at last, justice prevails

[ramtops]

Barry George found not guilty of murdering Jill Dando.

BBC news coverage.

Comments

[cookwitch.livejournal.com]

Is it justice though, if he actually did do it?

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Well, faced with a lot of evidence, a jury decided that it couldn't be proved that he did. Would you rather we locked people up for life because there was a consensus that they might have done something bad?

[cookwitch.livejournal.com]

No, I just asked a question. I have no opinion on whether he did or did not do it.

[ramtops.livejournal.com]

It has to be *proven*, and it clearly wasn't. I've long felt that this one was an appalling travesty and miscarriage of justice.

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

The thing that worries me slightly is that in the re-trial, they suppressed some evidence; I don't know the full details of why they did so, but it always makes me feel uncomfortable when they suppress, rather than explaining, evidence.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

He's the local nutter. He's easy to blame for _anything_. Despite being a thoroughly unsavoury person for whom society is better off if he is locked up[1], there's nothing to connect him to Jill Dando. The evidence was always crap and the expert witness behaved badly in the first trial.

OTOH, they may still get him on the Princess Di or the Shergar rap.

[1] Admittedly that's the thin end of the Fascist. We don't free Barry George because he deserves it, we do it so that no-one else gets banged up on equally poor grounds, and we maintain _that_ carefully. On account of his past behaviour, not connected to Jan D. in particular, society probably is safer with him behind bars.

[ramtops.livejournal.com]

From the Guardian:

"The single most important piece of evidence presented at his original trial - a speck of gunpowder found in his coat pocket - was ruled inadmissable after the Forensic Science Service performed an about-turn and decided it was worthless in evidential terms.

The particle, invisible to the naked eye, was the only thing which had appeared to physically link Mr George to the crime scene. Its pivotal role in securing his original conviction at the Old Bailey in 2001 was proved when the foreman of that jury told the BBC’s Panorama that without it, Mr George would unquestionably have been cleared.

The unnamed foreman said “there’s no point in having (another) trial because there isn’t enough evidence to prosecute”. "

Not exactly "suppressing".

[peaceful-fox.livejournal.com]

I honestly have no idea if he killed her or not (I lean towards doubtful, but since I wasn't there I will never know), but what I do know is that the "evidence" they did have wasn't enough to convict him. If it can't be proven, then this was the right thing to do.

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure there's much difference between "suppressing" and "ruling inadmissable", actually; or at least, there isn't _necessarily_ a difference.