Jill Wendy Dando (9 November 1961 – 26 April 1999) was an English journalist, television presenter and newsreader. She spent most of her career at the BBC and was the corporation's Personality of the Year in 1997. At the time of her death, her television work included co-presenting the BBC One programme Crimewatch with Nick Ross.
On the morning of 26 April 1999, Dando was shot dead outside her home in Fulham, London, prompting the biggest murder inquiry ever conducted by the Metropolitan Police and the country's largest criminal investigation since the Peter Sutcliffe case. A local man, Barry George, was convicted and imprisoned for the murder, but was acquitted eight years later following an appeal and retrial. No other suspect has been charged, and the case remains unsolved.
Early life Jill Wendy Dando was born at Ashcombe House Maternity Home in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, on 9 November 1961. She was the daughter of Jack Dando (11 February 1918 – 11 February 2009) and Winifred Mary Jean Hockey (26 August 1927 – 7 January 1986), who died of leukaemia aged 58. Her only sibling, brother Nigel (born 1952), worked as a journalist for BBC Radio Bristol before retiring in 2017, having previously worked in local newspapers since the 1970s. Dando was raised as a Baptist and remained a devout follower. When she was three years old, it was discovered that she had a hole in her heart and a blocked pulmonary artery; she had heart surgery on 12 January 1965.
Dando was educated at Worle Infant School, Greenwood Junior School, Worle Community School and Weston College Sixth Form, where she was head girl and completed her A-levels. She then went on to graduate with a degree in journalism from Cardiff Metropolitan University.
Dando was a member of Weston-super-Mare Amateur Dramatic Society and Exeter Little Theatre Company, with whom she appeared in plays at the Barnfield Theatre. She was a volunteer at Sunshine Hospital Radio in Weston-super-Mare in 1979.
Career Dando's first job was as a trainee reporter for the local weekly newspaper, the Weston Mercury, where her father and brother worked. After five years as a print journalist, she started to work for the BBC, becoming a newsreader for BBC Radio Devon in 1985. That year, she transferred to BBC South West, where she presented a regional news magazine programme, Spotlight South West. In 1987, she worked for Television South West, then BBC Spotlight in Plymouth. In early 1988, Dando moved from regional to national television in London to present the BBC's national news, specifically the short on-the-hour bulletins that aired on both BBC1 and BBC2 from 1986 until the mid-1990s.
Dando presented the BBC television programmes Breakfast Time, Breakfast News, the BBC One O'Clock News, the Six O'Clock News, the travel programme Holiday, the crime appeal series Crimewatch (from 1995 until her death) and occasionally Songs of Praise. In 1994, she moved to Fulham. She was the subject of This Is Your Life on 8 November 1996.
On 25 April 1999, Dando presented the first episode of Antiques Inspectors, with filming of the series' final episode having concluded two days previously. She was scheduled to present the Six O'Clock News on the evening of the following day. She was featured on the cover of that week's Radio Times magazine (from 24 to 30 April). Dando was also booked to host the British Academy Television Awards 1999, alongside Michael Parkinson, at Grosvenor House Hotel on 9 May. On 5 September, BBC One resumed airing of Antiques Inspectors; the programme was cancelled following her death, but it was decided later in the year that it should be aired as a tribute to Dando. The final episode aired on 24 October.
At the time of her death, Dando was among those with the highest profile of the BBC's on-screen staff, and had been the 1997 BBC Personality of the Year. Crimewatch reconstructed her murder in an attempt to aid the police in the search for her killer. After Barry George was charged with the murder but acquitted, Crimewatch made no further appeals for information concerning the case.
Personal life From 1989 to 1996, Dando engaged in a relationship with BBC executive Bob Wheaton. She then had a brief relationship with national park warden Simon Basil. In December 1997, Dando met gynaecologist Alan Farthing, later Queen Elizabeth II's personal physician, on a blind date set up by a mutual friend. Farthing was separated from his wife at the time. A couple of months after Farthing's divorce was finalised, the couple announced that they were engaged on 31 January 1999. Their wedding was set to take place on 25 September.BBC news item, 25 September 1999 Dando's fiance faces pain of wedding day
Murder On the morning of 26 April 1999, 37-year-old Dando left Farthing's home in Chiswick. She returned alone, by car, to the house she owned at 29 Gowan Avenue, Fulham. She had lived in the house, but by April 1999 was in the process of selling it and did not visit it frequently. The purpose of her visit was to collect contract documents which had been faxed there by her agent, Jon Roseman. As Dando reached her front door at about 11:32 BST, she was shot once in the head. Her body was discovered by neighbours, who called police at 11:47. Dando was taken to the nearby Charing Cross Hospital where she was declared dead on arrival at 13:03.
