Barry George: Man jailed and cleared of Jill Dando murder charged with child rape

The man wrongly convicted of murdering BBC star Jill Dando has today been charged with rape and indecent assault.

Barry George, 65, spent eight years in jail for the 1999 killing before being released in 2008 when he was unanimously acquitted after a retrial.

It is alleged that the girl was sexually assaulted on two separate occasions between 6-12 September 1987. The alleged victim is now in her 50s. The incidents are reported to have taken place in west London.

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Detective Superintendent Andy Furphy, from the Metropolitan Police Service, said on Friday: “These charges follow an investigation by a team of Met detectives. Specially trained officers continue to support the woman who has come forward.”

George will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday, 29 October.

At the time Jill was shot, she was one of the most famous faces on TV, presenting BBC shows such as Crimewatch and Holiday. She was just 37 and had become engaged to gynaecologist Alan Farthing in January 1999, and they were planning to marry in September. There was no sexual aspect to Jill's murder.

George became the focus of the Met's attention in February 2000 when DC John Gallagher was given "Action No 1637" that called for the tracing, identification and elimination from the inquiry of Barry Bulsara - George's pseudonym. On April 17 and 18, officers searched his flat, close to where the presenter lived in Fulham, south west London.

George, who has frontal lobe brain damage, Asperger's, ADHD and learning difficulties, as well as epilepsy, said he was "transparent and truthful" during the investigation. He now lives in Ireland.

Over the last two years a Daily Mirror investigationhas found new evidence linking the Serbian security services to the unsolved case. A van driver told us he was "80% sure" that convicted assassin Milorad Ulemekwas the man he nearly hit close to the murder scene.

And a woman told us last year that she was certain she had seen Ulemek in the same stretch of the Fulham Palace Road on the morning of April 26, 1999. Jill was ambushed from behind as she was about to open her front door, forced to the ground and killed with one bullet to the left temple fired at close range.

Ulemek, now 57 and serving 40 years in a Serbian jail, led a unit of hitmen and plotted assassinations for late Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic. Last year we named him for the first time in connection with Jill's murder after a facial comparison expert said he was identical to a CCTV image of a man filmed near the scene.

In the light of our investigation, MPs have called for the case to be reopened and the top barrister who prosecuted Milosevic for war crimes says Ulemek should be investigated.