Philip Joseph found Barry George far more competent than he made himself out to be to.
A media article stated;
Dr Philip Joseph, another leading psychiatrist who was called by the prosecution, said George was “far more competent” than tests would suggest and capable of lying in police interviews.
While some of his behaviour could be attributed to his epilepsy and cognitive impairment, his stalking of women appeared to stem from an “intense anger” caused by rejection, Dr Joseph said.
According to Alfred George, his young son Barry George “rushed to put a spoon” in sister Susan’s mouth when he was four years old.
Susan George had been diagnosed with having epilepsy.
Excerpts from a 2001 media article reads;
Although poor academically, Barry was practical.
His sister Susan was epileptic and when he was four, he rushed to put a spoon in her mouth when she was having a fit to stop her biting her tongue.
‘No one taught him to do that,’ says Mr George. ‘He just picked it up from watching.’
Excerpt by Geoffrey Levy and Stephen Wright for the Daily Mail article headed Mad, sad and dangerous 3rd July 2001
Alfred George
According to a seizure first aidsite, “placing a spoon or anything else in a person’s mouth during a seizure is a MYTH. Never put anything in a person’s mouth during a seizure. Instead, remember Time, Safe, Stay”.
There is no mention of the spoon incident by Michelle Diskin Bates, uncle Mike Burke or David James Smith in any of their books.
According to David James Smith, “dates and timings are cloudy and obscured by the passage of years and perhaps a preference to forget”.
For context, David James Smith stated the following;
Barry’s Auntie Elizabeth would say that his parents were inadequate parents, physically and emotionally punitive with their children.
His mother, in her view, could not cope and would rather go out than care for her children.
During Barry’s adolescence, Auntie Elizabeth says, before his father left, the family home was a war zone.
Dates and timings are cloudy and obscured by the passage of years and perhaps a preference to forget.
Barry says his father had left home when he was eight, around the time that he was sent away to board at Heathermount, a school for children with special needs
Alfred George himself has said that he and his wife, Margaret, had separated after their son Barry went away, Alfred maintained contact with Barry until 1974, when he went to Australia with his new wife, Barbara.
He moved to Australia to escape abuse and hassle from his ex-wife and because he had seen an advertisement for a job as a prison-officer in Melbourne, and applied and had been accepted.
Excerpts by David James Smith from his book All About Jill published in 2002
Barry George Taken To See A Specialist (Age 5)
Further excerpts from the 2001 media article on young Barry George read;
Barry went to Wormholt Park Primary School in White City, West London, but his progress was slow and it became apparent that he had learning problems.
His father says his boy ‘wanted to play all the time’ and was taken to see a specialist.
Aged five, he switched to Northcroft School in Hammersmith for children with educational and behavioural disorders.
For two years there were no problems, but he changed after his parents parted.
Aged only seven, he was deeply shocked.
Others remember him as ‘withdrawn and sulky’ and the general feeling was that he was ‘weird’.
Excerpt by Geoffrey Levy and Stephen Wright for the Daily Mail article headed Mad, sad and dangerous 3rd July 2001
According to one of Michelle Diskin Bates stories from her book, there was an alleged incident at a “local outdoor swimming baths”.
Michelle Diskin Bates stated;
One summer, when Barry was five, he and I went to the local outdoor swimming baths. In the summer holidays we could spend all day there for the princely sum of sixpence in old money. As usual, after I had been playing in the pool with friends, I’d bought us both lunch: a crispy bread roll with real butter and a thick hunk of cheddar cheese. We accompanied this with a large cup of beefy bouillon to warm us up. Barry had already eaten his lunch and had wandered off to play when I suddenly realised I couldn’t see him or his distinctive Tarzan-patterned swimming trunks. “Barry? Barry!” I called out, getting more and more frantic. I searched the dressing rooms and shouted into the men’s toilet building, but to no avail. Then I spotted something floating, a child, face down on the top of the water. It was the unconscious body of my brother. “Help, help!” I called to the lifeguard, who was sitting directly over the place where Barry was doing the dead man’s float. He was chatting to a bevy of young women. “Help me! I can’t swim and my brother is drowning . . .” He told me to stop mucking about and turned back to his adoring fan club. There wasn’t time to do any thinking; I jumped into the deep part of the pool, spluttering and struggling to keep afloat, and reached out my arm to grab Barry by his trunks, pulling him to me. I thought we might both drown together now, because I really couldn’t swim, and I hadn’t the strength to lift either of us out of the pool. All at once there were hands everywhere, pulling us both to safety. A person sauntering by had seen Barry walking near the deep area as some kids ran past, knocking him into the pool. Barry was unconscious when we pulled him out, but came around shortly after and, at ten years old, I was left to dress him and walk him home after this ordeal. Mum didn’t think about complaining to anyone, but after that I rarely got to spend a leisurely day by the pool. Barry was now terrified of water, and I was only allowed to take him to the kiddies’ paddling pool in the park.
Excerpts by Michelle Diskin Bates from her book Stand Against Injustice published in 2018
Michelle Diskin Bates tells a few stories in her book (under her header Family Background) about her young brother Barry George.
One of Michelle’s stories is about when her brother was apparently hospitalised following burns to his stomach.
