrimAppeals
Professor Angela Gallop tells @APPGMJ that with fragmentation of forensic science, “There’s a risk of getting an incomplete picture” of cases.
4 key findings:
1.Fragmentation - lack of a joined up approach
2.Reduced accountability and responsibility
3.The model of the private market is unstable
4.More investment in research is needed in forensic science
Change and action are needed now.
“We’re forgetting how to solve complex cases,” Professor Angela Gallop says, because of lack of holistic approach.
‘Forensic Science Regulator Dr Gillian Tully warns that increased sensitivity of DNA testing brings increased risk of contamination.
‘Lack of “Time and money are big issues in forensic science,” says Forensic Science Regulator Dr Gillian Tully.
‘Forensic Science Regulator Dr Gillian Tully says they’ve launched a confidential reporting line.
‘We need statutory regulation” of forensic science, says Dr Gillian Tully.
“Whenever you have people, you get errors,” Forensic Science Regulator Dr Gillian Tully says.
“We need to make sure the disclosure process... is working well,” says Forensic Science Regulator Dr Gillian Tully.
‘Forensic science can be really helpful in correcting miscarriages of justice, but it can also sometimes cause them, says Forensic Science Regulator Dr Gillian Tully.
Professor Angela Gallop:
“I would rather forensic science weren’t used in court than that it is used badly.”
“It is dangerous and promotes miscarriages of justice”
‘There should be an automatic defence review where ever forensic science is critical” in a case, Professor Angela Gallop says.
‘Professor Angela Gallop tells @APPGMJ ought to be a discussion about police insourcing of forensics. “We shouldn’t be sleepwalking into it.”
‘Digital forensics is the “largest single challenge” facing forensic science and police investigation, says Professor Angela Gallop.
https://mobile.twitter.com/C4CrimAppeals/status/1224745787860582402
April 2015
‘There is a growing sense of crisis inside the world of forensic science. Recent high profile cases such as Jill Dando and Amanda Knox have highlighted serious problems with the way testing is carried out. Techniques from fingerprint analysis to DNA identification have been found wanting, as cases collapse and are overturned. Plummeting forensic spending by police forces has left a newly privatised industry in England and Wales on the brink of failure. In this series, science journalist Linda Geddes investigates why forensic science has fallen into crisis, and what can be done to restore confidence in the field.
Programme 1: The UK was once a world leader in forensic research, with DNA fingerprinting invented at the University of Leicester in 1984, a technique which revolutionised the investigation of crime. Now forensic scientists claim we are falling dangerously behind the rest of the world in terms of research and development, relying on outdated equipment and unvalidated techniques. Linda Geddes hears from leading researchers who are speaking out to try and prevent more miscarriages of justice.
including comments from Tiernan Coyle https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b05r3tf1
May 2015
FORENSICS: CRISIS, WHAT CRISIS?
Forensics: crisis, what crisis?
A recent three-part series on BBC Radio 4 sought to investigate the perceived loss of confidence in forensic science and how it might be reversed. Forensics in Crisis is currently available on iPlayer at www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05stg0j#auto.
Journalist Linda Geddes interviewed scientists, police chiefs and lawyers, and cited past cases involving forensics, to argue that problems have arisen in three respects:
1. Some forensic techniques are not sufficiently supported by data, i.e. there is an inadequate research base.
2. Not all the forensic analysis that could and should be performed, is being requested by prosecutors and defence, and the spectrum is likely to continue to narrow.
3. The presentation of forensic evidence in court is always a matter of subjective expert opinion, allowing interpretation and evaluation by counsel and jury.
Whilst the series had a pretty good stab at identifying the problems, it rather shied away from how they might be rectified, save for encouraging research, expanding services and augmenting analysis, all of which would require financial investment in these times of continuing austerity.
Episode One, Crisis in Research, discussed miscarriages of justice that have resulted from evidence presented as scientific fact but unsubstantiated by research, starting with Barry George’s 2001 conviction for killing Jill Dando, which centred on a speck of gun residue found in his pocket. George was found not guilty at retrial, when it was agreed that the speck may have been transferred from firearms officers involved in the investigation.
In a second British case to undermine forensic evidence, former Scottish detective Shirley McKie was wrongly accused of visiting a murder scene. A subsequent inquiry exposed serious weaknesses in fingerprint evidence.
In the US, the flawed identification technique of hair morphology was used by the FBI to secure over 2000 convictions after which more than a dozen individuals have been executed. Donald Gates was convicted of murder on hair morphology evidence, an FBI expert claiming that there was a 1 in 10,000 probability that the hair came from anyone else but there was no data to support that. “That’s simply a made-up number,†said Peter Neufeld, co-founder of the Innocence Project. [See also News Round-Up, week ending 24.4.15: Guilty by a Hair in the News section of this site.]
A report by the National Academy of Sciences in 2009 concluded that bad science was to blame. Niamh NicDaeid, Professor of Forensic Science at the University of Dundee, said the NAS Report confirmed what many experts had feared, that there were deficiencies particularly in the interpretation of different findings, including fibre and hair examination. The same techniques are in use worldwide.
In the UK, hair analysis has been treated with scepticism, particularly since the development of DNA ‘fingerprinting’ by Sir Alec Jeffreys, but the closure of the Forensic Science Service in 2012 and its subsequent replacement by a private market has led to a dearth of research in the field.
Without research, often lengthy and costly, forensic techniques cannot be developed and validated. Tiernan Coyle, fibre analyst and owner of forensic firm Contact Traces, discussed the loss of a research budget. Naimh NicDaeid agreed, emphasising the particular need for a research basis when justice depends on forensic science. Former Labour MP Andrew Miller voiced concerns over likely wrongful convictions resulting from the lack of regulation of private forensic laboratories, the lack of coordination of primary research and the fragmentation of analytical work in individual cases. Inside Justice is aware that funding is available to police units; the Metropolitan Police won a bid for £6million for forensic research from the Police Innovation Fund last year but it is the small independent labs, undertaking defence and appeal work, with specialist techniques that can’t compete in the current climate.
The Home Office sent a statement to the programme explaining the financial basis for closing the FSS and trumpeting the success of DNA matching, but Angela Gallop of Forensic Access stressed the need for research in areas of forensics other than DNA analysis.
In the US, the vast majority of forensic work is handled by police-run laboratories. In the UK there are growing concerns over in-house testing and prosecution-bias. The second Radio 4 programme, Crisis in the Lab, described how established but expensive forensic techniques are falling by the wayside in favour of fingerprinting, DNA profile matching and digital forensics.
Predatory paedophile Umesh Kulasingham was eventually convicted with forensic textile techniques, the use of which may be dying out. One expert spoke of her fears for the future: “I think forensic science will be increasingly dumbed down to such an extent that we will just be doing the absolute basics.â€
Fibre evidence, involving analysis of thousands of individual fibres, has been crucial in many high profile murder cases, including those of Damilola Taylor and Stephen Lawrence, and in the Soham killings. Tiernan Coyle was concerned that this field of forensics and others, such as toxicology, are under threat, with numbers of competent practitioners decimated. Part of the problem is access and testing of evidence by police in-house laboratories, not all of which are accredited and therefore may not have sufficient expertise in all forensic techniques.
Chief Constable Chris Sims, lead for Forensic Science in the National Police Chiefs Council, was not surprised at the relative drop in popularity of forensic techniques like fibre analysis but voiced concerned lest such expertise be lost.
An anonymous former police scientist considered the UK criminal justice system not best served with decisions over choice of technique being subject to budgetary constraints.
Professor Bob Green of the University of Kent concurred. Evidence is consequently going unchecked, meaning cases may be dropped and justice not served. Chris Sims disagreed, justifying in-house analysis, but Angela Gallop did not feel the police were best placed to objectively decide on submission of evidence for forensic analysis.
Interpretation of fingerprints, always in-house, is coming under the same accreditation processes as other forensic science, following cases like that of Shirley McKie.
Accreditation is compulsory for private labs but though police labs have to be accredited too, the system is less transparent on penalties for not doing so and the system does not cover everything, such as the selection of evidence for submission.
The third and final programme of the series, Crisis in Court, considered the potential for forensic evidence to be misrepresented or misinterpreted in court, citing the eventual acquittal of Amanda Knox and Raffaelle Sollecito of the murder of Meredith Kercher. Their earlier conviction hinged on DNA evidence. DNA matching is often held up as the gold standard of forensic identification but, as Tracy Alexander has explained in an earlier article for Inside Justice (DNA: Did Not Attend), it is not entirely objective and should never stand alone.
UCL Cognitive Neuroscientist Dr Itiel Dror conducted a study of objectivity in DNA matching and found it to be anything but, despite the advent of computer software programmes. Ian Evett, of Principal Forensic Services, described how interpretation of partial DNA profiles from real-life crime scenes is fraught with complications involving small quantities, degradation and contamination.
To obtain a DNA profile, highly variable regions in the sample are ‘bookmarked’ and amplified, and peaks identified.
Rudi Guede’s fingerprint was found in Meredith Kercher’s blood and his DNA found in the rented room where she was killed. Professor Peter Gill explained how DNA detection has improved since he and Alec Jeffreys first developed the technique. This improvement allowed prosecutors to identify minute traces of Meredith Kercher’s DNA on a knife found in Sollecito’s apartment, the programme explained, despite no preliminary chemical detection of blood. Amanda Knox’s DNA was also found on the knife and this was evidence enough to convict the two, in combination with what the court accepted was contamination of an exhibit by Scene of Crime Officers; Kercher’s bra clasp, with Sollecito’s DNA.
Linda Geddes also described the cases of Merseyside taxi driver, David ‘Flaky’ Butler, who spent eight months on remand for murder after transfer of his DNA, and Devonian Adam Scott, who was accused of rape after a forensic sample was contaminated with his. However, Professor Paul Roberts of the University of Nottingham maintained that much of scientific evidence is as good as there can be, but emphasised that no evidence is ever conclusive or infallible.
Peter Gill is convinced that a prosecution bias exists in the private market now in the UK, certainly with the emergence of streamlined reports which were designed to expedite results but which contain no expert opinion as to their weight and relevance. He ended with a warning:
We are in danger of sleepwalking into another serious round of miscarriages of justice.
https://www.insidejustice.co.uk/articles/forensics-crisis-what-crisis/115
APPEAL
@C4CrimAppeals
Professor Angela Gallop tells
@APPGMJ
ought to be a discussion about police insourcing of forensics. “We shouldn’t be sleepwalking into it.” #forensics
5:43 PM · Feb 4, 2020·Twitter for iPhone
https://mobile.twitter.com/C4CrimAppeals/status/1224750455210872832
Which sounds very similar to Peter Gills comment in 2015
APPEAL
@C4CrimAppeals
2h
Inside Justice’s Louise Shorter: “There is guidance [on evidence retention] out there that police forces should be following.”
But her research shows “widespread confusion” amongst police
Louise Shorter of @insidejusticeUK outlines her research on police retention of forensic evidence - “there is still widespread confusion” - and inconsistency in approach by different forces
draws distinction between US and UK in relation to retention of exhibits.
In US lost or destroyed evidence can be a successful ground of appeal, but not here
Professor @ctmccartney tells @APPGMJ audience that failure by police to retain exhibits “stops miscarriages of justice being resolved”
-
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
1h
The real killer is still at large and my have killed again. #StandAgainstInjustice
Robin Garbutt submits third application for review of Melsonby post office murder charge | The Northern Echo
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1222861251216318464
Hanksoff03 Retweeted
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
3h
Criminals murdered Diana that dreadful day+despite overwhelming evidence supporting that, the powers that be made it fit around poor RobinGarbuttOfficial ~ Fighting ALL these years.The 23rd of March will be 10 years since that fateful day - Freedom for http://RobinGarbuttOfficial.com
https://mobile.twitter.com/hanksoff03/status/1224741413209935874
-
TED talk with Professor Ruth Morgan - ‘The dangers of misinterpreted forensic evidence’
You vs Science
Not all of us are going to commit a crime, but every single one of us could be accused of one, says Ruth.
Ruth paints the scenario – you sit in a seat at a cinema for example. A stand of your hair falls out and the hair is picked up by the clothing of the next person to sit in that seat. You leave the cinema and go home none the wiser. But that same night, the person who your hair is now attached to goes and commits a crime. Your hair is left at the scene, linking you to the crime. You’re stood in court while the expert explains to the judge how your hair, your DNA, is cast iron proof you committed the crime. But you know you’re innocent.
This, sadly, is a scenario too many people are all too familiar with.
Misinterpretation of forensic evidence is the biggest problem facing forensic science
For Ruth, forensic science is undeniably a technological success story. We can now identify smaller traces of material, more accurately and quicker than ever before.
But, forensic science has got a problem. It’s a problem that has gone under the radar and it’s a problem that has the potential to impact thousands of innocent people.
Ruth shared a shocking fact - 96% of forensic evidence is misinterpreted. That tells us forensic science has got a problem that technology alone can’t fix.
What we really need to know is if we find gunshot residue on you, how did it get there and when did it get there. Ruth explained the issue: that, at the moment, we don’t have the data that we need to be able to answer that question sufficiently.
Forensic science evidence isn’t always going to be interpreted accurately – so we need a change.
For Ruth, we need to change what our primary focus is, from being on what something is and who it belongs to, and we need to get serious about getting the answers we need to the ‘how’ and the ‘when’.
If we can do that, then we will have the opportunity to dramatically reduce the chances of evidence being misinterpreted.
We need to do that so that each one of us never has to stand in court as that innocent person in the dock.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xclg8ikPAvI
https://o-behave.tumblr.com/post/173319397192/nudgestock-2018-professor-ruth-morgan
Ruth Morgan
Excerpts:
‘Imagine you’re in court, accused of a crime that you know you didn’t commit. Now imagine a scientist takes the stand and starts explaining to the court how your DNA is on the murder weapon. (This sounds very similar to the old Simon Hall campaign website)
Forensic science is nothing short of a technological success story; it is possible to detect and identify forensic traces at greater levels of resolution and accuracy than ever before, and we can capture, retain and search more data than at any other time in history. These capabilities are transforming what forensic science can do. However, at the same time, forensic science is facing a huge challenge.
Forensic science sits at the intersection of science, law, policing, government and policy. It is a complex ecosystem that has competing demands and drivers to deliver science to assist the justice system. A recent inquiry by the House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee in the UK recognized that forensic science is in a state of crisis, to such a degree that it is undermining trust in our justice systems. This crisis is multifaceted, and while some of the results of the crisis have been reported, such as miscarriages of justice, instances of malpractice, and failures of quality standards, there is an aspect of the crisis that has been overlooked. A recent study in the UK identified all the cases upheld by the Court of Appeal where criminal evidence was critical in the original trial over a seven-year period. In 22% of those cases, the evidence was misinterpreted. These cases are only the tip of the iceberg and indicate a broader root cause of the crisis forensic science is facing.
‘Given how the justice system shapes our societies, the stakes are far too high to ignore the crisis in forensic science. The integrity of the forensic science system is critical to the delivery of justice and public trust, and so this is an urgent challenge for the global community. Like plastics in our oceans, this is a problem that has gone under the radar for far too long. The time for action is now.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/09/why-forensic-science-is-in-crisis-and-how-we-can-fix-it/
Forensic fudging June 2017
Funding appeal for dedicated independent scientific evidence lab
‘In recent years we have seen the privatisation of water, energy, railways and even the Royal Mail, which has led to soaring prices, cartel formation and a lack of competition, in spite of all the government claims to the contrary.
For prisoners, we even ‘enjoy’ our own example of privatisation with the ever-soaring prices of prison canteen items whilst the last proposed pay rise for prisoners, which never happened, was more than 25-years ago.
While price rises may hit the prisoner and public in their pocket, there is one area where privatisation plays fast and loose with people’s lives and that is in the past privatisation of the Forensic Science Service (FSS).
The FSS was not perfect and provided a mostly independent and impartial service even if there were the occasional questionable practises in laboratories like Huntingdon. In one episode, a chemist turned firearms expert disappeared from Huntingdon Laboratories when he realised he was under investigation in 9 cases, only to turn up years later working for the Metropolitan Police in their Lambeth Laboratory.
However, with privatisation, impartiality and ethics is now lacking in some companies who seek to maximise their profits and secure closer business ties with their principle customers, the 43 police forces in the UK. Any laboratory which consistently supports police cases is going to enjoy regular business from their clients – the police. There are no checks, balances or regulations for rotating forensic laboratories.
As I write, more than 6,000 forensic samples are to be re-examined after two employees of Randox Forensic Services have been placed under criminal investigation by Greater Manchester Police on suspicion of manipulating data.
There are many thousands of cases affected which range from rape and murder to minor cases like drug-driving, with thousands of convictions suspected to be unsafe.
Helping the evidence along is an old practise in forensic science circles where a lab assistant or scientist ‘forms a view’ of the evidence and particularly when giving evidence in court will seek to sway the jury by omitting or talking up forensic results to support their view.
This ‘forensic fudging’ has long been recognised by academics involved in forensic science, like Ruth Morgan, Director of University College, London’s Centre for Forensic Services. Dr Morgan recently highlighted the fact that DNA sequencing and analytical chemistry has improved exponentially in recent years, with more than 55,000 genetic matches every year. What concerns Dr Morgan and her colleagues is detailed understanding of what this evidence actually means.
Misinterpretation of DNA evidence is very easy, shake hands with someone, your DNA is transferred to their hand and vice versa. Hand someone a coat and your DNA is now on the garment and their DNA is transferred to your hand. If your DNA is subsequently found on a victim or a murder weapon, how do you prove your innocence?
Dr Morgan’s views appear to be shared by the Metropolitan Police’s Director of Forensic Services, Gary Pugh, who warned that the system had reached a ‘low point’ in the past 5 years, and was suffering ‘degradation’ due to a lack of support.
There are many cases of forensic fudging that I could use as examples in this article. In 2015, the FBI admitted that its experts had overstated the evidence in 95% of microscopic hair sample analysis cases resulting in more than 200 unsafe convictions with 14 defendants dying in prison or executed.
In Britain, we have cases like that of Barry George, convicted by a microscopic particle of gunshot residue, talked up by an expert with no mention of possible cross-contamination in a laboratory handling gunshot samples. We could look at the laboratory in Kent where for 2-years contaminated equipment had been routinely used. There are dozens of similar fiascos, but here is a specific example.
In 2000, shop assistant Rachel Manning had been found strangled on a golf-course near Milton Keynes. Her boyfriend, Barri White, was charged with murder and convicted due to the ‘compelling’ evidence of a dozen micro-particles of the rare-earth elements Cerium and Lanthanum found on Rachel’s skirt and also found on the seat of a van belonging to Barri White’s friend, Keith Hyatt, who was also convicted.
At trial the prosecution forensics witness talked up the presence of Cerium and Lanthanum as highly unusual and stated that these materials could only have been deposited on the victim’s clothing minutes before her body was dumped.
In 2003, Ruth Morgan, then an Oxford University PhD student, found herself testing dozens of cigarette lighters to destruction, flicking them over and over again.
What the prosecution’s expert witness had failed to disclose to the court was that though Cerium is indeed a rare-earth metal of the Lanthanides series, atomic number 58. However, it is as abundant as copper, found in many ores and is 3-times more abundant than lead. It oxidises rapidly and strongly so is used in illumination, ignition and signalling devices such as flares. Misch metal, used in lighter flints, is 50% Cerium. Lanthanum, atomic number 57, is routinely found in Cerium oxide. Furthermore, each time a lighter is struck, the flint sheds up to 4,000 metal particles which can persist for at least 18 hours. A classic case of forensic fudging.
Barri White and Keith Hyatt’s convictions were quashed by the Court of Appeal in 2007 due to the evidence above, and in 2013, Shahidul Ahmed was convicted of Rachel Manning’s murder.
Dr Ruth Morgan and university College London are now asking the public to assist to raise £1million to fund a new laboratory housing a scanning electron microscope and liquid chromatograph for minute scrutiny of gunshot and other residues. The intention is to provide independent, bespoke scientific reports. One of the principal aims is to answer questions relating to transfer and persistence of DNA and other particles passing from one surface to another.
The establishment of such a facility will be academically driven rather than commercially driven as is now the case with privatised forensic companies seeking to make a profit.
https://insidetime.org/forensic-fudging/
Michelle Diskin Bates (10th Sept 2013)
‘All of us who choose to stand up for justice need to take this on the chin, and move on…back to those who deserve to have their cases reviewed and quashed. Our justice system uses ‘smoke and mirrors’, rather than real honest evidence to convict. The B George case is one…but the parallels with the Barri White/Keith Hyatt conviction are evident; the case was fitted around the defendants, and not around the evidence. I eagerly await the government’s response to Barri and Keith’s new claim for compensation. Keith was released at the court of appeal, but Barri went on to re-trial. Does this mean that Keith will be successful but Barri’s claim will not? After all, if the legal view is that the CPS were not wrong to prosecute Barry George,because they had evidence, and he is not a MOJ because he went for re-trial, then poor Barri will face the same prospect…won’t he?
https://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/2019/05/13/telling-public-statement-made-by-michelle-diskin-bates-sister-of-barry-george-following-simon-halls-confession/
2015 THIS IDEA MUST DIE:
Forensic evidence is always irrefutable
Forensic science still has a long way to go to always make a watertight case, says Dr Ruth Morgan.
Forensic science’s reputation is on trial. In April this year, the FBI admitted its hair comparison unit had given flawed testimony in trials going back 20 years, including 33 cases where defendants were sentenced to death. And in the UK, in 2007, Barri White’s forensic-based conviction seven years earlier for killing his girlfriend, Rachel Manning, was quashed. White was cleared of the murder, after which police resumed their hunt and ultimately convicted Shahidul Ahmed for the murder in 2013.
These, and other such cases, have thrust forensic evidence into the spotlight. If the proliferation of TV crime dramas – from ‘NCIS’ to ‘Dexter’ – are to be believed, the forensic scientist is king (or queen). Theirs is the most damning evidence, the result of highly specialist crime scene analysis that always delivers incontrovertible facts.
But however complex a fictional crime drama might be, what happens at crime scenes, in laboratories and in courts is far more complex – and more nuanced. Investigators and juries need to stop believing that forensic evidence is always irrefutable. And forensic science needs to continue addressing both the validity and the interpretation of forensic evidence. We need a stronger evidence base: more robust science to underpin the techniques and interpretations of evidence that people rely on in court.
In the majority of cases in which forensic evidence is critical, forensic science offers valuable intelligence evidence. However, I’m aware of the damage forensic evidence can do when people believe it is always infallible.
In 2007, the evidence in the Rachel Manning case was re-examined. In the original trial the most crucial evidence concerned some metallic particles found on Manning’s skirt – and in a van belonging to Barri White’s friend, Keith Hyatt. A forensic expert said the particles were extremely rare and this helped put White and Hyatt in prison. But our research found that far from being rare, the particles in question were incredibly abundant. At least 4,000 of them are produced each time a disposable cigarette lighter is used – and they can stay on people’s clothing for more than 18 hours. It was enough to quash the conviction and open the way for the real killer to be found.
That’s what the UCL Centre for the Forensic Sciences, part of the Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science, is all about. Much forensic science in the UK is about developing new technology and new ways of finding more information. Our aim is to understand how evidence behaves and how we interact with evidence in casework, so we can ensure that our interpretation of what forensic evidence means in a case is robust and is based on empirical evidence; that’s crucial to preventing miscarriages of justice.
As well as looking at old cases, we also do a lot of work on DNA transfer. Fifteen years ago, DNA technology meant you needed a reasonable amount of material to get a DNA profile. Today, you can generate profiles from trace amounts of DNA. That sensitivity is powerful, but it also raises issues for the interpretation of that evidence in a forensic context.
In one project we’ve been trying to understand how much DNA the regular – as opposed to the last – wearer leaves behind on a garment. It’s been assumed the major DNA profile would be from the last wearer, but our research shows it depends on the person.
Miscarriages of justice like the Manning case are terrible examples of how forensic evidence can be misinterpreted and presented as unequivocal when it is not. For all our advances in technology, we still lack the evidence base for a lot of what’s being looked at. Our research is providing that evidence base for the robust interpretation of what trace evidence means when it is found. And that’s why I believe that the idea that forensic evidence is always irrefutable must die.
Dr Ruth Morgan is director of the UCL Centre for Forensic Science
-
APPEAL
@C4CrimAppeals
Professor Angela Gallop tells @APPGMJ that with fragmentation of forensic science,
“There’s a risk of getting an incomplete picture” of cases.
4 key findings:
1.Fragmentation - lack of a joined up approach
2.Reduced accountability and responsibility
3.The model of the private market is unstable
4.More investment in research is needed in forensic science
Change and action are needed now.
“We’re forgetting how to solve complex cases,” Professor Angela Gallop says, because of lack of holistic approach.
“I would rather forensic science weren’t used in court than that it is used badly.”
“It is dangerous and promotes miscarriages of justice”
‘There should be an automatic defence review where ever forensic science is critical” in a case, Professor Angela Gallop says.
”Professor Angela Gallop tells @APPGMJ ought to be a discussion about police insourcing of forensics. “We shouldn’t be sleepwalking into it.”
‘Digital forensics is the “largest single challenge” facing forensic science and police investigation, says Professor Angela Gallop.
https://mobile.twitter.com/C4CrimAppeals/status/1224745787860582402
I’m of the firm belief an “incomplete” picture was presented in the Barry George case.
In his book, ‘Crime Lab Report: An Anthology on Forensic Science in the Era of Criminal Justice Reform’ (p 177)
John M Collins stated,
“Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the most aggressive reform activists from the extreme fringe of the defence bar, including Barry Scheck and Peter Neufield, in my opinion, seemed committed to portraying the findings of the NAS committee as a formal validation of their previous criticisms of forensic science.
By portraying forensic science as a profession in need of reform, these activists could empower their defence colleagues in courtrooms around the country to attack forensic testimony with more success and vigor.
So what forensic science professionals hoped would stand as a good faith, objective examination of the forensic science community became a weapon with which forensic scientists could be attacked in the courtroom - and in the press - further advancing the innocence reform agenda.”
John Collins goes on,
“It would not be long before the report would be submitted as evidence in criminal trials all over the country where, in some instances, defence experts sought to prohibit the admission into evidence of some of the most commonly used and well-established forensic techniques - techniques they would repeatedly argue as being not reliable as forensic experts were making them out to be - because the NAS report said so.”
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ZEOwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA177&lpg=PA177&dq=NAS+report+consider+tgis+from+john+m+collins&source=bl&ots=fhnux7ulSm&sig=ACfU3U3Wt15pCG2Ou9_XgDRtV5xVaqjEPA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjltsr8vbrnAhV2ShUIHUt_A9kQ6AEwAHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=NAS%20report%20consider%20tgis%20from%20john%20m%20collins&f=false
Professor Angela Gallop Shaw, whose work helped overturn the murder convictions of both Barry George and Duaine George (not related) (Angela Shaw NOT Angela Gallop assisted the defence in the Barry George case - Angela Gallops colleague Roger Robson also assisted the defence in the Barry George case
Angela Shaw = GSR expert in both ‘George’ cases
Angela Gallop = ‘principle author’ alongside Roger Robson who also worked on both the Barry George and Simon Hall cases re fibres https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/written-evidence-submitted-forensic-access-house-commons-dave-king
R v SIMON JOHN HALL http://www.homepage-link.to/justice/Hall/index.html)
Angela Gallop is now apparently saying,
“I would rather forensic science weren’t used in court than that it is used badly.”
Why is she saying this and what cases is she suggesting forensic science was used badly in? Her own maybe?
“Professor Angela Gallop tells @APPGMJ ought to be a discussion about police insourcing of forensics
“We shouldn’t be sleepwalking into it.”
Sounds very similar to Peter Gill’s 2015 comment of,
We are in danger of sleepwalking into another serious round of miscarriages of justice.
https://www.insidejustice.co.uk/articles/forensics-crisis-what-crisis/115
Peter Gill is convinced that a prosecution bias exists in the private market now in the UK, certainly with the emergence of streamlined reports which were designed to expedite results but which contain no expert opinion as to their weight and relevance.
A ‘prosecution bias’ or his own ‘bias’ maybe?
https://www.fsigenetics.com/article/S1872-4973(16)30033-3/fulltext
Excerpt:
‘The reason I wrote the book was not just because of this case. This was something I had a growing concern about – how DNA profiling is used throughout Europe and beyond. I work very closely with my European colleagues, and I have to say that the view of forensic science from the public, the politicians, and also I believe judges and lawyers probably comes predominantly from TV programmes which talk about CSI (Crime Scene Investigation). So in the book I talk about the CSI effect. There is an important psychological influence at play.
http://www.amandaknoxcase.com/peter-gill-interview/
http://www.amandaknoxcase.com/videos/
Leading forensic scientist, Angela Gallop, in The Guardian, 29th May 2019:
On the cases she felt she could have contributed to, Gallop said she felt the parents of Madeleine McCann had been “badly served by forensic science, partly because some of it was done in a country that has got a little less structure than we have. But a little was done in this country, a very sensitive DNA technique was used, and I think it was overinterpreted. And I think that added to the problems”.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/may/29/police-cuts-could-see-rise-in-miscarriages-of-justice-says-angela-gallop-forensic-expert
-
‘Forensic Science Regulator Dr Gillian Tully says they’ve launched a confidential reporting line.
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@C4CrimAppeals
@J4BenGeen
and
@APPGMJ
Interesting, to report what? 🙂
10:37 AM · Feb 5, 2020·Twitter for iPad
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1225005558476034052
‘Forensic science can be really helpful in correcting miscarriages of justice, but it can also sometimes cause them, says Forensic Science Regulator Dr Gillian Tully.
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Isn’t THAT the truth!
Gill Tully is the governments current Forensic Science Regulator https://www.gov.uk/government/people/gill-tully
I once wrote an open letter to the previous regulator, Andrew Rennison - in November 2013 he became a Commissioner at the CCRC
‘Five new Commissioners have been appointed to the Criminal Cases Review Commission and the Chair of the Commission has been reappointed.
The newly appointed Commissioners are Alexandra Marks, Dr Sharon Persaud, David James Smith, Liz Calderbank and Andrew Rennison. Richard Foster CBE, who joined the Commission as Chair in November 2008, has been reappointed to serve for a further five years (see below for biographies of the Chair and each of the new Commissioners).
https://ccrc.gov.uk/five-new-commissioners-appointed-to-the-criminal-cases-review-commission/
Will be interesting to see if Gill Tully follows in the footsteps of her predecessor
‘The Forensic Science Regulator is the regulator of forensic science activities within the United Kingdom's legal system.[1] The regulator is advised by the Forensic Science Advisory Council. The post dates from 2008.[2]
The office of Forensic Science Regulator was created without any statutory powers.[2] As of November 2013, the government was considering giving the Forensic Science Regulator statutory powers.[3][2]
The first Forensic Science Regulator was Andrew Rennison.[4] Dr Gillian Tully was appointed to hold the post for three years from November 2014.[5] In November 2017 Dr Tully was re-appointed for a further three years until November 2020. [6]. In her 2018 annual report, Tully urged the UK Government to put the role of the Forensic Science Regulator on a statutory footing. [7
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forensic_Science_Regulator
-
Louise Shorter of @insidejusticeUK outlines her research on police retention of forensic evidence - “there is still widespread confusion” - and inconsistency in approach by different forces
draws distinction between US and UK in relation to retention of exhibits.
In US lost or destroyed evidence can be a successful ground of appeal, but not here
Professor @ctmccartney tells @APPGMJ audience that failure by police to retain exhibits “stops miscarriages of justice being resolved”
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@hanksoff03
and
@WullieBeck
It’s very unlikely that an exhibit would go missing if it pointed conclusively to guilt. Hair missing in #RobinGarbutt and #JeremyBamber cases
-
By Katie King April 2016
‘The factually guilty routinely ‘let off on a technicality’, while the factually innocent stay in prison
We’re now four months into the new year, and Netflix users are still talking about 10-part documentary series Making a Murderer.
Viewers were totally transfixed as filmmakers followed the trial, conviction and sentencing of Wisconsin-based uncle and nephew duo Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey, for their part in the murder of photographer Teresa Halbach.
Regardless of the jury verdicts, the world is not convinced that the pair committed the crime. Over 520,000 people are so shocked by the “injustices” of the case that they have called for Avery to be pardoned.
Developments keep on coming. Kathleen Zellner — Avery’s new lawyer — hit the press last week when she reportedly claimed to have found “a couple” of suspects she believes may be the true murderer. And now it’s been announced that Dean Strang, lawyer and all-round good guy from the series, will be getting his own spin-off show.
There’s a wealth of documentaries on Netflix and other video sharing sites. Making a Murderer was one of many to be released in December — so why is everyone still talking about it?
Because the story screams “something needs to be done here”. There is — at least in the eyes of the viewers — a good chance that Avery and Dassey are innocent. That the men have been framed, set up by the police, that the real murderer is still on the loose.
Spectators have been quick to pile the blame onto the US criminal justice system, with words like “corrupt” and “shady” being bandied around. We’re quick to shake our heads and condemn the system’s handling of the case, and the fact that the men are still locked up. But had the very same verdict been returned across the pond under the English courts’ jurisdiction, I’m not all that confident our criminal appeals system could handle it any better.
England has done its fair share of locking up innocent people — just look at the stories of Angela Canning and Sally Clark, and plenty others. As pointed out by criminal law lecturer Hannah Quirk earlier this year, the police are under intense media pressure to catch someone, anyone, and this institutional strain can lead to impulsive arrests.
The criminal justice system is far from infallible, and hence we have an appeals system to act as a procedural safety net for if and when things do go wrong. It’s pretty difficult to access: as pointed out by blogging barrister Dan Bunting, the US — compared to the UK, that is — “has much more to offer a convicted defendant” by way of appeal route. Here, there’s nowhere else to go but the Court of Appeal, and it’s not all that easy to get there. Very few reach the Supreme Court, and only then on technical questions of law.
But what might surprise the public more is the sort of cases that do reach the appeal courts. In law, it’s wrong to frame the conviction of a factually innocent person as a miscarriage of justice. The French legal system makes a distinction between an appel, an appeal on grounds of facts, and a cassation, an appeal on a point of law, but no such distinction exists in England. No matter what the media reports, miscarriage of justice victims are, in a surprising number of cases, factually guilty — but have managed to wangle themselves out of a hefty punishment because of a technicality.
A conviction handed down in the Crown Court can be appealed in the Court of Appeal under s1 of the Criminal Appeals Act 1968. Under s2, the Court of Appeal can only allow an appeal against the conviction if it is “unsafe” — and it’s not the factual innocence or guilt of the convicted that determines this “safety”. In R (Adams) v Secretary of State for Justice, the Supreme Court made clear that the appeal courts’ jurisdiction concerns due process, not factual guilt. Lord Phillips went as far as to say that it a principle of “great constitutional importance” that the Court of Appeal cannot and does not make a declaration on factual innocence. While the factually innocent are left to rot, it’s the victims of due process errors that are reaping the benefits of the appeal courts.
So how do you go about appealing the conviction of an innocent person?
Enter the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC). Set up in 1997, the CCRC is an “independent” public body that has the power to send a case — one that has already exhausted the judicial appeal route — back to the Court of Appeal, if this case is a suspected miscarriage of justice.
Hooray, sort of.
The CCRC parades itself as a wholly independent body, but that it is not. It is effectively shackled to the Court of Appeal. The CCRC cannot send a case back to the court unless it considers that “there is a real possibility that the conviction, verdict, finding or sentence would not be upheld were the reference to be made”, under s13(1)(a) Criminal Appeal Act 1995.
Professor Michael Naughton quips that this test is a “statutory straightjacket”, because it means that a case can only be referred to the Court of Appeal if the appeal is likely to be successful. And, surprise surprise, appeals are more likely to be successful if granted on technical, legal reasons, and not because of factual innocence.
The situation is undeniably unjust. Just have a read of Attorney General’s Reference (No 3 of 1999) https://swarb.co.uk/attorney-generals-reference-no-3-of-1999-lynn-hl-15-dec-2000/ where the offender was able to appeal his conviction for the rape of a 66 year-old woman — described by Lord Steyn as “horrendous” and “of the utmost gravity” — because of a technicality.
Yet the reason for this discrepancy is depressingly predictable: judicial resources are scarce, and the Court of Appeal doesn’t want to busy itself with time consuming, fact-based appeals.
Disapprove and denounce the convictions of Avery and Dassey all you like, but it doesn’t seem our criminal appeals system is all too hot on factual miscarriages of justice either.
It’s difficult to see a way out of this hole. This certainly isn’t just a case of simple legal reform. Criminal trials are, and always have been, highly technical affairs — a shift in institutional focus is at best unlikely. The CCRC, on the other hand, is a recent development. It’s more amenable to change, more able to accept wide-ranging reforms, and more able to fulfill its public mandate.
So focus here (http://www.innocencenetwork.org.uk/criminal-justice-system-still-failing-the-innocent) The Innocence Network UK has a pretty good suggestion — repeal the real possibility test, and replace it:
with a test that allows the CCRC to refer a conviction back to the Court of Appeal if it thinks that the applicant is or might be innocent.
Only then will we have a proper recourse available to the factually innocent, the Averys and Dasseys of England.
Sources
Naughton, M (2009). The Criminal Cases Review Commission: Hope for the Innocent?. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
https://www.legalcheek.com/lc-journal-posts/making-a-murderer-is-our-criminal-appeals-process-any-better/
-
“Barry had previously been convicted for attempted rape and indecent assault some years earlier, and he lived in the vicinity of Dando’s flat. When I ask Michelle about these serious charges, she doesn’t respond defensively or try to protect her brother; instead she explains, gently, that she too was horrified when she discovered the truth – and told her brother so: “I’m afraid he was given quite a tough time from me; he didn’t enjoy that visit one bit,” she says, briskly. “But I think it needs to be understood that Barry is like a nine-year-old boy living in an adult’s body. These things should not happen, and he knows right from wrong, but at the same time, he has a whole host of disabilities
https://www.premierchristianity.com/Past-Issues/2019/April-2019/My-brother-was-wrongly-convicted-of-murdering-Jill-Dando
Wonder if this is how Michelle Diskin Bates has always treated Barry George?
-
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
It is shameful that Cheshire police refuse to apologise to Paul Blackburn for his 25 years in prison, but they have no shame. They simply don’t care: “Police reject judge's call to apologise over wrongful conviction.”
Police reject judge's call to apologise over wrongful conviction
Evidence of Cheshire force that led to 1978 imprisonment of Paul Blackburn ‘absurd’
theguardian.com
5:54 AM · Jan 14, 2020·Twitter for iPhone
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1216961832625287168
The Paul Blackburn case reminds me in parts to that of Stephen Downing. The police appear to be suggesting there aren’t other suspects?!
However Michael Naughton needs to look at his own behaviour before casting aspersions. The fact he chooses to not publicly discuss ‘innocent fraud’ suggests to me his personal agenda/s outweigh the truth!?
The Stephen Downing case exposed - including Matt Barlow the reporter assigned to report on the CoA hearing
Episode 8 here might be helpful https://www.wirelessstudios.co.uk/podcast/reporter/
Some in the town of Bakewell are clearly affected by the ‘illusionary truth effect’ manufactured by Don Hale/Stephen Downing
An example of ‘innocent fraud’
Yet in 2013 Dr Dennis Eady, following the exposure of Simon Halls guilt and confession, claimed,
”In 20 plus years of studying miscarriages of justice, while there may have been a few cases where people have for a short time maintained innocence before admitting guilt, I can think of no other high profile, widely supported case where the person has maintained innocence over many years and pursued the case through legal avenues (CCRC, Court of Appeal) and then admitted guilt.
https://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/2019/05/11/the-clues-that-point-to-barry-georges/
Since Stephen Downing’s murder conviction was deemed ‘unsafe’ and he was released from prison he’s made confessions. The police have these on record. He wasn’t retried because he’d served 27 years in prison.
(All in the podcast)
The case of Stephen Downing - The worst miscarriage of justice in British history by Stephen Downing https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/The-Case-of-Stephen-Downing-Paperback/p/16828
Reviewed by Dr Mike Sutton
‘This book, published by Pen and Sword in 2019, authored by Stephen Downing, sets out the facts and its author’s opinions and personal insights surrounding his arrest in 1973, conviction for murder, 27 years served in prison and eventual release in 2001. Stephen’s conviction was overturned based on his confession to murder (as a 17-year-old, with the reading age of an 11-year-old) resulting from illicit police coercion/induced duress and from forensic blood splatter pattern evidence being unsafe. Downing also reveals that further key knowledge about the evidence that the murder victim, Wendy Sewell, was strangled prior to being bludgeoned was not revealed by the prosecution.
https://www.internetjournalofcriminology.com/book-reviews
-
The case of Stephen Downing - The worst miscarriage of justice in British history by Stephen Downing https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/The-Case-of-Stephen-Downing-Paperback/p/16828
Reviewed by Dr Mike Sutton
‘This book, published by Pen and Sword in 2019, authored by Stephen Downing, sets out the facts and its author’s opinions and personal insights surrounding his arrest in 1973, conviction for murder, 27 years served in prison and eventual release in 2001. Stephen’s conviction was overturned based on his confession to murder (as a 17-year-old, with the reading age of an 11-year-old) resulting from illicit police coercion/induced duress and from forensic blood splatter pattern evidence being unsafe. Downing also reveals that further key knowledge about the evidence that the murder victim, Wendy Sewell, was strangled prior to being bludgeoned was not revealed by the prosecution.
https://www.internetjournalofcriminology.com/book-reviews
‘Stephen Downing grew up in the small Derbyshire town of Bakewell. His life was uneventful until the age of 17 when he was arrested and subsequently convicted of murder. Stephen didn't know it at the time but ended up serving 27 years in various prisons before being released by the Courts of Appeal. On release from prison Stephen moved back to the town he grew up in only to find that the police were very unforgiving and would continue to hold blame over him together with the authorities would take the unprecedented action to withold all evidence from him and his supporters for 95 years preventing any investigation to completely prove his innocence.
https://www.amazon.com/Case-Stephen-Downing-Miscarriage-Justice/dp/1526742020
Book review:
‘Stephen Downing was convicted of the 1973 murder of Wendy Sewell. The jury at his trial in February 1974 heard how Downing had the means, motive, and opportunity. His alibi was deemed flimsy and the forensic evidence stacked up against him. The judge sentenced Downing to life in prison. He languished in the system, knocked about from prison to prison, and refused parole because he would not confess his guilt. After a sustained public campaign led by a local journalist, Don Hale, who based his argument on prosecutorial misconduct, including suppression of an eyewitness account and tainted expert testimony, the Appeals court finally overturned the verdict and Downing walked free in 2002. But legal freedom and innocence in the eyes of public opinion are two different things. The Press lined up against Downing, his mother was assaulted, and Downing struggled to come to terms with his post-prison years, labelling it as another life-sentence. The Case of Stephen Downing: The Worst Miscarriage of Justice in British History is Downing’s memoir of a troubled man and a blighted life.
They say you should never be your own lawyer. In defending himself through this medium, Downing illustrates that dictum by generating more questions than answers. There is no doubt that the prosecution of Downing was a disgrace to the concept of justice, and as an aside, a useful reminder of why the death penalty must never be reintroduced in the UK. But Downing’s rehashing of the crime is at times extraordinary, and the story of the man threatening him in the graveyard simply unbelievable. His explanations for his conduct with various women throughout his life are similarly problematic. Without going into too much detail in a short review, at various points in his book, Downing manages to cast doubt on his own innocence when simple silence, or at least the advice of counsel, might have helped further his cause in a more positive direction. We must sympathize with Downing, his life was turned upside-down through no fault of his own, [/i]and it is no surprise that he has struggled to come to terms with all he has been through. But if this was Downing’s effort to extinguish all the doubts about his past and provide closure, then unfortunately he has failed. If you want to know more about Downing’s case, though, or about the English prison system, then this is a worthwhile read.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/47355628-the-case-of-stephen-downing
-
The case of Stephen Downing - The worst miscarriage of justice in British history by Stephen Downing https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/The-Case-of-Stephen-Downing-Paperback/p/16828
https://www.internetjournalofcriminology.com/book-reviews
Review
‘The other equally important, more precise, perplexing questions raised are numbered in what follows in this book review, with relevant page numbers provided:
1. On page 18 we are told that the local, Bakewell in Derbyshire, police officer PC Charlesworth took a dislike to Stephen Downing from the boy’s earlier childhood. But why did he do that? Based on what? What is/are their relevant prior shared experience/s?
2. Why on Earth would Stephen’s father believe his son has committed the crime of attacking an innocent woman from the outset and say he was proud of him for confessing to it? Stephen says that because his confession to attacking Wendy Sewell (who subsequently died of her injuries) pleased his father, he took two weeks to retract it (see page 117).
3. Did Stephen ever once before or else occasionally, regularly go home in his lunch break and do such things as ask his mother to buy him a bottle of lemonade, as he did on the day of the murder? If not, this could be taken as circumstantial evidence of possible fabrication of an alibi.
4. Did Stephen ever once before, occasionally or regularly go home to change his shoes/boots at lunchtime as we are told on page 13 that he did on the day of the murder? More so, were the boots he changed out of at lunchtime, at home, taken for forensic analysis? Were any of his shoes/boots/clothes – or anything else - taken from his home for forensic analysis? Did he tell the police about this lunchtime change of his dress boots into heavy work boots? This question is important because on page 24 we are told the pathologist’s report said it looked like the victim had possibly been kicked in the head by heavy boots.
5. Why does the book hardly at all deal with what must have been innocent young man’s years of sense of absolute outrage for being imprisoned for a crime he did not commit? Why would he say on his release (see page 120) that he does not feel any bitterness for Derbyshire Constabulary because they are today a different force? Why would he say “...let’s just forget it”?
6. Does Stephen not realise that to write of considering “accepting the guilt” (page 66) to get parole is arguably not the best turn of phrase for an innocent man to use?
7. Stephen has been accused (but denies) making obscene phone calls by several different women. Is it usual for men innocent of this offence to be accused by several different women of doing this? See page 85.
8. We are told by Stephen that he has been wrongly accused of confessing to the murder by admitting to it to two prison doctors (see p. 116). Are there any known cases where prison doctors have fabricated such confessions?
9. Why does Stephen, who mentions it several times in the book, and why does the writer of the foreword to the book (retired police officer Chris Clark) not address the elephant in the room - regarding Clark’s theory that the Yorkshire Ripper was the murderer? Said “elephant” being that Stephen writes on page 14 of being threatened by a male with a sharp object stuck in his back, as he tried to help the injured victim and that this same mysterious person threatened to attack Stephen’s sister and then ran off and escaped by jumping over a wall. And that this mystery person, of tall athletic build with sandy coloured hair, was accompanied by another mystery person with a high-pitched voice, who might have been a woman.
10. Did Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, who was 5 foot 8 inches tall and with dark hair, ever somehow fit the above physical description? Is there any hard evidence Sutcliffe, who always claimed he acted alone, ever committed his murders with an accomplice?
-
I’m of the firm belief an “incomplete” picture was presented in the Barry George case.
In his book, ‘Crime Lab Report: An Anthology on Forensic Science in the Era of Criminal Justice Reform’ (p 177)
John M Collins stated,
“Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the most aggressive reform activists from the extreme fringe of the defence bar, including Barry Scheck and Peter Neufield, in my opinion, seemed committed to portraying the findings of the NAS committee as a formal validation of their previous criticisms of forensic science.
By portraying forensic science as a profession in need of reform, these activists could empower their defence colleagues in courtrooms around the country to attack forensic testimony with more success and vigor.
So what forensic science professionals hoped would stand as a good faith, objective examination of the forensic science community became a weapon with which forensic scientists could be attacked in the courtroom - and in the press - further advancing the innocence reform agenda.”
John Collins goes on,
“It would not be long before the report would be submitted as evidence in criminal trials all over the country where, in some instances, defence experts sought to prohibit the admission into evidence of some of the most commonly used and well-established forensic techniques - techniques they would repeatedly argue as being not reliable as forensic experts were making them out to be - because the NAS report said so.”
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ZEOwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA177&lpg=PA177&dq=NAS+report+consider+tgis+from+john+m+collins&source=bl&ots=fhnux7ulSm&sig=ACfU3U3Wt15pCG2Ou9_XgDRtV5xVaqjEPA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjltsr8vbrnAhV2ShUIHUt_A9kQ6AEwAHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=NAS%20report%20consider%20tgis%20from%20john%20m%20collins&f=false
And something very similar went on in relation to ‘confessional evidence, here is Sandra Leans feeble attempt at dismissing Simon Halls confession
She goes on:
“We will never know if Simon Hall’s confession was genuine, or the confused utterings of a crumbling sanity. The decision about whether to take up, or continue to carry, the baton for claimed Miscarriages of Justice is a matter for the person deciding to do so, and their own conscience.” You see, to this day, we have only Stephanie’s word about the circumstances leading up to the confession, .......
