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A TOP barrister who represented cleared Jill Dando murder suspect Barry George has said the police arrested him out of “desperation”.

William Clegg QC, defended George at his 2008 retrial. He said: “He was certainly a vulnerable person.

“The case reflects a desperation on the part of police that after a year they didn’t have the faintest idea who had done it. It’s sad for Barry to be falsely accused and wrongly convicted.”

TV favourite Jill was gunned down in the middle of the day on her doorstep, in a crime that shocked the nation, on April 26 1999. George, now 58, was found guilty of her murder in 2001.

He spent seven years in prison before his acquittal in 2008.

Clegg’s view is contrary to that of the police chief who led the doomed murder probe. Former Met Detective Chief Superintendent Hamish Campbell, said: “There’s always been the view, in the media and elsewhere, that the police chose Barry George somehow as a scapegoat and for want of a better word, a patsy, for the investigation team because we couldn’t solve it. “That is somewhat insulting and completely untrue and wrong.” Campbell said yesterday that we will never know who killed Jill. Clegg agreed: “After 20 years, it’s unlikely that we will know who killed her.” Clegg, 69, has been involved in more than 100 murder cases – more than anyone else currently practising at the English Bar – including the trials of Scottish serial killer Peter Tobin and Nazi war criminal Anthony Sawoniuk, who was convicted under the UK’s War Crimes Act 1991.

■ Under the Wig: A Lawyer’s Stories of Murder, Guilt and Innocence by William Clegg QC is available in paperback for £8.99 from May 2. RETRIAL William Clegg QC & yesterday’s Mirror front page