Jill Dando film revived hope of finding her killer
It is odd how much more curious about the truth ITV’S Jill Dando: the 20 Year Mystery
was than the BBC’S memorial programme broadcast three weeks ago. Dando was one of the BBC’S own, among its brightest and best presenters. Yet not only did the timing of ITV’S documentary seem more apt, coming on the eve of the 20th anniversary of her death, but its content was more pertinent, too. Rather than merely shake its head and mourn, this film was determined to give the case another good shake to see if anything might yet fall out to explain a most tragic and senseless killing.
Unlike the BBC’S film, here we got an interview with one of the most prominent figures in the case: Barry George, the local man with learning difficulties who spent eight years wrongfully imprisoned for Dando’s murder, before his conviction was overturned. “If you’re questioned about a murder and you haven’t done it, it is somewhat overwhelming,” he said, convincingly a victim himself, with a carrier bag of court documents his defence against a suspicious world.
Elsewhere, presenter Julie Etchingham efficiently summed up the circumstances of the murder, emphasising its 30-second, clinical nature and the police investigation’s initial belief that it had to be a professional hit. Then came the key
questions: three strands of evidence explored using documents from the original police investigation. They focused on Dando’s work for
Crimewatch, the unusual bullet casing found at the scene and, most persuasively, a link with the then war in the Balkans and the bombing by Nato, three weeks before, of the Serbian state television service RTS in Belgrade, that resulted in 16 deaths.
This Balkans connection had been dismissed in the BBC documentary with a suggestion that there was no evidence whatsoever for it. But, as Etchingham and her team discovered, early intelligence and special branch reports cited a number of sources in the Serbian expat community stating that the murder was commissioned in revenge for the RTS bombing. Dando had also fronted a charity appeal for victims of Serbian ethnic cleansing, another possible reason for targeting her. The fact that no claim for responsibility had ever been made was a major reason for the police ignoring this line of enquiry. But, again, the film unearthed messages, the first apparently made to the BBC within three hours of the killing, which were either missed or ignored by police, making precisely this chilling claim.
Twenty years on, it might seem unlikely that we’ll ever learn the truth about Dando’s murder. But it’s good to see not everybody has given up hope entirely.
As we know, TV talent shows love nothing more than a good “journey”. So often, in say Strictly Come Dancing, we see the proficient swept aside by plucky beginners who have built on faltering starts to romp home in the popularity stakes. It was interesting to see the same rule apply in Celebrity Painting
Challenge (BBC One), the final of which had threatened to be a onehorse race.
The nag in question was Laurence Llewelyn-bowen, whose grasp of the basics of line, perspective and colour stood out through the series. This, despite the obvious limitations, was emphasised at every opportunity by po-faced professional judges Daphne Todd and Lachlan Goudie. Llewelynbowen refused to exit his comfort zone. Even so, he went into the final as favourite by dint of being the only one with any technical skill at all.
His fellow finalists, musician George Shelley and TV presenter Josie d’arby, had plenty of enthusiasm, but it was Llewelyn-bowen’s to lose. And so he did, when, invited to paint in the Natural History Museum, ambition got the better of him and he attempted to encompass the whole of the museum’s great hall, instead of focusing on one detail and doing that well.
Shelley’s attempt to reproduce a case of butterflies had joy yet remained peculiarly lifeless. But d’arby, whose enthusiasm outstripped her skill in earlier episodes, hit her stride at just the right moment with a surreal attempt to paint a giraffe with its skeleton on the outside. Striking if not accomplished, it was a deserving winner. Ultimately Celebrity Painting
Challenge was not so much about skill as imagination and zest. Even in the arts, we all love a trier.
Jill Dando: the 20 Year Mystery ★★★★
Celebrity Painting Challenge: the Final ★★★