Jill Dando Books

Jill Dando, it seemed had everything.

The queen of television's prime time, she was trusted and loved by millions, while at thirty-seven she herself had finally found love. Then one bullet made her Britian's most famous murder.

Itwas a crime that took the breath away: cruel but unfathomable. Serb terrorist, criminal hit man, jilted lover or plain madman - the evidence pointed to all, and none. And it raised disturbing questions. Was Dando the person she seemed? Had she in some way invited death? Is any clebrity safe?

In a fascinating study of fame and crime, Brian Cathcart charts Dando's rise from gawky schoolgirl to household name and seeks the sources of her huge popularity. Then he dissects the murder, the intensive investigations it prompted and the evidence that led, two years on, to a sensational Old Bailey trial. As he demonstrates, there has never been a case like it.
--- from book's back cover

The case of the British Crown vs. George has been dubbed the British counterpart of the American O.J. trial because the victim, Jill Dando, was one of England's most loved television personalities. And her savage murder ignited a national outcry for justice. Unlike the Simpson trial, though, Barry George, the defendant accused of Ms. Dando's murder, was convicted. In a critical assessment of the British "trial of the century," author Scott Lomax raises the tragically valid possibility that justice might have been sacrificed to quench a public demand for a conviction of the only identified suspect. Lomax offers the probability that British "bobbies" and investigators blundered both ethically and legally in everything from handling so-called evidence to out-and-out fabricating it. More frightening is Lomax' theory that Dando may not even have been the intended victim of whoever killed her. George, who has steadfastly maintained his innocence, sits today in a prison in the UK as activists and supporters trudge on in their pursuit of justice for him. If author Lomax is right in his findings after an exhaustive review of the evidence against George, this case actually has something else in common with Simpson, more than being "the trial of the century:" justice wasn't served in either.