She stated this in January 2017, yet back in 2014 she claimed to me, “I’ve wasted 10 years of my life!” amongst other disclosures.
This self serving stance was a quite obvious strategic move designed to achieve HER long-term and overall aim, which for me is not grounded in truth-seeking or fact finding - its game planning.
Following the news MOJO Scotland are being investigated by the governments criminal justice division
Lean told STV News: "Part of the problem was the promises being made were not being kept. The case review itself was something of a farce. There was no central strategy. There was no planned route to how this review was going to take place. https://stv.tv/news/west-central/1439054-miscarriages-of-justice-charity-stripped-of-lottery-funding/
Following my experiences and having learned I was conned by Simon Hall;
“In order to be a con artist you have to take advantage of other people's belief in you.”
Why We All Fall for Con Artists
“Con artists surround us: Bernie Madoff. Nigerian princes. Psychics. But we never think we’ll fall prey to their wiles. We can spot a gimmick a mile away, while those who become victims are foolish, or greedy, or both. Well, that’s not quite the case. If the NSA can be hacked, so can the average — or even exceptional — human mind. Our capacity to trust, which makes us successful, also makes us vulnerable — as does the natural bias to overrate our own bullshit detection.
Are certain types of people more skilled or motivated in conning?
“In my book I talk about the dark triad of traits: psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and narcissism. Any of those can predispose someone to being a con artist. In order to be a con artist you have to take advantage of other people’s belief in you, and psychopaths don’t really have a conscience, so it’s much easier for them to take that step. Narcissism, you have to have an overinflated sense of self in order to rationalize conning other people, especially if you’re not a psychopath. If you’re someone who feels emotion normally, narcissism will protect you, because you say, “Well, I deserve it.” And finally, Machiavellianism is a textbook definition of a con artist, because it’s someone who is like Machiavelli’s “ideal prince,” someone who uses the tools of persuasion and deception and connivance to get what he wants. The ends justify the means. But a lot of it, as with so many things in psychology, is a meeting of predisposition and opportunity.
https://www.thecut.com/2016/01/why-we-all-fall-for-con-artists.html
It’s clear who have been using ‘the tools of persuasion and deception and connivance’ in attempts to get what they want
Stephen Downing, clearly not happy with all the attention he received following Don Hales campaign to overturn his murder conviction, has gone on to write a book called, ”The case of Stephen Downing - The worse Miscarriage of Justice in British History” even though in the eyes of the law he was ‘wrongly convicted’
Michelle Diskin Bates chose to not refer to her brother Barry Georges case as a ‘miscarriage of justice’ instead referring to it as a ‘wrongful conviction’
Following Operation Noble the Matlock Mercury reported,
‘Last week the police said that they were not looking for anyone else for Mr* Sewells murder and Mr Downing remained the only suspect for the crime.’ (Sic)
* Clearly a mis-print and referring to Wendy Sewell
https://www.matlockmercury.co.uk/news/police-murder-probe-given-the-all-clear-1-866863/amp?__twitter_impression=true
Retired Detective Chief Superintendent David Gee talks about Operation Noble here https://play.acast.com/s/reporterpodcast/bb68b4af-dbb4-4b78-bcf8-c4edfdaa22d4……
and explains how Stephen Downing refused to be questioned under caution regarding his further murder confession/s
David Gee also explains how they used Don Hales book as the foundation to their re-investigation into Wendy Sewells murder.
I’ve no doubt the police have done the same with Michelle Diskin Bates book, alongside that of her uncles Michael Bourke
It was made clear during the BBC documentary last year the police aren’t looking for anyone else in relation to Jill Dando’s murder.
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
It is shameful that Cheshire police refuse to apologise to Paul Blackburn for his 25 years in prison, but they have no shame. They simply don’t care: “Police reject judge's call to apologise over wrongful conviction.”
Police reject judge's call to apologise over wrongful conviction
Evidence of Cheshire force that led to 1978 imprisonment of Paul Blackburn ‘absurd’
theguardian.com
5:54 AM · Jan 14, 2020·Twitter for iPhone
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1216961832625287168
The Paul Blackburn case reminds me in parts to that of Stephen Downing. The police appear to be suggesting there aren’t other suspects?!
However Michael Naughton needs to look at his own behaviour before casting aspersions. The fact he chooses to not publicly discuss ‘innocent fraud’ suggests to me his personal agenda/s outweigh the truth!?
Paul Blackburn
Stephen Downing
Barry George
Three cases where the police aren’t looking for other suspects.
Last year Professor Carolyn Hoyle stated, re the Criminal Cases Review Commission,
“437 peoples lives that have been changed around by the commission, many people who would otherwise be in prison and are out and those people are left to rebuild their lives that is not easy as research by one of my doctoral students has shown but none the less they have the opportunity to do so”
https://ox.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Embed.aspx?id=69d464e5-e28a-4400-b964-a9dd01201ea0
Barry George is monitored under MAPPA
Stephen Downing appears to also be being monitored
Paul Blackburn was monitored following the overturning of his convictions
I'd been locked up since I was 15 years old. I'm now getting out at the age of 40. Never mind the movie, I was a 40-year-old virgin. It was scary shit for me. And there was nobody there to help me. My probation officer was decent in her way but she was embarrassed to speak to me about some things."
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@hanksoff03
People who are not guilty often try to have there wrongful convictions overturned. Funny that...you’d think they’d just lie down and take it...wouldn’t you?
#robingarbutt is not guilty! ! !
2:52 PM · Feb 8, 2020·Twitter for iPad
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1226156869024174082
My concerns remain that ‘hanksoff03’ has been ‘groomed and conned’
Would be interested to know what Michelle Diskin Bates has told her (hanksoff03) about Simon Hall and what red flags she should look out for in Robin Garbutt
Interesting to note she’s chosen to not yet retweet the following
MTC & Co Solicitors
@MTC_Solicitors
6h
An amazing night! We had a great line up of speakers who have been fighting for woman Justice
@Michelle_Diskin,Naima @C4CrimAppeals @SinnKandiah & Antonia, Anesta Weekes QC, Julia Smart QC and
@NikkiAlderson2
@WomenBarristers
A Special tks to
@lynne_townley
@samirpasha
https://mobile.twitter.com/MTC_Solicitors/status/1226096479040876549
But tweeted about her ‘fingers’ in a photo from a news article on convicted murderer Robin Garbutt
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
1h
Replying to
@Michelle_Diskin
and
@hanksoff03
What’s wrong with my fingers...their, not there 🤓
I feel another blog coming on
-
“Almost two decades of research on miscarriages of justice and wrongful convictions, and over a decade of direct engagements with the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) with the Innocence Network UK (INUK) and the University of Bristol Innocence Project,
https://www.thejusticegap.com/please-forgive-me-but-i-wont-be-holding-my-breath/
Yet Dr Michael Naughton hasn’t recognised ‘innocent fraud’ being perpetuated in the UK. I don’t believe it!
Founder and Director
Dr Michael Naughton
Champions
Michael O’ Brien (one of three men who were wrongly convicted in the case known as the Cardiff Newsagent Three for the murder of Cardiff newsagent, Philip Saunders)
Michelle Bates (sister of Barry George who was wrongly convicted of the murder of British journalist, television presenter and newsreader, Jill Dando)
Case researchers
Amna Bokhari (2019 – )
Alisha Jackson (2019 – )
Malavika Ramanand (2019 – )
Ellen Rees (2019 – )
Bill Studholme (2019 – )
http://michaeljnaughton.com/?page_id=3707
“Empowering the Innocent Magazine
Empowering the Innocent Magazine: Giving voice to alleged innocent victims of wrongful convictions.
#1 planned for Spring 2020 – watch this space!”
“SUB-POSTMASTER Robin Garbutt told the jury that he would never have hurt his wife, Diana.
The 45-year-old wept as he spoke of how he missed her “now more than ever” and “just wanted her back”.
The eight men and four women listened as the softly spoken defendant talked of the couple’s “caring and loving relationship”.
They listened again as the defendant became hysterical while on the phone to the 999 operator (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BJFgCQNRsQE), and again as he cried in the dock and then in the witness box.
They listened and they watched and then they agreed that the 45-year-old had bludgeoned his wife to death in her bed.
Read the full background to the Garbutt murder in Wednesday's Northern Echo, including:
• Diana Garbutt's secret life behind closed doors.
• The robbery that never was.
• What drove Robin Garbutt to kill.
• The anguish felt by friends and family.
https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/8982424.robin-garbutt-denied-wifes-murder-last/
-
“Empowering the Innocent Magazine
Empowering the Innocent Magazine: Giving voice to alleged innocent victims of wrongful convictions.
#1 planned for Spring 2020 – watch this space!”
“SUB-POSTMASTER Robin Garbutt told the jury that he would never have hurt his wife, Diana.
The 45-year-old wept as he spoke of how he missed her “now more than ever” and “just wanted her back”.
The eight men and four women listened as the softly spoken defendant talked of the couple’s “caring and loving relationship”.
They listened again as the defendant became hysterical while on the phone to the 999 operator (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BJFgCQNRsQE), and again as he cried in the dock and then in the witness box.
They listened and they watched and then they agreed that the 45-year-old had bludgeoned his wife to death in her bed.
Read the full background to the Garbutt murder in Wednesday's Northern Echo, including:
• Diana Garbutt's secret life behind closed doors.
• The robbery that never was.
• What drove Robin Garbutt to kill.
• The anguish felt by friends and family.
https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/8982424.robin-garbutt-denied-wifes-murder-last/
stevenbones
@stevenbones1
Oct 22, 2014
Dr Michael Naughton: Claims of Innocence: http://youtu.be/HUsFwSdmQZw via
@YouTube
Listen to Dr Michael Naughton referring to ‘empowering’ others including sharing the ‘claims of innocence’ booklet with ‘grassroots’ groups such as ‘progressing prisoners maintaining innocence’ to ‘empower prisoners’, highlighting Simon Halls forthcoming appeal at the Royal Courts of justice, with Michael Mansfield, the Neil Hurley & Paul Blackburn cases,
Barry George and his attempts at getting compensation, Michael O’Brien of the so called Cardiff Newsagent 3 receiving £1,000,000 etc
Interesting to see a solicitor, who I presume isn’t involved directly with the case, to be seen to openly support Bamber
dean kingham
@deankingham
A very good 2018 for the @SwainSolicitors prison law team. Highlights include cat a downgrades, convictions quashed, innocent people released by the Parole Board, accused individuals found not guilty. 2019 will be better. I have a feeling Bamber and Stone will have good years.
1:04 AM · Jan 1, 2019·Twitter for iPhone
https://mobile.twitter.com/deankingham/status/1079906216472653824
Does he know the ins and outs of the Bamber case or is he ‘blindly supporting’ the campaign?
‘Well known to Parole Board members, Dean is highly experienced in challenging prison authorities. His reputation of being fearless in arguments to the board has led to him to represent some of the most high profile prisoners. Dean is passionate about miscarriages of Justice and is committed to assisting prisoners who maintain their innocence. He writes articles for organisations assisting those whom maintain their innocence.
https://www.associationofprisonlawyers.co.uk/employees/dean-kingham/
Dean Kingham, Head of Prison Law, Public Law and Crime, Swain & Co. Parole Board Lead for the Association of Prison Lawyers (APL):
“Swain and Co specialise in dealing with prisoners stuck in the system, high profile, and complex cases. We instruct psychologists regularly and require forensic psychologists at the forefront of their profession. We have always found Tully Forensic Psychology to be leaders in the world of forensic psychology. The team is lead by Dr Ruth Tully, whom has developed psychological research applicable to prisoners and rehabilitation. The reports are of great assistance to us in arguing that prisoners should move through the system, progress to open conditions, or be released. The team often face very probing questions from The Parole Board and are able to explain and develop the evidence within their reports extremely well. We have found the assessments and reports to be key components in arguing clients’ applications to The Parole Board. They are leaders in the world of forensic psychology.”
https://tullyforensicpsychology.com/testimonials/
“On Monday 10th December, I attended the House of Commons at the Progressing Prisoners Maintaining Innocence (PPMI) Annual Lecture, ‘Is the Parole Process Fit for Purpose? Releasing Safe Individuals Promptly.’ This event was attended by guest speakers, Dean Kingham, Head of Prison and Public Law at Swain & Co, Ruth Tully, forensic psychologist from Tully Forensic Psychology and two ex-prisoners, Chris and Cookie.
It was a thought-provoking evening and it was great to meet so many passionate people who work helping those wrongly convicted, and as well many inspiring families who have been gravely affected by miscarriages of justice.
Dean Kingham was the first to answer the ever-important question, ‘Is the Parole Process Fit for Purpose?’ Dean was instructed by Mr Worboys in the Judicial Review, is in front of the parole board daily at oral hearings, and has been involved in many poignant cases in the past few years, namely The Queen (on the Application of Wakenshaw) v The Secretary of State for Justice, where the High Court made a declaration that the Justice Minister had interfered with the independence of the parole board. This is a clear example of how the Justice Minister has no respect for constitutional values that are deep rooted in this society, namely the doctrine of the separation of powers and Dicey’s Rule of Law.
Dean stated in reply to the question,
“It is not about whether the parole board is fit for purpose for those maintaining innocence, the question is whether the Secretary of State for Justice is fit for purpose.”
Dean exclaimed that although we are not where we would ideally like to be with the parole board and how it effects those who maintain innocence, improvements have been made and the parole system is better than it used to be, in that the likes of HORIZON and KAIZEN are now offered as offending behaviour courses, where one will not have to discuss the index offence. Ultimately however, the problems of the system seem to always fall back into the Justice Minister’s hands, and problems with parole are the same. When one is recommended for open conditions by the parole board, the Secretary of State inevitably has the final decision, which in a case we worked on recently was turned on us negatively.
Dean spoke at length about the troubles with progressing those who are category A, and the issues with the category A team in that they essentially penalise those who maintain innocence. Dean also discussed the major cuts on probation and the effect that this has had on the parole process itself, and moreover discussing that HMPPS in its entirety completely misunderstand maintaining innocence. Often it is naturally assumed that maintaining innocence equates to risk, but it has been evidenced that maintaining innocence is often a protective factor.
It was also mentioned that despite the slight dip in release rates post-Worboys, release rates have in fact gone up, and the number of oral hearing have rocketed, given the rulings in Osborn, Booth and Reilly. Only today did we at Swain and Co get a release decision for someone maintaining innocence.
On a final note, Dean mentioned the cost of keeping people incarcerated… £40,000-£60,000 per year, and £70,000 for those in the high secure estate. Thus, he detailed how necessary it was to progress those in prison to be able to have their risk managed in the community, and moreover the importance of progressing prisoners maintaining innocence.
Following on from Dean, Ruth Tully, a forensic psychologist of Tully Forensic Psychology, discussed the linked with psychology and progressing prisoners maintaining innocence. Ruth is an independent psychologist who often creates psychological reports of offenders who go in front of the parole board, at the instruction of solicitors representing them. An independent psychological assessment is an assessment by a psychologist who is independent of the system that detains them, and an assessment which is conducted by those who will present their truthful professional opinion of the offender.
Ruth depicted an often-common situation in which a prisoner may have had a very bad experience of prison psychology, and how that will often affect their engagement with psychology in general. Ruth clearly stated that the relationship between denial and increased risk is objectively unclear, and that denial doesn’t necessarily increase risk - the research is inconclusive overall. Ruth also spoke at length at about enabling a good rapport with offenders to be able to complete a full assessment of them, and this involves progressing those who maintain innocence, who often do not want to discuss the index offence they maintain they have never committed. Psychology often involves discussing the index offence, but an understanding of their stance and their view that they have never been involved in that, will improve the quality of report writing.
Offending behaviour courses are often ‘sold’ as being the only way to reduce risk in many prisons, however, Ruth discussed that offending behaviour work is not the only pathway to progression and thus a reduced risk of serious harm.
The event then heard from Chris, who was released 6 weeks ago after spending 20 years incarcerated for Joint Enterprise. The injustice of Joint Enterprise is well known, from the old case of Derek Bentley to the most recent case of Laura Mitchell and is brought to public knowledge and fought against daily by the wonderful grassroots campaign that is JENGbA.[/i]
Read more here: https://www.swainandco.com/prison-law/progressing-prisoners-maintaining-innocence-annual-lecture-10th-december-2018-at-the-house-of-commons/
How a Forensic Psychologist can help with your Parole Collette Blake and Ruth Tully 30th October 2017
“A Forensic Psychologist is a Psychologist concerned with aiding the Court, Parole Board, or any aspect of the criminal justice system concerning offenders/alleged offenders, or victims. It is a common mis-
conception that they all work with the police when in fact the police employ few Forensic Psychologists. Forensic Psychologists, in the content of this article, can make a real difference to inmates satisfactorily addressing the issue of risk, and with progression and release. For the vast majority of inmates, access to a Forensic Psychologist can be achieved in cases through legal aid.
Forensic Psychologists are experts in their field and their conclusions are relied upon because of that expertise. It is easy for non-qualified people involved with inmates to form opinions and impressions of them very easily, often based on very limited interaction, and once those opinions are formed they can be very difficult to shake off. Inmates with mental health conditions, personality disorders, learning disabilities or developmental disorders, inmates with addictions or who have been victimised or experienced psychological trauma in some way and even the unfortunate few who find themselves homeless can all be stigmatised and in many ways seen to be penalised throughout their sentence for their individual problems. Once an inmate within any one of these categories is considered a risk, however high, it really can be difficult to reduce that perception. This can adversely impact upon progression and release. The instruction of an experienced expert, such as a Forensic Psychologist, who understands the penal and prison system, who understands the correlation between lack of social, emotional and economic opportunity and the issues of progression and risk, can really make a difference.
It is not difficult to see how ‘labels’ and ‘negative opinions’ can adversely affect inmates when it comes to progression and release. Forensic Psychologists are experts; they are under a duty not to mislead and must provide honest and professional opinions unaffected by bias or prejudice. This is very important when it comes to parole and recall cases which are all concerned with a perception of risk, often assessed by people who know nothing about you, haven’t met you and who base their conclusions on nothing more than what they have read about you. Almost every decision nowadays made by prisons and those connected with prisons is based on some form of risk assessment. The trouble with this is that once your risk is perceived to be high, it can be very difficult to persuade the prison and parole board that your risk has been reduced, or that it is much lower than how it looks on paper. The parole board is so risk averse and is petrified of making what it feels ‘might’ be the wrong decision.
There are very few parole cases which can be regarded as ‘clear cut’ where you can confidently predict the outcome. The parole board is very unpredictable. It is because of this uncertainty and unpredictability that instructing an independent Forensic Psychologist is even the more important. Readers will be well familiar with how the parole board can base its findings and conclusions based on mere ‘perceptions’ of risk which can all too often seem to be very much against the weight and strength of evidence available. Instructing an independent Forensic Psychologist will allow you to have the confidence in knowing that any reports on you will have been viewed impartially and without any preconception of you or your personal circumstances.
This month I want to introduce readers to Dr Ruth Tully, Forensic Psychologist. In this first of two articles, Dr Tully will this month set out in basic terms the role of a Forensic Psychologist.
Dr Tully writes
I am an independent Forensic Psychologist not employed by the prison service/NOMS. I am totally ‘independent’ and impartial from the organisation involved in your detention. I can be instructed in a variety of cases and for a variety of purposes. For example, you might already have had an assessment which you disagree with. Or you might feel that with a pending parole case you would like a report from someone instructed by you with a view to helping the parole board make their decision about progression.
When I am instructed, my team and I would visit you personally in prison. I would base my opinion and conclusions both on our discussions and the content of any parole dossier and other relevant paperwork. I have vast experience. I know how the parole board works. I know what it looks for when considering release and although I remain loyal to my professional duty at all times not to mislead and to offer my honest opinion, I am not afraid of disagreeing with the prison on issues of risk or in disagreeing with the conclusions of other professionals if I disagree with them.
My company, Tully Forensic Psychology Ltd, is a leading provider of independent psychological assessments with a team of Forensic Psychologists and Clinical Psychologists across the UK. We have worked with leading firm Wells Burcombe, and many leading law firms nationwide, on a wide range of issues. We provide a range of types of assessments for parole, Court, and other proceedings. Our psychologists and therapists are experts through their practice and academic/research publications, and importantly we are all down-to-earth people who treat service users with dignity and respect.
If you wish to have an independent psychological assessment, or perhaps instruct Dr Tully or any one of her team of 18 Forensic and Clinical Psychologists who work with her, please write to ‘The Prison Law Department’ at either offices of Wells Burcombe Solicitors. We offer a nationwide service.
Next issue: Dr Tully and I address the process of psychological assessment/types of assessment and the benefits of an independent assessment.
Collette Blake is a Senior Prison Consultant at Wells Burcombe and Ruth Tully is a Forensic Psychologist
https://insidetime.org/how-a-forensic-psychologist-can-help-with-your-parole/
David Wells, a criminal defence specialist from Wells Burcombe Solicitors, was at the police station when Barry reported the sinister threat.
David said: 'He was incredibly distressed... sweating, out of breath and in quite a state.
I'd seen Barry on many occasions and I had never seen him this distressed.
Later that year Barry fled to Ireland where he hoped the harassment would end.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5961027/Man-acquitted-killing-Jill-Dando-told-watch-walking-free.html
http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=9318.555
http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=9318.msg495654#msg495654
-
The Stephen Downing case exposed - including Matt Barlow the reporter assigned to report on the CoA hearing
Some in the town of Bakewell are clearly affected by the ‘illusionary truth effect’ manufactured by Don Hale/Stephen Downing
An example of ‘innocent fraud’
Yet in 2013 Dr Dennis Eady, following the exposure of Simon Halls guilt and confession, claimed,
”In 20 plus years of studying miscarriages of justice, while there may have been a few cases where people have for a short time maintained innocence before admitting guilt, I can think of no other high profile, widely supported case where the person has maintained innocence over many years and pursued the case through legal avenues (CCRC, Court of Appeal) and then admitted guilt.
https://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/2019/05/11/the-clues-that-point-to-barry-georges/
Dr Dennis Eady here mentioning the Duaine George case https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y5rr4FXX0_0
”Duaine was actually not present at all when the shooting took place he was having tea round at his friends mothers house”
“A MURDERER jailed for life for shooting a teenager in the back and another in the hand has failed to win his freedom.
The relieved mother of Daniel Dale, the 18-year-old who died after the bullet pierced his heart, said she hoped her family would now be able to grieve in peace without fear of further legal appeals.
Two years ago, Dwaine Simeon George, 20, of Anfield Road, New Moston, was found guilty of murdering Daniel, attempting to murder of his 17-year-old friend and possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life.
Lawyers this week took his case to the appeal courts in London saying his conviction was "unsafe" because a jury in the original trial had been told that another man, Nathan Loftus, had earlier admitted possessing a gun and that identification evidence relating to George was weak.
But senior judges disagreed and upheld the conviction. They said there was no reason why the jury should not have been told about Loftus saying his conviction was "but a small part of the jigsaw". They also said the original judge had properly explained issues about the identification of George to the jury.
Today Daniel's mother Lynn Hayes said: "Everybody has the right to appeal except the victims. Maybe now my devastated family can start to grieve in peace.
"We never doubted the police had got the right person for Daniel's murder and we have always had faith in them."
Daniel, who had never been in trouble with the police, collapsed in an alley off Farnborough Road, Miles Platting, after being shot in July 2001.
He was due to be called as a witness in a crown court trial into the killing of friend Paul Ward, 16, who was stabbed to death in Cheetham Hill in January 2001. But the accused pleaded guilty at the last moment, so he did not need to take the stand.
Daniel was shot days after a fight broke out at the court between supporters of the accused and those of victim Paul.
As well as rejecting George's appeal, judges at London's Criminal Appeal Court at the same time considered an appeal by 20-year-old Ryan Brown, of Kesteven Road, Harpurhey, Manchester.
Following the original trial in April 2002 at Preston Crown Court, Brown was sentenced to eight years for the wounding of Daniel's 17-year-old pal with a concurrent seven-year sentence for possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life.
Appeal Court Judges Lord Justice Clarke'Mr Justice Jack and Judge Fabyan Evans, dismissed his challenge on the firearms offence but ruled the wounding charge was "unsafe". They reduced his eight-year sentence to seven years.
Brown had originally been charged with murdering Daniel and attempting to murder his teenage friend. He was acquitted by a jury but found guilty of wounding with intent.
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/murderer-fails-to-win-freedom-1109988
-
stevenbones
@stevenbones1
Oct 22, 2014
Dr Michael Naughton: Claims of Innocence: http://youtu.be/HUsFwSdmQZw via
@YouTube
Listen to Dr Michael Naughton referring to ‘empowering’ others including sharing the ‘claims of innocence’ booklet with ‘grassroots’ groups such as ‘progressing prisoners maintaining innocence’ to ‘empower prisoners’, highlighting Simon Halls forthcoming appeal at the Royal Courts of justice, with Michael Mansfield, the Neil Hurley & Paul Blackburn cases,
Barry George and his attempts at getting compensation, Michael O’Brien of the so called Cardiff Newsagent 3 receiving £1,000,000 etc
2008
Gabe Tan: Why join an Innocence Project?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3lMN-eK7ByY
Gabe Tan saying how “ordinary people can do extraordinary things”
-
The Stephen Downing case exposed - including Matt Barlow the reporter assigned to report on the CoA hearing
Some in the town of Bakewell are clearly affected by the ‘illusionary truth effect’ manufactured by Don Hale/Stephen Downing
An example of ‘innocent fraud’
Yet in 2013 Dr Dennis Eady, following the exposure of Simon Halls guilt and confession, claimed,
”In 20 plus years of studying miscarriages of justice, while there may have been a few cases where people have for a short time maintained innocence before admitting guilt, I can think of no other high profile, widely supported case where the person has maintained innocence over many years and pursued the case through legal avenues (CCRC, Court of Appeal) and then admitted guilt.
https://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/2019/05/11/the-clues-that-point-to-barry-georges/
Since Stephen Downing’s murder conviction was deemed ‘unsafe’ and he was released from prison he’s made confessions. The police have these on record. He wasn’t retried because he’d served 27 years in prison.
(All in the podcast)
The case of Stephen Downing - The worst miscarriage of justice in British history by Stephen Downing https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/The-Case-of-Stephen-Downing-Paperback/p/16828
Dennis Eady’s 2009 thesis “Miscarriages of Justice; The Uncertainty Principle” references Don Hale as a source, among others
https://orca.cf.ac.uk/54837/1/U585226.pdf
Abstract(S)
“This thesis examines in detail the potential for error and distortion in the criminal justice process and the concept of case construction which may contribute to wrongful convictions.
“This thesis considers the often illusory nature of some of the principles of the criminal justice system and utilises notions of “magical legalism” (Cohen 2001) and other psychological processes that may be involved in maintaining innocence.”
“Some recommendations for change are proposed, focusing primarily on the philosophical change that is required to change the principles originally designed to protect the innocent from illusion into reality”
Or ‘reality’ into ‘illusion’
In hindsight imo people like Dennis Eady appear to me to be a con artists dream
I wonder if he’s ever reflected on his ‘thesis’ or other alleged moj cases?
March 2003 The Independent
“A feud has arisen from the reinvestigation of the flawed Stephen Downing murder conviction, with two men filing formal complaints to police, it was revealed yesterday.
As an independent advisory group ratified Derbyshire police's assertion two weeks ago that Mr Downing remained the only suspect in the case, detectives said Don Hale, the journalist who campaigned for his release, and David Sewell, the murder victim's widower, had filed separate complaints against each other.
Mr Sewell alleges Mr Hale, 50, who was awarded OBE for his campaign to overturn Mr Downing's conviction, may have perverted the course of justice or attempted to pervert the course of justice.
Mr Hale, meanwhile, asserts that he has experienced threatening behaviour from Mr Sewell. The former editor of the Matlock Mercury newspaper also believes there may be a civil case for malicious falsehood or defamation.
Derbyshire police said it had launched inquiries into the complaints, which arise from their reinvestigation of the 1973 murder of Wendy Sewell in Bakewell cemetery, Derbyshire. Mr Sewell and Mr Hale would only be interviewed if officers established that any criminal offences had been committed, the force said.
Mr Hale's defamation complaint relates to allegations in the report – picked up by Mr Sewell – that interviewees said to have contributed to Mr Hale's book about the case claimed later they had not spoken to the journalist at all.
"I know my submissions were fair. They helped overturn the conviction and I dispute all allegations that I have distorted evidence," Mr Hale said. When the report came out last month, Mr Sewell immediately called on Derbyshire police to consider prosecuting Mr Hale for perverting the course of justice. Privately, detectives have indicated that such a course of action is unlikely as an offence would be difficult to prove.
Two weeks ago, a "bitter and angry" Mr Downing said that he, too, would lodge a complaint – against Derbyshire police – after officers said that he was the only suspect for the killing of Mrs Sewell. Mr Downing, who is from Bakewell, served 27 years in prison for the crime before he was released on appeal and his conviction ruled unsafe at the Court of Appeal last year.
But police confirmed that no new correspondence about the reinvestigation has been received from Mr Downing.
Meanwhile, an independent advisory group – which included Mr Downing's media solicitor, Richard Cramer – ratified the findings of the Derbyshire police reinvestigation report.
The report listed Mr Downing's recent confession to his father among reasons why he remains their only suspect in the case. According to the report, Mr Downing, 46, was at his flat in Chesterfield last summer when he told his father, Ray, to sit down as he had "something to tell him" and admitted to the murder of legal secretary Wendy Sewell, who was bludgeoned to death with a pickaxe handle. Mr Downing's father reported their conversation to Detective Chief Superintendent David Gee, who has led a 10-month reinvestigation.
In a statement, the advisory group said yesterday: "We are satisfied with the integrity of the police procedures and the rigour of the reinvestigation."
Mr Cramer, who represents Mr Downing, said: "Mr Downing is being advised by other solicitors about making any complaint against police."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/bakewell-murder-case-reporter-investigated-over-feud-122369.html
Footage of liar and fantasist Don Hale
https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/video/stephen-downing-freed-on-bail-cambridgeshire-hmp-little-news-footage/813225944?adppopup=true&uiloc=thumbnail_more_search_results_adp&uiloc=thumbnail_more_search_results_adp&uiloc=thumbnail_more_search_results_adp
Including a short clip of murder victim Wendy Sewells husband David Sewell
March 2003 Telegraph
“The journalist who led the fight to free Stephen Downing, whose conviction for the murder of a typist was quashed after he spent 27 years in prison, is to be formally investigated by police about his campaign.
Police have received a complaint about Don Hale from David Sewell, husband of the murdered woman, Wendy Sewell. Last week, after a six-month re-investigation, police said that Mr Downing remained the only suspect in the 1973 murder in Bakewell, Derbyshire.
Police accused Mr Hale of distorting and embellishing evidence in his book about the case, Town Without Pity, which they said contained "anomalies".
Now Mr Sewell, who accused Mr Hale of "causing great pain and distress" by twisting and even fabricating evidence in his campaign, has sent a written, formal complaint about him to David Coleman, Chief Constable of Derbyshire.
Mr Downing's case was hailed as one of Britain's worst miscarriages of justice when the Court of Appeal overturned his conviction in January. He has since received £250,000 compensation, with the final sum expected to be between £500,000 and £1.8 million.
He was 17 but had a mental age of 11 when he was convicted of beating 32-year-old Mrs Sewell to death with a pick-axe handle at a cemetery in Bakewell. At the time he was working at the cemetery and claimed to have found Mrs Sewell's partly-clothed body covered in blood.
He was arrested and interviewed for about eight hours before admitting the attack. Later he retracted his confession but was convicted the following year. Once in prison, Mr Downing refused to admit the offence to parole officers, thereby making himself ineligible for release.
His parents, Ray and Juanita, waged a campaign to prove his innocence and were joined in 1996 by Mr Hale, then editor of the Matlock Mercury. His campaign secured him an OBE, several journalism awards and praise from the Prime Minister.
However, resentment in the town against him has grown by what people saw as his obsession with freeing Mr Downing. Yesterday Mr Hale accused the police of "stage-managing" their new inquiry's findings.
He said it was unfair that Mr Sewell was at a press conference to discuss the police report's conclusions when he and Mr Downing were not. "My absence and inability to reply to potentially defamatory comments was a denial of my basic human rights."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1424006/Bakewell-murder-author-faces-police-investigation.html
Don Hale attempts to continue to spread his distortions and ‘anomalies’ https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/investigative-journalist-tells-child-abuse-15945732.amp#click=https://t.co/6ERoKq9sqm
https://trollexposure.wordpress.com/?s=Don+Hale
-
Dennis Eady’s 2009 thesis “Miscarriages of Justice; The Uncertainty Principle” references Don Hale as a source, among others
https://orca.cf.ac.uk/54837/1/U585226.pdf
Abstract(S)
“This thesis examines in detail the potential for error and distortion in the criminal justice process and the concept of case construction which may contribute to wrongful convictions.
“This thesis considers the often illusory nature of some of the principles of the criminal justice system and utilises notions of “magical legalism” (Cohen 2001) and other psychological processes that may be involved in maintaining innocence.”
“Some recommendations for change are proposed, focusing primarily on the philosophical change that is required to change the principles originally designed to protect the innocent from illusion into reality”
Or ‘reality’ into ‘illusion’
In hindsight imo people like Dennis Eady appear to me to be a con artists dream
I wonder if he’s ever reflected on his ‘thesis’ or other alleged moj cases?
In March 2014 Dennis Eady had an article published in the justice gap headed.
‘Innocence Projects: The importance of grasping the essence
Excerpts:
”I fully support anything that increases the chances of innocent people being exonerated but our expectations must remain in context and we should think very carefully before throwing away the principles on which INUK was founded. Those principles, naive and idealistic as they may be, nonetheless provide an ethical and humane working foundation based on a real understanding of the uncertainties and logical frailties of the criminal justice system.
This article will attempt to address three questions:
What is meant by “innocence” as opposed to “safety”?
Why do Innocence projects have no success in overturning convictions?
What is the value of Innocence projects?
What is meant by “innocence” as opposed to “safety”?
In her Justice Gap article, Hannah Quirk reflects the often presented view in relation to the notion of “innocence” as a test for exoneration. To prove innocence, the argument goes, is far harder than showing that a conviction is “unsafe”.
However I would be surprised if anyone ever really meant it in the sense of proving innocence. The approach of looking at cases in terms of innocence does not prevent looking for and presenting arguments about safety. We all know that as things stand we have to play by the archaic rules of the Court of Appeal. Considering a case from the standpoint of innocence however, means evaluating the person, the circumstances and the evidence as closely as possible and as holistically as possible.
If there is evidence of possible innocence or Lord Widgery’s insightful, and therefore much maligned, concept of lurking doubt (R v Cooper 53 Cr App R 82 1968), then there is an ethical and humane basis for supporting the case, whether or not there are circumstances that fit neatly into the Court of Appeal’s rigid appeal criteria.
That is what innocence projects should do, in my view – look at possible innocence as a priority and then try to find potential appeal points. The “danger” in this approach is that one becomes committed to a case for the sake of justice and humanity even if the system provides no avenue for such concepts to be officially recognised.
“Having said that, it seems that according to Michael Naughton’s pronouncement about the discontinuance of the Innocence Network UK (here), such a notion had already been abandoned.
I was saddened to read, particularly coming from one of the great past champions of ethical and radical thinking on this issue, that those innocence projects within INUK – our Cardiff project has not been a member since 2010 – had become so selective that “eligible cases are drying up”.
In a climate where injustice seems to be escalating throughout the criminal justice system this was an astonishing conclusion. It was all the more astonishing because two different criteria are quoted in the same article but both seem designed to exclude almost every case that might apply:
Read more here https://www.thejusticegap.com/innocence-projects-importance-grasping-essence/
Dr Michael Naughton announced in July 2014
“At the end of this year’s membership (September 2014), INUK will no longer be renewing or taking memberships from universities and/or law firms.
We believe that with more than 30 INUK innocence projects around the country, that this aspect of INUK’s aims has been successfully achieved and that it is now timely for innocence projects to step up as independent enterprises in their own right and with full responsibility for any successes or failures.
“After 10 years of assessing applications from alleged innocent victims of wrongful convictions the eligible cases are drying up. In the last year only a few of the couple of hundred applications that we have assessed have been deemed eligible: the applicant may be innocent and there is something that we can do to prove or disprove the claim.
“Perhaps most crucially, INUK played a significant part in the intervention in the recent case of Nunn at the Supreme Court, which ensures the viability of innocence project investigations at the pre-CCRC stage.
Read more here http://www.innocencenetwork.org.uk/inuk-new-beginnings
-
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@hanksoff03
People who are not guilty often try to have there wrongful convictions overturned. Funny that...you’d think they’d just lie down and take it...wouldn’t you?
#robingarbutt is not guilty! ! !
2:52 PM · Feb 8, 2020·Twitter for iPad
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1226156869024174082
Robin Garbutts 999 call to the police https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BJFgCQNRsQE
Robin Garbutt police interview https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1FOJmgKyrxw
Robin Garbutt states,
“do you know what, I knew straight away we I was going to be robbed, I just knew it cos.. obviously.. you know.. and I wasn’t even worried.. do you know.. I know it sounds stupid but .. the first time I was absolutely shitting a brick and this time.. but.. the first thing he said to me.. straight away was.. he said er don’t do anything stupid we’ve got your wife and er he said turn the lights off and er lock the door.. so I er um I er went back to Blah blah
“he handed me a um a black hold-all and er he said put the money in the bag I think or put the money from the safe.. I can’t rem.. put the money in the bag I think he said.. erm..so I just walked into the post office.. he followed behind me Blah blah
“I put the money in the hold-all, there was something else in there already.. blah blah. I noticed when I put the money in blah blah.. I emptied.. put my till money in.. nothing in there just peanuts.. you know., a hundred quid..
Hanksoff03 Retweeted
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
@nickwallis has covered this in his documentary.A shocking wrongful conviction connected2this PO/Horizon case is http://RobinGarbuttOfficial.com. Huge part of [ censored word ] case was accusation of theft which had NEVER happened! Nothing left of [ censored word ] case,yet Robin still fights from his prison cell
https://mobile.twitter.com/hanksoff03/status/1226539689169051648
Should read - ‘huge part of the prosecution* case was accusation of theft which had NEVER happened’
* prosecution has been abbreviated in tweet but forum appears to be detecting ‘p r o s’ as a ‘censored word’ ?
-
By Michael Bourke (Uncle of Barry George & Michelle Diskin Bates) taken from the book ‘Mikes Story’
“I designed a lea flet and Mick made up a prototype which I then got printed. The leaflet described Barry as a proud Englishman with Welsh Irish roots. He was described as not a devil, not a saint, but perhaps a Scapegoat. It then pointed to some shortcomings of the jury, and there followed a description of the case against Barry, and the scant forensic evidence. It also contained a list of people who felt or expressed CONCERN at the safety of Barry’s conviction. Eventually I had a short list, small in number but impressive in quality. The list consisted of Willie O Dea, TD. John McDonnell, MP. Professor Tim Valentine. Jim Nichol, Solicitor. John Witzenfeld. Solicitor. Pat Reynolds, Chairman IBRG. Dr Chris R Tame, Director Libertarian Alliance. Billy Power and Paddy Hill. (Birmingham Six) Andy Parr. (Cricket writer) Paul Foot, Journalist. Later I would get a few more names. They were Jeremy Corbyn, MP. John McManus, MOJO. LA Naylor, author of HOW MANY ARE INNOCENT. Senator Labhras O Murchu. Professor Elizabeth Loftus, ‘Memory expert’ who was concerned at witnesses recollections. Seamus Healy TD. Dan Neville TD. The leaflet ended with information on our website and a request for concerned people to write to their local politician or MEP, and a mention of Martin Jeremiah and his album Day Off For The Queen. I planned to distribute some at the London Saint Patrick’s Day Festival in March. I also sent some to politicians, the Home Office etc. Michelle phoned to tell me that she would also be in London, as MOJO were holding a public meeting in the House of Commons. I was not invited which I thought was a pity as we could perhaps have distributed some more of the leaflets.
In August 1992 Peter Dunn published an article in the Independent with the header,
Hanratty 'confessed his guilt' to RAF corporal
“JAMES HANRATTY confessed to committing the A6 murder in 1961 and boasted that the police would never be able to prove he did it, according to a new witness.
The claim coincides with a fresh initiative, by lawyers representing Hanratty's family, calling on the Home Office to reopen the case.
Hanratty, who protested his innocence to the end, was executed in April 1962 for the murder of Michael Gregsten in a lay-by on the A6 the previous August. Gregsten's girlfriend, Valerie Storie, was raped, shot and left for dead at the same time.
A book by Paul Foot, Who Killed Hanratty?, produced witnesses in 1971 who maintained that Hanratty was in Rhyl, north Wales, on the night of the shootings. In April this year, in Hanratty: Mystery of Dead Man's Hill, a documentary for Yorkshire TV, the film-maker Bob Woffinden called for DNA tests to be carried out to establish the true identity of the murderer.
Now, to the dismay of the pro- Hanratty lobby, a former RAF police corporal has come forward with an account of a conversation he says he had with Hanratty at RAF Halton near Wendover, Buckinghamshire, in late 1961.
John Needham, now 65 and a security guard at a country club outside Bath, says he was duty NCO in the guardroom on the night Hanratty was brought in to attend an identity parade.
'We stood in the rear of the guardroom and I asked him if he'd like a cigarette and a cup of coffee,' he said. 'We were just chatting. I asked him what he thought his chances were and he replied, 'They know I did it. I know I did it, but I don't think they can prove it. It's not up to me to help them'.
'After 30 years I can't remember anything else about the conversation except that it was very brief.
'He was quite openly cocky about it, very bumptious. I think he looked on it at the time as a bit of a game he was playing.'
Mr Needham gives a number of reasons for not revealing the conversation at the time - including distrust of the civilian police, forged by his own experience as a constable with the Wiltshire force, and preoccupation at the time with personal problems involving the break-up of his marriage.
He says he decided to go public when he saw a newspaper article complaining about miscarriages of justices and citing as an example the Hanratty case. 'I thought: 'God, is this never going to stop?' They all seemed to be talking from their own personal point of view, flogging it to death and I thought: 'At least I spoke to the man'.'
Mr Foot dismisses Mr Needham's evidence as absolute nonsense. 'There's no conceivable way Hanratty could have incriminated himself in this way,' he said. 'There's not one single example anywhere of him saying he'd had anything to do with the killing. We've 14 witnesses, including whole numbers of people who were not at the trial, who showed that Hanratty was in Rhyl.'Geoffrey Bindman, the solicitor representing Hanratty's mother and brother in the latest call for a judicial review, is equally dismissive. 'It's hard to understand why it's not already been accepted that Hanratty was not the murderer,' he said. 'The evidence against him was so full of holes. Frankly, the subsequent inquiry in 1975 was quite unsatisfactory.'
He said Mr Needham's story contained many absurdities, and he regretted that the Independent was giving it publicity.
More:https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/hanratty-confessed-his-guilt-to-raf-corporal-1541371.html
DNA proves Hanratty guilt 'beyond doubt'
SCIENTIFIC evidence establishes "beyond doubt" that James Hanratty was the man who committed the notorious A6 murder more than 40 years ago, the Court of Appeal ruled yesterday.
Dismissing Hanratty's posthumous appeal, three judges headed by Lord Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice, said there was "overwhelming proof of the safety of the conviction".
Ironically, it was Hanratty's family who sought DNA tests on two items of evidence that had been preserved since the trial.
During the appeal, Hanratty's counsel conceded that, provided the possibility of contamination could be excluded, analysis of these items pointed conclusively to Hanratty having been the man who murdered Michael Gregsten, 36, a civil servant, and raped Mr Gregsten's lover, Valerie Storie, then 23.
Miss Storie, who was with her colleague on the night he was shot dead on the A6 near Bedford, was shot five times, leaving her paralysed from the waist down.
Hanratty, 25, was hanged in 1962, one of the last to suffer the death penalty in Britain. The case was referred back to the Court of Appeal in 1999 by the Criminal Cases Review Commission.
At a hearing in March, Lord Woolf, Lord Justice Mantell and Mr Justice Leveson heard Michael Mansfield, for Hanratty, argue 17 grounds of appeal.
Eleven of these grounds were based on alleged failures by the prosecution to disclose material to the defence. The others related to the identification parade at which Miss Storie identified Hanratty, police interviews and the conduct of the trial.
However, the Crown relied - unusually - on new genetic profiling of semen samples found on a fragment of Miss Storie's underwear, which had been kept in the police laboratory since 1961.
That, and DNA tests on nasal mucus found on the handkerchief in which the murder weapon had been wrapped, were compared with DNA samples taken from the body of Hanratty in 2000.
To obtain genetic profiles from the small samples available, scientists used highly sensitive DNA amplification techniques that were not available as recently as 1995.
Mr Mansfield had argued that the DNA evidence should not be admitted, saying that the Crown could call fresh evidence only to rebut evidence from an appellant.
He also maintained that the DNA deposits on the underwear and handkerchief could have resulted from subsequent contamination. Rejecting both these arguments, the judges concluded that the "DNA evidence, standing alone, is certain proof of guilt".
The idea that one of the items might have been contaminated was "fanciful". In the court's view, "the DNA evidence made what was a strong case even stronger".
The judges accepted that, "even by contemporary standards of the time, there are criticisms of some substance which can be made as to the procedural defects" in the trial process.
But these "fell far short of what is required to lead to the conclusion that the trial should be regarded as flawed and this conviction unsafe on procedural grounds".
Michael Sherrard, QC, who was Hanratty's defence counsel 40 years ago and was in court yesterday, had opened the defence case by saying that the case was "sagging with coincidences".
The court responded by listing nine coincidences that would have to be explained in the light of the DNA evidence if Hanratty was not guilty.
"The number of alleged coincidences means that they are not coincidences but overwhelming proof of the safety of the conviction from an evidential perspective."
At the end of their judgment, which took the judges three hours to read out, they commended Hanratty's family "for the extraordinary loyalty and commitment they have shown to what they thought was a just cause".
More:https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1393842/DNA-proves-Hanratty-guilt-beyond-doubt.html
2016
“At the subsequent appeal hearing in 2002, Michael Mansfield QC, the barrister acting for the Hanratty family, admitted that, if contamination could be excluded, the DNA evidence demonstrated James Hanratty had committed the murder and rape. He argued the evidence may have been contaminated because of lax handling procedures.
The DNA evidence convinced the Court of Appeal judges in 2002 that Hanratty’s guilt was proved “beyond doubt” but Hanratty’s family and their supporters have continued to contest this conclusion and to press for a further review of his conviction.
https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/crime-files-reopened-james-hanratty-11074437
Hanratty may still be innocent, OK? by Paul Foot April 2001
When the police and prosecution applied some months ago for permission to exhume the body of James Hanratty, who was hanged in 1962 for the A6 murder, lawyers for the Hanratty family did not oppose the application, but denounced it as a pointless exercise. It now appears that the exercise was not pointless at all. The point was to provide a front page story for the Daily Mail.
More than two years ago, I attended a press conference in the offices of Bindman and Partners, lawyers to the Hanratty family for the past 33 years. The press conference was called because the criminal cases review commission had referred the Hanratty case to the court of appeal. The main reason for the referral was that every single new discovery by the commission's investigators pointed to Hanratty's innocence. In particular, two witnesses who identified Hanratty as a man they had seen driving the murder car in London on the morning after the murder were discredited by the rather shocking fact that the murder car was nowhere near London at the time. Moreover, the police knew this perfectly well but had not disclosed the information to the prosecution, let alone the defence.
There were many other matters relating to the police handling of the case that plainly disturbed the CCRC investigators, who were led by a former chief constable of Hertfordshire. The case was one of the first to be thoroughly investigated by the CCRC, and by October 1997 the investigators were quite satisfied that a miscarriage of justice had taken place. They prepared to refer the case to the court of appeal.
Before they did so, they carried out DNA tests on some of the exhibits connected with the murder, including fragments of clothing worn at the time by Valerie Storie, who was in the car with Michael Gregsten when he was murdered and was herself shot by the killer and left for dead at the roadside.
To everyone's astonishment, and in clear contrast to all the rest of the evidence, the tests showed a match between the DNA on the exhibits and swabs taken from Hanratty's brother and mother, who had since died. These DNA findings were plainly and honestly reported in the commission's report. The report made it clear that in the commission's view, given the possibility of contamination over such a long period of time, the tests were not conclusive of Hanratty's guilt and should be discussed and considered, with all the other evidence, in the court of appeal.
Bob Woffinden and I, who have written books claiming Hanratty's innocence, were asked about these tests and could only say that the case for Hanratty's innocence is stronger than it ever was, and that if the DNA suggests otherwise there must be something wrong with the DNA.
In the two and a half years since, several more DNA tests have been carried out, all showing a match between Hanratty and the exhibits. A common feature of all these tests is that their results have been leaked to the Sun or Daily Mail or both. The certain result of the recent tests on the exhumed body was that they would prove a match and would be exclusively reported in the Sun or the Mail.
