Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Barry George: Line of Duty was spot on
He praises portrayal of blinkered cops
THE man wrongly convicted of Jill Dando’s murder praised Line of Duty for showing police calling a Down’s syndrome suspect a “local oddball”.
Barry George said the episode “highlights what the police do”.
His sister, Michelle Diskin Bates, said series creator Jed Mercurio, should be “lauded not reviled” for the line.
Barry was wrongly convicted for the 1999 murder of journalist and TV presenter Dando in 2001. He spent eight years in prison before being acquitted.
He and Michelle discussed the Line of Duty plot on the phone last week.
Michelle said: “I told Barry what happened to Terry Boyle in Line of Duty and, like us, he was outraged at first.
“Then I said, ‘Well, I see it this way...’ and before I even got the words out, he said, ‘But it highlights what they do.’ He recognised at that stage, that what happened to Terry Boyle shows the public what happened to him.”
After coming under fire, Mercurio explained on Twitter that the line “local oddball” meant “a loner, an eccentric”.
He added to online critics: “The drama is using the term to refer to the Dando case, not to learning difficulties.”
The BBC crime drama’s storyline had parallels to Barry’s case, from a murdered female journalist to minor gunshot residue on a suspect’s clothing.
But Michelle was keen to point out that while TV character
Boyle had numerous pictures of murdered Gail Vella, that element was not drawn from real life.
She said: “People might think that was actually how it was with Barry George and they won’t realise that there was no evidence of an obsession with Jill.
“He didn’t have one. What he actually had was 800 hoarded publications, newspapers, magazines and such.
“When police examined them, they found only eight out of the 800 contained anything relating to Jill Dando... from that the police asserted an obsession.”
Defending Jed Mercurio, she added: “Reading through social media, and all the comments that were attacking this writer, I just thought, ‘Wow, nobody has understood. Nobody has viewed it the way I have, which is that he’s highlighting what goes on in a police investigation’.
“To my mind, Jed Mercurio should be lauded, not reviled, for highlighting the injustices that often lead to a full-blown miscarriage of justice.
“Every miscarriage of justice has to start with an investigation and if that investigation doesn’t look at everything, if it puts on blinkers, it has effectively closed down all other lines of inquiry.”
Line of Duty has been inspired by some of Britain’s most famous cases.
They include the deaths of Stephen Lawrence, killed in an unprovoked attack in 1993, and private investigator Daniel Morgan, attacked with an axe in a South London pub’s car park in 1987.
Crimewatch presenter Jill Dando’s murder remains unsolved.
He should be lauded... he is highlighting what goes on in a police investigation BARRY GEORGE’S SISTER ON LINE OF DUTY BOSS JED MERCURIO