Richard Hughes, Dando's next-door neighbour, heard her scream ("I thought it was someone surprising somebody") but heard no gunshot. Hughes looked out of his front window and, while not realising what had happened, made the only certain sighting of the killer — a six-foot-tall (183 cm) white man aged around 40, walking away from Dando's house.
Forensic firearm examination indicated that Dando had been shot by a bullet from a 9mm Short calibre semi-automatic pistol, with the gun pressed against her head at the moment of the shot. The cartridge appeared to have been subject to workshop modification, possibly to reduce its propellent charge and thus allow it to function as subsonic ammunition. Police ballistics checks also determined that the bullet had been fired from a smooth bore barrel without any rifling, which indicated the murder weapon was almost certainly a blank firing pistol that had been illegally modified to fire live ammunition.
Investigation After Dando's murder, there was intense media coverage. An investigation by the Metropolitan Police, named Operation Oxborough, proved fruitless for over a year. Her status as a well-known public figure had brought her into contact with thousands of people, and she was known to millions. There was huge speculation regarding the motive for the murder.
Investigating authorities quickly ruled out the work of a professional assassin due to the many amateurish aspects of the crime, such as the use of a converted blank firing pistol as the murder weapon and the fact Dando was shot on her doorstep rather than after first being forced inside her house where her body would not be discovered for a much longer time period. Forensic psychologists working on the case predicted that the perpetrator would instead be a loner with a severe personality disorder.
Within six months, the Murder Investigation Team had spoken to more than 2,500 people and taken more than 1,000 statements. With little progress after a year, police concentrated their attention on Barry George, who lived about 500 yards from Dando's house on Crookham Road. George had a history of stalking women, sexual offences and other antisocial and attention seeking behaviour. George was put under surveillance, arrested on 25 May 2000 and charged with Dando's murder on 28 May. A search of George's bedsit had uncovered over 4,000 photographs of hundreds of women covertly taken in public, along with other photos of other female television personalities such as Caron Keating, Anthea Turner, Fiona Foster and Emma Freud, in addition to newspaper article cuttings regarding Dando’s life and media career. Police also discovered a photo of George wearing a military gas mask while posing with a modified Bruni blank-firing handgun. When shown this image during interrogation, George admitted it was him in the photo and that he had purchased the weapon via mail order, but denied that it had been converted to fire live ammunition.
Trial of Barry George Opening statements George's trial began at the Old Bailey in early May 2001. Opening statements from the lead prosecution lawyer, Orlando Pownall QC, outlined how George had "an exaggerated interest" in television personalities and firearms, and that photographic evidence regarding his obsession with celebrities had been recovered from his apartment. Pownall went on to describe how police had recovered a photo of George posing with a blank-firing pistol, similar to the weapon police believed was used in Dando's murder, and how he had been picked out of an identity parade by two different neighbours of Dando as the man they had seen acting suspiciously opposite her Gowan Avenue home on the morning of the murder. Authorities had also found several cut-out newspaper articles regarding Dando's murder in George's apartment, along with handwritten lists of names and personal details of various other British celebrities. Pownall added that forensic examination of a jacket seized from George's apartment found firearm discharge residue inside a pocket of the same type that was detected on Dando's body, and was believed to have originated from the detonation of the percussion cap of the bullet that killed her.
Prosecution evidence The court heard how George had visited a disability health centre in Greswell Street, approximately half a mile from Gowan Avenue, without an appointment about twenty minutes after Dando's murder. Witnesses at the scene described him as being in an agitated state and carrying a plastic bag full of complaint letters. George returned to the centre a couple of days later, asking staff about the exact time of his original visit, as he claimed a description of the prime suspect had been released that matched his appearance. The prosecution argued that George's motive for visiting the centre was to establish an alibi for his whereabouts around the time of the murder.
The owner of a taxi company testified that George had visited his office on Fulham Palace Road several hours after the murder, remarking that he appeared agitated and had no money to pay for his requested journey. George also returned to the office a couple of days later to ask about the time of his original visit and what he was wearing then. Although George would later claim in police interviews that he wanted to account for his movements after being told by other people that he matched a photofit picture of the suspect issued by authorities, police records proved that the photofit was not released to the public until four days after the murder.