Last time the lucky recipient of the leak was the Sun, whose laughable headline was "Hanratty was guilty - official". This time the Mail seems to be the lucky paper. It came up with an original headline on the front page to celebrate the point: "Hanratty was guilty".
Well, the matter still has to be decided by the court of appeal, which for all its failings is more likely to give a hearing to a fair argument than the Sun or the Mail has ever been. (Or not quite ever. When my book on the A6 case came out in 1971, it was serialised over two weeks in the Sun.) When the case does finally come to the court, I hope at least that the judges will seek to establish who leaked the confidential results of the DNA tests and how much they were paid for their leaking.
While we wait for the public argument about all the evidence I shall go on believing firmly in what I can understand: such as where Hanratty was at the time of the murder and what he was doing there, how the police dealt with identification evidence, and how anyone arrived at the ludicrous coincidence that the alleged A6 murderer happened by chance to be staying (on the night before the murder) in the same doss house as was the first police suspect, Peter Alphon. It was the police hunt for Alphon that led them to the Vienna Hotel, Maida Vale, where he said he stayed on the night of the murder.
Until someone comes up with something to show that Hanratty was not in Rhyl on the night of the murder (or in Liverpool on the afternoon before the murder) I will go on believing his story and obstinately refusing to accept the carefully considered verdicts of the editors of the Sun and the Mail.
https://www.theguardian.com/Columnists/Column/0,5673,468282,00.html
Peter Alphon
“Doubts about the identity of the killer were dismissed, however, by Mr Alphon. In an interview with The Independent, in which he denied his own involvement, Mr Alphon set out his own theory. He said that Hanratty was a "psychopath" who had been hired by the wife of the dead man and her lover. Earlier this month, Mr Alphon sent a letter to the Home Secretary, saying "...the nightmare has persisted through four decades of controversy and speculation surrounding the case".
He added: "My victimisation both at the hands of the police and my defamers in the media dates from when Scotland Yard quite unjustifiably caused my name to be blazoned across the headlines ..."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/wrongly-hanged-hanratty-is-found-innocent-1285402.html
How the psychopath can fool you...James Hanratty
http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=369.msg7846
DNA Proof 40 Years After A Cowardly Murder Shuts Down A Fact-Fogging Campaign For The Murderer
Excerpts:
Implications for PR campaigns
”The DNA tests carried out by the FFS that finally provided definitive proof that James Hanratty killed Michael Gregsten and raped and shot Valerie Storie more or less stopped the bandwagon dead in its tracks.
But there had been for decades almost fanatical and very vociferous support for someone who’d been unanimously convicted of murder, many of whom stood to gain, though it didnt have too much effect except to have the case looked at and found solid twice.
James Hanratty’s supporters claimed that he had no motive, that the police framed him, and that the DNA evidence was contaminated by the government’s experts. NONE of this was proved. Unless there is actual proof of dastardly plots and contamination, these claims against the authorities are unfruitful and unfair.
The most important lesson to be learnt from the A6 murder case is that a bandwagon of journalists, politicians, human rights campaigners, lawyers, writers, filmmakers and celebrities being absolutely convinced of someone’s innocence does not make him or her innocent in fact.
Even intelligent and well-intentioned people like Paul Foot and David Steel can mistakenly believe a killer is innocent and shrug off the pain the victims’ families must feel.
http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/dna_proof_40_years_after_a_cowardly_murder_shuts_down/
Would be interested to learn who at the CCRC reviewed the James Hanratty case https://ccrc.gov.uk/case/hanratty-james/
1999
“Vital evidence which could have led to the acquittal of James Hanratty, executed for the A6 murder in 1962, was suppressed at the time of his trial, it emerged yesterday.
One of the most celebrated alleged miscarriage of justice cases was yesterday referred back to the Court of Appeal as the dead man's lawyers, family and campaign supporters expressed astonishment at the extent of evidence which has only now been disclosed.
“The suppression of vital information by senior police officers, a lack of disclosure of information to the defence and a flawed process of identification were given as the reasons for the decision.
“The amount of information not disclosed by the prosecution at the trial is very substantial,' said Geoffrey Bindman, solicitor for the family since 1974. 'If that material had been disclosed, James Hanratty would not have been convicted.'
The CCRC inquiry, led by the former assistant chief constable of the Metropolitan police, Baden Skitt, had been allowed access to material stored by the Metropolitan police but not released to the defence team. Some of the information was not even shown to the prosecution.
'It's quite clear that the CCRC is shocked by the non-disclosure,' said Mr Foot. He said that even people who had been working on the case for more that a quarter of century were amazed at the depth of material suppressed.
'The commission has expressed very serious concerns that vital evidence has been suppressed,' said Mr Bindman. 'There was information which, had it been disclosed, would have led to the acquittal of James Hanratty.'
Cases being examined by the Criminal Cases Review Commission were now being subjected to 'unacceptable delay' , the committee concludes in its assessment of the commission's first two years' work. Chaired by Chris Mullin, it concluded the CCRC had made a good start and congratulated the body on its 'professionalism, independence and openness.'
So far 43 cases have been referred back.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/mar/30/1
-
I find this an extremely naive and gullible move by Michael Naughton https://www.bristol.ac.uk/law/news/2018/dr-michael-naughton-introduces-new-book.html
The need for due diligence isn’t needed solely whilst using Twitter. http://michaeljnaughton.com/?p=1542
Michael Naughton claims;
“Earlier this month (August 2017), a row erupted on my Twitter timeline of the like I have not previously witnessed amongst what might loosely be called the ‘prison reform community’, comprised of former prisoners, family members of currently serving and former prisoners, prison lawyers, students and academics.
But that’s not entirely true is it Dr Naughton? You were once very familiar with the fallings out of the varying ‘prison reform community’, comprised of former prisoners, family members of currently serving and former prisoners, prison lawyers, students and academics. and were once yourself very much caught up in it.
Remember this https://www.theguardian.com/law/2011/jan/09/innocence-project-conviction-hilary-swank - the Higham burglary, the knife, Campbell Malone, Lynn Hall, Shaun Hall, Steffie Bon, Sandra Lean, Billy Middleton, Mike O’Brien, etc?
Barry George’s campaign has been blighted with similar such experiences but there has been a conscience attempt at covering up these rows, which are glaringly obvious when you compare and contrast Michelle Diskin Bates book with that of her uncle Mike’s and begin to read between the lines of the many newspaper articles and other mediums used to promote the fallacies.
Michael Naughton goes on:
“I immediately put his name into Google on my phone to very quickly find that he was convicted of a highly publicised and most pernicious and disturbing gendered crime against a young woman, the like of which would certainly make most (particularly women) want to steer clear of him altogether.
WHAT about Barry George’s highly publicised and proven crimes? Shall we sweep them under the carpet and pretend they never happened? What rehabilitation did he receive, if any? It might be worth researching the Barry George case and all the individuals involved because when you do, all is not as it seems and Michelle Diskin Bates narrative stops adding up. The case against her brother becomes much clearer and plausible.
Why is Barry George still being monitored under MAPPA? (Source: ‘Stand Against Injustice Oct 2018)
“On Sunday November 10th we had agreed on the first page of the website. I wrote to MOJO suggesting that we should form a united campaign front for Barry. The ‘site was up and running by the 20th, www.barrygeorge.co.uk ‘He’s Net Guilty’, the Irish Mirror reported, next to a large photo of Michelle and Margaret. The Guardian also gave it a mention in an article on prisoner websites. MOJO’s Hazel Keirle wrote to me, saying that MOJO was not in any way a campaign group, but she advised that I could form a campaign. So with the help of the webmaster Mick Lynch I contacted the ‘Irish In Britain Representation Group’ or the IBRG to see if they would help.
“I went to London on December 12 and met Pat Reynolds, the IBRG Chairman, at Margaret’s house. We discussed a campaign plan, and agreed to think things over. Pat then spoke to Michelle on the phone, but she was now tied up with MOJO and told Pat that Barry already had their support. The campaign was hampered from the word go but I was determined to push ahead and managed to persuade Pat to remain on board.
Courtesy of Michael Bourke - ‘Mike’s Story’ https://www.bookdepository.com/Mikes-Story-Mike-Burke/9781907163449
“On January 25th 2003 the Justice for Barry or JfB campaign emerged. There was no fanfare but I knew that Barry and his mother were in favour of it and that was the relevant test. JfB was always a small loosely knit group and we did not normally seek or encourage people to join us, though we sought support for the cause. We feared police or journalist infiltration, and I would point to the group MOJO as justification of that caution. I believe that if the campaign rather than Barry had become the focus of attention it would not have stood the test of time, and we were in it for the long haul, in good times and bad. Mostly bad.
“I designed a leaflet and Mick made up a prototype which I then got printed. The leaflet described Barry as a proud Englishman with Welsh Irish roots. He was described as not a devil, not a saint, but perhaps a Scapegoat. It then pointed to some shortcomings of the jury, and there followed a description of the case against Barry, and the scant forensic evidence. It also contained a list of people who felt or expressed CONCERN at the safety of Barry’s conviction. Eventually I had a short list, small in number but impressive in quality. The list consisted of Willie O Dea, TD. John McDonnell, MP. Professor Tim Valentine. Jim Nichol, Solicitor. John Witzenfeld. Solicitor. Pat Reynolds, Chairman IBRG. Dr Chris R Tame, Director Libertarian Alliance. Billy Power and Paddy Hill. (Birmingham Six) Andy Parr. (Cricket writer) Paul Foot, Journalist. Later I would get a few more names. They were Jeremy Corbyn, MP. John McManus, MOJO. LA Naylor, author of HOW MANY ARE INNOCENT. Senator Labhras O Murchu. Professor Elizabeth Loftus, ‘Memory expert’ who was concerned at witnesses recollections. Seamus Healy TD. Dan Neville TD. The leaflet ended with information on our website and a request for concerned people to write to their local politician or MEP, and a mention of Martin Jeremiah and his album Day Off For The Queen. I planned to distribute some at the London Saint Patrick’s Day Festival in March. I also sent some to politicians, the Home Office etc. Michelle phoned to tell me that she would also be in London, as MOJO were holding a public meeting in the House of Commons. I was not invited which I thought was a pity as we could perhaps have distributed some more of the leaflets.
“Love Peace Justice. We distributed some JfB lea flets and then sat around the main stage and listened to the Bands. It reminded me of the pop festivals of the early 1970s as the sun shone down on the Tolpuddle fields. Many people carried anti Bush Blair and Iraq War banners saying BLiar Out. Later, when Martin and Vicky had departed on their coach back to West Sussex I visited the Martyr’s Museum which gives a good account of the birth of the English trade unions. I bought a Martyr’s T-Shirt and a badge and then I drove back to Dorchester. Next day I drove up to London. It was a brilliant sunny day as I drove along parts of England I had not seen before. I entered London via the M25, straight into a traffic jam. I stayed in London for two nights, but I felt a little ill from the moment I arrived. Maybe it was from the smog, or perhaps it was the comedown from the freedom of Tolpuddle. While in London I responded by e-mail to News of the World reporter Danielle Gusmaroldi who claimed she wanted to support Barry. She wanted to visit him but I advised her that he would probably not agree to that. I went home on Wednesday 21st. On August 1st Margaret told me that the reporter had written to Barry, and he was mad at me as a result. If I done nothing he would be mad at me, and if I did something he would also be mad with me. Sometimes one just can’t win. I went to see him on the 7th and we had a blazing row in which I threatened to walk away and pull the plug on the campaign and website. The row was quickly over and we had our tea and settled down for what turned out to be quite a good visit. I could appreciate how he felt about reporters, and I agreed with him when he said he didn’t want visits from them. After all they had portrayed him as some kind of a monster, and helped the Crown’s case against him, so how could he appreciate that we would now need to use them to try and turn around public opinion?[/i]
“On August 26th a new website www.barrygeorge.com replaced the original one which had run into a few problems. On September 5th I read an e-mail from Scott Lomax telling me about a BBC reporter, Raphael Rowe, who hoped to make a programme about Barry. I made some discreet enquiries and I was told that ‘He is a good guy, genuine’. I was happy with that recommendation and decided to contact him. I phoned him the next day and we had a good long chat. He was quite up to speed having looked at the websites and appeal court links. I agreed to contact Barry and his solicitor to see if they might cooperate with a TV programme. I later spoke to Pat Reynolds who was very enthusiastic when I mentioned Panorama, saying that Panorama could be seen as a turning point, the beginning of the end. I next visited Barry on Friday October 8th. I was suffering from a heavy cold, and family tensions were again running high, otherwise the visit went ok. On the way back to East Acton I saw on the headlines that the hostage Ken Bigley had been killed in Iraq. I got fish and chips and had quiet a miserable evening. ‘Why the hell am I doing this?’ I wondered, not for the first time.
“That evening I met David James Smith at Starbucks in Hammersmith, where we discussed aspects of Jill Dando’s murder which concerned me. David believed that I was on the wrong track but I was convinced that more people could have known of Jill’s intention to visit her house on the day of her murder than we were led to believe. I also wondered how many people might have had keys to her house.
And why does Michelle Diskin Bates never appear to mention her uncle Mike Bourke’s efforts?
Michael Bourke referred to his nephew Barry George as, ‘a proud Englishman with Welsh Irish roots. He was described as not a devil, not a saint, but perhaps a Scapegoat’
Barry George was ‘not a saint’ according to his uncle but had a history of stalking and sexually assaulting women.
Michelle Diskin Bates chooses to dismiss her brothers history of stalking etc, instead choosing to accuse others of stalking her. Why?
-
Michelle Diskin Bates has recently been asked to speak at a conference by the association for women barristers in conjunction with MTC solicitors. Apparently she’s down to speak about her brothers ‘miscarriage of justice’ (Which the Supreme Court deemed he wasn’t) and will be speaking about how she has been affected. Should be an interesting conference, especially if she’s asked about her apparent lies and misleading nonsense.
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Here is a review of the recent conference I was invited (and honoured) to speak at. It is by a student barrister,Tanya Beck, and she has agreed I can post her words up on this page. She has covered the conference with great clarity and I send my thanks.
On Women: Miscarriages of Justice and Criminal Deportations (the Association of Women Barristers...
I joined the Association of women barristers less than a week ago and immediately applied to attend this conference titled “women: miscarriages of justice and criminal deportations.“ Being the nerd...
linkedin.com https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1226881534055022597
Student barrister Tanya Beck blog is worth a read https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/association-women-barristers-event-miscarriages-justice-tanya-beck
On Michelle Diskin Bates she states,
“The evening started with our keynote speaker, Michelle Diskin “I’m an enemy of the State” Bates, sister of Barry George who was wrongly convicted of the murder of journalist Jill Dando. Michelle spent years fighting the criminal justice system to try and achieve justice for her brother, when the evidence against him was weak at best: “The police choose their man and after that they wear blinkers.” When it comes to access to justice, she says that “Truth and justice have no place in the justice system: only points of law.”
I presume Michelle Diskin Bates has referred to herself as ‘an enemy of state’?
Might be worth her while understanding what is meant by using this turn of phrase.
An enemy of the state is a person accused of certain crimes against the state, such as treason. Describing individuals in this way is sometimes a manifestation of political repression. For example, an authoritarian regime may purport to maintain national security by describing social or political dissidents as "enemies of the state." In other cases, the individual in question may have in fact endangered the country and its population
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_of_the_state
I”d describe Michelle Diskin Bates as beguiling, deluding and fallacious.
Maybe there’s more to why she chooses to see herself this way, presuming this is what she said?
The police didn’t choose ‘their man’ in this case. It was almost a year after Jill Dando’s murder before Barry George was finally apprehended. One of the reasons he wasn’t caught sooner was the fact he had used so many aliases over the years and was calling himself Bulsara at the time of the murder - therefore it’s unlikely his previous convictions and intelligence on him were flagging up.
There’s also no evidence to suggest the police were blinkered in arresting and charging her brother with murder, no matter how many times she repeats it. Barry George brought it on himself. His own actions gave him away.
How did Barry George KNOW he looked like the prime suspect on the day of Jill Dando’s murder if police didn’t release the E-Fit photo until 4 days after the murder?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1349115.stm
Dando accused 'set up alibi' at health centre by Nick Hopkins 15 May 2001
“The man accused of murdering Jill Dando told staff at a health centre that he was worried because he looked like the prime suspect and had been intimidated by the police on another occasion, the Old Bailey heard yesterday.
Read more here https://www.theguardian.com/media/2001/may/15/broadcasting.jilldando
https://www.thejusticegap.com/uks-first-specialist-miscarriage-of-justice-law-firm-goes-live/
Michelle Diskin Bates apparently says ’truth and justice have no place in the justice system.’
Yet another telling statement from her, again presuming this is what she said.
truth
/truːθ/
noun
1. the quality or state of being true."he had to accept the truth of her accusation"
justice
/ˈdʒʌstɪs/
noun
1. 1.
just behaviour or treatment."a concern for justice, peace, and genuine respect for people"
From Michelle Diskin Bates point of view, I agree it’s unlikely she’ll ever know truth or justice because of the path she’s chosen.
I’ve no doubt the student barrister who met her, will one day recognise in her what many others before her have finally recognised.
And maybe one day so will Dr Michael Naughton?
-
“Chief inspector Campbell added:
'The Dando investigation is clear on what evidence it has at a forensic level, and what the witnesses said they saw or heard or knew in 1999. They remain unchanged.'
TV investigator Mark Williams-Thomas last year claimed he had been given the name of the killer.
But Mr Campbell said all 'new leads' that crop up as years go by should be questioned.
'Especially when persons state the theories through the media or TV, and not the police,' he said
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6948879/Jill-Dandos-death-unexplained-unless-gun-used-kill-found.html
Matthew Young and James Rodger reported in July 2016 for Birmingham live, on Barry George
“But despite being acquitted 10 years ago he says he does “not feel free” and is “looking over my shoulder”.
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/barry-george-threatened-gunpoint-lives-14916710
Barry George talks about the morning of the murder by Matthew Young (2018)
“not feel free” and is “looking over my shoulder”.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/gunman-told-barry-george-watch-12932133
‘Looking over my shoulder
to behave in a way that shows you feel nervous about something that might happen
He was constantly looking over his shoulder, afraid his past crimes would catch up with him
https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/look-over-your-shoulder
-
Evasive in interviews
“When George was arrested, he told detectives he had not heard of Miss Dando before she died, and did not know Gowan Avenue, even though the road was close to the flat where he had lived for 10 years.
He initially denied featuring in a photograph which showed a man wearing a respirator and holding a gun but changed his story when detectives told him it had been taken from his home.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/jul/02/jilldando2
Michelle Diskin Bates gives her version of events regarding her interview with Martin Bashir in her book ‘Stand Against Injustice’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iJGmjFqFdE
There’s no doubt to me she too was evasive when certain questions were posed
In 2001 she claimed,
“Barry lived alone but there was never anyone to check that he was OK. He should have been monitored,"
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-58143/Wrong-man-convicted-Dando-killing-says-sister.html
Another telling statement especially given the fact she’d been estranged from him for 12 years.
‘He should have been monitored” and ever since he was acquitted he has been - by MAPPA
July 2001
“The jury was not told that women in his locality had reported odd experiences or been followed by an unknown man, because evidence of George's "unusual conduct" was ruled inadmissible during lengthy legal arguments before the trial started.
The jury was also not told that George had a criminal record, which marked him out for police attention long before Miss Dando's murder.
When he was 22 he was convicted at the Old Bailey of attempting to rape a language student and in 1988 he was questioned about a series of rapes.
Police believe George followed Miss Dando on several occasions before he killed her.“
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/jul/02/jilldando
So what will Michelle Diskin Bates make of the current argument being made in the Bamber case over discrepancies in the case papers and will she reflect on her brothers case?
Mark Newby, a solicitor advocate at Quality Solicitors Jordans, which represents Bamber, told the Guardian:
“The jury only heard of the two shots, which was relied upon by the crown to support their case, but this wasn’t the whole picture. It represents yet another significant aspect to this case which supports Jeremy Bamber and undermines this conviction.”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/11/jeremy-bamber-lawyers-say-new-evidence-undermines-conviction
What about the wealth of material the jury at Barry Georges retrial never got to hear ?
-
.And maybe one day so will Dr Michael Naughton?
Referring to the book, ‘The Criminal Cases Review Commission: Hope for the Innocent? by Dr Michael Naughton’
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
This book shows the failings of the CCRC in dealing with innocent victims of wrongful conviction and/or imprisonment and the urgent need for the repeal of s.13 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1995 - the "real possibility test": http://michaeljnaughton.com/?page_id=876 #injustice
@APPGMJ https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1163817666999570436
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Aug 26, 2019
Replying to
@EmpowerInnocent
and
@APPGMJ
Definitely the wrong saviour 😇
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
Feb 9
This book is a must for anyone hungry4knowledge about the relationship between the CCRC and wrongful convictions - Can`t recommend highly enough- `Knowledge is power`+we`re only ever going2force change by `knowing` as much a possible.Put the energy wasted on anger into learning x
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
I`m going2use the vital info within this book to highlight the enormous issues2my MP
@JulianSturdy
+Minister
@morton_wendy
who are`nt specialists on miscarriages so won`t know~We need2make it our business2get the knowledge+share it with other `powers that be`, who can then help us
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
Feb 11
This is precisely what it should be used for. It’s why some of us undertake critical research to highlight the limitations and/or outright failings of the @ccrcupdate in assisting innocent victims of wrongful convictions; to give victims and families ammunition for their voices.
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1227163477338357761
So what were the ‘limitations/outright failings of the’ Criminal Cases Review Commission in cases like Simon Hall, Stephen Downing, Barry George etc and what did Dr Michael Naughtons ‘critical research’ uncover?
And how does the ‘Post Office IT scandal’ impact on the Robin Garbutt case and the murder of Diane Garbutt?
“Garbutt, who had already served 60 customers before dialling 999 at 8.37am, had in fact battered Diana to death with an iron bar as she lay in bed up to six hours earlier.
He also told police that the robbers had stolen £10,000 from the shop in the village of Melsonby, North Yorkshire.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1378499/Postmaster-Robin-Garbutt-blamed-robbers-murder-wife-Diana.html
-
Referring to the book, ‘The Criminal Cases Review Commission: Hope for the Innocent? by Dr Michael Naughton’
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
This book shows the failings of the CCRC in dealing with innocent victims of wrongful conviction and/or imprisonment and the urgent need for the repeal of s.13 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1995 - the "real possibility test": http://michaeljnaughton.com/?page_id=876 #injustice
@APPGMJ https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1163817666999570436
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Aug 26, 2019
Replying to
@EmpowerInnocent
and
@APPGMJ
Definitely the wrong saviour 😇
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
Feb 9
This book is a must for anyone hungry4knowledge about the relationship between the CCRC and wrongful convictions - Can`t recommend highly enough- `Knowledge is power`+we`re only ever going2force change by `knowing` as much a possible.Put the energy wasted on anger into learning x
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
I`m going2use the vital info within this book to highlight the enormous issues2my MP
@JulianSturdy
+Minister
@morton_wendy
who are`nt specialists on miscarriages so won`t know~We need2make it our business2get the knowledge+share it with other `powers that be`, who can then help us
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
Feb 11
This is precisely what it should be used for. It’s why some of us undertake critical research to highlight the limitations and/or outright failings of the @ccrcupdate in assisting innocent victims of wrongful convictions; to give victims and families ammunition for their voices.
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1227163477338357761
So what were the ‘limitations/outright failings of the’ Criminal Cases Review Commission in cases like Simon Hall, Stephen Downing, Barry George etc and what did Dr Michael Naughtons ‘critical research’ uncover?
And how does the ‘Post Office IT scandal’ impact on the Robin Garbutt case and the murder of Diane Garbutt?
“Garbutt, who had already served 60 customers before dialling 999 at 8.37am, had in fact battered Diana to death with an iron bar as she lay in bed up to six hours earlier.
He also told police that the robbers had stolen £10,000 from the shop in the village of Melsonby, North Yorkshire.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1378499/Postmaster-Robin-Garbutt-blamed-robbers-murder-wife-Diana.html
In 2013, around the time Simon Halls guilt was exposed, another book by Dr Michael Naughton was published,
“The Innocent and the Criminal Justice System”
A Sociological Analysis of Miscarriages of Justice
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/spais/people/person/michael-j-naughton/pub/8405949
-
The interview also highlights the ‘life on Mars’ comment made by Paul Blackburn’s solicitor Glyn Maddocks,
2009
‘A solicitor has condemned police for using a "Life on Mars excuse" after they refused to apologise to a man jailed wrongly for 25 years by saying that rules and methods were very different at the time of the original investigation.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/nov/04/paul-blackburn-cheshire-police
In 2012 Jon Robins (founder of the Justice Gap) refers to it here https://www.thejusticegap.com/wrongly-accused-who-is-responsible-for-investigating-miscarriages/ promoting ‘Wrongly accused: who is responsible for investigating miscarriages of justice?’
‘Since the creation of the CCRC it seems fair to say concern over miscarriages of justice appears to have slipped from the radar of public consciousness. The topic has been consigned to some distant ‘Life on Mars’ past. The media, which did so much of the spadework exposing the notorious miscarriages through the 1970s and 1980s through for example the BBC’s Rough Justice, has long given up. The broadcaster pulled the plug on Rough Justice after 25 years in 2007, Michael Jackson, chief exec of Channel 4, dismissed Trial & Error, which also investigated miscarriages, and its subject matter as a ‘bit 1980s’.
Similarly Hannah Quirk refers to ‘life on Mars’ in her Sept 2014 article headed,
‘The end of innocence, and the chance of a new beginning’
in the justice gap here https://www.thejusticegap.com/end-innocence-new-beginning/ where she claims,
‘In this country, a range of measures governing the collection and use of evidence has reduced the most egregious errors – the television series Life on Mars was founded on the audience recognising how policing had changed since the 1970s. Unlike in the USA, very few cases turn on DNA analysis which means that most appeals are on the basis of unsafety – we can never know with certainty whether the individuals were factually innocent or not.’
Mass murderer Jeremy Bamber also referred to ‘life on Mars’ when being interviewed by David James Smith
“It was, Bamber pointed out to me, the days of life on Mars, the drama that depicted the bad old days of policing (He has seen the show on TV in prison. And loves it)
http://davidjamessmith.net/pdf_articles/DJS_bamber.pdf
Opinion of Michelle Diskin Bates on Julie Mugford
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@jbcampaignltd
and
@UKChange
If her story was true she would be an accessory to murder. Under @JointEnterprise she would have been convicted of murder too, if she truly knew he was going to murder his family and didn’t do anything to help them.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1228048140772823040
-
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Don’t forget Barry. He was told, with glee, that he would never receive a penny, leaving the public to speculate on whether he had actually been guilty, unanimous not guilty verdict aside. #guiltytillproveninnocent
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1228418555328237569
-
Michelle Diskin Bates refers to ‘the shepherd bush murders’ in her book ‘Stand Against Injustice’ - interestingly she doesn’t use the name ‘Harry Roberts’ but claimed her and her younger siblings witnessed the shootings.
“Roberts' name has been used for many years to antagonise the police, with chants like "Harry Roberts is our friend, is our friend, is our friend. Harry Roberts is our friend, he kills coppers. Let him out to kill some more, kill some more, kill some more, let him out to kill some more, Harry Roberts" as well as "He shot three down in Shepherd's Bush, Shepherd's Bush, Shepherd's Bush. He shot three down in Shepherd's Bush, our mate Harry" (to the tune of "London Bridge Is Falling Down"),[24][25][26][27] which originated with groups of young people outside Shepherd's Bush police station after Roberts had been arrested
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Roberts_(criminal)
that's interesting if Barry witnessed that dreadful crime.
According to the book, she had to pull Barry away (can’t remember what was written word for word)
If you read and contrast the two books, ‘Stand Against Injustice’ & ‘Mikes Story’ it’s as though they make excuses for Barry’s behaviour.
At times Mike Bourke seems to have had serious doubts but doesn’t explore them in any detail.
“Mike Bourke, Barry and Michelle's uncle from Limerick, said the family was "relieved and happy" that the conviction was quashed.
"We haven't been able to talk to him yet because he is still a prisoner.
"We're all pretty pleased. I have always thought he was innocent.
"He said to me a while back that he would rot in jail if we didn't fight to get him out."
Barry believed the police should be looking for the real killer of the famous BBC star, he said.
Mr Bourke added: "Even if Barry was released now people will say he just got away with it"
https://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/family-tells-of-relief-after-win-in-fight-to-clear-dando-accused-26332118.html
“Mr George’s mother Margaret also hailed from Limerick, and it was here that Mike observed some unusual behaviour, when they would come over on holiday from London. But in spite of some niggling concerns he stood by him.”
https://www.limerickleader.ie/news/arts-entertainment/136085/Limerick-man-writes-book-about-Dando.html
-
Feb 2019 by James Murray for the Express
”With their elderly mother, Margaret, wilting under the pressure of the media interest, it fell on Barry's sister Michelle Diskin Bates, a mother of three living near Cork in Ireland, to speak for the family.
She continues to defend him to this day, but tells in her book, Stand Against Injustice, how high a toll the case has taken.
Devoutly religious, Michelle always maintained a smart, dignified and confident public personna as debate about her rather odd brother raged for years.
Hi
But in a frank appraisal of two decades at the heart of one of the most compelling of murder mysteries, Michelle supplies many of the missing pieces from the family jigsaw.
"The healing of damaged relationships is difficult to achieve after a miscarriage of justice," Michelle reflects in her book.
"People have been hurt, words have been spoken that cannot be taken back. Trust will have broken down, and bitterness can become the driving force in many lives.
"Guilt, anger, fear, denial, pain, confusion and blame. These are all emotions I have either experienced or witnessed since Barry's release. Barry and I clashed many times - with me being the one to shout and scream at the poor guy for his unintentionally injurious effect on our family's life.
"I shouted, stormed and blazed. Barry looked on, confusion in his eyes, speaking words of apology to me. None of us had a magic wand to wave that would make all this disappear."
There was no hint of how life would turn out when Michelle's mother Margaret Bourke left her family's home in Limerick, aged just 15, to live with an aunt and uncle in London.
Margaret met Alfred Michael George, born in 1930, whose father was a corporal in the Army.
They settled in Fulham and were keen to start a family. Michelle was born in 1955. Susan following three years later, but she suffered epilepsy throughout her life and died while a young woman.
On Good Friday in 1960 Barry was born while the family was living in White City.
When he was five Michelle took him to a local outdoor pool and was aghast when she spotted him lying face down in the water.
Plucked unconscious from the pool he came around but harboured a lifelong fear of water.
With Barry's undiagnosed autism Michelle found it hard to reason with his actions, such as the time he jumped into a milk float aged six and took it for a drive or when he was hospitalised after covering himself in petrol. Aged seven he set his bedroom on fire while playing with matches.
But in 1981 he was convicted of indecent assault for which he was given a suspended sentence. Two years later he was jailed for attempted rape.
Michelle found his conduct hard to deal with. "I visited him in prison but it was not a comfortable time for Barry. I was incensed at his behaviour and let him know it," she says.
Preferring to live in Ireland, Michelle rarely saw her brother. In 1988 she met him briefly after bringing two of her children to London but said: "The next time I saw Barry was in 2000 when he was on remand for murder."
He was charged with killing Jill Dando. The Crimewatch and Holiday presenter was shot through the head on the doorstep of her home in Gowan Avenue, Fulham, on April 26, 1999.
Arrested a year after the crime, Scotland Yard built a circumstantial case, but the Old Bailey jury was swung by forensic evidence suggesting residue from a firearm was on his coat and newspaper stories about Dando, 37, were found at his ramshackle home.
After he was convicted, a photo of a masked man with a gun went around the world. It was, said police, George himself, with the photo found on undeveloped film at his home.
Michelle said: "The films contained many subjects, as well as images of women he had seen in the street. Some had been taken with permission and some covertly.
"Not one image had ever been viewed by Barry they were undeveloped. He was not at home poring over them night after night, salivating, which was the implication by the prosecution at trial and by the media. Neither had he set eyes on a photo of someone in a gas mask and holding a broken gun. To this day Barry believes it wasn't him in that photo but a friend of his.
"The photo had been taken in the 1980s and lay undisturbed and undeveloped until the year 2000 when the police found the roll."
George maintained he was at the offices of a housing charity at the time of the murder.
During his first trial and later, when she devoted years of her life to proving his innocence, Michelle stayed with her mother, amid simmering tensions.
At one stage Michelle told her: "I'm sorry but I've had enough. I'm not taking any more of this attitude from you. This is your son I'm supporting, not mine. My son is back in Cork with his two sisters, all missing their mum. Either this sniping ends or I go home. If I can't stay here, I can't continue to do what I'm doing for Barry. You decide."
https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/life/1085540/jill-dando-murder-brother-wrongly-imprisoned-barry-george-life
The above article includes a photo of Michelle Diskin Bates with Surjit Singh Clair
“Judge Robert Orme said Cotter (29) and co-conspirators Surjit Singh Clair (31) and Craig Wynn (29) had played the "race card" in an attempt to make the bogus attack convincing. Jailing Wynn for two years and Clair for three years at Birmingham Crown Court, the judge added that the men had committed a grave offence.”
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/jail-for-fake-race-hate-attack-1.312219
Sell your story to the newspapers. Surjit Singh Claire gets you the best deal. Max Clifford miscarrage of justice.
http://www.effectivemedialtd.com/
March 2003
“Three men jailed over a "fake" race attack on the boyfriend of Ashia Hansen - who jumped to victory in the World Indoor Championships this weekend - have pledged to fight on to clear their names.
“Cotter, Surjit Singh Clair and Craig Wynn challenged their convictions at the High Court last year but failed.
They are now awaiting a hearing at the House of Lords, to challenge the convictions on a point of law.
“Clair also wants to challenge his conviction for attempting to obtain property by deception from the Express newspaper.
He said he had spoken to Ian Gallagher, a reporter for the Express - with whom he had worked on stories - prior to the attack on Cotter, but the call was related to a story about the Russian mafia and nothing to do with Ashia Hansen.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2854999.stm
-
The above article includes a photo of Michelle Diskin Bates with Surjit Singh Clair
“Judge Robert Orme said Cotter (29) and co-conspirators Surjit Singh Clair (31) and Craig Wynn (29) had played the "race card" in an attempt to make the bogus attack convincing. Jailing Wynn for two years and Clair for three years at Birmingham Crown Court, the judge added that the men had committed a grave offence.”
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/jail-for-fake-race-hate-attack-1.312219
Sell your story to the newspapers. Surjit Singh Claire gets you the best deal. Max Clifford miscarrage of justice.
http://www.effectivemedialtd.com/
March 2003
“Three men jailed over a "fake" race attack on the boyfriend of Ashia Hansen - who jumped to victory in the World Indoor Championships this weekend - have pledged to fight on to clear their names.
“Cotter, Surjit Singh Clair and Craig Wynn challenged their convictions at the High Court last year but failed.
They are now awaiting a hearing at the House of Lords, to challenge the convictions on a point of law.
“Clair also wants to challenge his conviction for attempting to obtain property by deception from the Express newspaper.
He said he had spoken to Ian Gallagher, a reporter for the Express - with whom he had worked on stories - prior to the attack on Cotter, but the call was related to a story about the Russian mafia and nothing to do with Ashia Hansen.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2854999.stm
June 2001
“Passing sentence, Judge Robert Orme told them: "The three of you not only entered into that conspiracy ... but you played the race card.
"In other words you falsely introduced a bogus, racist motive to attack Mr Cotter and try and make the attack look more convincing because it was, in my view, something which would be likely to make it the more credible and more believable at a time of great public sensitivity and awareness of such issues.
“It is the worse in your case, Mr Clair, you had the motivation to sell the story to the press and make a significant personal profit."
“He also denied knowing Clair had leaked the attack story to the press until all three were on remand in Birmingham's Winson Green prison.
The court was told the trio had orchestrated the sending of racist hate mail to Ms Hansen, four other prominent black British athletes, including Olympic heptathlon gold medallist Denise Lewis, and a backbench Labour MP.
The letters were a sham designed to give more credence to the attack.
Handwriting experts found the letters' likely author was Clair.
There was also no record of the racist group WANO, said to have been responsible, either before or after the attack or sending of the letters, said the prosecution.[/b]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1370846.stm
Would be interested to learn when Surjit Singh Clair became involved with MOJO Scotland and how much work he carried out on their behalf
Forensic Science - ‘The role played by handwriting comparisons in the Chris Cotter case’
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rdLJw9Pgt70C&pg=PA234&lpg=PA234&dq=Surjit+Singh+Clair&source=bl&ots=blHVDXC6hy&sig=ACfU3U2vSH0iib5k8EmiNOnT1QgtDxn6Lg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjp58ev_tXnAhUGTBUIHYmyDqo4ChDoATADegQICRAB#v=onepage&q=Surjit%20Singh%20Clair&f=false
“The story of extreme racial prejudice appalled the country. But it was not true.
Cotter had set up the assault himself in a bizarre plan to revive the couple's relationship. The plot backfired when a jury at Birmingham crown court found him and his co-defendants, Craig Wynn and Surjit Singh Clair, guilty of conspiring to pervert the course of justice.
Not only did he waste weeks of police time, but he made the woman he hoped to marry fear for her life.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/jun/09/race.world1
What kind of person does this and why was Michelle Diskin Bates involved with a man like this?
-
“The man cleared of murdering TV presenter Jill Dando after spending seven years in jail has won undisclosed libel damages from a newspaper group.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8682512.stm
“Following Wednesday's brief hearing, Mr George said: "I am pleased that the matter between myself and News Group Newspapers has been amicably settled following a successful mediation without the need for litigation."
He was at London's High Court with his sister, Michelle Diskin, who led the campaign to prove his innocence.
His counsel, Gordon Bishop, told the court he had brought the action over a number of articles in The Sun and the News of the World between August and November 2008.
He said News Group had withdrawn the "false allegations" and apologised for making them.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8415772.stm
Sell your story to the newspapers. Surjit Singh Claire gets you the best deal. Max Clifford miscarrage of justice.
http://www.effectivemedialtd.com/
Surjit Singh Clair advertises the News of the Worlds front page article -
”My Story by Barry George’ - I didn’t Kill Jill Dando I was Stalking Someone Else At The Time.”on his website above, alongside a few others - all of which he appears to have had a hand in
Mike Bourke states in Mike’s Story the battle to clear Barry George...
“The headlines hit me like a slap in the face. The News of the World article was prefaced with the warnings, OUR LAWYERS ARE WATCHING’. They described Barry as a ‘BUG-EYED ODD-BALL.’ They claimed he confessed: ‘’ I didn’t kill Jill Dando-because I was stalking ANOTHER woman.’’ He was shown posing with the horrible prison issue plastic bag which I had concealed when entering the hotel. In their ‘World Exclusive’ he was quoted as saying ‘After leaving HAFAD I bumped into a woman who was later a prosecution witness and said I was stalking her… That was at 12.33pm…’ That was obviously a reference to Julia Moorhouse who he had always denied meeting.
“During the interview he gave (or rather sold for £80,000) to a down-market tabloid after his release, George insisted he was never fixated with the 37-year-old star, as the prosecution had alleged.
Yet if George wasn't obsessed with Jill at the time she was murdered, he certainly is now.
He spends hour upon hour poring over books and websites about her - and, now, with a breathtaking lack of insight into the likely furore, he aims to travel 150miles from London to the West Country.
“Mr Singh Clair is a Midlands-based freelance journalist who was enlisted by the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation (MOJO) to promote George's cause four years ago, when he was battling to overturn his murder conviction.
He brokered the £80,000 interview deal after George's acquittal, and he is now among the trusted inner circle who proffer assistance to George
In an angry email to me this week, Michelle Diskin claimed her brother was the victim of a media-driven plot designed to smear and intimidate him. George's uncle on his mother's side, Michael Bourke fears that the police, having ultimately failed to nail him for murder, might be trying to frame him. It could be like O. J. Simpson - you get him second time around,' he said. His mother said much the same when I spoke to her at her West London home. 'I'm very worried for Barry,' she said. 'How can he be happy when they're all out to get him?'
The George family, incidentally, have been torn apart by in-fighting since their 'Free Barry' crusade ended.
Limerick bus-driver Mr Bourke, 53, is estranged from the main George camp for suggesting that the Miscarriages of Justice outfit might be self-serving.
He also questioned the wisdom of parading his nephew (who, in the words of one friend 'can't tell the difference between fame and infamy') before the TV cameras just hours after he was freed.
Of course, all this turmoil is just what a volatile character like George does not need, as he struggles to adjust to the real world after eight years inside.
In the grim appraisal of Ian Horrocks, the retired Scotland Yard detective who was number two on the original Dando murder inquiry, George is still a 'danger to women' and in need of constant supervision.
What causes personality disorders?
“Research suggests that genetics, abuse and other factors contribute to the development of obsessive-compulsive, narcissistic or other personality disorders.
In the past, some believed that people with personality disorders were just lazy or even evil. But new research has begun to explore such potential causes as genetics, parenting and peer influences:https://www.apa.org/topics/personality/disorders-causes
What is narcissistic personality disorder?
The word narcissism gets tossed around a lot in our selfie-obsessed, celebrity-driven culture, often to describe someone who seems excessively vain or full of themselves. But in psychological terms, narcissism doesn’t mean self-love—at least not of a genuine sort. It’s more accurate to say that people with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) are in love with an idealized, grandiose image of themselves. And they’re in love with this inflated self-image precisely because it allows them to avoid deep feelings of insecurity. But propping up their delusions of grandeur takes a lot of work—and that’s where the dysfunctional attitudes and behaviors come in.
Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) involves a pattern of self-centered, arrogant thinking and behavior, a lack of empathy and consideration for other people, and an excessive need for admiration. Others often describe people with NPD as cocky, manipulative, selfish, patronizing, and demanding. This way of thinking and behaving surfaces in every area of the narcissist’s life: from work and friendships to family and love relationships.
People with narcissistic personality disorder are extremely resistant to changing their behavior, even when it’s causing them problems. Their tendency is to turn the blame on to others. What’s more, they are extremely sensitive and react badly to even the slightest criticisms, disagreements, or perceived slights, which they view as personal attacks. For the people in the narcissist’s life, it’s often easier just to go along with their demands to avoid the coldness and rages.
Signs and symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder
Grandiose sense of self-importance
Grandiosity is the defining characteristic of narcissism. More than just arrogance or vanity, grandiosity is an unrealistic sense of superiority. Narcissists believe they are unique or “special” and can only be understood by other special people. What’s more, they are too good for anything average or ordinary. They only want to associate and be associated with other high-status people, places, and things.
Narcissists also believe that they’re better than everyone else and expect recognition as such—even when they’ve done nothing to earn it. They will often exaggerate or outright lie about their achievements and talents. And when they talk about work or relationships, all you’ll hear is how much they contribute, how great they are, and how lucky the people in their lives are to have them. They are the undisputed star and everyone else is at best a bit player.
Lives in a fantasy world that supports their delusions of grandeur
Since reality doesn’t support their grandiose view of themselves, narcissists live in a fantasy world propped up by distortion, self-deception, and magical thinking. They spin self-glorifying fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, attractiveness, and ideal love that make them feel special and in control. These fantasies protect them from feelings of inner emptiness and shame, so facts and opinions that contradict them are ignored or rationalized away. Anything that threatens to burst the fantasy bubble is met with extreme defensiveness and even rage, so those around the narcissist learn to tread carefully around their denial of reality.
Needs constant praise and admiration
A narcissist’s sense of superiority is like a balloon that gradually loses air without a steady stream of applause and recognition to keep it inflated. The occasional compliment is not enough. Narcissists need constant food for their ego, so they surround themselves with people who are willing to cater to their obsessive craving for affirmation. These relationships are very one-sided. It’s all about what the admirer can do for the narcissist, never the other way around. And if there is ever an interruption or diminishment in the admirer’s attention and praise, the narcissist treats it as a betrayal.
Sense of entitlement
Because they consider themselves special, narcissists expect favorable treatment as their due. They truly believe that whatever they want, they should get. They also expect the people around them to automatically comply with their every wish and whim. That is their only value. If you don’t anticipate and meet their every need, then you’re useless. And if you have the nerve to defy their will or “selfishly” ask for something in return, prepare yourself for aggression, outrage, or the cold shoulder.
Exploits others without guilt or shame
Narcissists never develop the ability to identify with the feelings of others—to put themselves in other people’s shoes. In other words, they lack empathy. In many ways, they view the people in their lives as objects—there to serve their needs. As a consequence, they don’t think twice about taking advantage of others to achieve their own ends. Sometimes this interpersonal exploitation is malicious, but often it is simply oblivious. Narcissists simply don’t think about how their behavior affects others. And if you point it out, they still won’t truly get it. The only thing they understand is their own needs.
Frequently demeans, intimidates, bullies, or belittles others
Narcissists feel threatened whenever they encounter someone who appears to have something they lack—especially those who are confident and popular. They’re also threatened by people who don’t kowtow to them or who challenge them in any way. Their defense mechanism is contempt. The only way to neutralize the threat and prop up their own sagging ego is to put those people down. They may do it in a patronizing or dismissive way as if to demonstrate how little the other person means to them. Or they may go on the attack with insults, name-calling, bullying, and threats to force the other person back into line.
https://www.helpguide.org/articles/mental-disorders/narcissistic-personality-disorder.htm/
6 Common Traits of Narcissists and Gaslighters
1. Frequent Lies and Exaggerations
2. Rarely Admit Flaws and Are Highly Aggressive When Criticized
3. False Image Projection
4. Rule Breaking and Boundary Violation
5. Emotional Invalidation and Coercion
6. Manipulation: The Use or Control of Others as an Extension of Oneself
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/communication-success/201707/6-common-traits-narcissists-and-gaslighters
-
It was made clear during the BBC documentary last year the police aren’t looking for anyone else in relation to Jill Dando’s murder.
Paul Blackburn
Stephen Downing
Barry George
Three cases where the police aren’t looking for other suspects.
Beaten and buried, the brutal double murder of schoolboys and the suspect police can't question - Feb 2020
By Luke Traynor Chief. Reporter & Joe Thomas
“Detectives probing the unsolved murders of two 11-year-old boys want to quiz their original suspect from 40 years ago for a second time - but they are legally not allowed.
The killings of childhood friends John Greenwood and Gary Miller shocked the nation on August 16, 1980 after they were found severely beaten and dumped on a rubbish tip in Whiston.
The murderer remains at large four decades later, but in a dramatic new twist, police are desperate to re-question John Cheeseman.
Then 20, he was put on trial in 1981 for both tragedies, but was acquitted after serious criticisms were levelled at Merseyside Police over how they obtained his confession.
Nobody else has ever been charged over the boys' murders, which saw their badly injured bodies hidden under a mattress on the disused colliery site.
Now, armed with new evidence, police are keen to arrest Mr Cheeseman again and ask him about the killings.
But due to the current double jeopardy law, officers are prohibited from doing so after that move was barred by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).
Detectives went to the top London lawyer last March, but it was deemed their newly-compiled evidence was not "compelling" enough.
That has frustrated senior figures within Merseyside Police, who today, in a rare move, announced they were urging for a change in the double jeopardy law.
That campaign was begun by John and Gary's grieving families who described the current legislation as "ridiculous and outdated".
Mr Cheeseman, from Prescot, had learning difficulties, and was said to have the mental age of a 10-year-old after an accident as a young child left him with brain damage.
But there was no appropriate lawyer or guardian during his interviews, and the questioning was said to be arduously long, without a suitable amount of breaks.
Both failings were glaringly exposed at court and, subsequently, the jury took just 45 minutes to acquit him of both murders.
Merseyside Police recently apologised for those blunders, and they are hopeful of another chance to quiz Mr Cheeseman about his suspected involvement in John and Gary's brutal deaths.
He is believed to still be on Merseyside.
Debbie Greenwood, John's brother, is leading a social media campaign and has launched an emotive online petition asking for support.
She wrote: "Double jeopardy laws were introduced in England over 800 years ago.
"Just think how much has changed in 800 years?
"We even had the death penalty back then...isn't it time we made another change?
"Isn't it time to scrap this ridiculous, outdated law once and for all and allow officers to requisition an acquitted person when their investigation leads to it...
"My brother John and his friend Gary, both aged 11, were brutally attacked and left to die, bleeding and hidden under rubbish in 1980...
"...our families have suffered many, many years of pain and frustration."
"...the double jeopardy law is still preventing us from getting the justice that we so desperately need."
The boys were found on the rubbish tip by a dog walker who spotted a man with swept back dark hair and wearing a brown jacket acting suspiciously at the site, now covered by Stadt Moers Park.
They were taken to Whiston Hospital but both died as a result of head injuries.
After leaving John’s home on Raleigh Avenue, the boys had walked across the car park of what was then the Horseshoe pub, crossed Windy Arbour Road and went behind Whiston Labour Club.
