Barry George: Why I'm no killer

FREED Barry George has sensationally broken his silence and confessed: "I didn't kill Jill Dando— because I was stalking ANOTHER woman."

In a world exclusive interview the bug-eyed oddball revealed for the first time in detail exactly what he WAS doing the day in 1999 when Crimewatch TV beauty Jill was gunned down on her doorstep.

Astonishingly the 48-year-old loner declared: "Just because I was a pest to women doesn't make me a killer."

The man who was the only suspect in the case, and served eight years in jail until his dramatic retrial acquittal on Friday, answered our string of tough questions and detailed:

WHERE he was on the day of the murder.

WHY he was seen lurking in Jill's road in West London.

WHY he was earlier caught with a knife and rope just yards from Princess Diana's home.

WHY he earned a chilling reputation as a stalker latching on to women in the street.

WHY he took on fake names linking himself to celebrities.

Angry

And Barry shrugged off the widely published, apparently damning photo of him in a mask and brandishing a gun—insisting: "That's NOT me! But I can't comment too much on it because there are ongoing legal issues."

Face to face with Barry you are left in no doubt this is a complex and volatile character, suffering with epilepsy as well as Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism.

The overall impression he gives is of a child in a hefty man's body. One minute he is explaining an earlier conviction for attempted rape, the next he asks his sister Michelle if he can keep the little Heinz mayonnaise pots served with his chips for dinner.

We challenged his memories of the day TV Jill was shot dead, April 26, 1999, at around 11.30am. Sat quietly in a hotel suite, wearing a clean open-necked shirt and beige slacks, he said: "On the day of the murder I left home at around 10.30am. Any witnesses who say they saw me earlier, well it wasn't me.

"I went stright to HAFAD (Hammersmith & Fulham Action For Disability Centre). I don't ever wear a watch so didn't know exactly how long I was there. But I know I was at HAFAD at 11.50am because a witness reported seeing me there.

"I admit I was angry at HAFAD as witnesses have described. I'd been having a lot of problems with housing and health issues. There'd been a lot of doors slammed in my face, which was very frustrating, and I'd had enough. But I wasn't angry in the sense of how the police tried to make it seem."

It was then Barry made his amazing stalking confession.

"After leaving HAFAD I bumped into a woman who was later a prosecution witness and said I was stalking her," he told us.

"I walked with her for a bit and, from her perspective, maybe it was unwanted attention. But she didn't make that clear. 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. I know about these timings because the police have told me my telephone was logged."

At times Barry is rambling, off at a tangent and bumbling. Then he is surprisingly lucid and articulate.

He insisted: "I've maintained again and again that I'd never even heard of Jill Dando until after her death.

"The police say they found lots of articles and magazines about her hoarded in my flat. They actually found eight newspapers with articles on her—out of about EIGHT HUNDRED newspapers there. I hoard newspapers because I forget to throw them away.

"The celebrity-obsession thing was taken way out of proportion. I was NOT obsessed with Jill Dando.

"I wasn't aware that I'd ever seen her before. 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.

Bullet

"But I was NOT the Barry Bulsara (one of the names he used) who is reported to have gone to Southfields Estate Agents to get information about the house that Jill Dando was selling. I've never been near that estate agents. It wasn't me."

When asked why he didn't speak up for himself at his trial Barrry said: "I never refused to give evidence. My legal team advised that it would be inappropriate from a medical point for me to take the stand. I could have had an epileptic seizure in the stand and that wouldn't have been good at all.

"And when the police asked me if I killed Jill Dando, I was advised to say, ‘No comment' for legal reasons'"

Bur when directly asked by the News of the World if he murdered the popular TV star, stoney-faced Barry looked our interviewer straight in the eye and insisted:

"No I did not."

Contrary to many reports, Barry vowed he hasn't lied at all during the investigation. He continued: "When the police first asked if I had any knowledge of firearms, I was guarded in that interview because of what my understanding of a gun is.

"They asked if I owned a gun, which I took to mean a real bullet-firing gun, and I don't own one of those. I have a replica, a die-cast metal imitation—and I don't class that as a real gun because no licence is required and it's effectively a toy.

"Apart from that—and what I've heard in court—I've no knowledge of firearms at all. I have no idea how to adapt a firearm and, until it was mentioned in court, I've never heard of how to ‘crimp' a bullet.

(In court it was said the bullet used to kill Jill was tampered with to make it quieter and more lethal.)

