Re: Dando killer wins right to appeal


"Dave Baker" <nothing@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"Paul Nutteing (valid email address in post script )"
<nutteing@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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IMO the major flaw with the Jill Dando/Barry George
conviction was the "gun propllant" evidence. I'm
surprised Michael Mansfield QC did not show the jury a representative
7 micron particle. 7 thousandths of a mm across, you need
a pretty good microscope to see it. The original was consumed
in the gas chromatograph or mass spectrograph or whatever.
Only ONE particle landing on a jacket worn within a foot
of the shooting with no evidence of it being cleaned in the
intervening months. The source of this particle was more than
likely from when the jacket was removed from the exhibits
bag to be photographed . The previous week on the same
bench firearms had been photographed for forensic
purposes. Barry George's jacket was then rebagged and
sent to another lab for the chemical analysis. Only shown
to be chemically consistent with gun propellant, nothing
more identifying than that. ...

Moreover the BBC (IIRC) has now done much of the work that Mansfield
should have done in the first place by showing the American lab reports on
how easy it is to get inadvertent contamination with particles that small
and how they would never be used in evidence in a case over there.

That isn't really very fair on Mansfield. The defence called a reputable
expert to rubbish the particle and the Court of Appeal eventually decided it
was fair to put the evidence before a jury and allow the jury to decide what
weight to attribute to it.


In addition there are witnesses, one of them a vicar I believe, saying
that some of the police who went into George's house were armed which it
appears the police lied about in the trial. Add in all the other dubious
factors in this case and I would hope that even the most inept defence
barrister can now finally get him released.

If the BBC report is correct, the *only* issue before the Court of Appeal
this time around, will be the reliability of the particle evidence.


Why though does it take so long for such obviously suspect cases to win
their right to appeal. The system still tries desperately to maintain the
impression that it can do no wrong when it clearly fails defendants time
and again.

I agree. However, that is the problem that always comes up with jury trials.
You put all the evidence before a jury, you explain to them how flimsy the
evidence is, and they sometimes come up with the wrong answer: guilty.

Then you have to try to win an appeal by saying that the evidence was so
flimsy that it should never even have been put to a jury.

I think there is a possibility that the Court of Appeal will throw the
appeal out once again, but we will have to see if there is anything *new*
for them to get their teeth into.


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Dando killer wins right to appeal
    ... conviction was the "gun propllant" evidence. ... Only ONE particle landing on a jacket worn within a foot ... Moreover the BBC has now done much of the work that Mansfield ... it was fair to put the evidence before a jury and allow the jury to decide ...
    (uk.legal)
  • Re: Dando killer wins right to appeal
    ... small and how they would never be used in evidence in a case over there. ... it was fair to put the evidence before a jury and allow the jury to decide ... serious cases end up in court on the flimsiest of evidence and minor cases ... Some fairly meaningless particle evidence and some ...
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