Witnesses saw them heading towards the entrance of the rubbish tip through a hole in the fence.
This was the last time they were seen alive.
In 2017, Merseyside Police's cold case review team investigated the murders once more after a national newspaper journalist helped to uncover new evidence.
Detectives issued four separate appeal points which the ECHO understands remain active today.
Firstly, two boys are thought to have been attacked a month before the killings. A witness had claimed they had seen those boys, then aged between 10 and 15, being attacked by an older man outside Whiston Health Centre.
Secondly, another boy is believed to have run up a garden path in nearby Halsnead Avenue calling for help about two weeks before the murders.
Next, a man was seen with three young boys, aged between 12 and 14 years, near to the church hall on Dragon Lane, Whiston, between 6.45pm and 7.20pm on Saturday, August 16.
Two of the boys who were seen with the man were stood on the wall of the church hall and one was in the grounds of the church hall.
Police want to talk with anyone who was at Halstead Junior School with the boys in 1980, or members of the 28th St Helens (1st Whiston) Scout Group.
Finally, officers wish to speak to a boy called “Duffy” or “Cuffy” - thought to have been with the boys shortly before the murder, who owned a yellow chopper push bike.
He has never been traced.
It is believed the boys in each alleged sighting could refer to both John and Gary.
And police, who issued a public apology last May to John and Gary's families, suspect the man mentioned in the separate scenarios may be the same person.
Chief Constable Andy Cooke described the force's past probe as "inadequate" and "not as thorough as it could have been".
Assistant Chief Constable Ian Critchley spoke with the ECHO on Friday, and he again issued an appeal for those with information to come forward and help.
He said: "We have reviewed the case and undertaken further investigation.
Clearly, it's so important, to lose two 11 year-olds is tragic and traumatic, and it remains with those families and shapes their lives forever, but to not have somebody brought to justice makes it such an important case.
"We appeal to anyone who has new evidence that can help with our investigation to bring justice to John and Gary's family to come forward.
"We support the family's calls for a change in the double jeopardy law.
"We've met with the DPP and I respect their role and him meeting with us and the family to explain the legislation and how it is applied and interpreted.
And in hearing that we believe the only way to progress is that is for an amendment to the current act."
“The dialogue is ongoing and the families are working with us and a member of Parliament in relation to seeking to petition for legislative change."
Anyone with information is asked to contact investigators on 0151 777 3100, or the independent Crimestoppers hotline on 0800 555 111
https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/beaten-buried-brutal-double-murder-17755169
-
Mike Bourke states in Mike’s Story the battle to clear Barry George...
“The headlines hit me like a slap in the face. The News of the World article was prefaced with the warnings, OUR LAWYERS ARE WATCHING’. They described Barry as a ‘BUG-EYED ODD-BALL.’ They claimed he confessed: ‘’ I didn’t kill Jill Dando-because I was stalking ANOTHER woman.’’ He was shown posing with the horrible prison issue plastic bag which I had concealed when entering the hotel. In their ‘World Exclusive’ he was quoted as saying ‘After leaving HAFAD I bumped into a woman who was later a prosecution witness and said I was stalking her… That was at 12.33pm…’ That was obviously a reference to Julia Moorhouse who he had always denied meeting.
Mike Bourke:
“Next day Margaret Michelle and I visited Belmarsh. I decided to ask Barry about Julia Moorhouse but he replied ‘no comment’. I assumed the role of interrogator. ‘Now you are making me suspicious, did you see helicopters while speaking to the woman?’ He replied ‘everybody in Fulham would have seen them’. ‘Did you see them’ I persisted. ‘I just told you that I did’. ‘Yes or no, answer the question’. ‘Yes’ he finally said. ‘That is all I need’, I ended. That confirmed to me that he had met Julia in the street near HAFAD at about 12.30, she recalled the man speaking about the circling helicopters. But it was unclear if he was on his way to HAFAD, or had he already been there.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ltgorwROQfwC&pg=PA191&lpg=PA191&dq=julia+moorhoise+barry+george&source=bl&ots=Osy93KB1cB&sig=ACfU3U0FTXfq_4eMlR8wsXOK6kqzD1zjZQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiNlMqAqObhAhXbURUIHaD5DjkQ6AEwA3oECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=julia%20moorhoise%20barry%20george&f=false
Note: The ONLY Julia Michelle Diskin Bates refers to is Julia Roberts!
So why did Michelle Diskin Bates choose to omit Julia Moorhouse from her book, ‘Stand Against Injustice’ ?
Michael Bourke
“Outside the courtroom I spoke with Mr Clegg and Samuels. We discussed Julia Moorhouse, the women who described being spoken to by a man who could have been Barry approx an hour after Jill Dando’s murder. I felt her description of the man was too like Barry to be coincidence, and as she reported the meeting to the police straight away on that day it sounded genuine.
We agreed the man she met probably was Barry but disagreed as to whether they met before of after he had visited HAFAD. The Crown claimed before, which would support their case.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ltgorwROQfwC&pg=PA191&lpg=PA191&dq=julia+moorhoise+barry+george&source=bl&ots=Osy93KB1cB&sig=ACfU3U0FTXfq_4eMlR8wsXOK6kqzD1zjZQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiNlMqAqObhAhXbURUIHaD5DjkQ6AEwA3oECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=julia%20moorhoise%20barry%20george&f=false
-
Referring to the book, ‘The Criminal Cases Review Commission: Hope for the Innocent? by Dr Michael Naughton’
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
This book shows the failings of the CCRC in dealing with innocent victims of wrongful conviction and/or imprisonment and the urgent need for the repeal of s.13 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1995 - the "real possibility test": http://michaeljnaughton.com/?page_id=876 #injustice
@APPGMJ https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1163817666999570436
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Aug 26, 2019
Replying to
@EmpowerInnocent
and
@APPGMJ
Definitely the wrong saviour 😇
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
Feb 9
This book is a must for anyone hungry4knowledge about the relationship between the CCRC and wrongful convictions - Can`t recommend highly enough- `Knowledge is power`+we`re only ever going2force change by `knowing` as much a possible.Put the energy wasted on anger into learning x
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
I`m going2use the vital info within this book to highlight the enormous issues2my MP
@JulianSturdy
+Minister
@morton_wendy
who are`nt specialists on miscarriages so won`t know~We need2make it our business2get the knowledge+share it with other `powers that be`, who can then help us
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
Feb 11
This is precisely what it should be used for. It’s why some of us undertake critical research to highlight the limitations and/or outright failings of the @ccrcupdate in assisting innocent victims of wrongful convictions; to give victims and families ammunition for their voices.
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1227163477338357761
So what were the ‘limitations/outright failings of the’ Criminal Cases Review Commission in cases like Simon Hall, Stephen Downing, Barry George etc and what did Dr Michael Naughtons ‘critical research’ uncover?
And how does the ‘Post Office IT scandal’ impact on the Robin Garbutt case and the murder of Diane Garbutt?
“Garbutt, who had already served 60 customers before dialling 999 at 8.37am, had in fact battered Diana to death with an iron bar as she lay in bed up to six hours earlier.
He also told police that the robbers had stolen £10,000 from the shop in the village of Melsonby, North Yorkshire.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1378499/Postmaster-Robin-Garbutt-blamed-robbers-murder-wife-Diana.html
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
Feb 15
I`m devouring this book! Took one for Robin when we visited on Thursday - I don`t doubt this book + the work of
@EmpowerInnocent
+team will have a massively positive impact in the freedom fight for http://RobinGarbuttOfficial.com
https://mobile.twitter.com/hanksoff03/status/1228739894631108613
-
So why did Michelle Diskin Bates choose to omit Julia Moorhouse from her book, ‘Stand Against Injustice’ ?
Michael Bourke
“Outside the courtroom I spoke with Mr Clegg and Samuels. We discussed Julia Moorhouse, the women who described being spoken to by a man who could have been Barry approx an hour after Jill Dando’s murder. I felt her description of the man was too like Barry to be coincidence, and as she reported the meeting to the police straight away on that day it sounded genuine.
We agreed the man she met probably was Barry but disagreed as to whether they met before of after he had visited HAFAD. The Crown claimed before, which would support their case.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ltgorwROQfwC&pg=PA191&lpg=PA191&dq=julia+moorhoise+barry+george&source=bl&ots=Osy93KB1cB&sig=ACfU3U0FTXfq_4eMlR8wsXOK6kqzD1zjZQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiNlMqAqObhAhXbURUIHaD5DjkQ6AEwA3oECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=julia%20moorhoise%20barry%20george&f=false
The Battle to Clear Barry George of TV star Jill Dando's Murder
by Mike Bourke, Don Hale (Editor)
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21279469-the-battle-to-clear-barry-george-of-tv-star-jill-dando-s-murder
“Investigative journalist Don Hale, who has visited George in prison, believes there are parallels with the case of Stephen Downing, who spent more than 30 years in prison for the murder of a woman in Bakewell, Derbyshire. The conviction was eventually overturned after years of campaigning by Mr Hale and others.
"Barry is not the sort of guy you'd want home for tea but did he commit this brutal murder? No. This is a massive miscarriage of justice," says Mr Hale, who has passed on new details about the case to the CCRC.
"When you talk to Barry, it's clear he has a lot of mental health issues and doesn't really realise what was going on. He was an easy target who lived in the area and was a bit of a fantasist.". https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/special-report-disturbing-new-evidence-may-reveal-a-miscarriage-of-justice-in-dando-case-413556.html
“Was Jill killed by accident by an assassin trying to kill Angela Peppiatt, Jeffrey Archer's former diary secretary. Peppiatt lived nearby, looked similar to Jill and even drove the same model of BMW. A witness saw a woman matching Peppiatt's description driving nearby within hours of Jill's murder. This theory was examined by the Criminal Cases Review Commission after a request from George's uncle Michael Bourke. Peppiatt gave crucial evidence at Lord Archer's 2001 perjury trial, which saw him jailed for three years
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/if-barry-george-didnt-kill-jill-323172
-
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Here is a review of the recent conference I was invited (and honoured) to speak at. It is by a student barrister,Tanya Beck, and she has agreed I can post her words up on this page. She has covered the conference with great clarity and I send my thanks.
On Women: Miscarriages of Justice and Criminal Deportations (the Association of Women Barristers...
I joined the Association of women barristers less than a week ago and immediately applied to attend this conference titled “women: miscarriages of justice and criminal deportations.“ Being the nerd...
linkedin.com https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1226881534055022597
Student barrister Tanya Beck blog is worth a read https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/association-women-barristers-event-miscarriages-justice-tanya-beck
On Michelle Diskin Bates she states,
“The evening started with our keynote speaker, Michelle Diskin “I’m an enemy of the State” Bates, sister of Barry George who was wrongly convicted of the murder of journalist Jill Dando. Michelle spent years fighting the criminal justice system to try and achieve justice for her brother, when the evidence against him was weak at best: “The police choose their man and after that they wear blinkers.” When it comes to access to justice, she says that “Truth and justice have no place in the justice system: only points of law.”
I presume Michelle Diskin Bates has referred to herself as ‘an enemy of state’?
Might be worth her while understanding what is meant by using this turn of phrase.
An enemy of the state is a person accused of certain crimes against the state, such as treason. Describing individuals in this way is sometimes a manifestation of political repression. For example, an authoritarian regime may purport to maintain national security by describing social or political dissidents as "enemies of the state." In other cases, the individual in question may have in fact endangered the country and its population
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_of_the_state
I”d describe Michelle Diskin Bates as beguiling, deluding and fallacious.
Maybe there’s more to why she chooses to see herself this way, presuming this is what she said?
The police didn’t choose ‘their man’ in this case. It was almost a year after Jill Dando’s murder before Barry George was finally apprehended. One of the reasons he wasn’t caught sooner was the fact he had used so many aliases over the years and was calling himself Bulsara at the time of the murder - therefore it’s unlikely his previous convictions and intelligence on him were flagging up.
There’s also no evidence to suggest the police were blinkered in arresting and charging her brother with murder, no matter how many times she repeats it. Barry George brought it on himself. His own actions gave him away.
Michelle Diskin Bates apparently says ’truth and justice have no place in the justice system.’
Yet another telling statement from her, again presuming this is what she said.
truth
/truːθ/
noun
1. the quality or state of being true."he had to accept the truth of her accusation"
justice
/ˈdʒʌstɪs/
noun
1. 1.
just behaviour or treatment."a concern for justice, peace, and genuine respect for people"
From Michelle Diskin Bates point of view, I agree it’s unlikely she’ll ever know truth or justice because of the path she’s chosen.
I’ve no doubt the student barrister who met her, will one day recognise in her what many others before her have finally recognised.
And maybe one day so will Dr Michael Naughton?
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
4h
In the interests of truth and justice, please sign this petition for Essex Police to release ALL documents withheld from Jeremy Bamber’s Legal Defence · http://Change.org
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1229355280238075904
-
Sept 2009
“A murder which took place in 1979 and saw an innocent man jailed for 27 years was finally solved yesterday when police announced that the real killer was a 17-year-old boy who confessed to the crime in the 1980s, but committed suicide after officers refused to believe him.
Teresa De Simone, 22, was raped and strangled in the back of her own car in Southampton on 5 December 1979. In 1982 Sean Hodgson, a pathological liar who erroneously confessed to the killing, was wrongly jailed for her murder. The 27 years and one month he spent in prison, before being freed in March this year, represents one of the Britain's biggest miscarriages of justice.
He was freed after DNA evidence, not available at the time of the murder, proved he was not at the scene. Hampshire Police reopened the case and yesterday revealed that David Andrew Lace murdered Ms De Simone.
Lace, a petty criminal, had confessed to the murder after being arrested for other matters in 1983 – about 18 months after Hodgson was convicted – saying he could no longer live with the guilt. But with several other men also claiming to be the killer, and with who they thought to be the real culprit already behind bars, the police dismissed his confession.
On 9 December 1988 – four days after the ninth anniversary of the murder – Lace committed suicide. Last month his body was exhumed – only the second time an exhumation has taken place in an historic murder inquiry – and DNA tests proved a match for those found at the scene of Miss De Simone's death.
Yesterday Miss De Simone's mother, Mary Sedotti, 77, said that the naming of Lace brought closure for her and her partner Michael. She said: "It's a relief to get it all done, hopefully now we can start to move on. We are just relieved that all this has come to a close. I didn't ever think they would find anybody after all this time, I'm just so grateful."
But the Crown Prosecution Service pointed out that, as no trial is able to take place, it will never be proven beyond doubt that Lace was the murderer. Alastair Nisbet, senior Crown prosecutor, said: "The CPS has advised Hampshire Constabulary that the evidence would have been sufficient to prosecute David Lace, if he were alive, with the offences of the rape and murder of Teresa De Simone.
"But this is in no sense a declaration that he was guilty of the offences. Had Mr Lace lived, our decision would merely have authorised the police to begin the legal process by charging him. Only after trial does a jury decide whether a person is guilty or not, on a higher standard of proof – beyond reasonable doubt."
Lace was 17 at the time of the murder and was living in his home city of Portsmouth. Detective Chief Inspector Philip McTavish said that Lace confessed to the crime when he was being questioned about a series of burglaries. The confession came to light when detectives re-examined the murder case this year. He stated that he could no longer live with what he had done and that he was better off in prison," the detective said.
Lace told police he stole a rucksack and cash from a meter at his lodgings in Portsmouth on the day before Miss De Simone was killed. He then walked to Southampton and arrived in the early hours of December 5 at the rear of the Tom Tackle pub, where he saw Miss De Simone dropped back to her car by a friend.
"He approached the car and tapped on the window, asking Teresa the time," explained Mr McTavish. He then forced his way into the driver's seat beside her and locked the doors to prevent her escape. She struggled, he sexually assaulted her and strangled her using the passenger belt in the car."
Mr McTavish said officers at the time looked into the confession and decided it revealed "numerous and significant inconsistencies" including incorrect descriptions of the car and Miss De Simone's clothing. Sean Hodgson, on the other hand, provided police with details that the prosecution claimed only the killer could possibly know and was convicted after a trial at Winchester Crown Court.
Yet he could have been freed in 1998, but for a mistake by the Forensic Science Service (FSS). In 1998, Mr Hodgson's legal team asked the FSS for permission to re-examine 20 items found in Ms De Simone's car using DNA analysis. But the FSS had replied that the relevant exhibits no longer existed when, in fact, they did.
That error delayed Mr Hodgson's release by ten years, but yesterday his solicitor, Julian Young, claimed that Mr Hodgson, who is now 57, could have been freed even earlier had the police decided to pursue Lace's confession.
He said: "The police appear to have had David Lace in custody, admittedly for other matters. He made certain admissions. It appears the police, for reasons obviously I don't know decided they were not going to treat him as a suspect. He was not charged but for some reason that information was never passed on to Sean Hodgson or the legal team who were then representing him." But Mrs Sedotti says she still harbours anger towards Mr Hodgson, who is almost certain to receive a multi-million pound compensation package, despite his innocence. She said: "If it was not for him telling all those lies in the first place then the police may have carried on speaking to others."
A statement from the family of Lace released by police said: "We have been left shocked and saddened at the latest news that David has been shown to have been responsible for such a terrible crime. We very much wish to extend our sympathies and condolences to Teresa De Simone's family at what must be a very difficult time for them."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/killer-finally-unmasked-after-30-years-1789422.html
May 2011
“A County Durham man who wrongly spent 27 years in jail for murder and rape has been given a three-year community order for sexual assault.
Sean Hodgson was convicted in 1982 of the rape and murder of Teresa De Simone in Hampshire, but this was quashed in 2009 when new evidence came to light.
But less that 18 months after his release the 60-year-old, of Willington, sexually assaulted a 22-year-old woman.
He was given the community order with supervision at Durham Crown Court.
Miss De Simone's body was found in her car at the rear of a pub in Southampton in 1979.
Hodgson was convicted of her rape and murder, but a forensic review discovered that DNA found at the scene was not his.
The Court of Appeal quashed his conviction and he was released in 2009.
Hodgson, of Park Street, Willington, near Crook, admitted sexually assaulting a vulnerable woman on 12 August last year.
Judge Christopher Prince said: "The fact this defendant has spent 27 years in custody for a crime he did not commit is not a relevant sentencing factor.
"He is not entitled to a reduction from sentence solely because he has served that time in custody.
"He clearly bears a great resentment against a criminal justice system that has deprived him of 27 years' liberty.
"The key is to protect the public as much as is possible from any possible future offending by Hodgson."
In 2009 Hampshire Police exhumed the body of David Lace, who committed suicide in 1988 at the age of 26, and DNA evidence revealed he was Miss De Simone's killer.
Hodgson, who suffers from depression and schizophrenia, maintained his innocence throughout his imprisonment for the murder, which prevented him from being paroled.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-13391943
Was Sean Hodgson monitored following the overturning of his murder conviction by the CoA and was his case included in Carolyn Hoyle & Mai Sato’s research and the ‘ 437’ peoples lives changed’
Last year Professor Carolyn Hoyle stated, re the Criminal Cases Review Commission,
“437 peoples lives that have been changed around by the commission, many people who would otherwise be in prison and are out and those people are left to rebuild their lives that is not easy as research by one of my doctoral students has shown but none the less they have the opportunity to do so”
https://ox.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Embed.aspx?id=69d464e5-e28a-4400-b964-a9dd01201ea0
2008
Gabe Tan: Why join an Innocence Project?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3lMN-eK7ByY
Gabe Tan saying how “ordinary people can do extraordinary things”
[/quote]
Oct 2012
"Justice should not depend on luck" by Gabe Tan
Gabe Tan argues that fresh evidence should not be needed in miscarriages of justice
”The Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) is often described as the safety net of the criminal justice system. One of its key functions is to ensure that the wrongly convicted can have their convictions quashed. In 1995, following a series of high profile miscarriages of justice including the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six, the Criminal Cases Review Commission was established as an added safeguard to the Court of Appeal. Its role is to review alleged miscarriages of justice and refer convictions and sentences deemed to have a ‘real possibility’ of being quashed back to the Court of Appeal.
Yet, just how effective are these safeguards in protecting the innocent and ensuring their prompt acquittal?
On the 18th March 2009, Sean Hodgson walked out of the Royal Courts of Justice frazzled and overwhelmed by the crowding press. After 27 years of incarceration, it did not take the Court of Appeal much deliberation to declare Hodgson a free man. Hodgson’s conviction for the murder and rape of Teresa de Simone was overturned when DNA testing on biological swabs taken from the victim proved him to be factually innocent.
The Forensic Science Service very soon became the target of the media’s fingerpointing exercise for wrongly reporting that the swabs were destroyed 11 years earlier when the request for DNA testing was first made. Hampshire Police was also subjected to criticism for ruling out another suspect, David Lace, who confessed to the murder in 1983 and took his own life shortly after.
However, the focus on blaming individual parts of the criminal justice jigsaw lost sight of the systemic dysfunctions with the criminal appeal system that, for over two decades, failed to overturn Hodgson’s conviction.
The jury’s conviction of Hodgson back in 1982 was hardly surprising. At trial, the jury heard how Hodgson made a series of voluntary confessions – first to a priest, then to a prison officer, to the police and to his own solicitor. He made oral and written admissions to the murder, each time giving a detailed account of how he killed Teresa de Simone – details which, the prosecution claimed, could only have been known by the killer. Supporting his confessions, his blood group was a match to that of the killer, and he was undoubtedly present in the locality at the time of the murder.
The unreliability of Hodgson’s confession was put forward at trial and, certainly, when he applied for leave to appeal in 1983. Hodgson was a notorious compulsive liar with a known severe personality disorder. He had made repeated false claims to the police for other criminal offences, including confessions for two other murders that he could not have committed as they did not happen. Many of the details that the prosecution claimed could only have been known by the killer were widely reported in newspapers and television reports.
The then Court of Criminal Appeal dismissed Hodgson’s leave to appeal almost as quickly as the Court of Appeal would allow it 26 years later. The initial appeal was dismissed on the basis that these arguments, as forceful as they may be, were either already heard by the jury or could have been made at the time of his trial. Instead, presumably because counsel had thought that Hodgson was unlikely to be able to withstand the prosecution’s crossexamination, a tactical decision was made for Hodgson to give an unsworn statement from the dock which barely gave details of why and how he had made up the false confessions. The safety net of the appeal court offered little protection to this vulnerable man. Rather, a severely mentally ill defendant was somehow to be individually blamed for not being able to stand in the dock and convincingly articulate to the jury the complex psychological processes that made him repeatedly confess to the most heinous of crimes.
The advent in knowledge on the phenomenon of false confessions appeared to be of no help at all to Hodgson either. Since the early 1990s, dozens of others who voluntarily confessed to crimes that they had not committed have had their convictions quashed due to fresh psychiatric evidence not heard at trial that rendered their convictions unsafe. Key examples include Judith Ward, Andrew Evans, Ashley King, Darren Hall and Patrick Kane who all suffered from forms of psychiatric or personality disorders that made them vulnerable to false confessions. As far back as 1989, the Lloyd-Bostock report cited false confessions as the second biggest cause of wrongful convictions in Britain after eyewitness misidentification. The pioneering work of internationally renowned forensic psychologist Professor Gisli Gudjonsson further enhanced our understanding of how even ordinary people with normal intelligence can be susceptible to making false confessions either voluntarily or under the pressures of police interrogation. It appeared that because Hodgson’s history of making false confessions was already known to the jury who nevertheless decided to convict him, the doctrine of finality precluded the (un)reliability of his confession from being re-examined.
As with all other appeals against conviction, the primary way to defy this long-standing doctrine is to find fresh evidence that renders a conviction unsafe – a requirement under section 23 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968 and section 2 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1995 respectively. Hodgson’s fate was therefore sealed, at least until luck befell him with the discovery of the exonerating DNA evidence – the fresh evidence that held the key to his eventual acquittal by the Court of Appeal.
Hodgson is one of the ‘lucky’ few – perhaps an odd term to describe someone who served almost three decades of wrongful incarceration. However, the discovery of fresh evidence is not something that can be guaranteed for every innocent victim of wrongful conviction. Indeed, the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which similarly applies the fresh evidence criteria in deciding whether to refer an application back to the appeal courts, has referred fewer than four per cent of over 13,000 applications it has received since its establishment.
The Innocence Network UK, established at the University of Bristol in September 2004 to facilitate investigations into alleged wrongful conviction has, to date, deemed around 200 prisoners (out of over 1,000 requests for assistance) to have a plausible claim of innocence. Many are convicted on evidence that is dubious to say the least – alleged cell confessions; inconsistent witness testimonies; questionable forensic evidence; and forms of highly circumstantial evidence. Almost all these 200 prisoners have failed in their first appeal – the principal reason being that arguments relating to the unreliability of the evidence that convicted them have already been heard by the jury and, unless fresh evidence is produced, the Court of Appeal is not entitled to go behind the jury’s verdict. Around half of these cases have been refused at least once by the Criminal Cases Review Commission. Despite the questionable circumstances of their convictions, the Criminal Cases Review Commission, whose role is generally confined to a review of fresh evidence, can do little, if anything, to assist them.
However, returning to the case of Hodgson, it should not have required fresh evidence in the form of a DNA exoneration to quash his conviction 27 years later. He was convicted mainly on his own confession, which we knew then and certainly more so in the last two decades, to be an inherently unreliable form of evidence. Hodgson’s conviction should arguably have been overturned much earlier on the basis of his questionable confession alone. Yet, without the miraculous discovery of the DNA evidence, Hodgson would most certainly still be trapped within the prison system.
If there is anything that Hodgson’s wrongful conviction has taught us it is that justice should not be dependent on the luck of finding fresh evidence. If the overriding concern of the Court of Appeal and the Criminal Cases Review Commission is truly about safeguarding the innocent, then the requirement for fresh evidence should not be a barrier for revisiting the convictions of those who might be.
Gabe Tan is Executive Director of the Innocence Network UK (INUK)
http://www.haldane.org/news/2012/10/1/justice-should-not-depend-on-luck-by-gabe-tan.html
What were Professor Gisli Gudjonsson and other ‘experts’ findings in relation to David Laces confession to murder?
”He approached the car and tapped on the window, asking Teresa the time," explained Mr McTavish. He then forced his way into the driver's seat beside her and locked the doors to prevent her escape. She struggled, he sexually assaulted her and strangled her using the passenger belt in the car."
Mr McTavish said officers at the time looked into the confession and decided it revealed "numerous and significant inconsistencies" including incorrect descriptions of the car and Miss De Simone's clothing. Sean Hodgson, on the other hand, provided police with details that the prosecution claimed only the killer could possibly know and was convicted after a trial at Winchester Crown Court”.
Gabe Tan doesn’t mention Sean Hodgsons 2011 conviction for sexual assault. He apparently suffered ’from depression and schizophrenia’ around this time
”Hodgson, of Park Street, Willington, near Crook, admitted sexually assaulting a vulnerable woman on 12 August last year.”
And what were Professor Gisli Gudjonsson and other ‘experts’ findings in relation to Sean Hodgsons confession to sexual assault of a ‘vulnerable women’ ?
-
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
Feb 15
I`m devouring this book! Took one for Robin when we visited on Thursday - I don`t doubt this book + the work of
@EmpowerInnocent
+team will have a massively positive impact in the freedom fight for http://RobinGarbuttOfficial.com
https://mobile.twitter.com/hanksoff03/status/1228739894631108613
Hanksoff03 Retweeted
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
@SandraLean5 has written "One of the biggest difficulties for the wrongly convicted in the early days is that they know what they r fighting FOR but not necessarily what they r fighting AGAINST,as their perception of the CJS is so far removed from the realities of that system."
4:43 PM · Feb 17, 2020·Twitter Web App
https://mobile.twitter.com/hanksoff03/status/1229446194621034503
-
Surjit Singh Clair
June 2001
“It is the worse in your case, Mr Clair, you had the motivation to sell the story to the press and make a significant personal profit."
“He also denied knowing Clair had leaked the attack story to the press until all three were on remand in Birmingham's Winson Green prison.
The court was told the trio had orchestrated the sending of racist hate mail to Ms Hansen, four other prominent black British athletes, including Olympic heptathlon gold medallist Denise Lewis, and a backbench Labour MP.
The letters were a sham designed to give more credence to the attack.[/b]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1370846.stm
Would be interested to learn when Surjit Singh Clair became involved with MOJO Scotland and how much work he carried out on their behalf
What kind of person does this and why was Michelle Diskin Bates involved with a man like this?
April 2006
“Surjit Singh Clair, spokesman for the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation (MOJO), described the plans as "awful" and predicted a flood of appeals to Europe by victims of miscarriages of justice.
He said victims of miscarriages of justice were already having large parts of their compensation deducted to pay for the "privilege" of board and living expenses in prison.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/apr/19/ukcrime.immigrationpolicy
2008
“Barry George, the man acquitted last week of killing presenter Jill Dando, is being represented by freelance publicist Surjit Singh Clair. Singh Clair has also represented the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation.
https://www.prweek.com/article/837937/the-week
Police seek ways to monitor Barry George as he gains his freedom
“Surjit Singh Clair said Mr George, 48, acquitted last week of murdering TV presenterJill Dando, now realised his past stalking and pestering of women was wrong.
He said: “It was inappropriate. He was lonely at the time and that was the only way he knew to communicate. But he said he has learnt from that and he won’t be doing that kind of thing again.
“It’s a case of self-policing for Barry. He now realises it is wrong.”
Mr Clair was speaking after it emerged officials want to keep a close eye on Mr George amid fears over his former lifestyle. (Source: The Herald Aug 2008)
“George's agent Surjit Singh Clair said: "We have been approached by Devon Films. I can't confirm Barry's cut but it will easily run into six figures."
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/lights--camera--cash-in-1656288
Dec 2009
“Barry George, the man acquitted at a retrial of killing Jill Dando, has won substantial damages and an apology from the publisher of the Sun and News of the World over a series of articles suggesting that he was responsible for the killing and was a stalker.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2009/dec/16/barry-george-news-of-world
What hand, if any, did Surjit Singh Clair have in regards to the stories in ‘the Sun & News of the World” - which lead to Barry Georges libel claim?
So why in 2011 did he write and publish this and how did Gordon Bishop manage this;
“Mr George had brought claims against articles in both The Sun and the News of the World. Allegations included that there were grounds to suspect him of the murder despite his acquittal,
https://www.5rb.com/news/barry-george-wins-apology/
which was clearly smoke and mirrors
‘The Defendant now recognises that those articles would have been understood to mean that there were grounds to suspect Mr George of the murder despite his acquittal. The Defendant accepts that the verdict of the second jury in acquitting Mr George was correct and it apologises to Mr George for any suggestion otherwise.
On Sunday the 3rd August 2008 the News of the World carried a report of the interviews
https://www.5rb.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/George-v-News-Group-SIOC-16-Dec-2009.pdf
Dec 2009 - Excerpt
“A number of other articles about Mr George were published in both The Sun and the News of the World in October 2008. Various allegations were made including that he had become obsessed with Kay Burley, that he had pestered a woman whose advert about a dog he had answered and that he had become obsessed with Pam Wright, the fiancée of Steve Wright, the Suffolk Strangler. The Defendant now accepts that, although on one occasion Mr George did cycle to Sky TV studios to try to collect a tape of his interview with Kay Burley, Mr George did not pose a threat and was not obsessed with her nor did he pester any woman who had a dog for sale nor did he become obsessed with Pam Wright.
https://www.5rb.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/George-v-News-Group-SIOC-16-Dec-2009.pdf
Surjit Singh Clair advertises the News of the Worlds front page article -
”My Story by Barry George’ - I didn’t Kill Jill Dando I was Stalking Someone Else At The Time.”on his website above, alongside a few others - all of which he appears to have had a hand in
Sell your story to the newspapers. Surjit Singh Claire gets you the best deal. Max Clifford miscarrage of justice.
http://www.effectivemedialtd.com/
There are two videos posted on the above website, one with Surjit Singh Clair & Michelle Diskin Bates and one with Surjit Singh Clair & Pam Wright (Referred to as Pam Goodman in the video)
Steve Wrights murder trial began in Jan 2008
https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/world/man-to-face-trial-over-ipswich-prostitution-murders-344270.html?utm_source=link&utm_medium=click&utm_campaign=nextandprev
Surjit Singh Clair can be seen escorting Pam Wright/Goodman into an interview with Kay Burley
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pVNdWT3ul-E and here attending Steve Wrights murder trial https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/video/steve-wright-trial-wright-gives-evidence-suffolk-ipswich-news-footage/669077886
Just as he did with Barry George and Michelle Diskin Bates (As be seen in the video above)
Noel O’Gara on ‘Reasons why Steve Wright should appeal his conviction as the Ipswich murderer‘
https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/uk.legal/f7Rt1HhiFxI
Noel O’Gara makes claim in his book, ‘The real Yorkshire ripper’ - ‘They knew That Jill Dando's killer was at large while Barry George was locked away.’
https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Real_Yorkshire_Ripper.html?id=bYVWHQAACAAJ&redir_esc=y
Obsessed with visiting Jill Dando's grave and acting more erratically than ever, Barry George is a man on the edge by David Jones 10th October 2008
“During the interview he gave (or rather sold for £80,000) to a down-market tabloid after his release, George insisted he was never fixated with the 37-year-old star, as the prosecution had alleged.
Yet if George wasn't obsessed with Jill at the time she was murdered, he certainly is now.
He spends hour upon hour poring over books and websites about her - and, now, with a breathtaking lack of insight into the likely furore, he aims to travel 150miles from London to the West Country.
“Mr Singh Clair is a Midlands-based freelance journalist who was enlisted by the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation (MOJO) to promote George's cause four years ago, when he was battling to overturn his murder conviction.
He brokered the £80,000 interview deal after George's acquittal, and he is now among the trusted inner circle who proffer assistance to George.
In an angry email to me this week, Michelle Diskin claimed her brother was the victim of a media-driven plot designed to smear and intimidate him. (David Jones 10th October 2008)
Noel O’Gara is still claiming serial killer Steve Wright was ‘stitched up’ https://m.facebook.com/comment/replies/?ctoken=2493869674222952_2493937207549532&count=23&curr&pc=1&ft_ent_identifier=2493869674222952&gfid=AQD58gVLJwh71vDK¬if_t=feed_comment
-
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
4h
In the interests of truth and justice, please sign this petition for Essex Police to release ALL documents withheld from Jeremy Bamber’s Legal Defence · http://Change.org
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1229355280238075904
Maybe someone from the Innocence Network - Gabe Tan? , Bamber or someone from his campaign team would clarify if the Innocence Network ever worked on the Bamber case.
Was always under the impression they believed Bamber was guilty as charged.
Or if they did ever work on the Bamber case maybe they’d discuss why they chose to stop working on it.
Seems Dr Michael Naughton has now widened the goal posts
Conversation
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
1/2 Thank you Wullie, but I suspect you are dealing with an ignorant troll. We never said that Simon Hall WAS innocent. Rather, we investigated his claim of innocence, which is a fundamentally different things, and showed the so called “evidence” to be totally discredited.
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1186526810068193281
“ Dr Michael Naughton, Reader in Sociology and Law with joint appointments in the Department of Sociology and the School of Law, has given a number of interviews to national and local BBC radio stations on Simon Hall's admission to the murder of Joan Albert after a decade of maintaining innocence.
They include:
BBC Radio 4 PM, interviewed by Eddie Mair, 8th August
BBC Radio 5 Live, Drive, interviewed by Anna Foster, 8th August
BBC Radio Bristol, Drive, interviewed by Geoff Twentyman, 8th August
BBC Radio Suffolk, interviewed by Mark Matthews, 9th August
Listen again will be available for a week following the broadcasts.
Simon Hall was convicted in 2003 for the murder of 79-year-old Joan Albert in what the prosecution claimed was an interrupted burglary of her home. Before his recent confession to the murder, he had maintained his innocence for over a decade and had been assisted by the University of Bristol Innocence Project in submissions to the Criminal Cases Review Commission who referred his conviction back to the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) in December 2010.
https://www.bristol.ac.uk/spais/news/2013/304.html
-
Conversation
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
1/2 Thank you Wullie, but I suspect you are dealing with an ignorant troll. We never said that Simon Hall WAS innocent. Rather, we investigated his claim of innocence, which is a fundamentally different things, and showed the so called “evidence” to be totally discredited.
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1186526810068193281
4 people liked the above tweet, including -
Hanksoff03
Michelle Diskin Bates &
William Beck
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
2/2 We were informed by his wife that he had confessed & wrote to him for confirmation & to let us know HOW he did it. He did not reply. We have never seen a signed confession. But, even if he did confess, like many innocent victims do, HOW did he do it & where is the evidence?
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1186527971970048001
5 people liked the above tweet, including Hanksoff03 & William Beck but Michelle Diskin Bates chose not to
Found it telling when I learned Michael Naughton had blocked me on twitter; not long after I’d joined
Hanksoff03 Retweeted
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
@SandraLean5 has written "One of the biggest difficulties for the wrongly convicted in the early days is that they know what they r fighting FOR but not necessarily what they r fighting AGAINST,as their perception of the CJS is so far removed from the realities of that system."
4:43 PM · Feb 17, 2020·Twitter Web App
https://mobile.twitter.com/hanksoff03/status/1229446194621034503
Thought Sandra Lean made claim she’d contacted her publishers to have her book ‘No Smoke’ withdrawn?
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@hanksoff03
@EmpowerInnocent
and 3 others
I think Stephanie is back...thoughts?
12:55 PM · Nov 23, 2019·Twitter for iPad
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
Nov 23, 2019
Replying to
@Michelle_Diskin
@EmpowerInnocent
and 3 others
Who is Stephanie...?
https://mobile.twitter.com/michelle_diskin/status/1198223505600462849
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
Dec 21, 2019
You are a troll ***** and I have been warned about you.
Why would people like Dr Michael Naughton and Michelle Diskin Bates et al seemingly refer to me as a ‘troll’ and why would they ‘warn’ Hanksoff03 about me?
And what are they warning her about exactly?
Excerpt by Dr Michael Naughtons foreword from Michelle Diskin Bates book, ‘Stand Against Injustice’
‘This may well explain another feature of the book which sets it apart from others of the same genre. Written with great integrity and without even a hint of self pity or hatred towards, or vengeance against those responsible for causing her brothers wrongful conviction or who played a part in preventing its overturn or are currently refusing him compensation. Michelle has a clear focus to simply tell the truth, warts and all.’
From my viewpoint, her ‘moral conscience’ appears off-kilter, her ‘good conscience’ is highly questionable and her ‘moral obligation’ seems self serving as indeed does Michael Naughton’s.
Incidentally the ‘biblical definition’ of a hypocrite is ’a person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that he or she does not actually possess, especially a person whose actions belie stated beliefs.
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
Nov 23, 2019
We need to be very careful not have wolves in sheep's clothing amongst us who claim that they are innocent when they are not and which discredits the innocence movement and the chances of the genuinely innocent overturning their wrongful convictions: http://innocencenetwork.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Michael_Naughton_Factual_Innocence_Legal_Guilt_PSJ_May_2008.pdf
https://mobile.twitter.com/SofaAssoc/status/1198343477744095237
(The above tweet was ‘liked’ by Mark Alexander http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?board=98.0 )
Who is Dr Michael Naughton referring to when he makes claim,
“We need to be very careful not have wolves in sheep's clothing amongst us who claim that they are innocent when they are not and which discredits the innocence movement and the chances of the genuinely innocent overturning their wrongful convictions (sic)
-
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Jan 21
Replying to
@reece_dinsdale
and
@UKChange
Thanks to this corrupt fiasco a man had it used in evidence in a murder trial, to take his good reputation. He was found guilty but is innocent. #freerobingarbut
https://mobile.twitter.com/mariaspears/status/1219880204727996416
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@hanksoff03
People who are not guilty often try to have there wrongful convictions overturned. Funny that...you’d think they’d just lie down and take it...wouldn’t you?
#robingarbutt is not guilty! ! !
2:52 PM · Feb 8, 2020·Twitter for iPad
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1226156869024174082
Hanksoff03 Retweeted
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
@SandraLean5 has written "One of the biggest difficulties for the wrongly convicted in the early days is that they know what they r fighting FOR but not necessarily what they r fighting AGAINST,as their perception of the CJS is so far removed from the realities of that system."
4:43 PM · Feb 17, 2020·Twitter Web App
https://mobile.twitter.com/hanksoff03/status/1229446194621034503
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
Feb 18
It gives me hope to read this
@KarlTurnerMP
- we are fighting for freedom and justice for our Robin Garbutt, locked away 4almost TEN years- had PO/Horizon been efficient his trial would have not come about-Huge plank of [ censored word ] case was theft which never happened :.(
https://mobile.twitter.com/hanksoff03/status/1229821145840594949
Robin Garbutts 999 call to the police https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BJFgCQNRsQE
Robin Garbutt police interview https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1FOJmgKyrxw
Robin Garbutt states,
“do you know what, I knew straight away we I was going to be robbed, I just knew it cos.. obviously.. you know.. and I wasn’t even worried.. do you know.. I know it sounds stupid but .. the first time I was absolutely shitting a brick and this time.. but.. the first thing he said to me.. straight away was.. he said er don’t do anything stupid we’ve got your wife and er he said turn the lights off and er lock the door.. so I er um I er went back to Blah blah
“he handed me a um a black hold-all and er he said put the money in the bag I think or put the money from the safe.. I can’t rem.. put the money in the bag I think he said.. erm..so I just walked into the post office.. he followed behind me Blah blah
“I put the money in the hold-all, there was something else in there already.. blah blah. I noticed when I put the money in blah blah.. I emptied.. put my till money in.. nothing in there just peanuts.. you know., a hundred quid..
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
Great documentary, shocking+heartbreaking in equal measure. I am fighting4my friend http://RobinGarbuttOfficial.com who`s life was destroyed on 23/03/2010 when his wife was murdered in their PO+worse was2come when Rob was wrongly accused of theft-Can I introduce the PO/Horizon scandal...
https://mobile.twitter.com/hanksoff03/status/1230233571664826370
-
Surjit Singh Clair
Hansen driver 'wanted £6,000 for story'
“A man who allegedly helped to stage a bogus racist attack on the former boyfriend of triple-jumper Ashia Hansen contacted a journalist within hours of the incident, a court has heard.
Surjit Singh Clair called Daily Express reporter Ian Gallagher as Chris Cotter received hospital treatment for stab wounds to his head and back, Birmingham Crown Court was told.
Mr Cotter, 29, of Plymouth, is charged with planning the attack on himself to win back Ms Hansen's affections and pay off massive debts by selling his story.
The financial adviser spent 36 hours in hospital following the alleged attack on 21 March last year, which he claimed was carried out by a gang who objected to him going out with a black woman.
Mr Cotter, Mr Clair, 31, of Reedswood, Walsall, and Craig Wynn, 29, of Kingstanding, Birmingham, all deny conspiring to pervert the course of justice by alleging there was a racially-motivated conspiracy to commit violent acts on black athletes and their immediate associates.
They also deny attempting to obtain property by deception, by trying to sell the story to the newspaper.
Mr Clair acted as a driver for Ms Hansen and Mr Cotter following the alleged incident.
The court heard that the Express journalist received a call on his mobile phone, shortly before midnight on the night of the attack.
The call was from a source known to Mr Gallagher as Tom Carter, later identified in the dock as Mr Clair.
Mr Gallagher said he did not remember the call, but checked his voice mail the next morning and eventually spoke to Mr Clair.
The pair were in regular contact over the next day, the court heard, with 53 calls made or attempted between the journalist, Mr Clair and a phone at the hospital where Mr Cotter was being treated.
A story appeared in the Express three days after the attack took place.
Mr Gallagher told the court that the article was based on what he had learned from Mr Clair, although he said the racist element was later confirmed by a freelance journalist.
Mr Clair arranged an interview between Mr Gallagher and Mr Cotter at a Birmingham hotel, the court heard, with a view to another story appearing in the paper.
Mr Gallagher added that a payment fee had been discussed.
He said: "A figure of £6,000 was mentioned. Nothing had really been decided. There may have been more money if he [Mr Clair] could have arranged for an interview with Ashia Hansen."
The jury was told that Mr Clair had provided other stories for Mr Gallagher in the past, and had been paid £4,000 for information in 1998.
Earlier, the court heard that Ms Hansen had asked Mr Clair if he would be able to provide her with a bodyguard after the alleged attack.
The trial was adjourned until Thursday. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1309351.stm
-
“Investigative journalist Don Hale, who has visited George in prison, believes there are parallels with the case of Stephen Downing, who spent more than 30 years in prison for the murder of a woman in Bakewell, Derbyshire. The conviction was eventually overturned after years of campaigning by Mr Hale and others.
Downing guilty of impersonating policeman - Oct 2008
“A man who had his conviction for murder overturned after spending 27 years in jail was found guilty today of wearing police clothing in public. Stephen Downing was charged after trying to buy four cans of shandy in Buxton in February dressed in an ex-police issue jacket, dark trousers and black boots, Buxton Magistrates’ Court, in Derbyshire, was told. He was fined £437 and ordered to pay £625 costs. The court also ordered that the jacket be destroyed. Downing, of Bakewell, Derbyshire, had been mistaken as a police officer while wearing the jacket before, the court heard. The 52-year-old served 27 years in prison before being released on bail in 2001. In 2002 his conviction for bludgeoning typist Wendy Sewell to death with a pickaxe handle was quashed.
https://metro.co.uk/2008/10/13/downing-guilty-of-impersonating-policeman-25764/
Barry George
“In the early 1980s, he was convicted of impersonating a police officer
https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_George
-
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
Great documentary, shocking+heartbreaking in equal measure. I am fighting4my friend http://RobinGarbuttOfficial.com who`s life was destroyed on 23/03/2010 when his wife was murdered in their PO+worse was2come when Rob was wrongly accused of theft-Can I introduce the PO/Horizon scandal...
https://mobile.twitter.com/hanksoff03/status/1230233571664826370
999: Killers on the line
“A look at murderers who called emergency services on their own crimes, creating elaborate cover stories to try to avoid justice. Includes news footage as well as police and court documents.
The story of Robin Garbutt who murdered his wife and then called 999 to report that she had been killed by an armed robber in their North Yorkshire home.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6312006/
“A SHOPKEEPER has been jailed for life after being convicted of the cold blooded murder of his postmistress wife as she slept.
Robin Garbutt struck his wife Diana, 40, three times with an iron bar, smashing her skull in a bedroom above the post office and shop they ran in Melsonby, near Richmond, on March 23 last year.
The 45-year-old shook his head slightly but otherwise appeared emotionless as a jury at Teesside Crown Court yesterday found him guilty of her murder by a 10-2 majority after deliberating for more than 12 hours over three days.
One of his sisters sobbed in the public gallery.
Ordering him to serve a minimum of 20 years in prison, trial judge Mr Justice Openshaw said Garbutt had stuck to the same “ludicrous story” from beginning to end that she had been killed by an armed robber.
He said Garbutt had not shown the slightest regret or remorse. “He has always accompanied his lies with sanctimonious protests of his love for her. By their verdict the jury has exposed this as pure humbug. This was a brutal, planned, cold blooded murder of his wife as she lay asleep in bed.”
The four-week trial heard Mrs Garbutt had been increasingly unfaithful to her husband and would regularly go on internet dating sites late at night.
The judge said it was plain from the evidence that “there were tensions in this marriage not apparent to their friends in the village”.
Despite Garbutt’s denials it emerged the shop was trading at a loss and the couple had extensive debts “only keeping afloat by unexplained injections of cash” made by Garbutt personally.
The judge said he was satisfied that cash came from Garbutt stealing from the post office safe and the motive for the murder was his fear of exposure.
It was Garbutt who was running the business and he did not accept that Mrs Garbutt would have gone along with the fraud had she found the safe empty.
He said Garbutt’s evidence that his wife had counted the money in the safe in the week leading to her death in an “attempt to implicate her” was one of his more unattractive lies.
A crisis was looming because they were due to go on holiday to America and a relief postmistress was coming in who would count the money in the safe “which had not been independently checked for a couple of years
She would have found there was nothing like the £16,000 there recorded by Garbutt. He knew he would be exposed, face prosecution, imprisonment and disgrace.
The judge said it might have been significant that Mrs Garbutt had taken the business books upstairs on the night before her death to prepare the accounts at the end of the tax year “but I must avoid straying into speculation”.
Garbutt waited until his wife was asleep “and in the early hours of the morning crept silently into her bedroom”, said Mr Justice Openshaw. “There was no struggle, she never awoke. He struck three savage blows with the bar smashing her skull.”
The shopkeeper then dumped the bar on the wall of a garage across the road and as his wife’s body lay in bed developing rigor mortis “he acted a charade, feigning cheerfulness in an attempt to deceive customers”.
At 8.35am he locked the shop before making a 999 call pretending he had been robbed and his wife murdered by the intruder.
