Dando: editor speaks

THE award-winning newspaper editor who helped to secure the release of a man wrongly convicted of murder claimed yesterday that Barry George did not kill Jill Dando.

Don Hale, the former editor of the Matlock Mercury, said underworld contacts have told him the TV presenter was killed by a hired overseas hitman. He believes Miss Dando was killed by someone unhappy with the BBC’s coverage of the Balkans conflict.

Mr Hale won universal acclaim for his seven-year campaign for the release of Stephen Downing, who spent 27 years in prison for the murder of Wendy Sewell.

After writing a book about the Downing campaign, he has received hundreds of letters from convicts protesting their innocence.