{"id":152366,"date":"2025-10-30T00:09:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T00:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/152366\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T00:09:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T00:09:11","slug":"cork-man-cleared-of-jill-dando-murder-too-ill-to-appear-in-court-for-1987-rape-charge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/152366\/","title":{"rendered":"Cork man cleared of Jill Dando murder too ill to appear in court for 1987 rape charge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The man cleared of murdering TV presenter Jill Dando was unable to appear in court to face a charge of raping a 14-year-old girl more than 35 years ago due to medical reasons.<\/p>\n<p>Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring accepted a letter from the GP of Barry George, 65, of Co Cork, that set out longstanding health issues.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The district judge told Westminster Magistrates&#8217; Court that while precise details of the medical issues would remain private, he was &#8220;satisfied that there is a good reason for him not to be here&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">George is  <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishexaminer.com\/news\/courtandcrime\/arid-41712875.html\">accused of one count of rape and two counts of indecent assault in September 1987<\/a> on an alleged victim who was aged 14 at the time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The incidents are reported to have taken place in west London.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">A hearing is due to take place at the Old Bailey on November 26, when it is expected Mr George will appear via videolink.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">He was granted unconditional bail until then.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Mr George was arrested on suspicion of murder in 2000, a year after Ms Dando was killed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">He was convicted in 2001, but the conviction was quashed in November 2007 by the Court of Appeal and he was cleared by a jury in August 2008 after a retrial.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Former  Crimewatch presenter Ms Dando, 37, was one of the BBC&#8217;s highest-profile stars when she was shot outside her home in Fulham, west London, on April 26 1999.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">No-one has been convicted of her killing since.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The man cleared of murdering TV presenter Jill Dando was unable to appear in court to face a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152367,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[27,18,117,19,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-152366","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-courts","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115460215706548950","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}