North Yorkshire Police said it would carry out a review to see where lessons could be learned after Garbutt’s defence team likened its investigation to a “comedy of errors”.
A police officer’s DNA was found on the murder weapon and a clump of hair found on Mrs Garbutt’s blood-spattered pillow was lost before it could be analysed.
https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/latest-news/video-shopkeeper-gets-life-for-brutal-murder-of-his-unfaithful-wife-1-3303799
-
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
I keep hearing a little voice in my ear `Knowledge is power` - So I`m learning as much as I can - So much to learn - Freedom for http://RobinGarbuttOfficial.com
https://mobile.twitter.com/hanksoff03/status/1223992378333310979
50 Shades Of Gaslighting: Disturbing Signs An Abuser Is Twisting Your Reality
“Deliberate manipulators who gaslight with the intention of eroding your reality and rewriting history tend to use the “illusory truth effect” to their advantage. They will repeat falsehoods so often that they become ingrained in the victim’s mind as unshakeable truths.
“Gaslighting has become a well-known term in the abuse survivor community, particularly for the survivors of malignant narcissists. Unlike more vulnerable narcissists who may possess more of a capacity for remorse, malignant narcissists truly believe in their superiority, are grandiose and lie on the higher end of the narcissistic spectrum. They have [ censored word]ocial traits, demonstrate paranoia, bear an excessive sense of entitlement, show a callous lack of empathy and display an egregious liking for interpersonal exploitation.
https://thoughtcatalog.com/shahida-arabi/2017/11/50-shades-of-gaslighting-the-disturbing-signs-an-abuser-is-twisting-your-reality/
Michelle Diskin Bates
@Michelle_Diskin
Feb 16
Replying to
@reece_dinsdale
I’m someone who has been well and truly trolled! I see them for who and what they are...bullies. I’m fortunate that I don’t have to care about, nor engage with them. I just ‘OUT’ them. They don’t like exposure. Adversity made me strong!
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1229158096691437568
So ‘strong’ she chooses to remain silent on issues related to ‘violence against women’, for example
So ‘strong’ anyone who dares to question her version of events is classified a ‘troll’ or a ‘bully’
*&^^&
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
Dec 21, 2019
You are a troll ***** and I have been warned about you.
Why would Michelle Diskin Bates choose to not warn other women, like Hanksoff03, about the dangers of ‘malignant narcissists’ ?
Narcissist Traits
* Interpersonally exploitative.
* Lacking empathy: unwilling or unable to recognize the feelings and needs of others.
* Negative reaction to criticism (they can interpret us asking to have our needs met as criticism.)
* Difficulty in admitting mistakes or taking responsibility for their bad behavior.
* Using fear to control people.
🎀 Michelle Diskin Bates 🎀
@Michelle_Diskin
Feb 16
Consideration costs nothing. If it ain’t edifying...zip it!
9:23 PM · Feb 16, 2020·Twitter for iPad
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1229154350636969989
*&^^&
-
999: Killers on the line
“A look at murderers who called emergency services on their own crimes, creating elaborate cover stories to try to avoid justice. Includes news footage as well as police and court documents.
The story of Robin Garbutt who murdered his wife and then called 999 to report that she had been killed by an armed robber in their North Yorkshire home.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6312006/
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
I must be missing something @EmpowerInnocent
...how come at that point the penny didn`t drop for the CCRC? (who only exist because of the outcry following that tragic miscarriage)..it`s like setting up a university to help support learners, but then not letting learners inFace without mouth
3:59 PM · Feb 22, 2020·Twitter Web App
*&^^&
And liked by Trudi Benjamin, William Beck & a couple of others
-
Dr Michael Naughton - 2019
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
2/2 We were informed by his wife that he had confessed & wrote to him for confirmation & to let us know HOW he did it. He did not reply. We have never seen a signed confession. But, even if he did confess, like many innocent victims do, HOW did he do it & where is the evidence?
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1186527971970048001
Dr Michael Naughton - 2013
“We are not shocked - we are alive to the possibility that a lot of people who say they are innocent are not.
"We are looking for needles in haystacks in our project.
"It is quite sad in terms of the waste of resources and the distress to (Mrs Albert's) family members when it turns out like this."
And the "thousands of hours" Bristol law students have spent on the Hall case, said Dr Naughton, could easily have been spent on "somebody else's case".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-23630287
-
Dr Michael Naughton - 2019
Dr Michael Naughton - 2013
“We are not shocked - we are alive to the possibility that a lot of people who say they are innocent are not.
"We are looking for needles in haystacks in our project.
"It is quite sad in terms of the waste of resources and the distress to (Mrs Albert's) family members when it turns out like this."
And the "thousands of hours" Bristol law students have spent on the Hall case, said Dr Naughton, could easily have been spent on "somebody else's case".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-23630287 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-23630287)
Is that the same Ray Hollingsworth who died last December?...
https://www.familynotices24.co.uk/est/view/4718092/ray-hollingsworth (https://www.familynotices24.co.uk/est/view/4718092/ray-hollingsworth)
-
Is that the same Ray Hollingsworth who died last December?...
https://www.familynotices24.co.uk/est/view/4718092/ray-hollingsworth (https://www.familynotices24.co.uk/est/view/4718092/ray-hollingsworth)
No
-
Dr Michael Naughton 2013
”We are not shocked - we are alive to the possibility that a lot of people who say they are innocent are not.
"We are looking for needles in haystacks in our project.
"It is quite sad in terms of the waste of resources and the distress to (Mrs Albert's) family members when it turns out like this."
And the "thousands of hours" Bristol law students have spent on the Hall case, said Dr Naughton, could easily have been spent on "somebody else's case".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-23630287
Dr Michael Naughton 2019
Conversation
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
1/2 Thank you Wullie, but I suspect you are dealing with an ignorant troll. We never said that Simon Hall WAS innocent. Rather, we investigated his claim of innocence, which is a fundamentally different things, and showed the so called “evidence” to be totally discredited.
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1186526810068193281
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
2/2 We were informed by his wife that he had confessed & wrote to him for confirmation & to let us know HOW he did it. He did not reply. We have never seen a signed confession. But, even if he did confess, like many innocent victims do, HOW did he do it & where is the evidence?
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1186527971970048001
The above is evidence of ‘gaslighting’ and shows Dr Michael Naughtons attempts to invalidate knowledge, with a fallacy based, fake version of reality.
Dr Michael Naughton claimed last year, ”We have never seen a signed confession”
How are signed confessions viewed within the ‘wrongful conviction’ arena ?
-
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
I must be missing something @EmpowerInnocent
...how come at that point the penny didn`t drop for the CCRC? (who only exist because of the outcry following that tragic miscarriage)..it`s like setting up a university to help support learners, but then not letting learners inFace without mouth
3:59 PM · Feb 22, 2020·Twitter Web App
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
Simple really, not enough people care enough to raise awareness of the failures of the @ccrcupdate in assisting alleged innocent applicants and/or are willing to fight against the “real possibility test” and fresh evidence criteria and the reform or replacement of the CCRC.
Liked by Trudi Benjamin & 5 others
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
Feb 23
I care deeply and the more aware I become the more determined I am to do all I can - Freedom for http://RobinGarbuttOfficial.com
Why hasn’t the ‘penny dropped’ for Hanksoff03 that she is another of Robin Garbutts victims?
And why are those around her clearly playing on her emotions as opposed to helping her view the case objectively?
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
Feb 23
Heartbreakingly true @Michelle_Diskin
. http://RobinGarbuttOfficial.com `s fighting a great big machine, one that should be giving hope2the factually innocent,recognising truth+protecting them+rescuing them from shocking mistakes in CJS system, that put them in prison in the first place
-
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
Simple really, not enough people care enough to raise awareness of the failures of the @ccrcupdate in assisting alleged innocent applicants and/or are willing to fight against the “real possibility test” and fresh evidence criteria and the reform or replacement of the CCRC.
‘Assisting alleged innocent applicants’ what about the hundreds of ‘chancers’ who attempt to overturn their convictions on technicalities?
Why did Dr Michael Naughton choose not use the exposure of Simon Hall’s guilt as an opportunity to highlight the CCRC’s failings?
-
‘Assisting alleged innocent applicants’ what about the hundreds of ‘chancers’ who attempt to overturn their convictions on technicalities?
Why did Dr Michael Naughton choose not use the exposure of Simon Hall’s guilt as an opportunity to highlight the CCRC’s failings?
Has Dr Michael Naughton warned Hanksoff03 of the red flags to look out for?
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
Feb 23
I care deeply and the more aware I become the more determined I am to do all I can - Freedom for http://RobinGarbuttOfficial.com
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
I know you do, Jane. You are totally committed to the fight against wrongful convictions but we need more like you, many more.
-
Consultant solicitor Glynn Maddocks talking of the Paul Blackburn case@ approx 25.30 here https://www.lawsociety.org.uk/practice-areas/human-rights/interview-with-glyn-maddocks/
states,
“.....but his confession was interesting in as much as he used words that no 14 year old with his educational background would ever have used”
Paul Blackburn (14 years old)
"Yes, it was me -- give me a minute"
Mick Geen
@J4BenGeen
Such valuable work for the wrongly convicted-
@Madocwales
has spent more than 30yrs representing individuals who have suffered miscarriages of justice-Next month & in recognition of his work in this field Glyn Maddox will be made an honorary Queen’s Counsel.
Glyn Maddocks: Criminal justice won’t face up to miscarriages
‘The long-serving campaigner for historic appeals fears that the commission is too weak to right past wrongs, he tells Catherine Baksi
“In every other walk of life, if something goes wrong an independent inquiry looks into failures and errors - the criminal justice system doesn’t”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/glyn-maddox-criminal-justice-wont-face-up-to-miscarriages-dj2v7gz2w
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
So happy that Glyn`s (
@Madocwales ) incredible work is being recognised.His dedication2the whole cause of wrongful convictions is remarkable+I will never be able2thank him enough for all the help given in our fight for http://RobinGarbuttOfficial.com. A truly lovely, lovely gentleman x
Glyn Maddocks, ‘A truly lovely, lovely gentleman’, - and it appears an ideal ‘target’ for a con artist
’Criminal justice won’t face up to miscarriages’ or -
those working within the ‘miscarriage of justice/wrongful conviction’ arena won’t face up to having been conned/getting it wrong
Mark Newby wants to go back to where it all began if he wants to truly understand how and why genuine victims aren’t being recognised by the state.
Before delivering the above speech and feeding into the ideologies of all those who were in attendance at the meeting, he should look at those convictions that have been overturned on technicalities, recognise the con artists and wolves in sheep’s clothing and look at how their cases have changed the criminal justice system and indeed legislation.
‘the fundamental problem’ with all those individuals who choose to never admit to their ‘mistakes is that’ they are ‘in a downward spiral’
‘organisations that cannot admit fault in the end will become failing organisations. The easiest answer is to brush it under the carpet or find an excuse for why things went wrong.’
Mark Newby - “Challenging Miscarriages – the Inability of the System to Accept Responsibility” 2015
“The next few years will determine what sort of society we want to be in the end, if we truly believe in justice we shall have to learn how to say sorry and put right our errors.
We should not fight against compensating men such as Victor Nealon, Sam Hallam and Ian Lawless we should embrace the opportunity to do so. We should embrace our failures they are the road to success and better organisations.
http://bfms.org.uk/challenging-miscarriages-of-justice/
-
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
Poor RobinGarbutt's case would no doubt never have gone to trial had POHorizon ran their business as it should-it's now a heartbreaking wrongful conviction with so much pain for so many- 100% innocent-+still locked away -freedom4Robin Garbutt et al :,(
Yet further and blatant evidence of ‘gaslighting’ and ‘attempts to invalidate knowledge, with a fallacy based, fake version of reality’by Michelle Diskin Bates
BBC Breakfast
@BBCBreakfast
Mar 2
The sub-postmasters scandal continues.
#BBCBreakfast has found more than 50 cases of wrongful prosecutions are now being looked into by the
@ccrcupdate
Seema was accused of theft at her Post Office and went to prison.
@NinaWarhurst
and Seema went to visit her former shop Arrow pointing rightwards then curving downwards
Michelle Diskin Bates
@Michelle_Diskin
Robin Garbutt had this used against him in a murder trial, he was a postmaster. He’s Innocent. The evidence was ‘bad character’ based on the supposed theft! Since there was nothing to link him to the murder, and Horzon was to blame, case should be reviewed. #Hanksoff3 #ccrcupdate
Just common sense?
@YouCommon
Absolute tosh. Diana was found with rigor mortis and dried blood matted in her hair despite supposedly being murdered 15 minutes earlier. Forensic pathology on undigested food would confirm she was killed hours earlier.
Michelle Diskin Bates
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@YouCommon
@BBCBreakfast
and 2 others
Oh my dear troll, I was waiting for you to out yourself again. All your posts are the same. Cruel and vindictive!
9:50 PM · Mar 2, 2020·Twitter for iPad
Just common sense?
@YouCommon
Replying to
@Michelle_Diskin
@BBCBreakfast
and 2 others
Murdering your wife is cruel and vindictive.
Sorry you don't like the facts but Garbutt is guilty.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1234581864385536000
50 Shades Of Gaslighting: Disturbing Signs An Abuser Is Twisting Your Reality
“Deliberate manipulators who gaslight with the intention of eroding your reality and rewriting history tend to use the “illusory truth effect” to their advantage. They will repeat falsehoods so often that they become ingrained in the victim’s mind as unshakeable truths.
“Gaslighting has become a well-known term in the abuse survivor community, particularly for the survivors of malignant narcissists. Unlike more vulnerable narcissists who may possess more of a capacity for remorse, malignant narcissists truly believe in their superiority, are grandiose and lie on the higher end of the narcissistic spectrum. They have [ censored word]ocial traits, demonstrate paranoia, bear an excessive sense of entitlement, show a callous lack of empathy and display an egregious liking for interpersonal exploitation.
https://thoughtcatalog.com/shahida-arabi/2017/11/50-shades-of-gaslighting-the-disturbing-signs-an-abuser-is-twisting-your-reality/
-
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
Poor RobinGarbutt's case would no doubt never have gone to trial had POHorizon ran their business as it should-it's now a heartbreaking wrongful conviction with so much pain for so many- 100% innocent-+still locked away -freedom4Robin Garbutt et al :,(
Yet further and blatant evidence of ‘gaslighting’ and ‘attempts to invalidate knowledge, with a fallacy based, fake version of reality’by Michelle Diskin Bates
BBC Breakfast
@BBCBreakfast
Mar 2
The sub-postmasters scandal continues.
#BBCBreakfast has found more than 50 cases of wrongful prosecutions are now being looked into by the
@ccrcupdate
Seema was accused of theft at her Post Office and went to prison.
@NinaWarhurst
and Seema went to visit her former shop Arrow pointing rightwards then curving downwards
Michelle Diskin Bates
@Michelle_Diskin
Robin Garbutt had this used against him in a murder trial, he was a postmaster. He’s Innocent. The evidence was ‘bad character’ based on the supposed theft! Since there was nothing to link him to the murder, and Horzon was to blame, case should be reviewed. #Hanksoff3 #ccrcupdate
Just common sense?
@YouCommon
Absolute tosh. Diana was found with rigor mortis and dried blood matted in her hair despite supposedly being murdered 15 minutes earlier. Forensic pathology on undigested food would confirm she was killed hours earlier.
Michelle Diskin Bates
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@YouCommon
@BBCBreakfast
and 2 others
Oh my dear troll, I was waiting for you to out yourself again. All your posts are the same. Cruel and vindictive!
9:50 PM · Mar 2, 2020·Twitter for iPad
Just common sense?
@YouCommon
Replying to
@Michelle_Diskin
@BBCBreakfast
and 2 others
Murdering your wife is cruel and vindictive.
Sorry you don't like the facts but Garbutt is guilty.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1234581864385536000
Mark Stilborn, Sallie Wood & Jane Metcalfe are being conned (Their interviews can be seen in news link below)
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
ITV Calendar news visited us to do a piece on Robin`s case...I think the facts speak louder than the opinion `Nice men do bad things..` The story makes the news because http://RobinGarbuttOfficial.com is factually,actually innocent - http://Freedom4RobinGarbuttOfficial.com x
Village postmaster: "I didn't kill my wife." March 2020
Excerpt:
”Robin Garbutt claims there is new evidence. One key question his defence team has raised is about DNA on the murder weapon.
Diana Garbutt was bludgeoned to death with a metal bar.
Two days after the murder, it was found by a police officer on a wall across the road from the post office.
When it was swabbed, scientists found DNA from one unknown male and a police officer. New experts instructed by Garbutt's defence team say the same officer's DNA may well be among mixed DNA samples found in the rust on the pillow on Diana Garbutt's bed. But the officer was not on duty on the day of the murder. Robin Garbutt's defence team suggest that, at best, evidence has been seriously contaminated.
https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2020-03-03/village-postmaster-i-didn-t-kill-my-wife/
Sandra Leans book ‘No Smoke’, which she claimed she’d pulled from publication, is sat on the table in front of Sallie Wood - sister of Robin Garbutt
Sandra Lean today states here:http://jeremybamberforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,9986.msg456199.html#msg456199
“I apologise for any confusion - No Smoke was published more than 12 years ago, before I had access to all of the case papers and I haven't read it/referenced it for many years. The book was based largely on court transcripts, which were all I had at the time. I've contacted the publisher today to ask for the book to be withdrawn.
-
A classic case of ‘innocent fraud’
”A widower languishing behind bars for nearly ten years over a murder he claims he did not commit has made a new attempt to clear his name.
Diana Garbutt, 40, was killed by three heavy blows to the head with a rusty iron bar on March 23, 2010.
Postmaster husband Robin, 54, phoned 999 after apparently discovering her bloodied body in the living quarters upstairs at the post office he and his wife ran together in the North Yorkshire village of Melsonby. He claims the balaclava-clad intruder who held him up and forced him to hand over £16,000 from the safe was responsible.
But Garbutt was convicted by a jury majority of 10 to two a year later at Teesside Crown Court and jailed for life despite no physical evidence linking him to the scene.
As part of a third application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission to have the investigation reopened, his legal team raise serious questions surrounding the DNA evidence.
When the murder weapon was swabbed, it was found to contain a full DNA profile belonging to an unknown male and another which later matched one of the police officers present when it was discovered.
They also suggest the same constable’s sample could potentially be among a mixed profile of at least three unknown males which was recovered from a rust mark on a pillowcase in the bedroom where she was killed – despite him not being on duty when the scene was examined, suggesting key evidence may have been contaminated.
Campaigners fighting for Garbutt’s release claim the unknown profile may hold the key to identifying the real killer, while all the other evidence pointing to his guilt has now been disproved.
A key part of the prosecution case was the time of death but the expert who gave evidence at trial has since been contradicted by a Home Office pathologist.
Jurors were told Diana died between 2.30am and 4.30am – long before the post office’s central locking system allowed the safe to be opened, at 8.30am. The assertion seemingly blew a huge hole in Garbutt’s claims of a robbery gone wrong.
But the expert instructed by his legal team subsequently concluded the time of death may have been much later than 4.30am – possibly even after 6.45am.
The revelation indicates it would have been almost impossible for Garbutt to have carried out the murder because the till roll shows a stream of customers from 5.15am through to around 8.30am that morning. Many of those gave evidence at the trial and all recalled Garbutt seeming his normal self.
The motive was said to have been that he was stealing cash from the post office, staged the robbery to cover up the shortfall and killed her, either in the process of it, or perhaps because she found out.
At around the same time, similar allegations of theft had been levelled at a dozens of other postmasters up and down the country after the computerised accounts showed money apparently going missing from the branches.
But it has since emerged that there was a massive glitch in the Horizon IT system which culminated in the Post Office recently settling a mammoth High Court case brought by 550 wrongly accused former postmasters for £58 million.
Although not one of the 56 who now look set to launch Britain’s largest ever miscarriage of justice case, Garbutt’s supporters hope the added weight of the scandal will help force the CCRC into action.
A long-time friend of his is leading the campaign for his release. Jane Metcalfe told Metro.co.uk: ‘Had the system worked properly, there is every chance that Robin’s case never would have got to trial because it would have proved he wasn’t stealing money and that plank of the prosecution case never would have arisen.’
Yet the CCRC has twice refused to refer the case back to the Court of Appeal because there is no new or fresh evidence to fulfil the body’s ‘real possibility test’ – in other words, a good chance an appeal court would quash the conviction. A spokesman said a ‘detailed analysis’ setting out the reasons accompanied each refusal and confirmed the latest application would be considered with an open mind.
Despite the brutality of the murder, there is no forensic evidence tying Garbutt to the crime scene. There was no blood spatter on his clothes and none of his DNA on either the pillowcase or the iron bar which was found on top of a wall across the road two days later.
Inexplicably, the most vital piece of evidence in the entire case was lost before the trial even started.
Crime scene photographs show a clump of hair on one of the pillows. It does not appear to belong to Diana or her husband, so had she ripped it from her attacker’s head during a struggle it would surely have held the killer’s DNA profile.
Solicitor Glyn Maddocks – who has been made an honorary QC for his work on miscarriages of justice – called the blunder ‘shocking’.
He told Metro.co.uk: ‘The way in which the forensic work has been handled and dealt with is disgraceful. It’s absolutely disgraceful and no-one could possibly argue otherwise.
‘It’s just such a shocking case. If it was you or your relative, you’d be absolutely horrified.’
With the key planks of the original prosecution case having seemingly disintegrated, Mr Maddocks is not even sure they would pursue a retrial.
Ms Metcalfe says there was only ever ‘circumstantial evidence. And that’s gone now.’
She added: ‘The people who killed Di have gotten away with it for 10 years and are still free. It’s dreadful, utterly heartbreaking.’
Leading academic expert on miscarriages of justice Dr Michael Naughton, who founded Empowering the Innocent and has chosen a select number of cases to work on, explained that the CCRC was set up to investigate possible miscarriages of justice which failed on appeal.
He said: ‘The public deserve to know: should we have sympathy for this poor fella in prison when he’s innocent – as is claimed in the Robin Garbutt case – or actually know that this evil person murdered somebody and is showing absolutely no remorse?
‘When innocent people are in prison, the guilty are at unlawful liberty and they are committing more crime.’
Dr Naughton said he considers it ‘plausible’ that Garbutt is one of those people in prison for a crime they did not commit.
He said: ‘I think that in this particular case, because of the unknown male’s DNA on the murder weapon, we could establish who actually killed Diana.’
https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/06/postmaster-serving-life-killing-wife-launches-fresh-bid-freedom-12355556/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
-
Solicitor Glyn Maddocks – who has been made an honorary QC for his work on miscarriages of justice – called the blunder ‘shocking’.
He told Metro.co.uk: ‘The way in which the forensic work has been handled and dealt with is disgraceful. It’s absolutely disgraceful and no-one could possibly argue otherwise.
‘It’s just such a shocking case. If it was you or your relative, you’d be absolutely horrified.’
’
Diane Garbutts mother said she,
“attended everyday of the trial.. after listening to every word said and with great effort to put myself mentally in the jury box with an open mind.. I am beyond confident that Mr Garbutt is in the right place.
I understand why his family and friends would love to see him freed but all I hear is - he’s such a nice man he couldn’t possibly have done such a thing, but nice men sadly do”
https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2020-03-03/village-postmaster-i-didn-t-kill-my-wife/
-
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
Simple really, not enough people care enough to raise awareness of the failures of the @ccrcupdate in assisting alleged innocent applicants and/or are willing to fight against the “real possibility test” and fresh evidence criteria and the reform or replacement of the CCRC.
Liked by Trudi Benjamin & 5 others
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
Feb 23
I care deeply and the more aware I become the more determined I am to do all I can - Freedom for http://RobinGarbuttOfficial.com
Why hasn’t the ‘penny dropped’ for Hanksoff03 that she is another of Robin Garbutts victims?
And why are those around her clearly playing on her emotions as opposed to helping her view the case objectively?
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
Feb 23
Heartbreakingly true @Michelle_Diskin
. http://RobinGarbuttOfficial.com `s fighting a great big machine, one that should be giving hope2the factually innocent,recognising truth+protecting them+rescuing them from shocking mistakes in CJS system, that put them in prison in the first place
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
Mar 5
Well done Jane on getting this coverage of Robin Garbutt’s claim of innocence in the 10th Anniversary of his conviction. The more noise about alleged wrongful conviction cases the more likely something might be done in response. Keep up the fantastic work!
@ccrcupdate
-
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
Mar 5
Well done Jane on getting this coverage of Robin Garbutt’s claim of innocence in the 10th Anniversary of his conviction. The more noise about alleged wrongful conviction cases the more likely something might be done in response. Keep up the fantastic work!
@ccrcupdate
Never heard of Neil Wilby until he recently published the following blog re Robin Garbutt case
https://neilwilby.com/2020/03/28/dont-do-anything-stupid-weve-got-your-wife/
It appears from the content of his blog, Neil Wilby has seen the following tweets
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
1/2 Thank you Wullie, but I suspect you are dealing with an ignorant troll. We never said that Simon Hall WAS innocent. Rather, we investigated his claim of innocence, which is a fundamentally different things, and showed the so called “evidence” to be totally discredited.
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1186526810068193281
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
2/2 We were informed by his wife that he had confessed & wrote to him for confirmation & to let us know HOW he did it. He did not reply. We have never seen a signed confession. But, even if he did confess, like many innocent victims do, HOW did he do it & where is the evidence?
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1186527971970048001
Huddersfield's Neil Wilby ordered to pay £78,000 in Savile slur libel damages and costs to policeman
https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-news/huddersfields-neil-wilby-ordered-pay-7331770
‘Malicious blogger' Neil Wilby banned from contacting Independent Police Complaints Commission investigators after 'tormenting' them online
https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-news/malicious-blogger-neil-wilby-banned-7972575
-
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
2/2 We were informed by his wife that he had confessed & wrote to him for confirmation & to let us know HOW he did it. He did not reply. We have never seen a signed confession. But, even if he did confess, like many innocent victims do, HOW did he do it & where is the evidence?
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1186527971970048001
Dr Michael Naughton’s comment in bold in his above tweet is classic ‘narc speak’ - and I’ve long suspected it’s intentional
His recent public denial re ‘the confession’ is all about Michael Naughton protecting himself from reality due to what appears to me to be his inability to cope with what the facts & truth would mean to him on both a personal and professional level.
It’s also classic ‘gaslighting’ behaviour in action, which to date only Neil Wilby and William Beck have chosen to publicly run with
We must not forget that the UOBIP is also taking forward the case of self-confessed car thief William Beck in an attempt to overturn his conviction for armed robbery of a mail van in Livingston on 16 December 1981.
Of five eyewitnesses to the robbery, only two picked out Mr Beck at an identity parade. Only two?? @)(++(*
The team at Bristol concluded that it was not possible to conclude beyond reasonable doubt that a miscarriage of justice did not occur. 8(0(*
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-14582866
Following excerpt taken from foot of this article https://www.thejusticegap.com/open-letter-ccrc-2/Michael Naughton says:
”.....after 10 years of trying to work together with allegedly like-minded people with the same core aim – help to get innocent people to overturn their convictions and clear their names – it is clear to me that there are many different motives that are also at play and which can undermine what I think of as the core aim – careers, student recruitment, cv’s, vanity, to name but a few.
As you well know, INUK was set up as with the express aim of aiding working together but, as is documented on the INUK website, members generally failed to get involved on any level (even attending meetings and training events for a step too far for most) and casework was negligible for many
-
Dr Michael Naughton - 2013
“We are not shocked - we are alive to the possibility that a lot of people who say they are innocent are not.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-23630287
2020
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
At the very least, all prisoners maintaining innocence past tariff should be bailed until the coronavirus crisis is over. They have served their time as required by the courts & the authorities need to ask what do they have to gain by saying they are innocent if they are not?!
Says Dr Michael Naughton
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
Should the @ccrcupdate not be involved in the call for innocent prisoners to be released from prison so they reduce their risk of contracting and/or being killed by coronavirus as it is the publicly funded body established by Parliament to help victims of miscarriages of justice?
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1245233437528731651
The above tweet was liked by Michelle Diskin Bates
Who around the same time commented on a tweet made by Susan Young “How this woman stood by Barry George and helped him survive” https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/aug/03/jilldando.mentalhealth
Professor Susan Young
@DrSusanYoung1
I went to bed last night upset. Id read a tweet/comments criticising clin psychologists 4 posting tips to help ppl in #lockdown. We’re all doing what what we can. We are/were also part of NHS. A colleagues been deployed to debrief frontline staff. How fast ppl forget to #BeKind
9:25 AM · Apr 2, 2020·Twitter for iPhone
Michelle Diskin Bates Ribbon
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@DrSusanYoung1
Really? What ignorance! We need all the help we can get...wisdom, discernment, the experiences of others. Personally, I can choose which advice I follow, but if it’s not there...there’s NO CHOICE. Well done
@DrSusanYoung1
Professor Susan Young
@DrSusanYoung1
Replying to
@Michelle_Diskin
Thank you. You are so right. People a quick to criticise and slow to praise.
Michelle Diskin Bates
@Michelle_DDiskin
I have to keep reminding myself hurting-people, HURT people
Professor Susan Young
@DrSusanYoung1
Thank you Louise. It really did distress me. I didn’t sleep well. They implied that we were responsible for making people feel anxious. I just thought to myself ‘I may as well hang up my boots’. Silly really and not like me to feel like giving up
Professor Susan Young
@DrSusanYoung1
So true Melanie. Everyone is doing what they can. I wonder what that person is doing? I didn’t respond as I don’t think it’s an appropriate time to take it on. People are dying. I hope though he sees what I wrote and thinks about it
Professor Susan Young
@DrSusanYoung1
Perhaps he is lucky and hasn’t been affected yet. I know two young people with COVID, both early 20’s and v unwell. One is a good friend of my daughter (who is now in self isolation). Elderly people are really suffering in self-I. We must all be constructive and positive
-
2020
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
At the very least, all prisoners maintaining innocence past tariff should be bailed until the coronavirus crisis is over. They have served their time as required by the courts & the authorities need to ask what do they have to gain by saying they are innocent if they are not?!
Says Dr Michael Naughton
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
For Dovstoyevsky, a society can be judged on how it treats its prisoners. How might we judge the current UK society from this perspective?
9:36 AM · Apr 2, 2020
-
2020
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
At the very least, all prisoners maintaining innocence past tariff should be bailed until the coronavirus crisis is over. They have served their time as required by the courts & the authorities need to ask what do they have to gain by saying they are innocent if they are not?!
Says Dr Michael Naughton
Michelle Diskin Bates
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@EmpowerInnocent
We are near Easter, remember Pontius Pilate? Who shall I release? And the crowd shouted...BARRABAS the murderer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barabbas
-
Who around the same time commented on a tweet made by Susan Young “How this woman stood by Barry George and helped him survive” https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/aug/03/jilldando.mentalhealth
Professor Susan Young
@DrSusanYoung1
I went to bed last night upset. Id read a tweet/comments criticising clin psychologists 4 posting tips to help ppl in #lockdown. We’re all doing what what we can. We are/were also part of NHS. A colleagues been deployed to debrief frontline staff. How fast ppl forget to #BeKind
9:25 AM · Apr 2, 2020·Twitter for iPhone
Jamie Dowards Guardian article claims Dr Susan Young said the following about Barry George,
'Once we'd established a history of epilepsy it was important to get him on the appropriate medication to stop the chance of seizures,'
’He's very anxious and has panic attacks, so I administered strategies to control his feelings of anxiety. They've been shown to be effective in reducing the likelihood of epileptic seizures.'
Was Barry George ‘very anxious’ and did he have ‘panic attacks’ or could he have been ‘mirroring’ the possible anxieties of those people around him?
Professor Susan Young
@DrSusanYoung1
Thank you Louise. It really did distress me. I didn’t sleep well. They implied that we were responsible for making people feel anxious. I just thought to myself ‘I may as well hang up my boots’. Silly really and not like me to feel like giving up
Do people like Dr Susan Young make ‘people feel anxious’ as she herself suggests has been implied?
And has Dr Susan Young ever considered Jill Dando’s family and friends ‘anxieties’ ?
“Barry, too, suffers from epilepsy, and the condition - which was not properly diagnosed until shortly before the trial - may have contributed to the mental problems he seems to have developed.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/jul/03/jilldando.media5
“It is now accepted that George does suffer from a mild form of epilepsy, though the experts are divided about its effects. Some believe George deliberately exaggerates the condition, others claim it has caused "severe brain dysfunction"
http://jeremybamberforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,8126.msg384497.html#msg384497
Did Barry George ‘deliberately’ exaggerate ‘the condition’ and how would Dr Susan Young know whether or not he did?
According to the same Guardian article, she also apparently claimed,
'He was responding very badly to the media,'
'There were photographs of him on the front pages and he became very distressed about this, quite preoccupied with it. When he becomes preoccupied he can't see the wood for the trees - he couldn't focus on the main issues that were important to discuss because he had his own topics whizzing around his head.'
How could Dr Susan Young possibly know what was ‘whizzing around’ Barry Georges ‘head’ and did she never consider the fact the reason he may have been displaying possible signs of ‘anxiety’ was because he’d murdered Jill Dando?
“When he becomes preoccupied he can't see the wood for the trees“ - given Barry George had been charged with murdering Jill Dando was this the wisest choice of statements to make?
When asked by Ian Florance, “What qualities do you think you need as a forensic psychologist?” part of Dr Susan Youngs response was,
”How you deal with clients and cases that touch you very personally and emotionally is an issue that has recurred throughout my career. Just as I found I couldn’t work with very ill children at Great Ormond Street, I couldn’t work with victims of crime. I’d get too empathetic. I can work with many sorts of perpetrators and keep professional objectivity.
You must not be judgemental. If you are then you have no chance of engaging the client. This is what people have most difficulty understanding. The Barry George case illustrates this. It wasn’t important whether he was innocent or guilty. My role was to give him support so that he got a fair trial. Of course, you can’t work with someone for that long and not have views about them. Given the final verdict I was sorry he had spent eight years in prison, but I was pleased that he got a fair trial and impressed with the justice system that appointed me in the support role”
https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-21/edition-11/move-over-cracker
Given Dr Susan Young has claimed all of the above why does she appear slighted because she’s allegedly been ‘criticised’’?
“I went to bed last night upset. Id read a tweet/comments criticising clin psychologists 4 posting tips to help ppl in #lockdown”
Has she never considered how Jill Dando’s family and friends felt after reading her own comments on Barry George?
“I couldn’t work with victims of crime. I’d get too empathetic. I can work with many sorts of perpetrators and keep professional objectivity”
?
And if as she claimed, “it wasn’t important whether he was innocent or guilty”why then state, ‘I was sorry he had spent eight years in prison’
'“There were suggestions George played up his mental and medical problems. During his first trial, George brought up a blue liquid which he claimed was bile. It transpired it was washing-up liquid.
But such behaviour appears to have been a manifestation of George's anxiety problems.
'It has to be seen in context,' Young said.
‘He had complex problems. He was clearly an isolated, lonely man who would wander around the streets of Fulham without human contact. His days were spent interacting with clinics, hospitals, housing associations, the council and libraries. By claiming to be ill he would feel cared for and feel someone was giving him attention.’
Today, George cuts a different figure from the man who first appeared in the dock eight years ago, according to Young.
'He's matured: in this trial he was better than in the last one and I would attribute that to him being on the appropriate levels of medication. The second time around he was more familiar with the process, what he needed to do”
Barry George had been in a criminal court several times before his trial for murdering Jill Dando and would have therefore known ‘what he needed to do’ and in all his previous court cases he’d never needed the aid of someone like Dr Susan Young.
-
When asked by Ian Florance, “What qualities do you think you need as a forensic psychologist?” part of Dr Susan Youngs response was,
”You must not be judgemental. If you are then you have no chance of engaging the client. This is what people have most difficulty understanding. The Barry George case illustrates this. It wasn’t important whether he was innocent or guilty. My role was to give him support so that he got a fair trial. Of course, you can’t work with someone for that long and not have views about them. Given the final verdict I was sorry he had spent eight years in prison, but I was pleased that he got a fair trial and impressed with the justice system that appointed me in the support role”
https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-21/edition-11/move-over-cracker
Professor Susan Young
@DrSusanYoung1
Only one person in my road came out to clap.Same last week. If they were ill, they would want the help. I banged my saucepan for all of them!I hope I disturbed their tv viewing. Thank you NHS, drivers, carers, police, forces and everyone 4 keeping us going. Lifeline
Professor Susan Young
@DrSusanYoung1
Replying to
@Michelle_Diskin
Thank you. You are so right. People a quick to criticise and slow to praise.
Caroline
@MoaningEdna
Replying to
@DrSusanYoung1
A bit judgemental don’t you think? You don’t know their reasons for not participating. Only seen this because ADHD foundation liked it which is disappointing because having ADHD myself I completely forgot about the 8pm clapping and felt really bad.
Professor Susan Young
@DrSusanYoung1
Don’t feel bad, that’s understandable. But as for my road - it’s a small close with no community spirit. I know my neighbours.......
https://mobile.twitter.com/DrSusanYoung1/status/1245790932139675648
Does Dr Susan Young ‘know’ her neighbours in the same way she appeared to presume to know Barry George?
“I've never heard him say anything that made me think, "That was a bit odd,"' Young said.
'Having observed how he behaves when he becomes very distressed, how that affects his concentration levels, his ability to function, how he's even more slowed up and very confused and doesn't know left from right, I can't see really how he could have committed this crime and faded into the background. It doesn't fit.'
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/aug/03/jilldando.mentalhealth
“doesn't know left from right” *&^^&
Barry George never ‘faded into the background’ as Dr Susan Young claimed, he was attempting to create an alibi straight after the murder and using the name Bulsara at the time. Many of his previous violent offences against women were filed under other aliases of his, which made things difficult for police (Which is one reason why men like Barry George choose to use aliases)
-
Professor Susan Young
@DrSusanYoung1
Replying to
@Michelle_Diskin
It’s shocking. I recall prison officers at the Old Bailey. They should all have been fired. He was refused medication and water. Some were deliberately confrontational, mocking and goading him. I have contemporaneous notes of it. Really must do something with that.
https://mobile.twitter.com/DrSusanYoung1/status/1148677638002659328
If what Dr Susan Young wrote above is true and she’s done nothing with her “contemporaneous notes” since back then this in itself is ‘shocking’ - how many others could have allegedly suffered at the hands of these prison officers?
-
Glyn Maddocks: Criminal justice won’t face up to miscarriages
‘The long-serving campaigner for historic appeals fears that the commission is too weak to right past wrongs, he tells Catherine Baksi
“In every other walk of life, if something goes wrong an independent inquiry looks into failures and errors - the criminal justice system doesn’t”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/glyn-maddox-criminal-justice-wont-face-up-to-miscarriages-dj2v7gz2w
’Criminal justice won’t face up to miscarriages’ or -
those working within the ‘miscarriage of justice/wrongful conviction’ arena won’t face up to having been conned/getting it wrong
Righting a wrong
‘A solicitor who fights to free innocent people from jail and champion the cases everyone else has given up on has become the Western Mail Welsh Lawyer of the Year in Private Practice. Glyn Maddocks tells Anna Morrell what motivates him
Page 2 - Cases from Glyn Maddocks's portfolio
“DAVID BURGESS was convicted in 1967, when he was 19, of the murder of two girls in Berkshire. He has been in prison for the past 38 years. Throughout he has protested his innocence.
"Again, the evidence against him at the time was not particularly strong," says Maddocks. "But in those days, it was very unusual to challenge a conviction, and he has always found it very difficult to articulate his position.
"This case is in its early stages and it is obviously very difficult piecing together what happened almost 40 years ago, obtaining appropriate documentary and forensic evidence."
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/local-news/righting-a-wrong-2359141
Yolande Waddington: David Burgess guilty of nanny's murder
”A convicted child killer has been found guilty of the murder of a teenager in Berkshire 46 years ago.
Yolande Waddington, 17, was found strangled in the village of Beenham in October 1966.
David Burgess, 64, was jailed for life in 1967 for the killing of nine-year-old girls Jeanette Wigmore and Jacqueline Williams in Beenham.
He was charged with Yolande's murder following advances in DNA techniques and convicted after a five-week trial.
The jury at Reading Crown Court convicted Burgess by a majority verdict of 11 to one.
Jurors had been deliberating since Monday.
Speaking on behalf of the family outside court, Yolande's brother Giles Waddington broke down as he read from a statement.
He said: "We're grateful that justice has now been completed and that Yolande's murderer has been identified after more than 45 years.
"Yolande's murder had a traumatic and irreversible effect on our family life and has cast a long shadow over nearly five decades."
Yolande had only recently moved to the village to work as a nanny at a farm when she was killed.
She was last seen alive at the Six Bells pub on the evening of Friday, 28 October 1966.
During the trial, the jury heard Yolande's naked body was discovered in a ditch beside a farmer's barn two days later.
She had been stabbed and strangled and tied up with a jumper knotted around her face.
Blood from Yolande's attacker had been found on a number of items, including her comb and hair band.
Detectives from Scotland Yard were sent to Beenham to help with the investigation and carried out the first ever mass blood screening, with samples taken from 200 males in the area aged between 16 and 60.
A sample supposedly from Burgess was also taken, but it failed to meet one of the tests and was deemed not to be a match.
Police believe he may have got someone else to give a sample on his behalf or the specimen was labelled incorrectly.
Last year, Thames Valley Police carried out a review into the case and using a new technique obtained a partial DNA profile which matched Burgess's.
Pete Beirne, the force's principal investigator of cold cases, said:
"David Burgess has never accepted his guilt despite confessing to the crime to prison officers on three separate occasions.
"He has never fully explained how or why he killed Yolande."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-18861198
Murder Map Feb 2019 (Source: Real People mag)
‘The bright moon shone over the sleepy village. It illuminated a pictureperfect scene. Quaint homes were dotted for more than a mile across the ridge of the Kennet Valley, looking out over the rolling farmland of the North Wessex Downs.
They housed just a few hundred people. This is Beenham, Berkshire.
It’s 50 miles from London but, in 1966, it may as well have been a million miles from the ’60s swinging in the capital.
Back then, this little village had one primary school, a 12th-century church, no shops and a solitary pub, The Six Bells.
So it was to the pub that 17-year-old Yolande Waddington went looking to buy a pack of cigarettes at 10pm on 28 October.
Beenham was the sort of place where doors went unlocked. Why bother? Everyone knew everyone. But Yolande’s face was new. Having only arrived in the village from nearby Newbury five days earlier to work as a nanny, she must have drawn some attention that night.
After buying her cigarettes, she stood in an oatmeal coloured jumper, her dark curtain of hair pushed back by a white headband, and smoked a single fag in the pub.
Then, she stepped out into the night.
It was less than a mile back to Hall Place Farm, where she worked.
The next day, farmhand Alfie Woodley found some clothing scattered in a barn on the farm. He thought nothing of it.
The barn was a well-known spot for ‘courting’ couples.
Not long after though, Yolande’s employer reported her missing. She’d failed to return from the pub.
To the local police, the missing person’s report was shocking. Nothing ever happened in Beenham. The most they had to deal with was the odd pub fight.
As officers began hunting for Yolande, the farmhand told his employer about the clothes in the barn. And on 30 October, her boss, farmer Peter Jagger, went out looking for her on his land.
Down near the barn, he made a horrifying discovery.
Yolande’s body lay on its side, half submerged in a water-filled ditch. She was naked, but for a pair of socks. Her hands were tied behind her back, her bloodstained jumper stuffed in her mouth.
She’d been stabbed in the chest and back, but the superficial wounds hadn’t killed her. Her death had instead been caused by the ball of twine tightly wrapped four times around her neck.
Many of the local police had only read about murders in textbooks. Now, there was a dead teenager in their village and an actual murderer on the loose.
Due to the remote location of the barn, it was felt that the killer had to be local. But who in this quiet, innocent hamlet could do something like this?
Officers from the Met Police were immediately drafted in to help in the hunt.
Everyone was desperate to catch the monster in their midst.
Locals reeled from yet another tragedy
Statements were taken from more than 4,000 people in and around the area. Every single Beenham villager was interviewed. Nineteen-year-old David Burgess was one of them.
A bully who’d spent his school days picking wings off insects, David was bad news. An air pistol accident had left him with a glass eye and a menacing glare.
The landlady of The Six Bells confirmed he’d been in drinking when Yolande visited.
He’d left the pub soon after her. The next day, he’d had scratches on his face and a cut to his finger. When questioned, he admitted recently losing a penknife of the sort found at the murder scene.
It was incriminating. But the police needed firm evidence. Their tests showed some of the blood on Yolande’s jumper wasn’t hers.
But back then, blood screening was in its infancy.
It couldn’t be definitive proof of who had committed a crime, but could rule people out. So police launched a national first
– a mass blood screening. All men in and around Beenham aged 16 to 60 were tested.
Of the 200 in this group, just four matched the blood type found at the scene. None of them were David Burgess.
He wasn’t Yolande’s killer.
All four of the men – including David’s brother, John – were investigated, but ruled out, too. Police were at a loss.
Six months later, on 17 April 1967, the investigation had just been wound down when two nine year-olds left their Beenham homes looking for primroses.
Yet Jeanette Wigmore and Jacqueline Williams never arrived home with their flowers. On high alert after Yolande, 20 police and a crowd of villagers were soon out scouring their streets for the girls.
Surely, evil couldn’t possibly strike twice?
Yet, within half an hour, a searcher came across two tiny bodies in Blake’s Pit, a lonely disused gravel pit on the edge of the village.
Jacqueline had been sexually assaulted and drowned, Jeanette’s throat was slit.
Locals reeled from yet another unthinkable tragedy.
Children’s bedroom windows were locked at night, plain-clothed officers sat in the pub listening out for clues and neighbours viewed each other with suspicion.
The murders were heard about across the world. Everyone was looking to Beenham. And they all wanted justice.
Police didn’t have to look far. In the crowds that’d been hunting for the girls was a familiar face – David Burgess.
He’d gone on to talk to television reporters, even extending his condolences to Terence Williams, Jacqueline’s father.
It was suspicious.
After all, David worked as a dumper truck driver at Fisher’s Pit, neighbouring Blake’s Pit.
He’d also been missing for 20 minutes around the time of the murder.
Police hauled him in for questioning. His clothes were seized. On one boot, some blood was found that matched the blood grouping of one of the murdered children.
In July 1967, just four months after the killings, Burgess was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the murders of Jacqueline and Jeanette.
But did Beenham still hold another killer?
In 1968, while in Durham prison, Burgess made a brazen admission to prison officers. On three separate occasions, he confessed to killing Yolande.
When detectives arrived at the jail on 3 April 1968 to quiz him though, Burgess refused to repeat what he’d said.
Instead, he taunted them, smirking, ‘You’ll have to prove it.’ A line later used by child killer & mass murderer Jeremy Bamber during his murder trial
The blood on Yolande’s jumper was once again tested. Yet again, it wasn’t a match for Burgess! Police were back at square one.
Time marched on. Yolande’s mother died without ever seeing justice for her daughter. The press clippings on the murders grew yellow, faded.
But, to the people of Beenham, their lost girls were never forgotten, the town’s innocence never regained.
In September 1996, Burgess escaped from Leyhill Open Prison in Gloucestershire. Did the villagers he’d once counted as neighbours, look over their shoulders after the news?
Burgess was only recaptured 17 months later in February 1998, when he brazenly robbed a bank for £2,500. In 2011, Thames Valley Police carried out a cold case review of Yolande’s murder, due to advances in DNA technology.
However, the cold case team faced an immediate blow. Yolande’s jumper, that’d held the blood stains, had been lost in the 45 years since the crime.
Yet the police refused to give up. They re-tested all the available evidence for blood that wasn’t Yolande’s. New blood stains were found on a polythene fertiliser sack from the scene and Yolande’s white headband.
The samples were tiny, but lab work had advanced incredibly since the initial investigation. This time, experts found that the blood matched David Burgess.
In fact, they estimated that the likelihood of the DNA coming from anyone other than Burgess was ‘smaller than one in a billion’.
Rock solid proof.
Police suspected that in the chaos of the pioneering blood screen back in the ’60s, Burgess had got someone else to give his sample, or the blood had been incorrectly labelled.
Either way, a mistake had left Burgess free to kill again.
But would a jury believe it? In June 2012, a bored looking Burgess, now greying and overweight, began a new trial at Reading Crown Court. The jury were told to disregard his conviction for the murder of the nine-year-old girls.
His defence, Mr Bennathan QC told the jury, ‘Do not start off being so horrified that the man standing over there is a double child murderer. The temptation is just to say we know he’s a monster, we know he killed them [Jeanette Wigmore and Jacqueline Williams], he must have killed someone else. Life is more complicated than that.’
As for the new DNA match, he told the jury not to be ‘blinded by science’. After all, hadn’t it been wrong back in the ’60s?
But times had moved on, and this jury trusted technology. After 45 long, painful years, David Burgess was convicted of Yolande’s murder in July 2012.
