Dando crime-fighting legacy

Jill Dando: Remembered by her friends

A £5m appeal for a crime-fighting academy to be set up as a lasting legacy to murdered TV presenter Jill Dando is being launched by her fiancé Alan Farthing.

The Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science will be a "world first" in crime prevention, he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Farthing: Wants a lasting legacy to Jill Dando

Mr Farthing said the aim was to create a "lasting memorial" to his fiancée with the institute focusing on the new subject of crime science.

The subject will analyse different approaches to crime prevention - from making cars harder to steal to designing better quality housing estates as well as analysing crime patterns.

Nick Ross, a co-presenter with Ms Dando on BBC television's Crimewatch programme, said: "We are profoundly keen that this will become a world class centre of excellence that everybody will look at for new advice."

Melancholy task

Mr Farthing made a public appeal for funds to launch the project on Wednesday.

He said it was a melancholy task but friends and relatives were trying to turn the tragedy into something positive.

The 37-year-old Crimewatch UK presenter was gunned down on her doorstep in Fulham, south west London, in April last year.

Murder scene: Jill Dando's home

The institute will be based at University College, London, and after a couple of years would be running a degree course, Mr Farthing said.

He has been working with Home Office psychologist Professor Ken Pease to launch the initiative.

Mr Farthing said although there was a lot of information about crime prevention, there was no centre teaching it.

"We have in private asked for support from people," he said.

"Not a single person has said 'no'. We asked some very high profile people to be involved."

Team of detectives

Dando: Killer not yet found

A team of nearly 50 detectives has been investigating Ms Dando's murder but, to date, nobody has been charged with her murder.

"I don't think there is any doubt that for myself and many other friends and relatives of Jill, if the person that had done this had been caught and brought to justice it would make it very much easier for us to cope with," Mr Farthing said.

The man leading the hunt for Ms Dando's killer, Detective Chief Inspector Hamish Campbell, believes the culprit will be caught.

"Don't ask me when," he said earlier this month. "It could be this month, it could be next month."

The crime-fighting academy has the backing of Sir Cliff Richard and the Countess of Wessex.

Credit card donations can be made to the fund via its website jilldandofund.com, by telephone on 0800 0150125 or by cheque to The Jill Dando Fund at The Jill Dando Fund, Lloyds TSB, 50 Notting Hill Gate, London, W11 3JD.