The man who was wrongly convicted of murdering BBC Crimewatch presenter Jill Dando has denied raping a teenage girl nearly four decades ago.
Ms Dando, 37, was shot in the head on the doorstep of her home on Gowan Avenue, Fulham, on April 26, 1999.
Two years later, Barry George was found guilty of her murder and handed a life sentence. However his conviction was quashed in 2007 and was cleared and released the following year, after serving eight years in prison. Jill’s killer has never been found.
George, 66, of County Cork, Republic of Ireland, now faces charges of one count of rape, two counts of indecent assault and one count of attempted rape of a 14-year-old girl – now in her 50s – in September 1987.
Via video link from Ireland, George pleaded not guilty at Southwark Crown Court on Monday to the incidents that allegedly took place in the Hammersmith and Fulham area of west London.
He will appear at court on September 30, nearly 40 years after the claimed events, when a trial date will be set. Judge Alexander Milne KC granted George conditional bail.
Judge Milne told George: ‘We have not set a date for your trial just yet, but it will be set in due course, and when it does get set you will have to attend court on that occasion.’
‘If you fail to do so the trial may proceed in your absence…I am sure you will be anxious to be in court on that occasion.’
Jill Dando who was shot in the head on the doorstep of her home on Gowan Avenue, Fulham, in April 1999
Barry George faces charges of one count of rape, two counts of indecent assault and one count of attempted rape of a 14-year-old girl – now in her 50s – in September 1987
Earlier Detective Superintendent Andy Furphy, from the Metropolitan Police Service, said earlier: ‘These charges follow an investigation by a team of Met detectives.
‘Specially trained officers continue to support the woman who has come forward.’
George was arrested on suspicion of murder in 2000, a year after Ms Dando was killed. It remains one of Britain’s most high profile unsolved murders.
The crucial forensic evidence in George’s conviction was the finding of a single particle of gunshot residue in his coat pocket.
The Court of Appeal held a retrial after evidence was heard that the particle had the same likelihood to have come from a separate source, or gun, as it did to come from a gun supposedly fired by George.
Last year detectives launched an investigation into evidence that linked a Serbian assassin to the unsolved murder. It has long been suspected that Ms Dando was shot by a professional assassin.
CCTV footage showing an unidentified man, known as Man X, walking along the gunman’s likely escape route around 20 minutes after Ms Dando’s murder is one of few leads examined by police.
Milorad Ulemek, 57, a Serbian former paramilitary commander and convicted assassin who is serving a 40-year prison sentence, was also named as a possible suspect in the case.
Pictured: A sketch of Barry George during a court appearance at the Old Bailey in November
The then-new evidence prompted the Metropolitan Police to re-examine his involvement in Ms Dando’s murder.
Among the revelations in 2025 was a picture of the convicted double-killer wearing a stripy blue tie similar to the one worn by Man X in the CCTV footage.
The photo shows Ulemek, known by his nickname Legija, next to his first wife, former journalist Maja Lukovic, and was supposedly taken in Serbia at some time between 1992 and 1998.
A witness also previously claimed that a man she saw ‘running for his life’ from the scene bears a resemblance to the notorious assassin.
Emi Polito, a facial comparison expert, was commissioned by the Mirror to examine the similarities between the ties worn in both photos.
He found the most ‘significant’ similarity is a number of dark tones in the light stripes of Man X’s tie which mirror the one worn by Ulemek.
Both ties also have the same ‘general form and style’ and three dark stripes ‘broadly similar size and tone’. The appearance of the ties under the knot is also similar.
But Mr Polito said the analysis ‘moderately supports’ the claim that they are the same tie, although he warned that the poor quality of the CCTV makes it impossible to reach a more definitive judgement.
The original CCTV is supposedly among 223 boxes of material that are being held in police deep storage. Modern forensic imaging should help officers decide whether to treat Ulemek as a subject, the Mirror reported.
The Met Police told the newspaper that detectives are ‘assessing this information to understand whether it’s a new and realistic line of enquiry’.
After Ms Dando was killed, the BBC received a call saying she was targeted in revenge for a recent Nato attack on a TV station in Belgrade, Serbia, in which 17 people died.
Weeks earlier she had hosted a television appeal that raised £54million for Kosovan refugees who fled Serbian paramilitaries during the civil war in the former Yugoslavia.
At the time of Jill’s death, Ulemek led a squad of assassins targeting those opposing dictator Slobodan Milosevic.
Ulemek’s lawyer Aleksander Kovacevic previously said his client did not wish to comment when asked if he murdered Ms Dando.
The Metropolitan Police told the Daily Mail the investigation is in an ‘inactive phase’.