The now three-times convicted killer was jailed for an additional life term, and ordered to spend a minimum of 27 years in prison.
Burgess, 65, checked his watch and sighed loudly as he was told he’d be locked up until he was at least 92 years old.
As he was led from court, he laughed loudly, the final petulant act of a heartless old man.
After nearly half a century, Yolande’s family and the residents of Beenham finally have answers.
Three girls died, an idyllic village was changed for ever, but Burgess is paying the full price for his evil debauchery at last.
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/real-people/20190221/281547997161066
-
Mick Geen
@J4BenGeen
Such valuable work for the wrongly convicted-
@Madocwales
has spent more than 30yrs representing individuals who have suffered miscarriages of justice-Next month & in recognition of his work in this field Glyn Maddox will be made an honorary Queen’s Counsel.
Glyn Maddocks: Criminal justice won’t face up to miscarriages
‘The long-serving campaigner for historic appeals fears that the commission is too weak to right past wrongs, he tells Catherine Baksi
“In every other walk of life, if something goes wrong an independent inquiry looks into failures and errors - the criminal justice system doesn’t”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/glyn-maddox-criminal-justice-wont-face-up-to-miscarriages-dj2v7gz2w
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
So happy that Glyn`s (
@Madocwales ) incredible work is being recognised.His dedication2the whole cause of wrongful convictions is remarkable+I will never be able2thank him enough for all the help given in our fight for http://RobinGarbuttOfficial.com. A truly lovely, lovely gentleman x
Glyn Maddocks, ‘A truly lovely, lovely gentleman’, - and it appears an ideal ‘target’ for a con artist
’Criminal justice won’t face up to miscarriages’ or -
those working within the ‘miscarriage of justice/wrongful conviction’ arena won’t face up to having been conned/getting it wrong
Paul Blackburn has yet to ‘clear his name’
https://www.gettyimages.ae/detail/video/paul-blackburn-appeal-against-attempted-murder-conviction-news-footage/680863732
https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/video/paul-blackburn-appeal-against-attempted-murder-conviction-news-footage/680863594
And whilst Glyn Maddocks may well be ‘a lovely, lovely gentleman’ he’s no more immune to being duped than the rest of us.
https://www.gettyimages.ae/detail/video/paul-blackburn-appeal-against-attempted-murder-conviction-news-footage/680863732
Would be interested to hear what lessons, if any, Glyn Maddocks learned following the exposure of David Burgess’s guilt?
David Burgess is clearly a psychopath who had confessed to murder whilst in prison yet Glyn Maddocks stated,
“Again, the evidence against him at the time was not particularly strong,"
“But in those days, it was very unusual to challenge a conviction, and he has always found it very difficult to articulate his position”
Paul Blackburn confessed:
He ‘dropped his head and began to cry. He said "Yes, it was me -- give me a minute"
and he had ‘form’ for ABH on two 9 year old boys
Excerpts
REGINA V BLACKBURN (Paul)
13. Then on 21st July 1978, DCI White and DI Marsh returned to Red Bank school to interview the appellant again. By now the officers had information about an apparently somewhat similar attack at Irlam involving the appellant two years before.
14. He was questioned about discrepancies between his statements and between his statements and those of others. Then the officers went on to refer to the Irlam events in 1976, when the appellant and another boy had been convicted of actual bodily harm on two nine year old boys. It was now said to the appellant that the incident had gone beyond a physical assault and had involved forcing the two boys to suck each other's penis and to try to commit b....ry with each other. The appellant was told that the police now had statements from the two boys and another boy who witnessed it.
15. In any event, at 12.40 pm during this fourth interview, immediately after these references to the 1976 incident, the appellant dropped his head and began to cry. He said "Yes, it was me -- give me a minute". He then looked at Mr McVitie, who said words to the effect: "It's up to you, Paul, the officers only want the truth".
https://www.casemine.com/judgement/uk/5b46f2072c94e0775e7f0c08
-
A doctor calls -- Dr Eric Shepherd, a man who can suss the psychology of the police station - 23 February 1994
Excerpt:
‘And while Dr Shepherd has become to the police 'the man they love to hate' (according to the Police Review), he may soon turn into 'the man they can't forget' to the legal profession.In conjunction with members of the Law Society's criminal law committee, Dr Shepherd has just produced a large training package on police station skills for solicitors' representatives.Its publication could not have come at a more opportune time, with research from the University of Warwick purporting to show a woeful inability on the part of legal advisers to counteract dubious police interviewing tactics.But what really gave the profession a kick in the pants was the Legal Aid Board's decision that all non-qualified legal representatives (except trainee solicitors) should pass a test and be registered by early next year if they were to continue to receive payment from public funds.Dr Shepherd's expertise was commissioned and the end result was Police Station Skills for Legal Advisers.
https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/a-doctor-calls-dr-eric-shepherd-a-man-who-can-suss-the-psychology-of-the-police-station-/19495.article
It’s all smoke and mirrors..
https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/video/paul-blackburn-cleared-of-attempted-murder-england-london-news-footage/680863396
-
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
2/2 We were informed by his wife that he had confessed & wrote to him for confirmation & to let us know HOW he did it. He did not reply. We have never seen a signed confession. But, even if he did confess, like many innocent victims do, HOW did he do it & where is the evidence?
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1186527971970048001
Dr Michael Naughton’s comment in bold in his above tweet is classic ‘narc speak’ - and I’ve long suspected it’s intentional
His recent public denial re ‘the confession’ is all about Michael Naughton protecting himself from reality due to what appears to me to be his inability to cope with what the facts & truth would mean to him on both a personal and professional level.
It’s also classic ‘gaslighting’ behaviour in action, which to date only Neil Wilby and William Beck have chosen to publicly run with
Following excerpt taken from foot of this article https://www.thejusticegap.com/open-letter-ccrc-2/
Michael Naughton says:
April 10, 2016
“.....after 10 years of trying to work together with allegedly like-minded people with the same core aim – help to get innocent people to overturn their convictions and clear their names – it is clear to me that there are many different motives that are also at play and which can undermine what I think of as the core aim – careers, student recruitment, cv’s, vanity, to name but a few.
https://www.thejusticegap.com/open-letter-ccrc-2/
And let’s not forget Dr Michael Naughton also claimed publicly in 2013,
“It is quite sad in terms of the waste of resources and the distress to (Mrs Albert's) family members when it turns out like this."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-23630287
His recent comments on the Simon Hall case suggest the above was nothing more than a throw away comment
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
1/2 Thank you Wullie, but I suspect you are dealing with an ignorant troll. We never said that Simon Hall WAS innocent. Rather, we investigated his claim of innocence, which is a fundamentally different things, and showed the so called “evidence” to be totally discredited.
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1186526810068193281
Appears Dr Michael Naughton would benefit from some work on his self awareness, maybe then he’d quit giving his ‘followers’ mixed messages;
“Michael’s research is highly interdisciplinary straddling critical criminology, criminal law and procedure, criminal appeals, penology and zemiology. It centres on the injustices and wider social harms relating to the dominant discourses, structures, procedures and operations of the criminal justice system. He has researched and written extensively on the causes, scope and harmful consequences of “miscarriages of justice” and the limitations and/or outright failings of the criminal justice system in dealing with factually innocent victims of wrongful conviction and/or imprisonment.
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/law/people/michael-j-naughton/index.html
-
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
2/2 We were informed by his wife that he had confessed & wrote to him for confirmation & to let us know HOW he did it. He did not reply. We have never seen a signed confession. But, even if he did confess, like many innocent victims do, HOW did he do it & where is the evidence?
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1186527971970048001
Dr Michael Naughton’s comment in bold in his above tweet is classic ‘narc speak’ - and I’ve long suspected it’s intentional
His recent public denial re ‘the confession’ is all about Michael Naughton protecting himself from reality due to what appears to me to be his inability to cope with what the facts & truth would mean to him on both a personal and professional level.
It’s also classic ‘gaslighting’ behaviour in action, which to date only Neil Wilby and William Beck have chosen to publicly run with
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
Many have asked me too but I won’t distinguish between innocent and guilty prisoners as prison is to take away a prisoner’s liberty not their life to something like coronavirus that @RobertBuckland. HM Prison Service and all prison staff have a duty of care to protect against.
Would be interested to learn how Dr Michael Naughton distinguishes between ‘innocent and guilty’ and why he appears to have backtracked having blatantly contradicted himself
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
At the very least, all prisoners maintaining innocence past tariff should be bailed until the coronavirus crisis is over. They have served their time as required by the courts & the authorities need to ask what do they have to gain by saying they are innocent if they are not?!
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
Should the @ccrcupdate not be involved in the call for innocent prisoners to be released from prison so they reduce their risk of contracting and/or being killed by coronavirus as it is the publicly funded body established by Parliament to help victims of miscarriages of justice?
-
50 Shades Of Gaslighting: Disturbing Signs An Abuser Is Twisting Your Reality
“Deliberate manipulators who gaslight with the intention of eroding your reality and rewriting history tend to use the “illusory truth effect” to their advantage. They will repeat falsehoods so often that they become ingrained in the victim’s mind as unshakeable truths.
“Gaslighting has become a well-known term in the abuse survivor community, particularly for the survivors of malignant narcissists. Unlike more vulnerable narcissists who may possess more of a capacity for remorse, malignant narcissists truly believe in their superiority, are grandiose and lie on the higher end of the narcissistic spectrum. They have [ censored word]ocial traits, demonstrate paranoia, bear an excessive sense of entitlement, show a callous lack of empathy and display an egregious liking for interpersonal exploitation.
https://thoughtcatalog.com/shahida-arabi/2017/11/50-shades-of-gaslighting-the-disturbing-signs-an-abuser-is-twisting-your-reality/
Michelle Diskin Bates
@Michelle_Diskin
Feb 16
Replying to
@reece_dinsdale
I’m someone who has been well and truly trolled! I see them for who and what they are...bullies. I’m fortunate that I don’t have to care about, nor engage with them. I just ‘OUT’ them. They don’t like exposure. Adversity made me strong!
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1229158096691437568
So ‘strong’ she chooses to remain silent on issues related to ‘violence against women’, for example
So ‘strong’ anyone who dares to question her version of events is classified a ‘troll’ or a ‘bully’
*&^^&
Why would Michelle Diskin Bates choose to not warn other women, like Hanksoff03, about the dangers of ‘malignant narcissists’ ?
Michelle Diskin Bates Retweeted
Qredible
@qredibleuk
Stop domestic abuse – break your silence now!
#violence #abuse #domesticabuse #crime #sufferings #pain #domesticviolence #divorce #domesticabusesurvivor #emotionalabuse #domesticviolenceawareness #hiddenabuse #familylaw
Confined at home: Domestic violence cases on the rise! - www.qredible.co.uk
Due to increased social and physical distancing in place in response to COVID-19, many domestic violence victims are at higher risk...
https://www.qredible.co.uk/b/advice-hub/criminal-law/domestic-violence/confined-at-home-domestic-violence/?__twitter_impression=true
https://mobile.twitter.com/qredibleuk/status/1245029143076536320
Yet she still chooses to remain silent towards women like Jane Metcalfe aka Hanksoff03
who it’s clear has been and is being groomed and conned
Hanksoff03 Retweeted
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
This battle against injustice affects all of us-the CJS needs2conquer apathy+challenge everything+anything that stands in the way of truth+transparency. It`s a huge battle but with good people that do exist within the system freedom+justice will happen4 http://RobinGarbutt.com X
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
· Mar 27
Great to see another excellent article about Robin Garbutt’s claim of innocence for the murder of his wife, Diana. Be interesting to see what the @ccrcupdate do with his 3rd application, which calls into question the reliability of all of the evidence that led to his conviction. https://twitter.com/JusticeGap/status/1243442818758082561
3:14 PM · Apr 5, 2020·Twitter Web App
-
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
Many have asked me too but I won’t distinguish between innocent and guilty prisoners as prison is to take away a prisoner’s liberty not their life to something like coronavirus that @RobertBuckland. HM Prison Service and all prison staff have a duty of care to protect against.
Would be interested to learn how Dr Michael Naughton distinguishes between ‘innocent and guilty’ and why he appears to have backtracked having blatantly contradicted himself
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
At the very least, all prisoners maintaining innocence past tariff should be bailed until the coronavirus crisis is over. They have served their time as required by the courts & the authorities need to ask what do they have to gain by saying they are innocent if they are not?!
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
Should the @ccrcupdate not be involved in the call for innocent prisoners to be released from prison so they reduce their risk of contracting and/or being killed by coronavirus as it is the publicly funded body established by Parliament to help victims of miscarriages of justice?
I don’t believe Dr Michael Naughton hasn’t joined the dots in the Simon Hall case and that it serves his purpose and personal agenda to attempt to deceive his unsuspecting audience (As it appears to me)
I don’t know if Laurence Cawley from the BBC misunderstood Dr Michael Naughton when he wrote,
“Dr Michael Naughton told how he received a letter last week from Hall's wife Stephanie telling him her husband had admitted the murder and asking him to close the case down.
or whether Dr Michael Naughton misled Mr Lawrence Cawley by claiming to have received a ‘letter’ from me?
But for the record no ‘letter’ was sent by me. The fact is Neil Bellis helped me communicate with both the CCRC and Dr Naughton regarding Simon Halls guilt via an email.
And Dr Michael Naughton chooses to omit the fact he phoned me following my email to him and that we had a lengthy chat about Simon Halls guilt
-
And let’s not forget Dr Michael Naughton also claimed publicly in 2013,
“It is quite sad in terms of the waste of resources and the distress to (Mrs Albert's) family members when it turns out like this."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-23630287
His recent comments on the Simon Hall case suggest the above was nothing more than a throw away comment
Appears Dr Michael Naughton would benefit from some work on his self awareness, maybe then he’d quit giving his ‘followers’ mixed messages;
“Michael’s research is highly interdisciplinary straddling critical criminology, criminal law and procedure, criminal appeals, penology and zemiology. It centres on the injustices and wider social harms relating to the dominant discourses, structures, procedures and operations of the criminal justice system. He has researched and written extensively on the causes, scope and harmful consequences of “miscarriages of justice” and the limitations and/or outright failings of the criminal justice system in dealing with factually innocent victims of wrongful conviction and/or imprisonment.
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/law/people/michael-j-naughton/index.html
Another ‘waste of resources’ case which appears some within the ‘miscarriage of justice’ arena were, at least up until 2017, still in denial over
”On Wednesday, in a preliminary hearing in London, three top judges said their case would not be heard until at least February next year.
Lady Justice Hallett said the men’s cases involve reams of documents dating back decades and hours of tape-recorded interviews.
The cases are due in court after a reference by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), the body which investigates potential miscarriages of justice.
“The CCRC says there is a chance that Charlton’s murder conviction and Ali’s manslaughter verdict are “unsafe”.
It has previously been revealed that part of the appeals will revolve around the detectives who were involved in the inquiry.
Craig Macgregor, for Charlton, said the “vulnerability” of a key prosecution witness could be central.
Charlton’s mental state could also feature, he said, as there are suggestions he was not actually fit to stand trial.
If we look at Charlton now, he suffers from a mental health problem,” he said.
“From that, the psychiatrist may be able to discover what he was like at the time of the trial. He is now suffering from a bipolar condition.”
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/body-carpet-teen-murder-pair-9663295
Alleged ‘bipolar’ or not Alan Charlton was a convicted rapist https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=1jSOLUCiKnIC&pg=PA191&lpg=PA191&dq=idris+ali+manslaughter+Dr+Gudjonsson&source=bl&ots=CdYZOrqGQZ&sig=ACfU3U2pBdVI_A8H501ysrfqecp4awErxg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj9lIXoyNLoAhWMa8AKHYLFBqcQ6AEwA3oECAYQAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
On 26th Feb 2014 the CCRC referred the murder conviction of Alan Charlton to the CoA stating,
“The commissions referral is based in part on new evidence that a number of officers from South Wales Police who were involved in the Lynette White murder inquiry (the Cardiff Three case), and the Philip Saunders murder inquiry[3] (the Cardiff Newsagent Three case), were also involved in Mr Charlton’s case and may have used investigative techniques similar to those used in the Lynette White and Philip Saunders cases and which contributed to the quashing of the convictions in those cases”
https://ccrc.gov.uk/commission-refers-the-murder-conviction-of-alan-charlton-to-the-court-of-appeal/
The CoA judgement can be found here https://t.co/u2EkYWPzj5?amp=1
Paras 63 - 72 give some background, though worth reading in its entirety
126. We begin with a few general comments. First, as Mr Whittam QC for the Crown observed, there are highly significant differences between this case and the other two cases. Those differences have been wrongly dismissed as irrelevant by Ms Blackwell. None of the prosecution witnesses in this case has retracted their evidence, in contrast to the cases of O’Brien, Hall and Sherwood and Paris, Abdullahi and Miller. In particular, the main prosecution witness who was present at the time KP was killed (D) has not retracted her evidence. The CCRC, who did not apparently seek D’s comments, speculate that she would not now retract her evidence for fear of the consequences. With respect, that is a leap in the dark and one for which we can find no justification. There is absolutely no reason to suppose that D, many years on, would not admit, had it been true, that her evidence to the jury was false and extracted from her under intolerable pressure. Furthermore, we have no clear breaches of PACE and its Code in the treatment of the Appellants of the kind that troubled the courts in O’Brien and others and Paris and others. There are no failures of disclosure and nothing to suggest documents may have been altered or deliberately mislaid. If the handwritten version of a statement of a witness (D’s third statement) is missing and other records are no longer available there appears to be a perfectly legitimate explanation for that fact: the passage of time. It does not raise the suspicions suggested in the CCRC report or by Ms Blackwell.
127. Secondly, however closed the minds of officers in the Saunders and White investigations, we consider that the investigation into KP’s death was extraordinarily thorough. Approximately 80 officers were seconded to the inquiry and every relevant expert consulted. The HOLMES database revealed many hundreds of potential witnesses spoken to, 733 statements taken, 252 reports made, 644 other documents produced, 495 messages logged and 3550 actions listed. The senior officer in overall charge of the case (who is not the subject of any criticism) participated in a Crimewatch programme in February 1990 featuring a reconstruction of KP’s usual movements. The appeal was for any information that might assist. This does not suggest a close minded investigation. We further note that the very thorough inquiry has been examined in depth by the CCRC and by counsel for the appellants; they have not identified a single significant lead that was not pursued . The fact that officers continued to gather more evidence after Charlton had been identified by D is in no way deserving of criticism. We would be surprised if that was not the case. Gaps in the evidence are often filled in this way.
128. Thirdly, the fact that Charlton featured prominently in the investigation is hardly surprising given the location of the grave. The officers would have been failing in their duty if they had not considered him of significant interest given his occupancy of flat, and closeness to where the body was found. Nevertheless, they investigated as best they could the identity and whereabouts of all occupants of the house, eventually tracing all rent paying occupants.
129. Fourthly, we are also not surprised that the police formed the view D was central to their investigation. There appeared to be an interesting link between her and KP, their absconding from the home and their lifestyles. A further and possibly significant link then became apparent between Charlton and D.
130. Fifthly, a number of Ms Blackwell’s submissions were based on pure speculation, no doubt because she was relying on the CCRC’s findings and they frequently used the expression “it is possible to speculate” to justify those findings in their report. Speculation is no basis for an appeal.
131. Sixthly, Ms Blackwell (and the CCRC) invited us to draw the inference from the fact of police misconduct in other investigations that there must have been police misconduct in the KP investigation so that all the evidence against Charlton is tainted. This line of argument misses the point of decisions such as Willis, Crook and Foran, all of which emphasise the need to consider the facts of each case.
Treatment of D
132. That brings us to the treatment of D. She was a witness, not a defendant. Yet, the CCRC commented at paragraph 193 of its reference in Charlton’s case:
“It is highly unusual, the Commission considers, for a voluntary witness to be questioned at a police station throughout the night, during which time a “breakthrough” witness statement is obtained. The Court of Appeal was critical of the same scenario in relation to Idris Ali, who was being questioned under similar conditions at the same time as D. Arguably, it would be anomalous to take a different view of D’s treatment that night, merely on the basis of any legal distinction between the treatment of a defendant and the position of a witness.”
133. It is not anomalous to treat witnesses and suspects differently for the reasons we have endeavoured to explain under the heading ‘Legal Framework’. So, for example, officers may speak to potential witnesses “off the record” in a way they would not be able to do with suspects. As a general rule they do not need to provide a witness with legal representation or keep records of their time at a police station in the same way they keep custody records. They should, of course, treat all those they interview with respect and dignity and ensure vulnerable witnesses in particular receive appropriate consideration. However, their duties towards witnesses and suspects are different. With respect, both Ms Blackwell and the CCRC repeatedly failed to acknowledge sufficiently this clear distinction in law and practice
212. The law is clear: only in exceptional circumstances will the court entertain an appeal against a conviction based on an unequivocal plea of guilty. There is nothing exceptional here. Whatever may have led to Ali’s admissions while in police custody, according to Mr Rees, Ali was put under no pressure by anyone prior to entering his plea, which he did of his own free will. He was street wise and experienced in the criminal justice process. He was fit to plead, knew what he was doing, intended to plead guilty to manslaughter and did so without equivocation having received proper advice from counsel and solicitors. That advice would not have been significantly affected by the new material. He was offered no inducement and placed under no pressure by anyone. Mr Rees went through the basis of plea with him line by line. His plea confirmed the evidence of D and what he said to others in an unpressurised situation. He made no attempt to appeal his conviction until the CCRC contacted him and with nothing to lose and possibly with a lot to gain he accepted their invitation to examine the circumstances of his case
The following April 2017 article in the justice gap https://www.thejusticegap.com/ccrc20-police-can-no-wrong/ refers to the author as ‘the Cardiff Law School Innocence Project’
Excerpts:
“So, the CCRC couldn’t persuade the Court of Appeal of the unsafety of this conviction, although the case boasts such clear similarities to police misconduct unearthed in the infamous Cardiff Three and Cardiff Newsagent Three cases. What hope, then, do we have in our cases where the CCRC knows that the bar to persuade the Court of Appeal of unsafety is of Everest proportions? Close to nil, has to be the frank answer.
This is all such a shame (in every sense of that word) in the light of the Hillsborough debacle, from which we know that there are cases of police malpractice on an industrial scale at the highest level. We’re not suggesting that all police investigations are corrupt – far from it. We have direct recent experience of South Wales Police showing signs of willingness to work with us to get to the bottom of cases involving allegations against their force. Time will tell how that pans out, but early signs are very encouraging – at the highest level, there is open recognition of past issues within the force and that these have to be tackled.
So, against the background of the Ali and Charlton appeal, our next article is going to look at one of our cases involving problems with the police investigation. It shows, in our view and in that of two independent police experts, very suspicious police conduct. It also shows how we have failed to persuade the CCRC (to the quote the Court of Appeal) ‘to leave no available stone of the investigation unturned’. Smarting from the Ali/Charlton referral, it’s not hard to see why.
But is that good enough? What does the CCRC see as its role as a general watchdog of the criminal appeals system? How does it react, if at all, when the Court of Appeal refuses to overturn a conviction that the CCRC considers may be unsafe? If it does nothing on the basis that the CCRC is not the decision maker (which is of course correct), then that in itself throws up wider ethical issues.
If it’s not the CCRC’s role to stand up to the issue of potential police misconduct as considered by the Court of Appeal, then whose role is it? Politicians? We, and many others, have raised this issue with the House of Commons Justice Select Committee in recent years, and currently with the Law Commission. But there’s a distinct lack of political will to review this unsatisfactory area of our criminal justice system.
We know from Hillsborough that police malpractice can and does occur on an industrial scale, and at the highest level. We should deal with this honestly rather than fostering a climate of resigned acceptance. Our concern is for lone individuals wanting to challenge a conviction. In the Hillsborough campaign, there were 96 families and a community behind them to give the momentum to fight on for 27 years. Yet if police malpractice featured in individual convictions, why should that be ignored? We call upon the CCRC to make a public stance on such issues where it considers that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred. It’s simply not good enough for them to pass the buck back to the Court of Appeal, recycling the problem without resolution.
If the CCRC is to be an effective watchdog for the wrongfully convicted, and there are many more of those languishing in prison, then it must put pressure on the government to legislate for an effective appeal system that will release the CCRC from its current statutory bind.“
Who is the actual author of the above article and why does it appear they are finding it so difficult to recognise they’ve clearly been conned by Alan Charlton ?
And why were they calling on the CCRC to make a ‘public stance‘ instead of recognising the error of their ways?
The fact the CCRC referred to the so called Cardiff Newsagent 3 case ie: Michael O’Brien, Darren Hall and Ellis Sherwood in the Alan Charlton case suggests the Commission were then still playing catch up. These men have yet to prove they are factually innocent. Darren Hall confessed to police that he’d acted as a lookout for the others during a “robbery that went wrong”.
Paragraph 15 of the Charlton/Ali judgement mentions an admission in prison by Charlton to another inmate where he was alleged to have said he raped and strangled KP in the presence of Ali. Paragraphs 16 onwards detail Idris Ali’s taped police interviews. Para 27 lists further evidence of admissions.
Incidentally Dr Gisli GudJonsson was used by the CCRC in the Barry George case https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/aug/03/jilldando.ukcrime, the Charlton/Ali case and the so called Cardiff Newsagent 3 case https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=WWg3DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT141&lpg=PT141&dq=dr+tunstall+confessional+evidence&source=bl&ots=wkuXI0l0FP&sig=ACfU3U3HN14lP3H1PP1y8VjYp0qLhNWYzA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwisgKfXz9LoAhUvQEEAHXydAGsQ6AEwAHoECAYQAQ#v=onepage&q=dr%20tunstall%20confessional%20evidence&f=false
Dr GudJonsson opinion of lIdris Ali’s ‘nature of vulnerability’ (As he refers to them) were ‘Borderline IQ, compliance & habitual lying’ - page 5 here https://commentary.canlii.org/w/canlii/2006CanLIIDocs133.pdf
Darren Halls read - ‘Personality disorder, compliance, impulsivity, poor self-esteem, habitual lying’
Paul Blackburn’s states, ‘Youth & fatigue’
-
Another ‘waste of resources’ case which appears some within the ‘miscarriage of justice’ arena were, at least up until 2017, still in denial over
The following April 2017 article in the justice gap https://www.thejusticegap.com/ccrc20-police-can-no-wrong/ refers to the author as ‘the Cardiff Law School Innocence Project’
Excerpts:
“So, against the background of the Ali and Charlton appeal, our next article is going to look at one of our cases involving problems with the police investigation. It shows, in our view and in that of two independent police experts, very suspicious police conduct. It also shows how we have failed to persuade the CCRC (to the quote the Court of Appeal) ‘to leave no available stone of the investigation unturned’. Smarting from the Ali/Charlton referral, it’s not hard to see why.
Who is the actual author of the above article and why does it appear they are finding it so difficult to recognise they’ve clearly been conned by Alan Charlton ?
And why were they calling on the CCRC to make a ‘public stance‘ instead of recognising the error of their ways?
There appears to be a series of articles on the justice gap website with the hashtag CCRC (#CCRC) before the headers.
The ‘next’ article in the so called ‘#CCRC’ series’ was published on 5th May 2017 headed, ‘#CCRC20: Policing the police’ the author is listed as Julie Price https://www.thejusticegap.com/ccrc20-policing-police/
an excerpt reads,
‘Our previous article in this series looked at an example of the Court of Appeal declining to overturn a conviction referred to it by the CCRC, based on proven serious misconduct by certain police officers in other similar cases which were subsequently exposed as major miscarriages of justice (here). ’ The link, in brackets, appears to be broken but does suggest the author could be Julie Price; or at least a collaboration including Julie Price
Here’s the news report Julie Price has linked to in her above article;
Former bartender jailed for Carlisle park murder in battle to clear his name
‘A homeless bartender jailed for murdering a fellow down-and-out in a Carlisle park is still protesting his innocence – 12 years into his life sentence.
Thomas Grecian, 50, spent 12 days trying to convince a crown court jury that he played no part in the Bitts Park murder in September 2004 of 56-year-old Jimmy Atkinson, known to his friends as Jim-Bob.
But he was found guilty and jailed for life, the judge telling him he must serve 15 years before he is eligible for release on parole.
His co-defendant Desmond Hanlon, 20, admitted the killing.
During the trial, the court heard how Grecian – an out-of-work bartender – was sleeping rough in the park and mixing with other homeless people, the group spending much of their time drinking.
Mr Atkinson's body was found in undergrowth. He had been stabbed in the heart, lungs and neck.
Grecian's case has been reviewed over several years by students and supervisors involved in the Cardiff University Law School's Innocence Project.
Researchers there have identified a number of issues which they believe raise concerns about the case.
Grecian's bid for freedom is being supported by his friend Rob Cowell, 62, who got to know him when he spent time in prison for selling counterfeit DVDs.
Asked why he is convinced of Grecian's innocence, Mr Cowell, from Chester-le-Street, County Durham, said: “He's an absolutely rock-solid bloke. I don't think he's got a bad bone in his body.
"As far as I'm concerned, he didn't do it.
“I was speaking to Dr Dennis Eady [from the Innocence Project], and I asked him if Tommy had ever varied his story, and he said he hadn't.
"I also know that Tommy would rather stay in prison than ever admit to something he didn't do.
“He's a very mild-mannered sort of person.”
Grecian was linked to the killing in a number of key ways – most crucially through DNA evidence.
Bloodstains from the victim were found on Grecian's clothes and shoes – the result of his friend having had a nosebleed while he was there, said Grecian.
He later bought new clothes at a Carlisle charity shop – an event which the prosecution said amounted to him trying to eradicate vital evidence.
Yet from the start of the trial it was clear that Grecian and his co-defendant were starkly different characters. There was clear evidence that the younger man was involved.
One of Hanlon's fellow hostel residents told the trial: “At 10 pm I heard a tap on my window and Desmond was standing there.
“He said, ‘If you read something in the paper in the morning it will be me.’
“Then he went on to say he had stabbed someone."
Hanlon told the man that he was ‘buzzing’ and was ‘out of his head.’
An education officer at Lancaster Farms Young Offenders Institute - where Hanlon was held on remand while awaiting trial - said he told him: “I’m mad, boss. I stabbed someone. I watched them die.”
After the murder, police found Hanlon hiding in the arches under Castle Way, his bed a few filthy blankets piled on wooden pallets. He was sleeping there, a knife still clutched in his hand.
By contrast, Grecian portrayed himself as a gentleman; a cultured person who cared about the feelings and welfare of others.
The prosecution had suggested Grecian had argued with Mr Atkinson while witnesses saw him standing up and pointing in “an aggressive manner” before he and Hanlon had ‘forced’ Mr Atkinson into bushes where his body was later found.
Grecian - who once wrote to the then Prime Minister Tony Blair to protest his innocence - challenged his conviction as “unsafe" in 2006, but three top judges rejected his challenge, ruling that the conviction had been “very strong".
The Innocence Project attempted to have the case sent back to the Court of Appeal last year, having raised some concerns about the nature of the original investigation and Hanlon’s confession during the trial.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission rejected the request, arguing that the issues were not relevant to the safety of Grecian's conviction.
Dr Dennis Eady, from Cardiff University's Law School, said its "Innocence Project" had been considering Mr Grecian’s case for a number of years and made two applications on his behalf to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), the body makes the initial assessment of applications to review convictions.
He said: "Our police experts have identified a number of issues concerning the police investigation that appear to raise questions and require an explanation. In our view no satisfactory explanation has been provided.
"We also have concerns that the treatment of the evidence concerning Mr Grecian’s co-defendant made it impossible for him to have a fair trial.”
https://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/16699993.former-bartender-jailed-for-carlisle-park-murder-in-battle-to-clear-his-name/
Dr Dennis Eady was one of the few people from the ‘miscarriage of justice/wrongful conviction arena’ who chose to publish their quite apparent denial over the exposure of Simon Halls guilt in 2013
His article has since been removed from the Justice Gap website but reproduced for research purposes here
https://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/2019/07/16/keeping-perspective-continue-the-fight-for-miscarriages-of-justice-by-dr-dennis-eady-originally-published-by-jon-robins-of-the-justice-gap-6th-sept-2013/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
Dennis Eadys article above shows how he supported his denial with attempts to rationalise it.
“Rationalisation is the use of feeble but seemingly plausible arguments either to justify something that is difficult to accept or to make it seem ‘not so bad after all'.
There’s a whole series on self deception here https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/hide-and-seek/201203/self-deception-i-rationalization beginning with ‘rationalisation’
Dennis Eady may be ’A truly lovely, lovely gentleman’ as was said about solicitor Glyn Maddocks. If so he could be seen as an easy target by con artists.
-
Barry Georges sister Michelle Diskin Bates claimed publicly,
“the Simon Hall confession is a concern because it is already so difficult for true MOJs to be believed by the public; this confession damages the credibility of all those still fighting for justice”
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
Oct 21, 2019
I have always supported the campaign for full disclosure so Jeremy Bamber’s claim of innocence can be fully investigated. If he is innocent this is appalling & surely represents a further nail in the coffin of the
@ccrcupdate as this could have & should have been found by them?
Quote Tweet
Mark Newby
@MarkNewbyqsj
Oct 19, 2019
Our Statement on the Jeremy Bamber Case http://bit.ly/33Ky8oY
harryrag
@harryrag
Oct 21, 2019
Michael Naughton supported convicted killer Simon Hall - who admitted he was guilty.
http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php/tjmk/comments/how_greg_hampikian_abuses_two_positions_of_trust_in_serially_misrepres…
William Beck
@WullieBeck
Replying to
@harryrag
@EmpowerInnocent
and
@ccrcupdate
How do you know Simon.Hall confessed ?
Have you seen a confirmed signed confession ?
1:56 AM · Oct 22, 2019·Twitter for Android
Conversation
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
1/2 Thank you Wullie, but I suspect you are dealing with an ignorant troll. We never said that Simon Hall WAS innocent. Rather, we investigated his claim of innocence, which is a fundamentally different things, and showed the so called “evidence” to be totally discredited.
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1186526810068193281
William Beck
@WullieBeck
Replying to
@Neil_Wilby
@hanksoff03
and 2 others
I think you would do well to establish if Simon Hall did indeed confess to murder before taking his own life or not.
You do know his wife is implicit in attacking all who claim to be innocent under many anonymous names.
Is there a signed confession or suicide note ?
1:25 AM · Apr 7, 2020·Twitter for Android
https://mobile.twitter.com/WullieBeck/status/1247319639035650050
Dr Michael Naughton, William Beck and Michelle Diskin Bates all appear to choose to use smear tactics to propound their negative propaganda
‘The smear campaign is born out of a combination of factors, including the need to be right and have his or her “truth” become the prevailing script, retaining status and standing (making sure that his or her inner hidden shame doesn’t become public), and maintaining control of his or her image.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/tech-support/201906/dealing-the-narcissists-smear-campaign
-
Barry Georges sister Michelle Diskin Bates claimed publicly,
“the Simon Hall confession is a concern because it is already so difficult for true MOJs to be believed by the public; this confession damages the credibility of all those still fighting for justice”
Why then did Barry Georges sister Michelle Diskin Bates have Simon Halls representative write the forward to her book; ? especially given she appeared to be desperate to be believed
An excerpt from the forward of her book ‘Stand Against Injustice’
Dr Michael Naughton stated “she had no choice but to do as it was what God wanted”
-
Dr Michael Naughton, William Beck and Michelle Diskin Bates all appear to choose to use smear tactics to propound their negative propaganda
‘The smear campaign is born out of a combination of factors, including the need to be right and have his or her “truth” become the prevailing script, retaining status and standing (making sure that his or her inner hidden shame doesn’t become public), and maintaining control of his or her image.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/tech-support/201906/dealing-the-narcissists-smear-campaign
“Almost two decades of research on miscarriages of justice and wrongful convictions, and over a decade of direct engagements with the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) with the Innocence Network UK (INUK) and the University of Bristol Innocence Project,
https://www.thejusticegap.com/please-forgive-me-but-i-wont-be-holding-my-breath/
Yet Dr Michael Naughton hasn’t recognised ‘innocent fraud’ being perpetuated in the UK. I don’t believe it!
Found Dr Michael Naughton’s ‘projections’ in the above article interesting, especially the following statements:
“The devil is always in the detail, of course”
“The upshot is that an organisation that was established to assist innocent individuals to overturn their wrongful convictions is now anything but
-
Found Dr Michael Naughton’s ‘projections’ in the above article interesting, especially the following statements:
“The devil is always in the detail, of course”
“The upshot is that an organisation that was established to assist innocent individuals to overturn their wrongful convictions is now anything but
And who here
“rather than assert and demonstrate its supposed independence and be bolder in terms of its reviews and the cases that it refers, the CCRC defends and justifies its governing statute that handcuffs it to the appeal courts. In so doing, it is complicit in shielding a criminal justice system that routinely convicts the innocent”
is Dr Michael Naughton claiming to be ‘innocent’ - Robin Garbutt?
He then claims,
“They are left with nowhere to go other than university innocence projects, whose own work is hampered by the need to apply to the CCRC and meet the ‘real possibility’ test”
What cases is he referring to?
Alan Charlton?
Thomas Grecian?
The ‘University innocence projects’ which appear to be magnets to con artists and wolves in sheep’s clothing
-
@WullieBeck
Replying to
@harryrag
@EmpowerInnocent
and
@ccrcupdate
How do you know Simon.Hall confessed ?
Have you seen a confirmed signed confession ?
1:56 AM · Oct 22, 2019·Twitter for Android
William Becks tweet above received one like, from none other than Barry Georges sister Michelle Diskin Bates
https://mobile.twitter.com/WullieBeck/status/1186446088716378112
The very same Michelle Diskin Bates who publicly stated,
“the Simon Hall confession is a concern because it is already so difficult for true MOJs to be believed by the public; this confession damages the credibility of all those still fighting for justice”
Julie Prices 2013 Justice Gap article headed,
’Simon Hall confession: A time to take stock’
has been reproduced here https://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/simon-hall-confession-a-time-to-take-stock-by-professor-julie-price-originally-published-by-jon-robins-of-the-justice-gap/ with all comments (including Michelle Diskin Bates) at foot of article
-
William Becks tweet above received one like, from none other than Barry Georges sister Michelle Diskin Bates
https://mobile.twitter.com/WullieBeck/status/1186446088716378112
Someone on twitter recently referred to Michelle Diskin Bates brother as ‘a few sandwiches short of a picnic’ she thanked them for defending him ?
-
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
Mar 5
Well done Jane on getting this coverage of Robin Garbutt’s claim of innocence in the 10th Anniversary of his conviction. The more noise about alleged wrongful conviction cases the more likely something might be done in response. Keep up the fantastic work!
@ccrcupdate
“Exploitation and objectification’ are also typical narcissistic traits
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
On International Women’s Day, I just want to say thank you to all the wives, partners, mothers, daughters, sisters and female friends who fight tirelessly for justice for wrongly accused, convicted &/or incarcerated innocent men & boys. Keep up the amazing and inspirational work.
10:13 am · 8 Mar 2020·Twitter for iPhone
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1236595846063546369
-
William Beck
@WullieBeck
Replying to
@Neil_Wilby
@hanksoff03
and 2 others
I think you would do well to establish if Simon Hall did indeed confess to murder before taking his own life or not.
You do know his wife is implicit in attacking all who claim to be innocent under many anonymous names.
Is there a signed confession or suicide note ?
1:25 AM · Apr 7, 2020·Twitter for Android
https://mobile.twitter.com/WullieBeck/status/1247319639035650050
Dr Michael Naughton, William Beck and Michelle Diskin Bates all appear to choose to use smear tactics to propound their negative propaganda
‘The smear campaign is born out of a combination of factors, including the need to be right and have his or her “truth” become the prevailing script, retaining status and standing (making sure that his or her inner hidden shame doesn’t become public), and maintaining control of his or her image.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/tech-support/201906/dealing-the-narcissists-smear-campaign
The character assassination, persistent lies and deception are all done in an attempt to avoid responsibility and to achieve their own ends
William Beck
@WullieBeck
Replying to
@Neil_Wilby
@hanksoff03
and 3 others
So are you suggesting Keir Starmer is a crank then.
He said the only thing linking Simon Hall to the murder was the flock fibres.
These fibres did not match.
Are you also aware how many people confess to crimes they did not commit.
Where is the confession or suicide note ?
3:05 pm · 7 Apr 2020·Twitter for Android
https://mobile.twitter.com/WullieBeck/status/1247525795146301441
-
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
Feb 23
I care deeply and the more aware I become the more determined I am to do all I can - Freedom for http://RobinGarbuttOfficial.com
Why hasn’t the ‘penny dropped’ for Hanksoff03 that she is another of Robin Garbutts victims?
And why are those around her clearly playing on her emotions as opposed to helping her view the case objectively?
Empowering the Innocent (ETI) @EmpowerInnocent
I know you do, Jane. You are totally committed to the fight against wrongful convictions but we need more like you, many more.
He knows she is in a vulnerable position
“Exploitation and objectification’ are also typical narcissistic traits
Without doubt Jane Metcalfe aka Hanksoff03 is being exploited and not only does she appear to be being groomed and conned by Robin Garbutt but also by William Beck, Dr Michael Naughton & Michelle Diskin Bates *&^^&
Hanksoff03 Retweeted
William Beck
@WullieBeck
14h
Replying to
@Neil_Wilby
@hanksoff03
and 2 others
I think you would do well to establish if Simon Hall did indeed confess to murder before taking his own life or not.
You do know his wife is implicit in attacking all who claim to be innocent under many anonymous names.
Is there a signed confession or suicide note ?
https://mobile.twitter.com/hanksoff03/with_replies
The above was ‘liked’ & retweeted by Jane Metcalfe (aka Hanksoff03) who appears clearly ‘delusional’ - quite possibly from the psychological abuse she is yet to be consciously aware she has been and is being subjected to. *&^^&
-
Without doubt Jane Metcalfe aka Hanksoff03 is being exploited and not only does she appear to be being groomed and conned by Robin Garbutt but also by William Beck, Dr Michael Naughton & Michelle Diskin Bates *&^^&
Hanksoff03 Retweeted
William Beck
@WullieBeck
14h
Replying to
@Neil_Wilby
@hanksoff03
and 2 others
I think you would do well to establish if Simon Hall did indeed confess to murder before taking his own life or not.
You do know his wife is implicit in attacking all who claim to be innocent under many anonymous names.
Is there a signed confession or suicide note ?
https://mobile.twitter.com/hanksoff03/with_replies
The above was ‘liked’ & retweeted by Jane Metcalfe (aka Hanksoff03) who appears clearly ‘delusional’ - quite possibly from the psychological abuse she is yet to be consciously aware she has been and is being subjected to. *&^^&
Michelle Diskin Bates is seen here blatantly feeding into Jane Metcalfe's apparent ‘delusions’ - she’s referring to the ‘Horizon post office scandal’
Michelle Diskin Bates
@Michelle_Diskin
Mar 2
Robin Garbutt had this used against him in a murder trial, he was a postmaster. He’s Innocent. The evidence was ‘bad character’ based on the supposed theft! Since there was nothing to link him to the murder, and Horzon was to blame, case should be reviewed. #Hanksoff3 #ccrcupdate
the ‘supposed theft’ that Robin Garbutt is seen here https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1FOJmgKyrxw telling police was carried out by ‘robber/s’
This is ‘crazy making’ behaviour and it’s how ‘narcs’ attempt to skew reality - it’s nonsensical
-
The character assassination, persistent lies and deception are all done in an attempt to avoid responsibility and to achieve their own ends
William Beck
@WullieBeck
Replying to
@Neil_Wilby
@hanksoff03
and 3 others
So are you suggesting Keir Starmer is a crank then.
He said the only thing linking Simon Hall to the murder was the flock fibres.
These fibres did not match.
Are you also aware how many people confess to crimes they did not commit.
Where is the confession or suicide note ?
3:05 pm · 7 Apr 2020·Twitter for Android
https://mobile.twitter.com/WullieBeck/status/1247525795146301441
William Beck
@WullieBeck
Mar 3
Replying to
@YouCommon
@Michelle_Diskin
and 3 others (included in the 3 replies here were the Criminal Cases Review Commission) @)(++(* and he & his supporters wonder why they’ve knocked him back 6 times @)(++(*
You were never that deluded sheep were you ?
No you were a plant right from the start to try and discredit innocent claims.
You even went to great lengths by getting married to hide your real intent.
Still never seen any suicide note written by Simon yet.
How about evidence ?
https://mobile.twitter.com/WullieBeck/status/1234983214046822402
Some forum members/readers may be familiar with William Beck’s nonsense from the Shirley Mckie forum
from the archives (circa 2007)
http://shirleymckie.com/documents/CaseBeck.pdf
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/shirleymckie/letters-to-alex-salmond-t24.html
http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=1423.0
And here, 5 days later, is Dr Michael Naughton tweeting to ‘Willie’
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
Mar 8
Good luck if you do make another app to the SCCRC, Willie. Would that be a 7th application? All who know you know that you will never stop fighting for justice for yourself & your family. Innocent victims never give up. SCCRC has referred once, so should be on your side, too.
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1236715036317569024
after he’s tweeted the following https://mobile.twitter.com/WullieBeck/status/1236678292817817606 seemingly written by the SCCRC ?
It reads,
‘The Commission is of course well aware that protestations of innocence, even over a long period, are no guarantee of factual innocence. However, the breadth and persistence of the applicants conduct in pursuing his claims of miscarriage of justice are striking and is unlike any other applicant the Commission has encountered. It is therefore a significant..
-
William Beck
@WullieBeck
Mar 3
Replying to
@YouCommon
@Michelle_Diskin
and 3 others
You were never that deluded sheep were you ?
No you were a plant right from the start to try and discredit innocent claims.
You even went to great lengths by getting married to hide your real intent.
Still never seen any suicide note written by Simon yet.
How about evidence ?
https://mobile.twitter.com/WullieBeck/status/1234983214046822402
What a telling statement
“You were never that deluded sheep were you”
-
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
If not Robin Garbutt (and other alleged innocent victims of wrongful convictions) who? If not now, when?
@ccrcupdate
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1220234272348557317
The above was in response to this:
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
22 Jan
Thank you @EmpowerInnocent for empowering Robin and many others. You know how much this means to http://RobinGarbuttOfficial.com having @PrivateEyeNews covering the case. Hope it helps Robin+so many others x https://twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1219989949623275525
It’s not ‘empowering’ it’s ‘gaslighting’
-
William Beck
@WullieBeck
Mar 3
Replying to
@YouCommon
@Michelle_Diskin
and 3 others
You were never that deluded sheep were you ?
No you were a plant right from the start to try and discredit innocent claims.
You even went to great lengths by getting married to hide your real intent.
Still never seen any suicide note written by Simon yet.
How about evidence ?
https://mobile.twitter.com/WullieBeck/status/1234983214046822402
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
William Beck is an example to all wrongly convicted. He will never let it rest until justice is done. He has been fighting his wrongful conviction for over 35 years. This kind of peaceful protest/civil disobedience really does get cases in the public domain. #wrongfulconvictions
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1168561573222395909
-
“Exploitation and objectification’ are also typical narcissistic traits
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
On International Women’s Day, I just want to say thank you to all the wives, partners, mothers, daughters, sisters and female friends who fight tirelessly for justice for wrongly accused, convicted &/or incarcerated innocent men & boys. Keep up the amazing and inspirational work.
10:13 am · 8 Mar 2020·Twitter for iPhone
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1236595846063546369
Have not read Kevin Callans autobiography but according to this news article https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/tragedy-of-wrongly-jailed-dad-1156386
‘eight years after he cleared his name and was released from prison he has drunk himself to death‘
The above case is one of ‘a sample’ Dr Michael Naughton referred to in 2003 as ‘crimes that never happened’ in an article headed ‘Convicted for crimes that never happened’ with the byline,
‘Following last week's Annual Miscarriage of Justice Day Michael Naughton finds a new category of perverse jury verdicts where the innocent face jail for crimes which never occurred’
Full article here https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/oct/19/prisonsandprobation.ukcrime
(Report from the annual MOJ day here http://www.fitting-up.org.uk/mojday2report.htm)
Dr Naughton also cites the case of Jong Rhee. Jong Rhee was deported in 2015 to South Korea. According to a news article by David Powell,
‘he was escorted from HMP Gartree, a category B prison in Leicestershire, and flown back to his native country’
‘But a forensic expert alleged that there were flaws in the fire investigation and that Natalie, 25, died accidentally from smoke inhalation, according to reports in magazine Private Eye.
The expert, Dr Roger Berrett, of Forensic Access, alleged that another expert - an electrical engineer who is now dead - "leaned over backwards" to support the prosecution case, it states in the magazine's "Miscarriage of Justice" section.
While North Wales Police couldn't comment on the deportation, the Criminal Cases Review Commission said it had looked at Rhee's conviction repeatedly.
