Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

Justice for Barry George.

Finally, Barry George has been found not guilty of murdering Jill Dando.

Seven years in jail can't have been easy for George, an epileptic man with learning difficulties who was convicted in 2001 of committing a "meticulously planned crime", an assassination-style murder, then calmly slipping away covering his tracks, on the basis of a dubious piece of forensic evidence.

That evidence was, correctly, not permitted at the second trial, where an entirely circumstantial case relying on the idea that George was a rather unorthodox fellow, and that he lived near to Jill Dando, and that on that basis he probably did it, was rejected.

And now begins the rehabilitation back into society for George, someone who was at the very fringes in the first place, someone whose unusual lifestyle, personality and behaviour meant that he was targeted as a suspect.

What does it say about us that we convicted him in the first place? Perhaps we wanted 'justice for Jill'; perhaps we were blinded by science; perhaps we judged George on his oddness rather the evidence.

Will we see a 'mea culpa' from the tabloids? Er, I wouldn't hold your breath. We saw evidence of a single photo in a single newspaper that 'linked' George to Dando; we saw a photo of George in a mask with a replica gun. We heard about his mental health problems in the most appallingly offensive terms. Who cared then that a vulnerable man had been banged up for something he didn't do? No-one. Because they all had their 35-page "Looney nutter killed our Jill" supplements ready to go.

Now what coverage will the new verdict have? Will the whispers and innuendo carry on, like it did with Colin Stagg, that George did it really? I hope not, but hope is all I have.

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

Related posts:

1. Barry George and the compassion of Mail readers
2. Barry George: An apology
3. Millions of English people prepare to completely ignore St George’s Day
4. Express journalists are ‘paedophiles and rapists’
5. St George’s Day approaches