Police to examine 'confession from killer of Dando'

New audio evidence that is said to contain the man convicted of killing Jill Dando confessing to her murder will be "carefully considered", Scotland Yard said yesterday.

A transcript of a tape of Barry George allegedly telling another prisoner that he killed the Crimewatch presenter was published in a national paper yesterday.

George, 41, who is appealing against his conviction for murder, is asked by another prisoner why the police arrested him in the first place.

He allegedly replies: "Why? Because I, I was the person who committed the murder." The four-minute recording was made by Rafal Gutarewicz in his own cell at Whitemoor prison in Cambridgeshire, where he was serving an 11-year sentence for robbery.

He told the News of the World George often visited his cell because he had a keyboard and George would ask him to play Queen songs, which he would sing along to.

Before one visit, Mr Gutarewicz, who was released from Whitemoor three weeks ago, had been recording himself playing the keyboard, and left the tape running when George came in. After another prisoner asked George about the Dando case, he allegedly said he killed her and described how alibis he gave police left him unaccounted for at the time of the murder.

A spokesman for Scotland Yard said the tape would be carefully considered in the same way as new evidence in any case.

George's solicitor, Marilyn Etienne, said his legal team was not given any advance notice of the recording. "In view of the fact Mr George has his appeal imminently pending, we do not feel it's appropriate to make any comment," she said.

Miss Dando was shot on the doorstep of her home in Fulham, west London in April 1999 at point-black range. George was convicted at the Old Bailey last year but has been granted leave to appeal.