Jill Dando's brother hopes for Netflix show breakthrough - and shares own theory
Almost 25 years after his sister Jill Dando was shot dead on her doorstep, her brother Nigel clings to the hope that the popular TV presenter’s killer will one day be found and face justice.
Jill was 37 when she was murdered in broad daylight outside her house in Fulham, west London, on April 26, 1999. It triggered the largest criminal investigation since the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper, but we are still no closer to knowing who fired the gun.
Now 71-year-old Nigel hopes that will change, and a new Netflix documentary, Who Killed Jill Dando?, could be key. Over a cup of coffee at his home in Portishead, Somerset, not far from where he and Jill grew up in Weston-super-Mare, Nigel tells me: “I’m hoping the documentary will jog someone’s memory. I still have hope, but as time goes on I realise it’s less likely that Jill’s killer will be found.
Jill Dando was gunned down in April 1999 (PA)
Jill was 'living her best life' when she died, her brother says (PA)“If someone has got a vital piece of evidence somewhere, or knows anything about the killer, I hope they can come forward. That way we will finally get some closure.” Jill was a much-loved broadcaster, known for her work on BBC breakfast TV, as well as Crimewatch with Nick Ross, and the Holiday travel programme.
She was engaged to doctor Alan Farthing and looking forward to her wedding when she was murdered. Nigel says: “There was no doubt about it, she was living her best life. She was at the top of her game professionally and personally, looking forward to getting married that September. She had her whole life ahead of her. Then this happened and it was all taken away from her in the blink of an eye.”
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Nigel features in the three-part Netflix documentary, which is available from September 26. It also includes fresh interviews with investigators, as well as Barry George, the man convicted of her murder, but acquitted eight years later. On the day she died, Jill drove from her fiance’s home in Chiswick to her terraced house in Fulham.
Jill with her brother Nigel and father Jack (Rowan Griffiths / Daily Mirror)What happened next is a mystery. Witnesses who found her blood- stained body outside her front door reported hearing a scream before seeing a well-dressed man run off. The only evidence was a single bullet casing, but neighbours said they never heard a gunshot.
Could she have been the victim of a stalker, a criminal gang seeking revenge for her work on Crimewatch or a Serbian hitman seeking revenge for the NATO bombing of a TV station in Belgrade? Nigel, a retired journalist, says: “My theory is that she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.” He tells me investigators have CCTV footage of Jill showing she was not being followed that day, making it unlikely it was the work of a hitman or a planned attack.
He reveals that at the time Jill was not living at the Fulham house, but had just nipped back to pick something up. Nigel says: “If someone was waiting for her to come back, they’d been waiting for days and if that was the case I’m sure somebody would have seen something.”
Jill's brother Nigel still hopes her killer is caught (Rowan Griffiths / Daily Mirror)He still vividly remembers the day he lost his only sister. He recalls: “It was absolute chaos. I was working in the Bristol Evening Post newsroom when I had a call from a reporter I knew on a national newspaper in London. He’d heard that Jill had been involved in some sort of accident and asked me if I’d heard anything. I rang her to check if she was OK, but I couldn’t get hold of her.
“I eventually got hold of her fiance, who was in a police car on the way to Charing Cross Hospital. During his journey to the hospital, we were both told Jill had died.” Moments after Nigel had put down the phone, he glanced at the newsroom TV screens and watched in shock as presenter Jennie Bond interrupted normal programming to confirm his sister had died. Jill and Nigel’s mum Winifred had died of leukaemia in 1986, and Nigel’s priority became protecting their father, Jack.
He says: “I was obviously in shock, but my priority was to make sure my old man was okay. As a journalist, I knew me and my dad were going to be in the eye of a media storm.” While the years after Jill’s death have ben hard, Nigel now tries to concentrate on the fond memories he has of Jill.
Barry George was wrongly convicted of Jill's murder in 2001 (Philip Coburn)As we look through family photos, a smile flickers across his face as he remembers Jill as a quiet child, quite different to the bubbly woman on TV. He says: “She had a pudding basin haircut and wore glasses from quite an early age. I remember her being captivated by Saturday-night TV, watching Generation Game and Opportunity Knocks.
“I was almost 10 years older than her, so whereas she was happy to stay in with mum and dad, I just could not wait to get out of the house.” Like Nigel, Jill went into journalism, starting at the Weston Mercury, before moving to Radio Devon and BBC South West, and then national TV.
She was presented with the Big Red Book by Michael Aspel on This Is Your Life in 1996 and was BBC Personality of the Year in 1997. She made her dad immensely proud, but Nigel says Jack, who died in 2008, did not talk much about Jill after her horrific death.
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Nigel says: “He was obviously sad, but he was also quite stoic.” But there was one picture that Jack treasured, of him and his daughter just before she took him on Concorde to fulfil his dream of supersonic flight. Nigel adds: “He treasured that picture of them both.”
- Who Killed Jill Dando?, Netflix, available from September 26.
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