Jill Dando's murder prompted a message from the Queen

It was a crime which shocked Britain because Miss Dando was one of the UK's most popular stars, fronting Crimewatch UK, the Holiday programme and various news bulletins in her career.

But the clinical, and brutal way in which the killing was carried out added to the sense of bewilderment which greeted this most high profile of murders.

On 2 July, 2001, a jury decided that the man who pulled the trigger was Barry George, a man said to be obsessed with guns and celebrity.

Somewhat unusually though, this was a conviction that has come under question ever since George began his life sentence in jail, with campaign groups suggesting much of the evidence was circumstantial.

In 2006, the BBC's Panorama programme uncovered new evidence further challenging crucial scientific findings presented against George.

Blossoming career

Miss Dando was 37 and enjoying a blossoming career when she was shot on 26 April at her home in Fulham, west London.

In the week she died, the presenter's picture featured on the cover of the Radio Times, which carried an article about her new show, Antiques Detectives.

In a press interview earlier that year, Miss Dando had spoken of her happiness following her engagement to Alan Farthing, a gynaecologist she met on a blind date.

The presenter also expressed a desire to have children and wanted a less frantic life.

Initial witness reports of her murder described a well-dressed man outside Miss Dando's house, then a "sweating" man at a bus stop and even a man running across a park and jumping into the River Thames.

Other thinking pointed to the way the killing was carried out, perhaps suggesting Miss Dando had been the victim of a professional hit.

The theory was that some malcontent from the criminal underworld might have been upset by something Miss Dando had worked on for the Crimewatch UK programme.

Soon speculation widened, including suggestions that Miss Dando's killing may have been a reprisal for the bombing of Serbia by Nato forces - sparked by the brutal conflict in Kosovo - after Miss Dando had fronted an appeal for Kosovan refugees.

But that theory was apparently discounted by police.

'Lone stranger'

By December 1999, it emerged the gun used to kill her was rare and experts suggested it would only have been used by an amateur.

This fact, backed up by methods such as psychological profiling, led the police to believe Miss Dando's killer was a "lone stranger" with an "obsessive" personality.

Police then turned their attention to Barry George, who called himself Barry Bulsara and was interested in celebrities. He was charged with murder on 29 May 2000.

The investigation, codenamed Jill Dando Operation Oxborough, had been exhaustive. At the time it was the largest criminal investigation since the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper.

Barry George has always denied he murdered Miss Dando

Just over a year later, a jury of six women and five men took five days to decide - by a majority of 10 to one - that George was guilty of murder.

George lived half a mile from Miss Dando's home and had learned about firearms as a member of the Territorial Army and at a local gun club.

After the trial, it emerged George had a history of stalking women and had once served a prison sentence for attempted rape.

Police searching George's flat found more than 2,000 undeveloped photographs of 419 different women he had followed around London.

One of the Crown's key pieces of scientific evidence centred on a tiny speck of residue, from a gun, which was found in the pocket of a jacket in George's flat.

The particle matched others found in Miss Dando's hair.

Contentious particle

This is the evidence which the BBC's Panorama programme alleged was flawed.

The particle in question was very much in contention during George's unsuccessful appeal against conviction in 2002.

George's lawyer, Michael Mansfield QC, said it was unreliable evidence which could have been contaminated.

Meanwhile, criticism of the conviction has come from other sources.

The day after the verdict, campaign group Miscarriages of Justice claimed the case had all the hallmarks of injustice.

Brian Cathcart, who has written a book about the murder, said George was a "vulnerable" defendant and insisted that there was an "absence of motive". George himself has always protested his innocence.

Although this was a murder case which ended in a conviction, doubts continue to be expressed as to how the golden girl of television's life came to such a tragic end.