A CCRC spokesman said: "The commission has considered Mr Rhee's 1998 murder conviction on three separate occasions in 2000, 2004 and 2010.
"In spite of having looked into the case in great detail the commission has been unable to identify grounds upon which to refer Mr Rhee's conviction back the Court of Appeal.
"The commission has supplied detailed reasons for its decision in relation to each review in a document called a statement of reasons.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/man-who-killed-wife-house-5943452
(Bob Woffinden published an article on the Rhee case here https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/may/04/law.theguardian here http://www.mojuk.org.uk/'Inside%20Out'/615.pdf under the header, ‘And An Expert Who Was No Expert At All’ & its one of a list of cases he wrote about in his book ‘the Nicholas cases’ https://insidetime.org/the-nicholas-cases-casualties-of-justice/)
Dr Michael Naughton states here https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/oct/19/prisonsandprobation.ukcrime
”Such cases continue to question the reliability of convictions based solely on expert forensic science evidence.
To make sense of convictions for crimes that never occurred, you need to consider the current climate of criminal justice in England and Wales.
But what if the crimes did occur?
Campbell Malone published an article in 2012 called,
‘Where lies the truth in criminal defence cases?’
of the Callan case he stated, ‘They should perhaps turn to "Where Lies the Truth" by Michael O'Connell (Country Books), a considered analysis of two alarming cases in the United Kingdom. I should perhaps declare an interest in that the author, in his introduction, makes some very kind remarks about me relating to my client, the late Kevin Callan. Mr O'Connell makes the point that had capital punishment been in force when Kevin was convicted of a child murder it is more than likely that he would have been hung. As his book goes on to explore, it is of little comfort to be exonerated in the Court of Appeal posthumously. https://www.stephensons.co.uk/site/news_and_events/uptodatenews/where_lies_the_truth
Kevin Callan’s murder conviction was overturned in April 1995 he died in 2003
Heather Mills 1995 article in the Independent here https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/inmate-studied-his-way-to-freedom-1614515.html claimed Kevin Callan “had been convicted largely on the evidence of Dr Geoffrey Garrett”
Heather Mills also wrote about the Simon Hall case for Private Eye Magazine.
In a reproduced article here https://innocent.org.uk/2015/12/16/michael-brown/ by Sean O’Neill for the organisation INNOCENT, who have been challenging ‘miscarriages of justice’ since 1993 claimed,
‘A lorry driver who proved that he was innocent of a child’s murder by studying neurology in his prison cell was freed by the Appeal Court yesterday’
But Kevin Callan never proved he was ‘innocent’ and it’s disingenuous to suggest otherwise. Kevin Callans murder conviction was deemed ‘unsafe’ and ‘unsatisfactory’.
the article goes on,
“Mr Michael Mansfield, QC, for Mr Callan, said none of the expert witnesses at the original trial had expertise in neuropathology. He pointed out that the Appeal Court had initially refused Mr Callan a hearing because it said he was conducting “a trawl for experts”.
“Had it not been for the persistence of the applicant and his solicitor, at a later stage, this matter would not have taken this course,” Mr Mansfield said.
“Here is a cautionary tale for lawyers and the courts themselves to ensure that the expertise proffered to the jury is the proper one.”
Mr Campbell Malone, Mr Callan’s solicitor, said after the hearing that his client would seek compensation under the Home Office scheme for victims of miscarriage of justice.”
In another article by INNOCENT here https://innocent.org.uk/2016/02/03/obituary-kevin-john-callan-1958-2003/ interestingly the author states the Kevin Callan case
’caught the public imagination’
and
’In a foreword to the book, Michael Mansfield wrote:
“Kevin’s testament is also a monument. Before it is too late, let there be no more names inscribed in the hall of judicial infamy’, and he looked forward to the establishment of a national Forensic Science Institute, a properly financed and provisioned independent scientific facility. Of course, nothing has changed.
But what if it was all an illusion?
INNOCENT stated, ‘Amanda died on 15 April 1991, and Kevin was arrested the next day. Ignoring his protestations that he could not have harmed Amanda, the police constructed a case against him, even finding someone who claimed he had overheard Kevin in a police cell admit to shaking her.
‘Before he was released, Kevin’s sister Janice Davies, the most indefatigable of his supporters, helped to set up the organisation INNOCENT, to support Kevin and other wrongly convicted prisoners and their families. INNOCENT continues to flourish.
A comment at the foot of the article, by a Keith Callan claims, ’The Manchester evening news slaughtered Kevin!!!!!
INNOCENT was apparently founded at a meeting in Manchester Town Hall on 14 June 1993 https://innocent.org.uk/about/
Heather Mills stated in her 1995 article,
”A truck driver who spent every spare moment of his prison life studying the human brain to prove he had not killed his girlfriend's disabled child, walked free yesterday after the Court of Appeal cleared him of murder.
“Kevin Callan has spent the past four years in jail, convicted of shaking four-year-old Amanda Allman to death. In fact her fatal brain injuries were caused by falls - she suffered severe cerebral palsy.
“Formally clearing Mr Callan, Lord Justice Swinton Thomas, paid tribute to him and his solicitor, Campbell Malone, for their "tireless" research.
She went on to state, “Michael Mansfield QC, for Mr Callan, said that based on the pathologist's evidence, police arrested Mr Callan and subjected him to forceful and severe questioning. He said it was a "sad reflection" it took Mr Callan himself to seek out the expert witnesses who got to the truth, and "salutary".
In a 1996 essay called, ‘Systemic Injustice’ referring to the Callan case Michael Mansfield QC made claim,
“Once again the system had failed to discern the injustice. The injustice was the inability to identify the right issues and the right expertise. What is even more worrying is that after Kevin Callan was convicted, the single judge originally refused leave to appeal, as well as legal aid, on the basis that this was a second bite of the same cherry. http://banmarchive.org.uk/collections/soundings/02_135.pdf
But what if the ‘injustice’ was that Dr Garrett had been wrongly ‘marked as a pariah’ and was right all along?
The pathologist, Dr Geoffrey Garrett along with crime reporter Andrew Nott, wrote the book ‘Cause of Death: Memoirs of a home office pathologist’
He described how ‘on the afternoon of Tuesday, 16 April 1991” he was ‘called to the mortuary at Tameside hospital, Ashton-Upon-Lyne, and shown the body of a four-year-old girl.’
Dr Garrett concludes,
‘It would surely be difficult for a man who had killed a child to return to that youngster’s mother as a loving companion. It would take a person of remarkable callousness to act the innocent every hour of every day while looking into the eyes of a mother robbed by him of a lovely, though oh-so-vulnerable daughter. How could any remotely normal human being live with such a terrible burden?
By the same token, mothers have remarkable instincts when it comes to their offspring. The bond is so close as to sometimes appear almost supernatural. You would think that in such a situation one would be able to tell. Surely she would know!
Perhaps that also adds to the case for the defence. (According to Kevin Callan's account he was‘rejected by Mandy's mother’ )https://laybooks.com/detail.asp?b=15575
For his sake I hope Kevin John Callan’s conscience is clear.
Mine it.’
Worth reading the excerpts found here https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=yhieBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT125&lpg=PT125&dq=amanda+allman+death+head+injury&source=bl&ots=ub1N8DFrkl&sig=ACfU3U2Icvq1X4ftxPhRSAXAVleApf2OTw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiW4rDk79roAhVBZMAKHR1kAskQ6AEwAXoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=amanda%20allman%20death%20head%20injury&f=false
Unfortunately Dr Geoffrey Garrett’s opening statements (At top of excerpt) have been cut short and all that can be read are,
“....... me within the forensic-pathology community. It was a statement that marked me as a pariah. It was also untrue.
Here if the proof.....”
-
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
William Beck is an example to all wrongly convicted. He will never let it rest until justice is done. He has been fighting his wrongful conviction for over 35 years. This kind of peaceful protest/civil disobedience really does get cases in the public domain. #wrongfulconvictions
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1168561573222395909
Causation: Beyond the Official Miscarriage of Justice Iceberg
Abstract
‘There are two distinct approaches to unearthing the causes of miscarriages of justice in England and Wales. On the one hand, academic and practising lawyers have conducted collaborative researchers drawn from official data on the causes of miscarriages of justice as evidenced, primarily, by exceptional successful appeals, and listed the causes in strict accordance with the reasons given by the appeal courts, i.e. false confession, malicious allegation, police or prosecutorial ‘error’ or ‘misconduct’, and so on. On the other hand, researchers from a more critical sociological/criminological perspective have operated on a more theoretical plane of analysis and sought to attribute the causes of miscarriages of justice to forms of inequality and discrimination that lie at the heart of the structures of society. The former modes of analysis, premised on the judgements of the appeal courts, tend to attribute the causes of miscarriages of justice to errant individuals who are either criminal justice system personnel or members of the public who, for whatever reason, subvert the criminal justice process, which otherwise would not have caused a miscarriage of justice. Conversely, analyses that locate the causes of miscarriages of justice in the very structures of society attribute them to the normal exercise of criminal justice system power which targets certain sections of the population, along lines of social class, gender, ethnicity, age, and so on, failing, therefore, in the fundamental governmental requirement that all should be treated as equal before the law.
Naughton M. (2007) Causation: Beyond the Official Miscarriage of Justice Iceberg. In: Rethinking Miscarriages of Justice. Palgrave Macmillan, London pp 53-78
But where does ‘Innocence Fraud’ fit into the above and of those who ‘subvert’ it ?
On Miscarriages of justice Barrister Michael Cohen stated here https://www.independent.co.uk/money/spend-save/he-used-all-these-technical-terms-i-thought-he-knew-what-he-was-talking-about-grania-langdon-down-on-1593267.html
re ‘expert witnesses’
“One of the biggest problems is that you can find somebody to say anything"
-
He knows she is in a vulnerable position
Without doubt Jane Metcalfe aka Hanksoff03 is being exploited and not only does she appear to be being groomed and conned by Robin Garbutt but also by William Beck, Dr Michael Naughton & Michelle Diskin Bates *&^^&
Hanksoff03 Retweeted
William Beck
@WullieBeck
14h
Replying to
@Neil_Wilby
@hanksoff03
and 2 others
I think you would do well to establish if Simon Hall did indeed confess to murder before taking his own life or not.
You do know his wife is implicit in attacking all who claim to be innocent under many anonymous names.
Is there a signed confession or suicide note ?
https://mobile.twitter.com/hanksoff03/with_replies
The above was ‘liked’ & retweeted by Jane Metcalfe (aka Hanksoff03) who appears clearly ‘delusional’ - quite possibly from the psychological abuse she is yet to be consciously aware she has been and is being subjected to. *&^^&
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
@ccrcupdate
I pray 24/7 that this time http://RobinGarbutt.com will succeed+b referred.This time he must meet criteria4real poss test.Nothing left of [ censored word ] case/Motive gone/Theft gone/[ censored word ] time of death gone/Male DNA yet none of Rob`s/Scientist can`t put him with weapon or c.scene
If all those associated with Jane Metcalfe were genuine in their claims of standing against injustice they would have helped her view the Robin Garbutt case objectively.
Instead some also appear to be isolating and ‘warning’ her from anyone with a differing view or opinion
-
Dr Dennis Eady was one of the few people from the ‘miscarriage of justice/wrongful conviction arena’ who chose to publish their quite apparent denial over the exposure of Simon Halls guilt in 2013
His article has since been removed from the Justice Gap website but reproduced for research purposes here
https://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/2019/07/16/keeping-perspective-continue-the-fight-for-miscarriages-of-justice-by-dr-dennis-eady-originally-published-by-jon-robins-of-the-justice-gap-6th-sept-2013/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
Dennis Eadys article above shows how he supported his denial with attempts to rationalise it.
“Rationalisation is the use of feeble but seemingly plausible arguments either to justify something that is difficult to accept or to make it seem ‘not so bad after all'.
There’s a whole series on self deception here https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/hide-and-seek/201203/self-deception-i-rationalization beginning with ‘rationalisation’
Dennis Eady may be ’A truly lovely, lovely gentleman’ as was said about solicitor Glyn Maddocks. If so he could be seen as an easy target by con artists.
Dennis Eadys 2009 thesis headed ‘MISCARRIAGES OF JUSTICE: The Uncertainty Principle’
states on pages 69 to 70 here https://orca-mwe.cf.ac.uk/54837/1/U585226.pdf
“The people involved in this study who remain convicted have all been the focus of serious concern in legal, media and campaigning circles about the safety of their convictions. Their current situation in many ways mirrors the previous situation of those who have now been cleared. Most importantly from a research point of view their accounts raised relevant issues which often paralleled those given by exonerated victims and some professionals
“Miscarriages of justice research therefore has a role to play not just in analysing the past but in creating awareness of the current context and future possibilities. Qualitative research of this kind cannot establish statistical truths, but it may identify recurrent or significant patterns in social phenomena. It may also identify “multiple realities” which illustrate that ‘truth’ can take a very different shape when viewed from different angles.
One such ‘social phenomena’ being ‘innocence fraud’ and as John M Collins pointed out in 2015, albeit to an audience in the US;
“Exonerations are extremely serious”
“For our criminal justice system to go back and say that the decision of a judge or jury who decided to put a particular individual in prison [was wrong] . . . and suddenly say that the individual shouldn't be there - and is therefore free to return to life in the public - is very, very serious"
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ZEOwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA270&lpg=PA270&dq=john+m+collins+Exonerations+are+extremely+serious&source=bl&ots=fhnAt8umPf&sig=ACfU3U2grQ61UBRDWRv_ykW5gyJOyaHSOQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi52JCL4d3oAhVNT8AKHYZhCDEQ6AEwBHoECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=john%20m%20collins%20Exonerations%20are%20extremely%20serious&f=false
And as Steve T raised on another thread
It is odd that for such a high profile hit, (if that is what it was) nothing of note has come into the investigation in more than 2 decades. No changing loyalties, grasses/informants, plea bargains or rumour mill that these paramiltary organisations are famous for have so far come into play that we know of. We know most about how their heyday crimes went down due to one or more of these reasons.
It's why I can't completely discount Barry George but I just can't see it happening. Perhaps that is our truth is stranger than fiction moment...
I concluded from last years BBC1 documentary ‘The murder of Jill Dando’ that Barry George remains the prime suspect for police.
To date I’ve seen nothing to suggest his ‘innocence campaign’ was anything other than ‘smoke and mirrors’.
And the more I’ve witnessed of his sisters behaviour the more solid my position has become and the more convinced I am that Barry George murdered Jill Dando.
(https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0003w40/sign/the-murder-of-jill-dando)
-
Incidentally Dr Gisli GudJonsson was used by the CCRC in the Barry George case https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/aug/03/jilldando.ukcrime, the Charlton/Ali case and the so called Cardiff Newsagent 3 case https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=WWg3DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT141&lpg=PT141&dq=dr+tunstall+confessional+evidence&source=bl&ots=wkuXI0l0FP&sig=ACfU3U3HN14lP3H1PP1y8VjYp0qLhNWYzA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwisgKfXz9LoAhUvQEEAHXydAGsQ6AEwAHoECAYQAQ#v=onepage&q=dr%20tunstall%20confessional%20evidence&f=false
Dr GudJonsson opinion of lIdris Ali’s ‘nature of vulnerability’ (As he refers to them) were ‘Borderline IQ, compliance & habitual lying’ - page 5 here https://commentary.canlii.org/w/canlii/2006CanLIIDocs133.pdf
Darren Halls read - ‘Personality disorder, compliance, impulsivity, poor self-esteem, habitual lying’
Paul Blackburn’s states, ‘Youth & fatigue’
Interestingly Andrew Evans, who confessed to murdering Judith Roberts is listed by Dr GudJonsson as having ‘memory problems, confabulation & false internalised belief”
But could Andrew Evans have committed innocence fraud?
According to the Guardian in 2000 he was reported to have received nearly one million pounds in compensation
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/jun/09/jeevanvasagar
-
‘This is the pilot episode of a podcast about the work of the Innocence Project London, part of the global innocence movement. It aims to provide an honest account of how difficult this work is and why it matters, both to reform of the Criminal Justice System as well as in providing experiential learning to law and criminology students at the UoG
https://innocenceprojectlondon.transistor.fm/
‘The Innocence Project London was established in 2010 and is based at the University of Greenwich. It is a pro-bono project. The project investigates alleged wrongful convictions of individuals who have maintained their innocence and have already exhausted the appeals process.
-
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
Apr 14
We need to know how many people in prison, both prisoners and prison staff, have: 1. Contracted coronavirus; 2. Died of coronavirus; and, 3. Recovered from coronavirus. We have a democratic right to this data and to know what is being done about it. Why will they not tell us?
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
9h
This data & the data on deaths of prisoners & staff from coronavirus strengthens & adds to the fears about coronavirus in prisons. Those who have a duty of care to protect against such foreseeable & avoidable deaths, & those that will surely follow, need to be held to account.
Could this be why he was requesting it maybe?
He has 377 Followers (many of whom appear vulnerable) and is Following 21
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
Prisons cannot cope at the best of times & are totally unequipped to protect prisoners or staff from contracting &/or dying from coronavirus. There has been sufficient time for those in authority to act but they have chosen not to. Can anything be done to prevent the inevitable?
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
I am at a total loss to know what to say or do. It has become increasingly evident that the lives of prisoners & prison staff do not matter & the democratic process for trying to get government to fulfil its duty & protect against the deleterious impacts of coronavirus is a myth.
-
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
Apr 14
We need to know how many people in prison, both prisoners and prison staff, have: 1. Contracted coronavirus; 2. Died of coronavirus; and, 3. Recovered from coronavirus. We have a democratic right to this data and to know what is being done about it. Why will they not tell us?
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
9h
This data & the data on deaths of prisoners & staff from coronavirus strengthens & adds to the fears about coronavirus in prisons. Those who have a duty of care to protect against such foreseeable & avoidable deaths, & those that will surely follow, need to be held to account.
Could this be why he was requesting it maybe?
He has 377 Followers (many of whom appear vulnerable) and is Following 21
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
Prisons cannot cope at the best of times & are totally unequipped to protect prisoners or staff from contracting &/or dying from coronavirus. There has been sufficient time for those in authority to act but they have chosen not to. Can anything be done to prevent the inevitable?
@hanksoff03
I worry way more about peoples fears, racked up by scaremongering coverage, than the virus itself - We need and deserve them to back off+give hope from the fear they have induced :,(
-
Mick Geen
@J4BenGeen
Such valuable work for the wrongly convicted-
@Madocwales
has spent more than 30yrs representing individuals who have suffered miscarriages of justice-Next month & in recognition of his work in this field Glyn Maddox will be made an honorary Queen’s Counsel.
Glyn Maddocks:
“In every other walk of life, if something goes wrong an independent inquiry looks into failures and errors - the criminal justice system doesn’t”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/glyn-maddox-criminal-justice-wont-face-up-to-miscarriages-dj2v7gz2w
A bio for Mark McDonald’s is here https://www.mansfieldchambers.co.uk/mark-mcdonald/
Mr McDonald appears to have claimed as having once worked in a hospital accident and emergency department
If anyone finds anything to support this assertion pls post proof
“McDonald has represented Ben Geen on a pro bono basis for ten years. I asked him about the ‘smoking gun’. Before MacDonald became a lawyer he used to work in A&E. ‘I used to walk backwards and forwards with a load of rubbish in my pockets, including syringes.’ What about the discharging of the syringe? ‘It could be that he just knew he shouldn’t have been carrying it,’ he says.
https://bylinetimes.com/2019/03/13/the-justice-trap-murder-by-numbers/
2020
‘Has anyone at the CCRC got the time, please?’ reads the header of an article written by Dr Michael Naughton, published today on (honorary Dr) Jon Robins Justice Gap website here https://www.thejusticegap.com/has-anyone-at-the-ccrc-got-the-time-please/
Jon Robins appears to have been awarded his honorary doctorate for his book ‘guilty until proven innocent’?
The book makes the same claims as his byline times article re Mark McDonald working in A&E?
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ql5TDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT166&lpg=PT166&dq=guilty+until+proven+innocent+jon+robins+mark+mcdonald&source=bl&ots=Zw21w5beKL&sig=ACfU3U0EZ1GJ8vuIiJhEZt4KtfsgtyE7CQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjB5JCfj-3oAhWfSRUIHSgJAOAQ6AEwAnoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=guilty%20until%20proven%20innocent%20jon%20robins%20mark%20mcdonald&f=false
Kim Evans Stainsby FRSA
@SistahInLaw
Please join me in congratulating
@JusticeGap
Dr. Jon Robins who has been awarded a PhD in Miscarriages of Justice (since 1997). An important voice in an oftentimes lonely discussion.
Stephen Case
@SteveCaseCrim
Excellent Phd
@JusticeGap. A real pleasure to read, examine and pass!
How can someone be awarded an ‘honorary doctorate‘ based on a book about ‘miscarriages of justice’ if and unless they are proven factually innocent and not cases of innocence fraud?
And did the person who examined and passed his work investigate what he’d written or was it passed off on belief?
‘Kim Evans Stainsby FRSA’ tweet received 130 likes & 31 retweets
Kim Evans ‘is one of The Justice Gap's Commissioning Editors
‘As soon as she turned eighteen, however, Kim applied to become a police officer - it was what she had always wanted to do. After police training college at Hendon, Kim was posted to Dalston Police Station, in Hackney, as a Women Police Constable (WPC).
https://hclc.org.uk/2014/10/meet-the-hclc-supporter-kim-evans-from-the-justice-gap/
-
National Training Conference on Investigating Miscarriages of Justice 2018
Organised by the School of Law at The University of Manchester, sponsored by Clyde & Co. and LexisNexis.
The 2018 National Training Conference for students in pro bono innocence projects, Miscarriages of Justice Review Centres, and independent case investigators will take place at the University of Manchester on Friday 16 and Saturday 17 February. The students and other investigators give their own time to help with cases of people who claim to be innocent of crimes of which they have been convicted, and who cannot afford to pay lawyers to review their cases. This Conference gives them unique opportunities to hear and meet some of the UK’s leading experts who can help them find out what might have gone wrong in police investigations and prosecutions, and what evidence can be found to support claims of innocence.
We are delighted to have a major contribution from the Criminal Cases Review Commission, an independent body which has the powers to obtain the fresh evidence needed to overturn wrongful convictions, and to refer cases to the Court of Appeal. The CCRC will explain in detail how it carries out its work and lead workshops for participants.
Experts giving presetations and leading discussions include:
Professor Allan Jamieson, Director of the Forensic Institute in Scotland. Allan is often called to give expert evidence about DNA in the UK and the USA. His evidence was of key importance in the Omagh bombing trial.
Andy Townsend of Footprint Investigations, leading experts on the analysis of phone call data which pinpoints where users are located.
Eric Allison, prisons correspondent of the Guardian who writes on miscarriage of justice cases.
Neil Smith, perhaps the UK’s foremost expert on using the internet to trace people and find information about them.
We will debate and explore the problem of joint enterprise prosecutions, in which innocent people are convicted just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, with:
Felicity Gerry QC, who contributed to rectifying the highly controversial law on joint criminal enterprise in the UK Supreme Court case of Jogee. She continues to work on joint enterprise cases and campaign for changes in the law on accessory liability. Felicity will speak via a video link from Australia;
Dwaine George who was himself wrongly convicted in a joint enterprise murder case. His conviction was overturned with the help of Cardiff Innocence Project. He now studies law at Manchester Metropolitan University.
The chaotic state of the disclosure system, responsible for many wrongful convictions because evidence gathered by the police which would help suspects is not passed on to them, will be explored through recent high profile cases, including those of Defence barrister Julia Smart from Furnival Chambers will be present to explain what happened when Liam Allan nearly went to prison for rape that he did not commit and was saved from this fate when undisclosed evidence was found.
Danny Kay, whose rape conviction was recently overturned thanks to the work of barrister Philip Rule who discovered important undisclosed material.
Philip Rule was called to the bar in 2001 and is a barrister at No 5 Chambers. Philip is renowned for his work in public law, civil liberties and human rights and was named Legal Aid Barrister of the year in 2017. He was recently involved in Danny Kay’s case discovering important evidence that overturned his conviction.
Mark Newby, solicitor advocate, possibly the UK's foremost criminal appeal lawyer and a long term active supporter of innocence projects MJRCs, will talk about his recent successes and the technicalities of putting together an appeal case. Andrew Green, is the Director of the Miscarriages of Justice Review Centre at the University of Sheffield. Andrew also runs INNOCENT and has a long history of working with the families and victims of Miscarriages of Justice.
Hannah Quirk, has worked at the University of Manchester since 2005. Her research interests in are mainly in criminal justice and criminal evidence. Hannah worked as Senior Researcher at the Legal Services Research Centre (the research unit of the Legal Services Commission), and as a Case Review Manager at the Criminal Cases Review Commission, investigating claims of wrongful conviction and sentence. Hannah also spent six months on a research sabbatical at the Innocence Project New Orleans. Finally, students, experts, leading lawyers and MPs will come together to discuss how to take forward the campaign to eradicate the scourge of miscarriage of justice.
Mark George QC, head of Garden Court North Chambers, who represented families at the Hillsborough, who will help students, as he has for many years, to understand cases make progress with them.
Brigid Baillie, is a defence advocate at Garden Court North Chambers, experienced in the most serious types of criminal cases and appeals including murder, serious sexual offences (such as paedophile rings and historical sex allegations), drug importation and terrorism. Brigid has a particular interest in vulnerable defendants and those with mental health conditions and is skilled at dealing sensitively with demanding clients in those circumstances.
Michael O’ Brien, spent eleven years in prison for a crime he didn't commit - the so-called Cardiff Newsagent Murder. Since having his conviction quashed in December 1999, Michael has worked tirelessly to ensure that those falsely convicted of crimes are exonerated.
Sarah McGill, headed the Cardiff Innocence Project student team responsible for the 2010 casework that led to Dwaine George’s conviction being quashed R v George 2014 EWCA Crim 2507. Sarah joined 15 Winkley Square Chambers in 2016 having been Called to the Bar as a transferring duty qualified Solicitor-Advocate. She routinely appears in serious cases covering the criminal and regulatory spectrum, including multi-handed prosecutions and those involving complicated expert evidence.
Danielle Manson is a barrister at 25 Bedford Row and was part of the Innocence Project at The University of Sheffield. She has been a clerk at Doughty St Chambers and worked at Justice.
Nazir Afsal was the Chief Crown Prosecutor of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for North West England from 2011 to 2015. He was the first Muslim to be appointed to such a position and was Britain's most senior Muslim lawyer within the CPS of Manchester. . Nazir was also the prosecutor who reopened the sex trafficking gang case in Rochdale which saw nine men jailed in 2012. He is Honorary Lecturer in law.
Dr Dennis Eady, works as Case Consultant to the Innocence Project at Cardiff University Law School and has been an active campaigner on miscarriage of justice issues for 20 years with South Wales against Wrongful Conviction (formerly South Wales Liberty). He has many years of experience on the topic of miscarriages of justice including the appeal process, particularly the CCRC and applications to them.
Professor Julie Price, heads the Cardiff Law School Pro Bono “Law in the Real World” schemes, including the Cardiff Law School Innocence Project, teaming law students with local criminal law practitioners to look at cases involving possible miscarriages of justice.
Henry Thompson, is the father of James Thompson. Battered, bloodied and concussed James ended up in prison. He is now serving a life sentence for murder, a crime he did not commit. He was a victim of assault. Students at the University of Manchester are now working with the family to get this case back to the Court of Appeal.
Finally students, experts, leading lawyers and MPs will come together to discuss how to take forward the campaign to eradicate the scourge of miscarriage of justice.
Book tickets for the conference via Eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/national-training-conference-on-investigating-miscarriages-of-justice-2018-the-school-of-law-at-the-tickets-4204623441
How many out of 10 will Bamber's attempts be rated https://mobile.twitter.com/MarkNewbyqsj/status/1193181306496135169
Only 3 people ‘liked’ his tweet including a Danielle Manson https://www.gardencourtchambers.co.uk/barristers/danielle-manson.
‘Whilst studying law at university, Danielle also managed the Innocence Project; working on a range of criminal appeals and applications to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (‘CCRC’). In recognition of her commitment to the project, she was nominated for the Chancellor’s Medal upon graduation and continues to sit on the CCRC’s Stakeholder Forum as an established practitioner.
Wonder how many chancers Ms Manson came into contact with during her studies?
Danielle Manson
@daniellejmanson
Mar 23
2 Crown Court hearings tomorrow where I am required in person. Today I’ve developed a 38.1 temp & other symptoms. Shout out to my clerks & solicitor for categorically telling me to stay home! Makes difficult decisions a lot easier given
@MoJGovUK & @HMCTSgovuk reckless position!
Andrew Green
@agreenanarchist
Mar 23
Take good care of yourself, Danielle. Courts can look after themselves. We need fighters against injustice to be fit and well!
https://mobile.twitter.com/agreenanarchist/status/1242066832904855553
-
Updated
WHO DIDN’T KILL JILL DANDO 1st April 2020 courtesy of Andrew Rigsby
Excerpts:
“We are now close to the 21st anniversary of the murder of journalist Jill Dando in April 2019.(sic) The lead Metropolitan Police investigator at the time, Detective Chief Inspector Hamish Campbell still believes that no new evidence will ever be found. He and his team are accused of, “not having the faintest idea”, who killed Jill Dando. Barry George, the “local nutter”, was set up. Nothing could be further from the truth.
“I would also advise you to read Michelle Diskin Bates book, Stand Against Injustice. Michelle is Barry George’s sister. It is an interesting and moving story. Michelle Diskin Bates has gone on to become a standard bearer for miscarriages of justice. We don’t need her to misdirect justice, however. Her credibility has recently taken a U turn; she has taken on the “plight” of the mass murderer Jeremy Bamber. She is now a respected “patron” and part of his naïve campaign team. Jeremy Bamber was convicted in 1986 for shooting to death his mother, father, sister and his two 6 year old nephews. Initially an inquest concluded it was his sister, Sheila Caffell who carried out the murders; Bamber had successfully made it look like a murder suicide. He fooled enough people initially but was eventually caught out. Hugely frustrated he has always insisted on his innocence.
If you don’t closely study the circumstances you would feel sorry for this suave, articulate and very convincing psychopath. Michelle has been drawn in, perhaps a little intoxicated with her well founded reputation. She has accepted the part without reading the script. That is surely dangerous ground. Please see my blog – Murders at Whitehouse Farm.
A lot of people supported Barry George and continue to do so, believing he is innocent. Additionally some on side writers and journalists have set out to dismantle the case and circumstantial evidence that was built against him. Their efforts are impressive because it’s a big task.
http://gunfire-graffiti.co.uk/who-didnt-kill-jill-dando/
-
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
Apr 14
We need to know how many people in prison, both prisoners and prison staff, have: 1. Contracted coronavirus; 2. Died of coronavirus; and, 3. Recovered from coronavirus. We have a democratic right to this data and to know what is being done about it. Why will they not tell us?
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
9h
This data & the data on deaths of prisoners & staff from coronavirus strengthens & adds to the fears about coronavirus in prisons. Those who have a duty of care to protect against such foreseeable & avoidable deaths, & those that will surely follow, need to be held to account.
Could this be why he was requesting it maybe?
He has 377 Followers (many of whom appear vulnerable) and is Following 21
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
Prisons cannot cope at the best of times & are totally unequipped to protect prisoners or staff from contracting &/or dying from coronavirus. There has been sufficient time for those in authority to act but they have chosen not to. Can anything be done to prevent the inevitable?
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
I am at a total loss to know what to say or do. It has become increasingly evident that the lives of prisoners & prison staff do not matter & the democratic process for trying to get government to fulfil its duty & protect against the deleterious impacts of coronavirus is a myth.
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
Lancashire police officers caught on camera saying that he will “make something up”!ETI is well aware of such behaviour and advises that any and all interactions with the police should be filmed to protect against being convicted for something that you didn’t do or didn’t say.
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1251759106614013953
David Allen Green
@davidallengreen
"I will make something up...who are they going to believe, me or you?"
A thread about the
@LancsPolice
incident
6:59 pm · 18 Apr 2020·TweetDeck
https://mobile.twitter.com/davidallengreen/status/1251571059494719490
Hanksoff03 Retweeted
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
Lancashire police officers caught on camera saying that he will “make something up”!ETI is well aware of such behaviour and advises that any and all interactions with the police should be filmed to protect against being convicted for something that you didn’t do or didn’t say.
Hanksoff03 Retweeted
Hanksoff03
@hanksoff03
On the 19/4/11 http://RobinGarbutt.com was wrongfully convicted of the murder of his beloved wife Diana who was killed during a bungled robbery-18/4/06 was the day Ben Geen @J4BenGeen was wrongfully convicted. Both factual claims of innocence... How many more since+between?:,(
-
Hannah Quirk, has worked at the University of Manchester since 2005. Her research interests in are mainly in criminal justice and criminal evidence. Hannah worked as Senior Researcher at the Legal Services Research Centre (the research unit of the Legal Services Commission), and as a Case Review Manager at the Criminal Cases Review Commission, investigating claims of wrongful conviction and sentence. Hannah also spent six months on a research sabbatical at the Innocence Project New Orleans. Finally, students, experts, leading lawyers and MPs will come together to discuss how to take forward the campaign to eradicate the scourge of miscarriage of justice.
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/national-training-conference-on-investigating-miscarriages-of-justice-2018-the-school-of-law-at-the-tickets-42046234419
Today
Dr Hannah Quirk
@HannahQuirk1
With great power comes great responsibility...
https://mobile.twitter.com/HannahQuirk1/status/1251847441818714118
Quoting from Spider-Man (or Voltaire)
‘Dr Hannah Quirk appointed Inner Temple Academic Fellow
Dr Quirk, Reader in Criminal Law at The Dickson Poon School of Law, has been selected to take up this prestigious three-year role.
The Inner Temple is one of the four membership associations for barristers, providing legal training, resources and regulation to support them in their careers.
Their Academic Fellows Scheme aims to recognise the outstanding contribution of legal teaching and research of early to mid-career academics. It also aims to support their research and build a stronger relationship between the Bar, judiciary and legal academia.
Speaking on her appointment, Dr Quirk said: “It’s a huge honour to be appointed Academic Fellow at the Inner Temple. I plan to use the Fellowship to further strengthen the links between King’s and legal practice, finding out, and working closely with, criminal barristers on some of the pressing issues of the day.
“I will also be using the excellent Inner Temple library to update my research on silence and disclosure as well as complete my book on miscarriages of justice. I am really looking forward to it.”
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/dr-hannah-quirk-appointed-inner-temple-academic-fellow
She’s also a trustee on the sentencing council https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/
-
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
Lancashire police officers caught on camera saying that he will “make something up”!ETI is well aware of such behaviour and advises that any and all interactions with the police should be filmed to protect against being convicted for something that you didn’t do or didn’t say.
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1251759106614013953
David Allen Green
@davidallengreen
"I will make something up...who are they going to believe, me or you?"
A thread about the
@LancsPolice
incident
6:59 pm · 18 Apr 2020·TweetDeck
https://mobile.twitter.com/davidallengreen/status/1251571059494719490
Hanksoff03 Retweeted
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
Lancashire police officers caught on camera saying that he will “make something up”!ETI is well aware of such behaviour and advises that any and all interactions with the police should be filmed to protect against being convicted for something that you didn’t do or didn’t say.
Empowering the Innocent (ETI) Retweeted
Michelle Diskin Bates
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@EmpowerInnocent
And yet the public balk at us saying there are people in prison, wrongfully convicted...sometimes for crimes that never even happened!
11:34 am · 19 Apr 2020·Twitter for iPad
https://mobile.twitter.com/i/status/1251759106614013953
-
Today
Dr Hannah Quirk
@HannahQuirk1
With great power comes great responsibility...
https://mobile.twitter.com/HannahQuirk1/status/1251847441818714118
Quoting from Spider-Man (or Voltaire)
‘Dr Hannah Quirk appointed Inner Temple Academic Fellow
Dr Quirk, Reader in Criminal Law at The Dickson Poon School of Law, has been selected to take up this prestigious three-year role.
The Inner Temple is one of the four membership associations for barristers, providing legal training, resources and regulation to support them in their careers.
Their Academic Fellows Scheme aims to recognise the outstanding contribution of legal teaching and research of early to mid-career academics. It also aims to support their research and build a stronger relationship between the Bar, judiciary and legal academia.
Speaking on her appointment, Dr Quirk said: “It’s a huge honour to be appointed Academic Fellow at the Inner Temple. I plan to use the Fellowship to further strengthen the links between King’s and legal practice, finding out, and working closely with, criminal barristers on some of the pressing issues of the day.
“I will also be using the excellent Inner Temple library to update my research on silence and disclosure as well as complete my book on miscarriages of justice. I am really looking forward to it.”
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/dr-hannah-quirk-appointed-inner-temple-academic-fellow
She’s also a trustee on the sentencing council https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/
CCRC
@ccrcupdate
We are now looking for @ccrcupdate Commissioners. This is a fantastic, intellectually challenging and rewarding public appointment playing a vital part in the justice system. The role is home-based with occasional travel to Birmingham. Full details here: http://ccrc.gov.uk/about-us/jobs/
1:53 PM · Apr 21, 2020·Twitter Web App
Dr Hannah Quirk
@HannahQuirk1
This should be a brilliant job as a CCRC Commissioner. Very disappointing it is advertised as only 52 days/yr & mostly home-based. This is a significant downgrading from previous appointments. Look forward to reading forthcoming report from
@APPGMJ
on this.
#WrongfulConvictions
The Justice Gap
@JusticeGap
Yes, agreed. The role of commissioner has been significantly undermined: https://thejusticegap.com/its-vital-that-ccrc-has-money-and-freedom-to-investigate-miscarriages-of-justice-properly/
https://www.thejusticegap.com/its-vital-that-ccrc-has-money-and-freedom-to-investigate-miscarriages-of-justice-properly/
Mick Geen
@J4BenGeen
Replying to
@HannahQuirk1
and
@APPGMJ
Says up to 5 vacancies and I’m wondering if these are additional commissioners or replacements for ones that have left/about to leave? I was informed in Feb that the already delayed @APPGMJ report was due out by the end of Mar-
Further delayed now-Perhaps @APPGMJ could clarify.
Hannah Quirks tweets got a ‘like’ from Trudi Benjamin & Hannah Quirk ‘liked’ Mick Geen’s tweet - his son is a convicted serial killer nurse found with a worn syringe of anaesthetic in his pocket when searched
Would like to know what cases Hannah Quirk work on at the CCRC and who’s cases she was involved in referring to the ?Court of Appeal
-
Which I find strange given he wrote and published the following:
Guilt, non-guilt and innocence: what will Strasbourg decide? - Jon Robins
“In May 2011, the supreme court rejected the government's contention that only those who could prove their innocence could be entitled to compensation in R (Adams) v Secretary of State for Justice. It was in that ruling that Hale (and others) grappled with the meaning of "miscarriage of justice". The majority (five to four) held that a miscarriage of justice had occurred when "a new or newly-discovered fact" showed conclusively that the "evidence against a defendant has been so undermined that no conviction could possibly be based upon it". Allen argues that such a test is contrary to her right under article 6(2) of the European Convention to be presumed innocent.
The Adams ruling has subdivided miscarriages into three, possibly four, categories: first, where the applicant can effectively prove innocence; second, where there is evidence that undermines the safety of the conviction; third where the fresh evidence might be sufficient for the court to quash the conviction but there may be other evidence upon which a jury could still convict; and fourth, a purely technical quashing of a conviction.
Last month there was a three-day hearing in the high court considering compensation in a number of cases including Barry George, who spent eight years in prison after being wrongly convicted of the murder of TV presenter Jill Dando. "The public might think, as they watch someone being released from the court of appeal, that they would be compensated by the state for being wrongfully convicted and for all the time they have served in prison," comments Mark Newby, who specialises in miscarriage cases. The solicitor is representing Ian Lawless, one of the lead cases alongside George. "That expectation is invariably not met. Under the current Ministry of Justice scheme only one award has been made post-Adams."
Newby has another case stayed pending the ruling by the Strasbourg court on the Allen case. If the European court decides in favour of Allen, the lawyer believes this will help the other compensation cases, with the possible exception of category four cases.
I wrote about the campaign to reinstate the ex gratia scheme last year. Frankly, persuading people to support a campaign for adequate compensation for the wrongfully convicted is never going to be a hugely popular crusade — and trying to persuade ministers to prioritise miscarriages over other voter-friendly and cash-starved causes nigh on impossible. Nonetheless the campaign is both right and one of fundamental importance — the state should be properly held to account for its errors.
The shocking attitude of the last government towards miscarriages of justice can best be summed up by Tony Blair's notorious sound bite: "It is perhaps the biggest miscarriage of justice in today's system when the guilty walks away unpunished."
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/nov/21/guilt-innocence-strasbourg-lorraine-allen
His selective reporting is a classic example of publication bias, which leads to a distorted representation and is suggestive of tunnel vision.
”Miscarriage compensation test case succeeds as other claimants fail”
25 January 2013
The Administrative Court has this afternoon handed down its judgment in R (on the application of Ali & Ors,) v Secretary of State for Justice [2013] EWHC 72 (Admin) (25 January 2013), which will affect the future of Miscarriage of Justice Compensation for future claimants. Of the five claimants only Ian Lawless succeeded. Mr Lawless was represented by Garden Court North Chambers’ Matthew Stanbury, instructed by Mark Newby of QualitySolicitors Jordans. In the original criminal appeal he was represented by Chambers’ Mark Barlow.
Mr Lawless successfully appealed his conviction for murder in 2009 based on the fact that the only evidence against him was his own false confessions given due to mental health problems he had at the time.
The Secretary of State refused to pay him compensation and as a result he was compelled to bring a challenge against the decision . This was always a strong case in which there was simply no other evidence upon which a jury could have convicted him . The Secretary of State sought to advance a wholly unrealistic argument to suggest this could be the case which was dismissed by the Court who paid tribute to Matthew Stanbury’s “admirably succinct submissions” [179].
The Court of Appeal ruled that the Secretary of State’s decision to refuse compensation in the case of Ian Lawless be quashed and Mr Lawless’s entitlement to compensation must be reconsidered by the Secretary of State in light of this judgment [187].
In an article published today on The Justice Gap “Not Innocent Enough to be Compensated?”, Mark Newby and Matthew Stanbury write:
“Current and future claimants will likely find that their prospects of success are not improved in any substantial way by this decision; however they will at least now be able to have some confidence that the secretary of state will be required to respect judicial rulings on the state of the evidence, and to have proper regard to the rules of evidence that applied in the original and any subsequent trial. They should at the very least know that if the Secretary of State does seek to go behind such rulings, he must give reasons for doing so, that may be amenable to judicial review, and that he should only make such a departure in exceptional circumstances.”
…
“Overall, they remain faced with a system in which the successive secretaries of state have demonstrated themselves only too willing to find ways to avoid paying out compensation no matter how hard the search for reasons to do so.”
https://gcnchambers.co.uk/miscarriage-compensation-test-case-succeeds-as-other-claimants-fail/
“Lawless was convicted of murder after making various "confessions" to third parties, including regulars in a pub and a taxi driver,
His conviction was later ruled unsafe after fresh medical evidence revealed he had a "pathological need for attention".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-21204099
Ian Lawless was represented by Mark Newby. More on Ian Lawless here https://www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/news/grimsby-news/grimsby-town-fan-who-cleared-1187985
Last May Mark Newby wrote an article which was published in the justice gap, ironically, given the Barry George case as one example, he stated:
“”No one wants to see a conviction overturned on technical grounds compensated”
*&^^&
”The Court of Appeal needs to acknowledge miscarriages of justice – and ensure that they don’t occur in the future”
(2018)
https://www.thejusticegap.com/the-court-of-appeal-needs-to-acknowledge-miscarriages-of-justice-and-ensure-that-they-dont-occur-in-the-future/
-
CCRC
@ccrcupdate
We are now looking for @ccrcupdate Commissioners. This is a fantastic, intellectually challenging and rewarding public appointment playing a vital part in the justice system. The role is home-based with occasional travel to Birmingham. Full details here: http://ccrc.gov.uk/about-us/jobs/
1:53 PM · Apr 21, 2020·Twitter Web App
Dr Hannah Quirk
@HannahQuirk1
This should be a brilliant job as a CCRC Commissioner. Very disappointing it is advertised as only 52 days/yr & mostly home-based. This is a significant downgrading from previous appointments. Look forward to reading forthcoming report from
@APPGMJ
on this.
#WrongfulConvictions
The Justice Gap
@JusticeGap
Yes, agreed. The role of commissioner has been significantly undermined: https://thejusticegap.com/its-vital-that-ccrc-has-money-and-freedom-to-investigate-miscarriages-of-justice-properly/
https://www.thejusticegap.com/its-vital-that-ccrc-has-money-and-freedom-to-investigate-miscarriages-of-justice-properly/
Mick Geen
@J4BenGeen
Replying to
@HannahQuirk1
and
@APPGMJ
Says up to 5 vacancies and I’m wondering if these are additional commissioners or replacements for ones that have left/about to leave? I was informed in Feb that the already delayed @APPGMJ report was due out by the end of Mar-
Further delayed now-Perhaps @APPGMJ could clarify.
Hannah Quirks tweets got a ‘like’ from Trudi Benjamin & Hannah Quirk ‘liked’ Mick Geen’s tweet - his son is a convicted serial killer nurse found with a worn syringe of anaesthetic in his pocket when searched
Would like to know what cases Hannah Quirk work on at the CCRC and who’s cases she was involved in referring to the ?Court of Appeal
Dr Hannah Quirk
@HannahQuirk1
Nov 12, 2019
I'm delighted to be an Academic Fellow
@TheInnerTemple
for the next 3 yrs, part of its work building a stronger relationship between the Bar, judiciary and legal academia. Along with
@aoifedalylaw
@DavorJancic
&
@RussellBuchan
https://mobile.twitter.com/JackmerrittJack/status/1194324205862576128
Jack Merritt commented on the above tweet 12th Nov 2019 & was sadly ‘stabbed to death by Usman Khan’ 11 days later
-
Who around the same time commented on a tweet made by Susan Young “How this woman stood by Barry George and helped him survive” https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/aug/03/jilldando.mentalhealth
Professor Susan Young
@DrSusanYoung1
I went to bed last night upset. Id read a tweet/comments criticising clin psychologists 4 posting tips to help ppl in #lockdown. We’re all doing what what we can. We are/were also part of NHS. A colleagues been deployed to debrief frontline staff. How fast ppl forget to #BeKind
9:25 AM · Apr 2, 2020·Twitter for iPhone
Michelle Diskin Bates Ribbon
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@DrSusanYoung1
Really? What ignorance! We need all the help we can get...wisdom, discernment, the experiences of others. Personally, I can choose which advice I follow, but if it’s not there...there’s NO CHOICE. Well done
@DrSusanYoung1
Professor Susan Young
@DrSusanYoung1
Replying to
@Michelle_Diskin
Thank you. You are so right. People a quick to criticise and slow to praise.
Michelle Diskin Bates
@Michelle_DDiskin
I have to keep reminding myself hurting-people, HURT people
Professor Susan Young
@DrSusanYoung1
Thank you Louise. It really did distress me. I didn’t sleep well. They implied that we were responsible for making people feel anxious. I just thought to myself ‘I may as well hang up my boots’. Silly really and not like me to feel like giving up
Professor Susan Young
@DrSusanYoung1
So true Melanie. Everyone is doing what they can. I wonder what that person is doing? I didn’t respond as I don’t think it’s an appropriate time to take it on. People are dying. I hope though he sees what I wrote and thinks about it
Professor Susan Young
@DrSusanYoung1
Perhaps he is lucky and hasn’t been affected yet. I know two young people with COVID, both early 20’s and v unwell. One is a good friend of my daughter (who is now in self isolation). Elderly people are really suffering in self-I. We must all be constructive and positive
Did Michelle Diskin Bates actually ask a friend like she suggests in her tweet or has she embellished on the actual facts?
Michelle Diskin Bates
@Michelle_Diskin
For anyone who has been released from prison...I asked a friend, Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Dr Susan Young, if she could offer any help on how to cope.
Q. Dr Suzy, any specific advice for those who may be feeling like they are back in prison because of lockdown?
11:24 AM · Apr 24, 2020·Twitter for iPad
Michelle Diskin Bates
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@Michelle_Diskin
A. They should use the C.O.P.E system (below) to help them get through. But... it’s important to remind themselves they are not in prison. They can open the door, breathe in the air, walk around the block.
Michelle Diskin Bates
@Michelle_Diskin
They should do that every day and when out, think of the best things about being out of prison. Remind themselves this is not prison, it’s hard but it’s different.
Michelle Diskin Bates
@Michelle_Diskin
They are not ‘outsiders’ but collaborating with the rest of society to save lives. It’s not a sanction. It’s constructive.