"I don't know how to convert a gun, or how to work a gun or anything like that. A gun holster was found at my flat, but I only had that because I was into stunt work and hoping to get work as a film extra. It wasn't to conceal a weapon."

But Barry is at a loss to explain how a microscopic spot of gunfire residue was found in the pocket of his blue cashmere coat, which matched a speck found on Jill.

He said: "I'd been to a fireworks display in November the year before. Maybe that's where it came from. My belief is my coat was contaminated when it was in police possession. There were many possibilities, firearms officers etc, it could have been passed on to my coat from a number of sources."

At times Barry's eyes flicker wildly. Sometimes he wears a glazed expression and it looks like his eyebrows have been painted on. It's not surprising women feel uneasy about him.

And three weeks before he was arrested, police surveillance teams filmed him following and pestering 38 different women.

But Barry shrugged: "To my knowledge all those incidents of stalking were down to the prosecution wanting to make me look like a man of reprehensible behaviour.

"I may have walked with a couple of people but I never handled any of those women.

"I wasn't pestering women or anything. They were 38 DIFFERENT women, not the SAME woman who was being stalked.

"I don't deny walking with these woman but there was never any manhandling.

"If they felt frightened I can only apologise. I was just wanting to know if they wanted me to wash their cars. I don't think that asking people if they want their cars washed is unreasonable.

"I come across in some respects as aggressive because of my epilepsy. I understand there's a certain amount of aggression attached to that condition.

Snapped

"In the past I have made women feel uncomfortable but this is not how I've wanted them to feel. I have no animosity to women.

"I know I have done wrong in the past and if I could go back in time and change that I would.

"The attempted rape that I did time for is one of those situations. I'm very remorseful for that. I know that this was improper behaviour."

The attack on a 20-year-old student came in February 1982 outside her family home in West London. She still describes Barry as a "very dangerous man" and "a maniac".

But he insisted: "I was lonely at the time and didn't have that many friends. I found I was having difficulties a little bit.

"It's not a crime being lonely but it becomes a crime when that then gets inflicted on someone.

"I am trying to move on in my life. I'm not a danger to women any more."

Police also found rolls of undeveloped film picturing women Barry had spied on and snapped unawares.

He said: "You could say that it might be improper behaviour to take people's photographs if they don't want you to.

"But the film was undeveloped. It would have been completely different if I'd developed the pictures. I was just messing with my camera. From my standpoint, it was meant to be harmless. These women were just subjects to me.

"If it affected these people then they should have gone to the police. I'd have been upset to know that those people felt uncomfortable about it.

"But I can hand on heart say I would NEVER do any of this again. I'm a very different man now. I am NOT a danger to women. And I NEVER killed Jill Dando."

When we asked about the infamous incident when he was caught in full camouflage gear, with knife and rope, outside Princess Diana's Kensington Palace home, he smiled, shook his head and said: "I was carrying a knife and a rope because I had been to Army exercises (he was a Territorial). That's also why I had the camouflage on.

"I was on my way home when a load of characters appeared behind me. I later learned they were Royal Protection Officers but I thought they were going to attack me so I went into the trees for safety.

Fantasist

"When they shouted ‘Stop police!' for the second time I did come out. I didn't even know whether Princess Diana was in residence at the time or not. There was no arrest or charge. I wasn't even cautioned. I was just checked out and they told me to be a bit more careful and not carry all that stuff around with me."

We then asked why he changed his name to match celebrities, claiming to be Barry Bulsara—Queen legend Freddie Mercury's real surname—and Steve Majors—a combination of Six Million Dollar Man star Lee Majors and his character Steve Austin!

"I did it just for the sake of it," he said. "I changed my name a number of times because it was a phase I was going through.

"It wasn't anything adverse or sinister. The police might have seen it as me trying to avoid being found, or me being a fantasist or something, but it wasn't.

"But I did feel bad about taking the name of Thomas Palmer, an SAS soldier said to be the first solider in when they stormed the Iranian embassy siege."

And Barry is full of odd surprises. After our interview, he played his twisted idea of a flirty joke on his psychologist Dr Susan Young as she sat on the floor, back to the wall and legs straight out in front of her.

As Barry walked past he raised his size 10 foot as if to crush her groin, stopping just an inch from his target.

Then he stood back, broke into a smirk and said: "Hey, I wouldn't do that to you."

It was an uneasy moment for everyone in the room. And a few seconds before we could all breathe again.