Defendant 'seen in Dando's street'

Jill Dando was shopping hours before she died

A man seen in Jill Dando's street on the day she died was later identified as the man accused of her murder, an Old Bailey jury has heard.

Barry George, 41, from Fulham, denies murdering the BBC television presenter.

The 37-year-old presenter was shot in the head on the doorstep of her home in Fulham after spending the morning shopping in nearby Hammersmith.

Susan Mayes told how she had seen a man standing by a car directly opposite the house where Ms Dando lived at around 7am on the morning of 26 April 1999.

He looked down to the ground as if he did not want me to see him

Susan Mayes,
witness

She said: "As I drew alongside him he looked down to the ground as if he did not want me to see him.

"He then started cleaning the windscreen. I looked back a few seconds later and he had stopped."

She described the man as being around 5ft 5ins tall, in his late 30s, "Mediterranean, slightly olive-skinned" and as having black, layered, shoulder-length hair.

He was said to be wearing a black suit with a white open neck shirt.

Known locally

Last October, in a video identification parade, Ms Mayes picked out Mr George as the man she had seen.

But the defence suggested Mr George was well known locally, and said the witness had been mistaken in making a positive identification.

A second witness, Terry Normanton, told how she had seen a man standing outside Ms Dando's house on the morning that she died, holding a mobile phone.

She said: "I thought he was looking towards me but I could not be quite sure. He was looking at number 29."

Mrs Normanton said the man, who was wearing a black suit and no tie, was in his 30s, about 5ft 8ins tall and medium build, with slightly wavy black hair and no facial hair.

Barry George denies murdering Miss Dando

The jury had previously heard how police had spent almost 500 hours examining security camera footage of Miss Dando only hours before her death which showed she had not being followed.

From council-owned and commercial CCTV footage, police tracked her movements between 10.18am and 11.10am.

She went first to a BP garage on the Great West Road, then by car at Hammersmith shopping centre.

She later drove home via a back route to avoid a bottle neck in the Fulham Palace Road, going down Winslow Road, Fulham.

The prosecution alleges that shortly after she was last caught on camera, Mr George killed her outside her home in Gowan Avenue.

A witness, Helen Scott, told the court she had seen a man acting suspiciously on the corner of Gowan Avenue the night before the murder.

She did not identify the defendant in a video identification parade 21 months later.

The trial continues.