COPE with lockdown
Many people are struggling to COPE with life at home, especially when in 'lockdown'. We know we need routine and structure but it's hard to get motivated whe...
youtube.com
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1253630863998402560
1 retweet by Jan Cunliffe
-
Michelle Diskin Bates
@Michelle_Diskin
Stand Against Injustice by Michelle Diskin Bates. The true story of the flawed investigation into the murder of Jill Dando, and the subsequent wrongful conviction of disabled man, Barry George.
‘Jill Dando. Today, 26th April 2020...It’s been 21 years since Jill’s murder and we are still no nearer to the truth (crying emoji) Nothing from the media, but WE REMEMBER!’
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1254508829129224193
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
The gross failures of the police investigation into the murder of Jill Dando and the wrongful conviction of Barry George must never be forgotten. Will the true murderer of Jill Dando ever be brought to justice? Will Barry George ever be compensated for his wrongful imprisonment?
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1254674414957932544
-
“Barry George has revealed how he is still looking over his shoulder 20 years after being acquitted of the murder of BBC star Jill Dando.
Just weeks after his acquittal he had a gun pressed to the back of his head and was told to 'watch your back'.
Speaking of how he still fears he will be attacked, George said he believes the threat came from someone connected to the Crimewatch presenter.
Speaking to the Mirror, Barry, 58, said that despite his conviction being overturned 10 years ago he does 'not feel free' and is 'looking over my shoulder'.
After being found guilty in 2001, Barry was cleared at a retrial in 2008.
He had moved to Hackney, east London, and it was there that the threat was made a year after he was freed.
Barry says: 'When I was in emergency accommodation in Hackney, I was stood in a long hallway and I had a gun put to my head and was told 'Watch your back'.
'I went to the police station and told them and they gave me lip service. I was living in fear.
'There were two things in my mind: I've been acquitted of this crime and then I get a gun to my head.'
The Met police confirmed that a man in his 40s had reported such an incident in Hackney during 2009.
However, they were unable to give full details of the probe.
David Wells, a criminal defence specialist from Wells Burcombe Solicitors, was at the police station when Barry reported the sinister threat.
David said: 'He was incredibly distressed... sweating, out of breath and in quite a state.
I'd seen Barry on many occasions and I had never seen him this distressed.
Later that year Barry fled to Ireland where he hoped the harassment would end.
Crimewatch presenter Miss Dando, 37, was shot outside her home in Fulham, south-west London in April 1999.
The murder prompted an enormous inquiry by Scotland Yard and resulted in unemployed loner Mr George being convicted in July 2001.
He was granted a retrial on appeal, and received a unanimous acquittal by a jury in August 2008.
Mr George then made a claim for compensation for lost earnings and wrongful imprisonment, but this was rejected in January 2010.
He went to court again to seek a reconsideration of his case, which could have opened the way for him to claim as much as £500,000.
His barrister, Ian Glen QC, insisted that the original decision to refuse compensation was 'defective and contrary to natural justice', arguing that for more than 30 years, those acquitted on retrials in similar circumstances had been compensated.
Previously, compensation was only awarded for a miscarriage of justice if a claimant could effectively prove they were innocent.
But a Supreme Court hearing in 2011 widened this to say a person is eligible for compensation if they can prove that no set of circumstances could possibly lead to their conviction by a jury.
The judges ruled Mr George's case did not pass this second test. His solicitor, Nick Baird, said: 'We are very disappointed with the judgment and shall be applying for permission to leapfrog the Court of Appeal to have the matter heard before the Supreme Court.'
Mr George's action was one of five test cases to decide who is now entitled to payments in 'miscarriage of justice' cases.
Decisions to refuse payouts in all five cases were defended by current Justice Secretary Chris Grayling in a three-day hearing last October
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5961027/Man-acquitted-killing-Jill-Dando-told-watch-walking-free.html
http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=9318.555
https://insidetime.org/with-the-right-level-of-expertise-grounds-for-appeal-can-be-identified/
-
Dr Hannah Quirk
@HannahQuirk1
Nov 12, 2019
I'm delighted to be an Academic Fellow
@TheInnerTemple
for the next 3 yrs, part of its work building a stronger relationship between the Bar, judiciary and legal academia. Along with
@aoifedalylaw
@DavorJancic
&
@RussellBuchan
https://mobile.twitter.com/JackmerrittJack/status/1194324205862576128
Dr Hannah Quirk
@HannahQuirk1
My letter in @thetimes on the proposal for suspending jury trials due to Covid-19 https://thetimes.co.uk/article/times-letters-trials-without-juries-would-ease-the-backlog-cdb8bnmwh
8:41 AM · May 2, 2020·Twitter Web App
Thread
https://mobile.twitter.com/HannahQuirk1/status/1256488994092855298
-
David Wells, a criminal defence specialist from Wells Burcombe Solicitors, was at the police station when Barry reported the sinister threat.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5961027/Man-acquitted-killing-Jill-Dando-told-watch-walking-free.html
http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=9318.555
Michelle Diskin Bates
@Michelle_Diskin
“With the right level of expertise, grounds for appeal can be identified” – insidetime & insideinformation https://insidetime.org/with-the-right-level-of-expertise-grounds-for-appeal-can-be-identified/…
8:21 pm · 1 May 2020·Twitter for iPad
https://insidetime.org/with-the-right-level-of-expertise-grounds-for-appeal-can-be-identified/
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1256302665442693125
Linda - #justicesystemfailedus
@Elsie2127
Time&time again I review appeal cases&find myself agreeing with my client(s) that more cld&shld have been done on behalf of defendant by his or her lawyers. Unfortunately, even in the most troubling of cases there is often not a great deal that can be done https://insidetime.org/with-the-right-level-of-expertise-grounds-for-appeal-can-be-identified/…
9:36 am · 2 May 2020·Twitter for iPhone
Matthew Scott
@Barristerblog
2 May
Replying to
@Elsie2127
"I have for some time been regarded as one of the country’s most recognised criminal appeal lawyers."
Dr Hannah Quirk
@HannahQuirk1
17h
Are @InsideTimeUK running advertorials now?
https://mobile.twitter.com/Elsie2127/status/1256502797765357568
-
Steven A Drizin
@SDrizin
When fiction turns into fact | Feature from King's College London https://kcl.ac.uk/when-fiction-turns-into-fact#.XZuyk_7fMmI.twitter…
@HannahQuirk1
was our go-to moderator in England & the UK. Dr. Quirk's brilliant, funny, and fun to hang out with. She also knows an injustice when she sees one. #bringbrendanhome
Dr Hannah Quirk
@HannahQuirk1
Oct 8, 2019
Replying to
@SDrizin
Thanks so much Steve. Can I be moderator when you come over here to tell us how you got Brendan home?
https://mobile.twitter.com/SDrizin/status/1181326232023162880
Justice – and compensation – denied by new legislation by Hannah Quirk - April 2014
Excerpts:
‘Is a victim of a miscarriage of justice somebody, such as Stefan Kiszko who forensic evidence proved was innocent of any involvement in the rape and murder of a schoolgirl? Or is it Sally Clarke, whose conviction for murdering her babies was quashed because of evidence which cast doubt on her conviction, but did not prove her innocence? Or is it Nicholas Mullen, whose conviction for running an IRA ‘bomb-factory’ was overturned because the government had acted unlawfully in extraditing him for trial?
Following legal challenges by those denied compensation, including Barry George, who was wrongly convicted of the murder of Jill Dando, the government is seeking to narrow the test. It argues that this change will bring clarity and save money. Opponents argue that it will be challenged in the courts and is wrong in principle.
The new test will define a miscarriage of justice as occurring when “if and only if the new or newly discovered fact shows beyond reasonable doubt that the person did not commit the offence.”
On the face of it, this is a straightforward test. The problem is that few of the most notorious miscarriages of justice would meet this standard of proof.
The Court of Appeal looks at the ‘safety’ of a conviction – it very rarely says that a successful appellant is innocent. Short of new DNA evidence, very few new facts will establish innocence – most will just make it impossible to be sure that the jury would have convicted.
“There is obviously a spectrum of harm when a conviction is overturned, but this could be reflected in the amount of compensation paid rather than making the scheme so narrow.
It is wrong in principle, and potentially contravenes the European Convention on Human Rights, to expect somebody to prove their innocence and it contravenes the separation of powers for politicians to decide if a person is innocent or not.
This latest legal change is a retrograde, mean-spirited and potentially unlawful measure. It will damage British justice and the individuals involved in these cases. As Lord Pannick expressed it so eloquently in the House of Lords debate: “[there is] nothing more likely to keep open the sore of a regrettable miscarriage of justice.”
http://blog.policy.manchester.ac.uk/featured/2014/04/justice-and-compensation-denied-by-new-legislation/
Hannah Quirk appears to be suggesting in her tweet to Steven Drizin she holds a firm belief of innocence in his (Brendans) case further supported by the fact her name appears on his ‘pardon letter’ here https://patch.com/wisconsin/waukesha/full-list-250-who-signed-brendan-dassey-pardon-letter
Full List Of 250 Who Signed Brendan Dassey Pardon Letter
‘This week, attorneys representing Brendan Dassey say nearly 250 people – including a wide range of retired U.S. government officials and some of the nation's most prominent legal and political experts – wrote Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers in support of Dassey's petition for executive clemency.
“Can I be moderator when you come over here to tell us how you got Brendan home?”
Though when it comes to UK cases she appears to not to want to openly commit herself; but why?
Regarding ‘Justice – and compensation – denied by new legislation’ Hannah Quirk concludes,
‘It will damage British justice and the individuals involved in these cases.’
But what exactly does she mean by this?
How will it ‘damage British justice’ ?
And who are the ‘individuals involved in these cases’ referred to?
How has the Barry George’s ‘unsafe’ murder conviction damaged ‘British justice’ and what ‘harm’ has it caused ?
Hannah Quirk:
‘I am an academic with a particular interest in miscarriages of justice. I look at how changes to the criminal law and criminal evidence increase the risk of wrongful convictions and how the criminal justice system then investigates and responds to such cases. I also have an interest in sentencing. I am an Academic Fellow of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple. I sit on the editorial boards of The Criminal Law Review and Legal Studies. I am a trustee of Transform Justice and the Sentencing Academy. I regularly appear in the media discussing topical criminal justice issues.
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/hannah-quirk-22770230
Other names which appears alongside Hannah Quirks are:
Gisli Gudjonsson, Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), Emeritus Professor, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London
How has Gisli Gudjonsson possible cognitive bias impacted on his work within the innocence movement and is he an innocence activist?
-
Steven A Drizin
@SDrizin
When fiction turns into fact | Feature from King's College London https://kcl.ac.uk/when-fiction-turns-into-fact#.XZuyk_7fMmI.twitter…
@HannahQuirk1
was our go-to moderator in England & the UK. Dr. Quirk's brilliant, funny, and fun to hang out with. She also knows an injustice when she sees one. #bringbrendanhome
Dr Hannah Quirk
@HannahQuirk1
Oct 8, 2019
Replying to
@SDrizin
Thanks so much Steve. Can I be moderator when you come over here to tell us how you got Brendan home?
https://mobile.twitter.com/SDrizin/status/1181326232023162880
Cheers David 8((()*/ http://jeremybamberforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,10260.msg479230.html#msg479230
“I guess they got it all on film or tape or whatever what we did that night"
https://streamable.com/ayckx8
8((()*/ https://streamable.com/kfrk3
-
Steven A Drizin
@SDrizin
When fiction turns into fact | Feature from King's College London https://kcl.ac.uk/when-fiction-turns-into-fact#.XZuyk_7fMmI.twitter…
@HannahQuirk1
was our go-to moderator in England & the UK. Dr. Quirk's brilliant, funny, and fun to hang out with. She also knows an injustice when she sees one. #bringbrendanhome
Dr Hannah Quirk
@HannahQuirk1
Oct 8, 2019
Replying to
@SDrizin
Thanks so much Steve. Can I be moderator when you come over here to tell us how you got Brendan home?
https://mobile.twitter.com/SDrizin/status/1181326232023162880
Steven A Drizin
@SDrizin
Replying to
@2ndddsucks
I would contact @CliveSSmith and Emily Bolton at http://criminalappeals.org.uk Both are Brits who came to the US to work on death penalty cases, stayed for a good long bit, and then came back to your side of the pond.
Emily Maw of @InnocenceProjNO followed in their footsteps & stayed
APPEAL
A charity law practice that fights miscarriages of justice and demands reform. We provide legal representation in high impact innocence cases for people who cannot afford to pay for a lawyer themse...
appeal.org.uk
7:18 PM · Mar 9, 2019·Twitter Web Client
https://mobile.twitter.com/SDrizin/status/1104461450142236673
-
‘This is the pilot episode of a podcast about the work of the Innocence Project London, part of the global innocence movement. It aims to provide an honest account of how difficult this work is and why it matters, both to reform of the Criminal Justice System as well as in providing experiential learning to law and criminology students at the UoG
https://innocenceprojectlondon.transistor.fm/
‘The Innocence Project London was established in 2010 and is based at the University of Greenwich. It is a pro-bono project. The project investigates alleged wrongful convictions of individuals who have maintained their innocence and have already exhausted the appeals process.
Louise Hewitt doesn’t mention Michael Naughton during the pilot episode of her podcast. Wonder why?
She refers to an ‘innocence model’ - which appears based on the Bristol Innocence Project Model - & how she’s had to “manipulate it to work in a criminal justice system which finds convictions unsafe”
But refuses to explain what was meant by ‘manipulation’ and doesn’t appear interested in innocence fraud
-
Louise Hewitt doesn’t mention Michael Naughton during the pilot episode of her podcast. Wonder why?
She refers to an ‘innocence model’ - which appears based on the Bristol Innocence Project Model - & how she’s had to “manipulate it to work in a criminal justice system which finds convictions unsafe”
But refuses to explain what was meant by ‘manipulation’ and doesn’t appear interested in innocence fraud
Michael Naughton’s latest article for Jon Robins Justice Gap online magazine headed,
‘I won’t stop until I die’: David Nash’s dying declaration of innocence
https://www.thejusticegap.com/i-wont-stop-until-i-die-david-nashs-dying-declaration-of-innocence/
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
“I won’t stop until I die.” My article in The Justice Gap
@JusticeGap
on David Nash’s dying declaration of innocence, it’s status in law and how it could be used in a posthumous application to the
@ccrcupdate
https://thejusticegap.com/i-wont-stop-until-i-die-david-nashs-dying-declaration-of-innocence/…
10:34 AM · May 20, 2020·Twitter for iPhone
https://www.thejusticegap.com/i-wont-stop-until-i-die-david-nashs-dying-declaration-of-innocence/
-
David the ‘Serbian theory’ was another conspiracy theory - not dissimilar to this one
‘Michael Mansfield QC, one of the nation's most eminent legal brains, believes the deaths in the Alma Tunnel in 1997 were the result of a carefully orchestrated plan by unnamed parties to end the relationship’
https://www.express.co.uk/expressyourself/165829/How-plot-to-stop-Diana-and-Dodi-s-affair-ended-in-murder
Google John Bowden & Mr Mansfield
-
Empowering the Innocent (ETI) Retweeted
Michelle Diskin Bates
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@EmpowerInnocent
And yet the public balk at us saying there are people in prison, wrongfully convicted...sometimes for crimes that never even happened!
11:34 am · 19 Apr 2020·Twitter for iPad
https://mobile.twitter.com/i/status/1251759106614013953
No surprise Dr Michael Naughton recently attempted to again create doubt over the exposure of Simon Hall’s guilt on 2012/13 with his unfounded and ludicrous public comments,
“The Birmingham Six confessed. The Guildford Four confessed. Simon was on suicide watch and he was taking every drug he could get.”
Had a well-intentioned team of law students and academics been hoodwinked by a murderer? Michael is not convinced..’
-
More lies from Michelle Diskin Bates
Michelle Diskin Bates
@Michelle_Diskin
BTW...Mercurio is wrong, Barry has NEVER referred to himself as an oddball. That was police and legal people who did that!
Line of Duty in firing line after character with Down’s Syndrome called ‘oddball’
8:17 am · 24 Mar 2021·Twitter for iPad
https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/people/line-of-duty-in-firing-line-after-character-with-downs-syndrome-called-oddball-3173814
The “oddball” comment appears to have stemmed from George’s father Alfred repeated by Barry George in 2008
2001
‘George's childhood was not easy. His parents' marriage was unstable and led to bitter divorce in December 1973, when Barry was 13.
Even then George had a fertile imagination, weaving fantasies around his favourite programme, Thunderbirds, which irritated his father, who believed his son was an "oddball" who had been "born naive".
https://amp.theguardian.com/uk/2001/jul/03/jilldando.media5#click=https://t.co/hI00tCgVfO
2008 - Barry George
“I was the easiest target on the case. They (police) could just say, ’We’ve got the local oddball’
https://www.irishexaminer.com/world/arid-30372474.html?type=amp&__twitter_impression=true
Michelle Diskin Bates
@Michelle_Diskin
@jed_mercurio
Hello Jed, I’m Barry George’s sister, and I watched the first episode of series 6 of LoD. I was secretly pleased and guessed it was from the Barry George case (though I knew it wasn’t right for the cop to say that). Message me...I promise I don’t eat fellow writers
11:03 am · 24 Mar 2021·Twitter for iPad
-
‘The Count of Monte Cristo, To Kill a Mockingbird, 10 Rillington Place and The Shawshank Redemption are among the classics. Television programmes, The Court of Last Resort, Rough Justice and World in Action raised public awareness that mistakes can happen and uncovered some of the evidence that led to convictions being quashed. That all changed with the surprise popularity of TV documentaries such as Netflix’s Making a Murderer and The Staircase.
But what’s it like to work with law professors who are on the side of the wrongly accused and convicted in real life? King’s Reader in Criminal Law, Dr Hannah Quirk, has been closely following those cases by hosting a series of talks with the attorneys Laura Nirider and Steven Drizin from Making a Murderer and David Rudolf from The Staircase. Hannah recently returned from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival where she took part in conversational events with the attorneys about the circumstances in which miscarriages occur. Here’s her story:
So, what’s it like interviewing the lawyers who have shot to fame by taking on these cases?
It is the closest I’ve ever got to being cool! Every night after the shows, there was a line of people wanting to meet them, talk about their cases and thank them for the work they are doing.
Even though my job was to facilitate the discussion, I shamelessly basked in the reflected kudos! But seriously, it was really inspiring to hear about their work. David is an attorney with a decades-long career representing people most in need of help in civil liberties and criminal cases. Steve and Laura show the best of what academics do: scholarly research, public and political engagement and inspiring students. It must be really odd for them to suddenly have people approaching them in the streets, but they are very gracious about it. A taxi driver refused to take the fare when he recognised Steve and Laura, so they gave him a ticket for the show. I am slightly obsessed with miscarriages of justice, so it was a dream job for me.
What sparked your interest in those cases?
Like millions of people across the world, I watched the first series of Making a Murderer over Christmas 2015. It told the story of Steven Avery. He had spent 18 years in prison for rape and attempted murder until the Innocence Project helped to prove his innocence. He was the first man to be exonerated in Illinois, America, by DNA testing. I already knew of his case because he filed a $36 million civil lawsuit against the county, but two years later he was arrested for the murder of Teresa Halbach. As part of their investigations, the police interrogated Avery’s 16-year-old nephew, Brendan Dassey, who confessed to helping his uncle commit the crime. He was fed the details by the police and clearly had no idea of what he had admitted to – when the interview finished, he asked the police if he could go back to school as he had a project to hand in. The programme was beautifully shot and structured, but was especially intriguing because, unlike previous programmes of this type, we do not know if Steven Avery is guilty or not.
I had already been gripped by the Serial podcast. I came to The Staircase a bit later and found it riveting for the insights into how the case was defended and the ‘did he/didn’t he’ puzzle. It was also a painful reminder of the human cost of these cases. The toll it took on Michael Peterson’s adopted daughters who had already lost their mothers was agonising to watch. The Staircase is unusual in that it shows a wealthy white man claiming to have been wrongly convicted. Far more of these cases involve poor people who cannot afford adequate legal representation and those from minority ethnic and underprivileged groups.
How did you get involved in both series?
Dean Strang and Jerry Buting (Steven Avery’s attorneys) did some shows over here a few years ago. They were looking for an academic working in the area to interview them and I jumped at the chance. My main research interest is miscarriages of justice. I used to work for the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) in Birmingham, the first state-funded body in the world set up to investigate claims of wrongful conviction. I did a few shows with them and carried on when Steve, Laura and David came over later.
In how far does the UK law system differ from the US?
In 2005, I spent six months working at the Innocence Project New Orleans, a non-profit organisation that works to free wrongly convicted life-sentenced prisoners in Mississippi and Louisiana, the state with the highest number of prisoners serving life without parole in the world. My plan was to compare how wrongful convictions are dealt with in England and Wales by the CCRC, and the USA but I realised, pretty much on the first day there, that there was too great a disparity.
Significant reforms were introduced in England and Wales, in part following high profile miscarriages of justice in the 1970s. Suspects are much better protected here now. Unlike in England and Wales, the Wisconsin police were allowed to arrest Brendan Dassey at school and to question him without an appropriate adult or lawyer. The police in America are also allowed to lie to suspects. They are trained to extract confessions using something called the ‘Reid Technique’. It is highly effective at gaining truthful confessions – but runs a high risk of eliciting false confessions too.
Mistakes happen in every system. For the most part, nobody working in the criminal justice system here wants errors to occur. The corruption cases we saw in the 1980s with units such as the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad seem to be a thing of the past, although convictions have been quashed recently due to allegations of tampering at a forensics laboratory. There are strict rules in place and much better training of police officers regarding their behaviour in interviews. Mistakes are much more likely to occur due to the budget cuts that the criminal justice system has experienced – a 20% cut in police funding, 30% for the CPS. Standards have fallen since the Forensic Science Service was closed. Some of the consequences are highlighted in The Secret Barrister’s surprise bestseller, Stories of the Law and How it is Broken
What can be learned from the cases?
It’s an important combination. For most people watching the shows it is just entertainment, but we have to remember that these are real people caught up in a system that reflects and represents us. I was struck by one of the questions we were asked one night which was, ‘what are the main characters doing now?’ as though it was a drama rather than a documentary. Steve Drizin has worked for years in helping the courts to understand the risks of false confessions through his academic work. We know that young people and those with learning difficulties are more likely to confess falsely. More states now have laws requiring interviews to be recorded and for juveniles to have ‘appropriate adults’ supporting them in interview – they all should have this. In a neat twist, Brendan’s confession was only filmed because the courts had ordered this to happen in a previous case Steve had won.
Society wise, these cases have launched miscarriages of justice back into the public consciousness. That gives a narrow window to use these shows to effect lasting change, some police training agencies are using Brendan Dassey’s interview as an example of how not to question a suspect.
The media focus has been on American cases. This year the Emmy awards recognised When They See Us, about the Central Park Five case, and a reminder of Donald Trump’s notorious advert in New York newspapers at the time, calling for the death penalty to be reinstated.
In the UK it is important we do not just think miscarriages of justice are something that happened a long time ago or only happen in America. For a long time, politicians thought that being ‘tough on crime’ was a vote winner and introduced policies that have made it harder to get a fair trial. Most people do not realise that anyone with an annual household disposable income of over about £22,000 will not qualify for legal aid in the magistrates’ court (£37,500 in the Crown Court). If they are acquitted, having paid possibly a five or six figure sum for legal representation, reimbursement will be at the much lower legal aid rates. This ‘innocence tax’ has seen acquitted defendants forced to exhaust their life savings and be forced to sell their homes. Another concern is that within a decade, it may be impossible to find a solicitor in some areas as firms are going out of business as criminal work is paid so badly and young solicitors cannot afford to enter or stay in the profession.
I have been fascinated by wrongful convictions for years. Making a Murderer has focused public attention on this topic in an unprecedented way, but interest will fade, and television companies will move onto the next issue. I hope people will want to know more about injustice. The Justice Gap carries lots of informative articles on the subject and how to campaign against it. Amnesty International has a campaigning guide for cases in other countries and the Innocence Project offers possible actions to take. Politicians need to hear from their constituents that we care about justice. Ask your MP if he or she is part of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Miscarriages of Justice.
Progress in the criminal justice system nearly always comes in the wake of public concern about miscarriages of justice. Hopefully Steve, Laura and David will be back for another tour with good news.
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/when-fiction-turns-into-fact
‘Truth About The Central Park 5 (part1) | Now They See Us | Atheism Is Unstoppable’
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6YZwOR9OGkU
Truth About The Central Park 5 (part2) | Now They See Us | Atheism Is Unstoppable
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=POWpo6xesnM
Part 3 - The Power of Propaganda : When They See Us Goes Viral on Netflix
https://www.altcensored.com/watch?v=iisdZAIwg4o
When They R@pe Us - Part 4 - The Confessions : Fact vs Fiction
https://altcensored.com/watch?v=sUvmRYN04MA
Truth About The Central Park 5 (part5) | Now They See Us | Atheism Is Unstoppable
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lDSOdqxf50g
Devon Tracey aka Atheism Is Unstoppable
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VCPq8y5mLw8&ab_channel=IRONH34RT221
-
‘Truth About The Central Park 5 (part1) | Now They See Us | Atheism Is Unstoppable’
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6YZwOR9OGkU
Truth About The Central Park 5 (part2) | Now They See Us | Atheism Is Unstoppable
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=POWpo6xesnM
Part 3 - The Power of Propaganda : When They See Us Goes Viral on Netflix
https://www.altcensored.com/watch?v=iisdZAIwg4o
When They R@pe Us - Part 4 - The Confessions : Fact vs Fiction
https://altcensored.com/watch?v=sUvmRYN04MA
Truth About The Central Park 5 (part5) | Now They See Us | Atheism Is Unstoppable
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lDSOdqxf50g
Devon Tracey aka Atheism Is Unstoppable
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VCPq8y5mLw8&ab_channel=IRONH34RT221
The Central Park Five Jogger Attackers website
’There are 11 video-taped statements made by young men who participated in the riot and attacks in Central Park on April 19, 1989. These recorded statements have been withheld from public view for more than a dozen years. They are, in their entirety, all here on this site.
Videos #1-#4B are interviews by four of the five young men convicted of participating in the assault and rape of Trisha Meili – named in the media as the Central Park Jogger. Each of the suspects who was under the age of 16 when questioned, was questioned in the presence of a parent or guardian, as required by law. The law does not require an adult to be present when the suspect is 16 or older, and so, two of the suspects who identified themselves as 16 were interviewed without a parent or guardian. Each young man, whether under or over 16 years of age, was advised of his rights as can be seen here on the video recordings, and each young man confirms having been advised of his rights by the police before this stage of the recorded interviews occurred. By viewing each or all of the videos, it is abundantly clear why the trial and appellate courts’ ruling in this case determined that the statements were given voluntarily, and therefore admissible in a court of law. That ruling has never been overturned.
Videos and more here https://centralpark5joggerattackers.com/videos/
-
Excerpts from Mike Bourke’s book Mike’s Story
“I designed a leaflet and Mick made up a prototype which I then got printed. The leaflet described Barry as a proud Englishman with Welsh Irish roots. He was described as not a devil, not a saint, but perhaps a Scapegoat. It then pointed to some shortcomings of the jury, and there followed a description of the case against Barry, and the scant forensic evidence. It also contained a list of people who felt or expressed CONCERN at the safety of Barry’s conviction. Eventually I had a short list, small in number but impressive in quality. The list consisted of Willie O Dea, TD. John McDonnell, MP. Professor Tim Valentine. Jim Nichol, Solicitor. John Witzenfeld. Solicitor. Pat Reynolds, Chairman IBRG. Dr Chris R Tame, Director Libertarian Alliance. Billy Power and Paddy Hill. (Birmingham Six) Andy Parr. (Cricket writer) Paul Foot, Journalist. Later I would get a few more names. They were Jeremy Corbyn, MP. John McManus, MOJO. LA Naylor, author of HOW MANY ARE INNOCENT. Senator Labhras O Murchu. Professor Elizabeth Loftus, ‘Memory expert’ who was concerned at witnesses recollections. Seamus Healy TD. Dan Neville TD. The leaflet ended with information on our website and a request for concerned people to write to their local politician or MEP, and a mention of Martin Jeremiah and his album Day Off For The Queen. I planned to distribute some at the London Saint Patrick’s Day Festival in March. I also sent some to politicians, the Home Office etc. Michelle phoned to tell me that she would also be in London, as MOJO were holding a public meeting in the House of Commons. I was not invited which I thought was a pity as we could perhaps have distributed some more of the leaflets.
Re Elizabeth Loftus
‘Let's revisit a wonderful moment in 2006 when Loftus admitted in court that her methodology was unscientific, her conclusions about memory were conflicting, and that she exaggerated her findings in ways that favoured the defence.
Defense Lawyers to Experts: Who’s Who in the Harvey Weinstein Trial
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/defense-lawyers-experts-who-s-who-harvey-weinstein-trial-1266395
In the Libby Case, A Grilling to Remember
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2006/10/27/in-the-libby-case-a-grilling-to-remember/f5b3a032-2929-4925-aea9-013c57204cca/
Elizabeth Loftus and the Hoffman report
https://blogs.brown.edu/recoveredmemory/2015/07/22/loftus-hoffman-report/
Remembering The False Memory Syndrome Foundation
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0RvvHZLSBos
-
The Jill Dando murder - solved or unsolved?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lZrXccaA1b8&feature=youtu.be
-
Why am I not surprised Maxine Twynam studied law at Cardiff Uni 🙄
https://twitter.com/YouCallThisJus1/status/1444715439003738118
-
Why am I not surprised Maxine Twynam studied law at Cardiff Uni 🙄
https://twitter.com/YouCallThisJus1/status/1444715439003738118
Michelle Diskin Bates mentions her and her brothers uncle during her chat with Maxine Twynam
Mike Burke was the uncle who did a lot of the work to help overturn his nephews murder conviction and ran the campaign
Diskin Bates appears to be having another subtle dig at her uncle
-
Why am I not surprised Maxine Twynam studied law at Cardiff Uni 🙄
https://twitter.com/YouCallThisJus1/status/1444715439003738118
Michelle Diskin Bates also madean odd comment about having to ‘eat’ early on during her chat with Maxine
What was that all about?
-
No surprise Dr Michael Naughton recently attempted to again create doubt over the exposure of Simon Hall’s guilt on
Had a well-intentioned team of law students and academics been hoodwinked by a murderer? Michael is not convinced..’
Did Michael Naughton see himself as the UK’s version of Barry Scheck ?
⬇️
https://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/2021/12/19/wrongful-convictions-miscarriages-of-justice-innocence-fraud-whats-the-difference/?preview_id=223&preview_nonce=203b426e39&preview=true
-
Did Michael Naughton see himself as the UK’s version of Barry Scheck ?
⬇️
https://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/2021/12/19/wrongful-convictions-miscarriages-of-justice-innocence-fraud-whats-the-difference/?preview_id=223&preview_nonce=203b426e39&preview=true
’The shelf above Mike Naughton's desk in Bristol University's law school is heaving with files of letters from prisoners who claim they were wrongly convicted and want help. "It shows just how desperate so many people are," says Naughton, a lecturer in criminal law. "They have got nobody else to turn to so they are prepared to put their futures in the hands of a project led by university students. It really is quite disturbing."
Naughton's office has become the bustling nerve centre of the University of Bristol's Innocence Project which aims to provide free assistance to the victims of miscarriages of justice languishing in prison.
Students have been giving up their free time to sort through the mountain of correspondence. "They should be out drinking or chasing the opposite sex but they are here getting stuck in," says Naughton. "Their enthusiasm is a inspiration."
Barry George, the man convicted of killing the television presenter Jill Dando, has written to the project. Naughton has also had contact with the family of Michael Stone, who has twice been convicted of murdering Lin and Megan Russell and whose latest appeal failed in January. Many other notorious figures - Naughton will not name names - have been in touch.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jun/14/law.studentwork
-
Did Michael Naughton see himself as the UK’s version of Barry Scheck ?
⬇️
https://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/2021/12/19/wrongful-convictions-miscarriages-of-justice-innocence-fraud-whats-the-difference/?preview_id=223&preview_nonce=203b426e39&preview=true
Michelle Diskin Bates will feature in Part 2 of the Blog
Michelle Diskin Bates
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@29_11prosperity
and
@exploringfar
Oh wow, someone who understands that damaged children grow into damaged adults. We may not become criminals, we may seem good, but that damage is still in there. Thank you for being there for people Red heart
9:35 am · 21 Dec 2021·Twitter for iPhone
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1473225721447391233
-
Michelle Diskin Bates will feature in Part 2 of the Blog
Michelle Diskin Bates
@Michelle_Diskin
Replying to
@29_11prosperity
and
@exploringfar
Oh wow, someone who understands that damaged children grow into damaged adults. We may not become criminals, we may seem good, but that damage is still in there. Thank you for being there for people Red heart
9:35 am · 21 Dec 2021·Twitter for iPhone
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1473225721447391233
Michelle Diskin Bates
@Michelle_Diskin
Help bring a smile to Rodney Reed’s face https://go.pardot.com/webmail/910162/123224581/1de80c43a0a68ce44c6d56e362ccd807c8c781c0a5e14852eed9e1f0a393d000…
10:08 am · 21 Dec 2021·Twitter for iPad
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1473234025389113359
-
Michelle Diskin Bates
@Michelle_Diskin
Help bring a smile to Rodney Reed’s face https://go.pardot.com/webmail/910162/123224581/1de80c43a0a68ce44c6d56e362ccd807c8c781c0a5e14852eed9e1f0a393d000…
10:08 am · 21 Dec 2021·Twitter for iPad
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1473234025389113359
Michelle Diskin Bates
@Michelle_Diskin
Wish Rodney Reed happy birthday Balloon https://go.pardot.com/webmail/910162/124894045/1de80c43a0a68ce44c6d56e362ccd807c8c781c0a5e14852eed9e1f0a393d000…
9:50 pm · 22 Dec 2021·Twitter for iPad
https://mobile.twitter.com/Michelle_Diskin/status/1473773058834169862
Does anyone recall Michelle Diskin Bates wishing her brother convicted/exonerated killer Barry George a ‘Happy Birthday’ on Twitter?
Stacey Stites rapist and killer is mentioned here - worth a listen https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=laujRg3W5C4
-
You Call This Justice?
@YouCallThisJus1
The latest episode is very powerful as Michelle
@Michelle_Diskin
shares her harrowing experience about what happened when her brother, Barry George became a victim of a high profile miscarriage of justice
The following media includes potentially sensitive content. Change settings
View
6:26 pm · 3 Oct 2021·Twitter for iPhone
https://mobile.twitter.com/YouCallThisJus1/status/1444715439003738118
And lawyer Maxine Twynam, of the ‘You call this justice’ podcast may recall stalker, rapist and convicted/exonerated murderer of Jill Dando - Barry George - was told in early 2013 he was not a victim of a miscarriage of justice 🙄
‘….judges ruled that his conviction, later overturned in a retrial, did not amount to a “miscarriage of justice”
(https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/eight-years-in-prison-but-barry-george-is-refused-compensation-8467485.html)
Why do lawyers like Maxine Twynam choose to lie for convicted/exonerated killers?
‘Delivering the judgment, Lord Phillips, president of the Supreme Court, said:
“It is not satisfactory to make the mere quashing of a conviction the trigger for payment of compensation." Conversely, he noted, the new test: "will not guarantee that all those who are entitled to compensation are, in fact, innocent.[/b]"
(https://www.theguardian.com/law/2011/may/11/barry-george-compensated-supreme-court)
-
What The MSM Won’t Tell You Re: The Innocence Fraud Of Killer Barry George & His Enablers
👇
http://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/2022/10/10/quite-a-hall-tale-part-19p%ef%b8%8f/
-
What The MSM Won’t Tell You Re: The Innocence Fraud Of Killer Barry George & His Enablers
👇
http://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/2022/10/10/quite-a-hall-tale-part-19p%ef%b8%8f/
Part 2 of The Innocence Fraud Of Killer Barry George & His Enablers
👇
http://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/2022/10/10/jill-dando-her-killer-his-enablers-innocence-fraud-part-2/
-
Jill Dando & Her Killer & His Enablers Innocence Fraud (Part 3)
👇
https://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/2022/10/11/quite-a-hall-tale-part-19r%EF%B8%8F/
-
Jill Dando & Her Killer & His Enablers Innocence Fraud (Part 3)
👇
https://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/2022/10/11/quite-a-hall-tale-part-19r%EF%B8%8F/
What happened to killer Barry George and Michelle Diskin Bates brother-in-law (Edward) Derek Towler ?
-
The Ghosting Of Sister Susan & Brother-In-Law Derek Towler #InnocenceFraud #BarryGeorge
👇
https://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/2022/10/11/jill-dando-her-killer-his-enablers-innocence-fraud-part-3/
-
Jill Dando & Her Killer (Barry George) & His Enablers Innocence Fraud Part 4
👇
https://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/2022/10/15/jill-dando-her-killer-barry-george-his-enablers-innocence-fraud-part-4/
-
Part 5 ~ Dropping Soon
👇
https://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/jill-dando-her-killer-barry-george-his-enablers-innocence-fraud-blog-series/
-
Part 5 ~ Dropping Soon
👇
https://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/jill-dando-her-killer-barry-george-his-enablers-innocence-fraud-blog-series/
Looking forward to the next episode. Was deeply interested in this crime when it happened.
Susan Dando was such a lovely sweet person and there were rumours at the time that she had found out about child sexual abuse organisations IIRC and was about to report to the police when she was murdered on her doorstep.
It's a dangerous business looking into child abuse organisations ... as I should know.
-
By Duncan Campbell,
“Where now for wrongful convictions? Louise Shorter, a former producer on Rough Justice, sees a glimmer of hope. She now works for Inside Justice, the investigative unit attached to the prisoners’ newspaper Inside Time, that was set up in 2010 to investigate wrongful convictions. She acknowledges the current difficulties: “Unravelling a miscarriage of justice case can take a decade or more. Television wants a beginning, middle and end to any story and wants it now, and that’s hard to achieve when the criminal justice wheels turn so very slowly.”
Yet Shorter says that her phone has been ringing off the hook following two successful American ventures: the podcast Serial and the Netflix series Making a Murderer. In September, she presented the two-part BBC documentary Conviction: Murder at the Station, in which she investigated the case of Roger Kearney, who protests his innocence of the murder of his lover Paula Poolton. Her body was found in her car at Southampton train station in 2008. “The media finally latched on to what the public has known for years: real-life whodunnits – or did-they-do-its – always have been and remain immensely popular,” Shorter says.
As Wang Yam awaits his appeal hearing and hundreds of others hope that their cases are heard, let us hope that she is right and that we have not returned to the days when only a “loony MP” or the “mischievous and futile” could challenge the law.
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2017/02/rough-justice-who-looking-out-wrongfully-convicted
Wang Yam lost his appeal to the European Court of Human Rights last week https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/01/16/chinese-criminal-convicted-murdering-reclusive-author-following/
https://www.wntv.uk/european-court-of-human-rights/
The CCRC referred his murder conviction to the CoA in April 2016 https://ccrc.gov.uk/wang-yam/
Criminal Cases Review Commission And The Case Of Wang Yam
By Kirsty Brimelow QC
“The Criminal Cases Review Commission has become one of the critical safeguards for our human, and thus fallible, criminal justice system, stepping in where things might have gone wrong.”
Sir Brian Leveson CCRC Annual Lecture April 2018
In this article I consider my experience of working with the CCRC on Wang Yam, an appeal against a murder conviction.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) celebrated its 20 -year anniversary in 2017. It is set against a background of miscarriages of justice in the 1980s and emerged from the Runciman Commission which was appointed in the barely settled dust of the quashed convictions of the Birmingham Six. The Home Secretary's Criminal Cases Unit (CCU) was dismantled and the CCRC, an independent body free of executive attachments, was constructed. It was envisaged that the CCRC would not be smoothed or cowed into constitutional deference to the Court of Appeal (CACD) and would investigate and refer more cases.
A fundamental criticism of the CCU was that it referred too few cases. If CCRC’s success is measured against the number of cases it has referred to the Court of Appeal, it is failing. 96% of cases are not referred. However, the CCRC’s success rate, once referrals are made, keeps a steady 70%.
Powers
An application may be made to the CCRC for it to refer a case back to the Court of Appeal pursuant to section 9 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1995, where there is a “real possibility that the conviction … would not be upheld” if this application was referred to the Court of Appeal (section 13(1)(a) Criminal Appeal Act 1995) and the real possibility arises “because of an argument … not raised in the proceedings which led to [the conviction] or on any appeal” (section 13(1)(b) Criminal Appeal Act 1995) and the applicant has already appealed unsuccessfully (section 13(1)(c) Criminal Appeal Act 1995.[1]
When applying the “real possibility” test the CCRC seeks to predict what the CACD’s response would be if the case were to be referred. To quote the CCRC’s former chairman, Professor Zelick:
“What is absolutely essential, it seems to me, is that, whatever statutory test Parliament--that is to say you--imposed, it has to be one that articulates with the test that the Court of Appeal itself has to apply. If you break that link and you establish an asymmetry between the two tests, you would be creating an absurd situation. It would create tension between the Court of Appeal and the Commission, it would raise expectations, it would cause confusion, and it is difficult to see what possible public interest could be served by referring cases on a basis that had no relationship to the test employed by the Court itself.”
Extension to the powers of the CCRC
The Criminal Cases Review Commission (Information) Act 2016, which came into force on 12 July 2016 extended the CCRC’s powers. Under s.17 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1995, the CCRC had the power to seek and obtain documents from “public bodies”. However, whilst including police and local authorities, it was narrowly interpreting and excluded trial lawyers. Section 18A amended the Criminal Appeal Act 1995 by allowing the obtaining of information from those who are not within public bodies. If there is a refusal, or resistance, the CCRC has the power to apply to the Crown Court for an order that a person gives access to a document or other material in that person’s control. The CCRC must satisfy the court that the document may assist the CCRC in the exercise of its functions. The Order may direct that the person against whom it is made must not destroy, damage or alter the material. In a new legal world of heavily redacted material, it would have been useful for this section to have explicitly set out the court’s power to direct the lifting of redactions, where the underlying material might assist the CCRC in the conduct of its functions.
Wang Yam
Wang Yam was convicted of the murder of Allan Chappelow, an 86-year old man and biographer of George Bernard Shaw, after two trials. In trial one, the jury was unable to reach verdicts in relation to counts of murder, burglary and theft and it was discharged on 1st April 2008. At his retrial, on the 16th of January 2009, Mr. Yam was convicted of murder, burglary and theft by a majority of 9 to 1. The convictions were upheld on appeal. This is the first and only murder case where a substantial part of the evidence was heard in camera, pursuant to Crown Court Order, section 11 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981, made on 15th January 2008 and varied on 27th February 2014 (Wang Yam [2010] EWCA Crim 2072; R (in the application of Wang Yam) vs CCC and another [2015] UKSC 76).
At the beginning of June 2006, the HSBC bank reported to the police suspicious activity around Mr. Chappelow’s bank account. The police attended Mr. Chappelow’s home in Downshire Hill in West Hampstead, North London and forced entry. They explored with the use of a torch but did not discover Mr. Chappelow. On 12th June 2006, police attended with a sniffer dog who signalled the body. Alan Chappelow’s was buried under half a ton of Yale University page proofs in a room at the back of the house. He had been battered to death and possibly tortured. He had been dead for weeks with larvae of bluebottle flies providing the evidence as to time of death.
The evidence against Mr. Yam was circumstantial. In outline, from 22nd May 2006, he was captured on CCTV in the HSBC bank attempting to cash 4 cheques which belonged to Mr. Chappelow. There was evidence that he used Mr. Chappelow’s bank card and Mr. Chappelow’s sim card was used in Mr. Yam’s telephones. Mr. Yam gave evidence that he took the property from individuals - “gangsters” - and that he did so to “get alongside them”. The motivation was evidence in camera and cannot be speculated upon.
The prosecution case was that Mr. Chappelow had been leaving his house when he had discovered Mr. Yam stealing his mail and that there had been confrontation whereby Mr. Chappelow had “hightailed” into the back room in the house, been pursued by Mr. Yam and brutally murdered. This theory did not fit with the evidence which included that Mr. Chappelow walked with a stick and was increasingly frail, glasses were found near his body (he did not wear them going out), he was not wearing the distinctive long mac he always wore when he went outside, and his feet were partly under the furniture. There was no forensic evidence to link Mr. Yam to the property or Mr. Yam’s property to Mr. Chappelow. The forensic evidence was that there was “blood everywhere”. There were 8 cigarette stubs in the room next to the body with unknown DNA and unidentified footmarks on the paper and the body. Importantly, Mr. Yam presented as a man who would talk himself out of a situation and had no previous convictions or history of violence.
During appeals of the Contempt of Court Order, which, we submitted, in two High Court hearings (application back to trial Judge Ouseley and then a judicial review) and in the Supreme Court, was impeding Mr. Yam’s right to petition the ECtHR contrary to Article 34 of the ECHR, the reporting by Duncan Campbell of The Guardian resulting in contact being made by another resident of Downshire Hill, Jonathan Bean.
Mr. Bean informed us that he had contacted the police, about 9 months (mid February 20017) after Mr. Chappelow’s murder, when he had disturbed a mail thief in his porch. The man brandished a knife at him. Mr. Bean shut the door quickly. The man threatened him, shouting through the door that he would kill his wife and baby if he reported the matter to the police. He was a dark skinned man with a London accent. When Mr. Bean was sure that the man had gone, he went out into the porch. His mail had been stolen. He and his wife contacted financial institutions to prevent any fraud. Whilst reporting the crime, Mr. Bean expressed fear and concern to the police that the burglary might be linked to Mr. Chappelow’s murder. He was frightened that the murderer was about to strike again.
The police reassured Mr. Bean that there was no link as the person who had committed the murder was in prison. At that time, Mr. Yam was awaiting his trial, having pleaded not guilty. One of the officers who took the report had attended Mr. Chappelow’s home address the previous year. The crime report noted that Mr. Bean had been told there was no link to Mr. Chappelow’s murder. But the crime report was not added to the unused material schedules, nor was it disclosed to the prosecution lawyers in Mr. Yam’s case and so was not disclosed to his defence lawyers. Shortly after this incident Mr. Bean and his family moved to New York. It was upon their return when Mr. Bean read about Wang Yam’s fight against his conviction that Mr. Bean contacted The Guardian.
My instructing solicitors took two statements from Mr. Bean and an application was made to the to the CCRC. One general criticism I have seen of the CCRC is that it does not include the applicant’s lawyers in its investigations. My experience was the opposite. However, it might be unusual for the same lawyers to be representing the applicant some 10 years later. The work was substantial and, of course, completely unfunded for the lawyers.
I worked alongside the CCRC case review manager, Phil Pledger. My first contact with him was greeted by an extremely grateful email that I was the only one who had replied to him after months of his trying to contact others involved in the case, including the prosecution. It is a concern with these cases that lawyers in the prosecution move on and there does not appear to be a corporate prosecution memory. I struggled in a similar way with the civil actions.
Work with Phil included email correspondence and telephone conferences. He updated me on his investigations and I poured through my 160 Advices, Notes, Legal Arguments, draft admissions, email correspondence, disclosure applications, draft closing speeches, half time submissions, cross-examination preparation, examination-in-chief preparation, experts analysis, evidence of all the neighbours from Downshire Hill and started to formulate the arguments as to why Mr. Bean’s evidence would have made an impact upon the jury which would likely have resulted in a Not Guilty verdict. Mr. Yam had waived legal privilege and so I forwarded documents to assist. From my defending in the trials, I did not consider that he might have affected the verdict or that there was a possibility of this evidence affecting the verdict, rather, he would have made the difference to that majority conviction.
The case went before three CCRC Commissioners in 2016 and they decided to refer it back to the Court of Appeal. As the publicity continued around the civil actions I was heading up to the Supreme Court, a further witness contacted the press – this time the Camden New Journal – to provide information about Mr. Chappelow which contradicted the prosecution case that he was a recluse.
The Court of Appeal upheld the convictions. Where that went wrong is not the subject of this article. Wang Yam continues to write to me as he counts the days of his 20-year tariff, doubtlessly taking cold comfort from being one of the 4% to succeed with a CCRC referral.
Kirsty Brimelow QC was junior counsel in trials one and two with Geoffrey Robertson QC and Geoffrey Cox QC respectively. After her appointment as QC in 2011, she acted as leading counsel for Wang Yam (leading Nik Grubeck and joining with David Pannick QC in the Supreme Court) until 2017. Currently, she is pursuing the successful application to the ECtHR. A book has been written about the case “Blood on The Page” by Thomas Harding. She remains grateful to the work of Case Review Manager Phil Pledger.
If you would like to talk to Kirsty Brimelow QC about any of the issues in this article please email here.
https://doughty-street-chambers.newsweaver.com/Appeals/s8x98lrldfq