Jill Dando murder

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Dec 6 2002
Final chapter in life and times of notorious pilot
By John Revill, Birmingham Post

The latest bizarre chapter in the controversial career of businessman and pilot Christopher Barrett-Jolley is astounding even by his standards.

Known as "one of the best pilots in the business", the flamboyant 55-year-old's final venture was to fly a £22 million cargo of cocaine from Jamaica into Southend airport. It was then to be dumped on the runway for a drug gang waiting in a nearby graveyard to run out and collect.

Barrett-Jolley's cover story was that he was working for "Air America", a supposed wing of the CIA. He even had an "Air America" identification pass authorised by a "Commander Milroy" and supposedly issued in Tan-Son-Nhut, a US airbase during the Vietnam war.

His fatal mistake was to include on the job a Serb hardman called Nikolai Luzaic, a veteran of the Balkan wars, to provide security. Luzaic turned informer and when the plane arrived at Southend Customs officers were waiting.

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Wednesday 25th February 2009
Jill Dando: Southend drug runner may hold clue to her death
By Gina Marden

A pilot jailed for smuggling cocaine into Southend has been visited by detectives probing the murder of TV presenter Jill Dando.

Last night it emerged the pilot, originally from Somerset, had been visited in jail in Gloucestershire by officers from Avon and Somerset police in connection with the murder of Crimewatch presenter Dando.

Barrett-Jolley is alleged to have told police he was drinking at a bar in the Serbian capital, Belgrade, two years after Miss Dando’s murder. He is said to have heard a man confess to the execution-style killing, claiming it was in revenge for Nato’s bombing of Belgrade in 1999. The account is understood to have been verified by two witnesses, which means Barrett-Jolley may now be formally interviewed again.

Miss Dando, 37, was shot dead on the doorstep of her home in Fulham, south-west London in April 1999.

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A MAN questioned over TV presenter Jill Dando’s murder has admitted lying to police.

Cops are considering a further interview with Thomas Vorms, 41, a suspect in the original investigation, after he made a series of admissions.

Statements by Vorms, a gun collector, cast fresh doubt on the conviction of sex offender Barry George, 45, who was jailed for life for Jill’s killing.

Gardener Vorms was quizzed by police when the Crimewatch star, 37 was gunned down outside her home in Fulham, South West London.

Despite matching a description of the suspect and driving the same vehicle seen leaving her street after the murder, the ex-soldier was not arrested.

George, who has always claimed he is innocent, was jailed for the star’s murder in 2001.

Now Vorms has allegedly admitted he was in the area at the time Jill was shot in the head, knew where she lived, hated her AND lied to police.

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Wednesday 28 April 1999

JILL DANDO was shot dead by someone using a hollow-point bullet fired from a 9mm handgun fitted with a silencer - details that point overwhelmingly to the work of a hit man.

Police said yesterday that they believed the killer waited for an hour outside the television presenter's home in Fulham, west London, for her to return from a shopping trip. They spoke of seven witnesses who may have seen the suspect, including a window cleaner - who thought the man was an estate agent waiting for a client - another cleaner and a mother with her child. The man made no attempt to hide or avoid being spotted, pacing up and down the road.

The Independent understands that while detectives are investigating other possibilities, they believe the killing was almost certainly committed by a professional.

Yesterday, police confirmed that Ms Dando, 37, had been shot in the side of the head at very close range with a single bullet from a semi-automatic handgun. The shot caused massive injuries and Ms Dando died a little over an hour later. The use of a hollow-pointed bullet is extremely rare.

Ms Dando was shot at around 11.45am on Monday on the doorstep of her home after returning via Hammersmith from the Chiswick home of her fiance, Alan Farthing. She was found by a neighbour who heard her scream and when he rushed downstairs he found Ms Dando slumped against the door, covered in blood and unconscious.

Det Ch Insp Campbell said yesterday that there were a number of reasons why people did not report hearing a shot. But it is understood that officers believe the killer almost certainly used a silencer. One witness reported hearing a clicking noise, a sound associated with guns fitted with such devices.

It is understood that Ms Dando's attacker used a "quarter-tipped" bullet which are designed to spread out on impact causing maximum damage. Such bullets cannot be bought legally.

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Fifteen weeks after the shocking murder of TV star Jill Dando, police have STILL not carried out full door-to-door inquiries in her street.

An internal review has revealed that the 42-strong police squad hunting Jill’s killer have failed to question all the residents Gowan Avenue, Fulham, where she was shot on her doorstep on April 26.

A police source told the Sunday Mirror: “This couldn’t have come at a worse time. The internal review found that officers were not thorough – they didn’t do their job properly.

A number of adults living in the same road as Jill had never been interviewed. “They could have vital information, perhaps the detail that leads to a break in the case.

It’s basic detective work to interview everybody in the vicinity of a crime.

They did not do this.”

John O’Connor, a former head of the Flying Squad, said: “It is an absolute disgrace that the Dando inquiry team has made such an omission. There’s no excuse. This error is unforgivable.”

The revelation will put more pressure on Detective Chief Inspector Hamish Campbell, who is running the investigation.

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On the morning of 26 April 1999, Dando left the Chiswick home of her fiancé, Dr. Alan Farthing.

She returned alone, by car, to the house she owned in Gowan Avenue, Fulham, West London.

She had lived in the house, but by April 1999 was in the process of selling it and did not visit it frequently.

As Dando reached her front door at about 11:32, she was shot once in the head.

Her body was discovered about 14 minutes later by neighbour Helen Doble.

Police were called at 11:47. Dando was taken to the nearby Charing Cross Hospital where she was declared dead on arrival at 13:03 BST.

Richard Hughes, her next door neighbour, heard a surprised cry from Dando “like someone greeting a friend” 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 6 foot (1.8 metre) tall white man aged around 40 years old, seen walking away from Dando’s house”

” Witnesses said the mystery man stood outside her house “like an estate agent waiting for a client” on the day she was shot dead.

He has never been traced.

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Experts believe he had purposely pushed the barrel hard against Jill’s head to minimise the noise of the gunfire.

The gases escaping as the gun was discharged exploded inside her head, so it was virtually silent.

Jill’s neighbour Richard Hughes was working at the front of his house and heard a brief, sudden cry, but no gunshot.

Ballistics expert Major Freddy Mead said: “It is difficult to imagine how it could have been bettered.”

And there was a gap of just 30 seconds between Jill getting out of her car and the killer escaping undetected – another clear indication that this was a professional hit.

Barrister Michael Mansfield QC – defence lawyer for Barry George, convicted but later cleared of the killing – says he proposed a link with Serbia in the original trial.

“Secondly, going back to the scene, the cartridge case recovered was crimped (compressed for safe operation) suggesting a professional job.

“We called an expert in front of the jury to deal with this whole business of assassination. The expert said the bullet or cartridge was consistent with emanating from the Eastern Bloc and in particular the sort of bullet that was used in the Balkans.

“Of course you also have to look at all the specific threats that came into the BBC, the bombing of the television station in Belgrade and the similar assassination of the newspaper editor.

“Jill Dando had put herself forward in broadcasts supporting the refugee exodus in Serbia, which I understand upset certain Serbian authorities because she was seemingly supporting those who were being forced out.

“When you put all these factors together, there is a series of evidential indicators that link to Serbia. It is something that has to be investigated.”

Prosecutors ruled it out because there had been no claim of responsibility – yet, unlike terror groups, Eastern European secret services rarely claimed responsibility for state-sponsored murder.