Another story Michelle told was of an “infernopouring out the back” bedroom window of the council house they lived in, in Creighton Close, White City. Michelle Diskin Bates stated;
Another of his escapades landed him in hospital in an isolation ward. Barry had gone missing again; he often went off on his own. This time, he’d arrived home smelling of what seemed to be petrol. His white cotton shirt and grey short pants were soaked through, and when Dad removed them we could see that his abdomen was burnt and the skin was pink and raw and peeling off. He was unable to tell us what had happened to him, and he seemed dumbstruck with shock. All thoughts of telling him off were abandoned and he was rushed to Hammersmith Hospital immediately.
At the age of seven, he had been playing quietly in the bedroom that we three children shared when he emerged with a black face and hands, eyes like saucers, and ran out of the front door. “You go in and see what he’s done,” Mum cried out to me. “I just can’t.” Mum stayed in the kitchen, wringing her hands, a fearful look in her eyes.
Cautiously opening the bedroom door, I stared in horror at the sight before me. The pretty floral print curtains were ablaze, smoke and flames billowed out of the open sash window. A matchbox and spent matches sat beside the timber window-frame which looked like charcoal, blackened and charred through. As I returned to the room with yet another bucket of water, I could hear the fire service approaching along Bloemfontein Road, sirens blaring. Someone else had seen the inferno pouring out from the back window and had reported it. By the time the fire brigade reached us, four floors up, I had put the flames out. The council then had to come and replace the window, since it could not be salvaged.
Excerpts by Michelle Diskin Bates from her book Stand Against Injustice published in 2018
According to the London fire service;
Children and young people start to play with fire for various reasons, ranging from natural curiosity in toddlers to older children using firesetting to express feelings of anger or emotional distress.
Michelle Diskin Bates also told a story about her brother Barry aged 9, when he was apparently caught stealing from a shop and coming home with a note from the shop manager. Michelle stated;
Coming home from school one day, Mum met me at the door. “Barry went out and I don’t know where he is . . . he hasn’t come back.” Just as she told me this, the doorbell rang. Opening it, there stood the bold Barry, but he looked worried and held out a letter. It was from the manager of the local Woolworth’s.
Dear Mrs George, Please would you come to the store to speak with the Manager. Your son has been caught shoplifting, and we’d like to discuss this with you before we call the police. Sincerely, The Manager
Mum fell to pieces before our eyes. “What have you done now, you idiot?” she shouted out to her son. “Can’t you ever just behave yourself? I’m not going around there to talk to anyone, you can forget that!” “But Mum, the man said he’d call the police if you don’t go.”
“You’ll have to go, Michelle, I can’t do it. I can’t face it.” She was speaking to me! I was just fourteen years old, what could I do? Who would listen to me? Dragging Barry by the arm, though I’d have preferred the neck, I marched him back to the Woolworth’s store. “What the hell were you thinking?” I bellowed at him, tugging at his arm some more. “How am I supposed to get you out of this? Why did you do it?” Barry trudged along beside me and nervously began his explanation. “Mum is always crying and I wanted to make her feel better. I wanted to get her a present, but I didn’t have any money,” he told me with a worried expression. “I thought she’d be happy if I came home with chocolates and she wouldn’t cry anymore or shout at me!”
We arrived at the shop, and at fourteen years old I had to try to justify what my nine-year-old brother had done. The manager was not inclined let us off lightly, though, and he was angry that our mother had not come herself. He described to me how Barry was stopped from leaving the store with his black bomber-style jacket bulging with chocolates: After Eights, a Dairy Box, and a couple of large bars of Cadbury’s.
“He didn’t even seem to realise that his plunder was clearly visible to anyone who looked!” the manager exclaimed in flabbergasted tones. “Why shouldn’t I call the police, tell me that?” Hanging my head in shame, I had to beg him to let Barry off for our mother’s sake, giving Barry’s account of how ill and how sad he thought she was.
Excerpts by Michelle Diskin Bates from her book Stand Against Injustice published in 2018
Geoffrey Levy and Stephen Wright stated via their 2001 media article;
When Mr George visited his son he found him glum. He took him to see the football team he followed, Fulham, and the boy had his picture taken with Jimmy Conway, the Eire international.
So did other boys, full of excitement. But when the pictures were developed they showed Barry looking ‘very sullen’, says his father.
Excerpt by Geoffrey Levy and Stephen Wright for the Daily Mail article headed Mad, sad and dangerous 3rd July 2001
The Rifle Range at Heathermount School (Aged 12 & 14)
Heathermount School, Sunningdale, Near Ascot
Nick Hopkins and Steven Morris stated in their 2001 media article that Heathermount school, where Barry George boarded from age 14 to 16 “built a small-bore rifle range”;
George attended at least three schools before settling at Northcroft juniors in Shepherd’s Bush, west London. It had just opened to deal with – in the parlance of the time – “maladjusted children”.
Following his parents separation, George’s father remarried and emigrated to Australia.
Though he moved back to Britain and now lives in Wales, he has not seen his son for 20 years. Margaret told her friends that “when he divorced me, he divorced the kids too”.
Aged 14, George moved to a council boarding school for boys who had “emotional and behavioural difficulties”.
Staff at Heathermount, set in 14 idyllic acres in Sunningdale, Berkshire, remembered him as a “mummy’s boy” who followed one of the matrons “like a lost lamb”.
The less academic pupils, like George, were encouraged to concentrate on woodwork, metalwork, weaving and gardening, and to perform in ambitious theatre productions, such as La Boheme and The Mikado.
It was here that George’s obsession with celebrity began to emerge, insisting to friends and teachers that they should call him Paul Gadd, Gary Glitter’s real name.
“He didn’t just have posters on his walls like the other kids,” said one former member of staff. “He knew every movement, song and dance.”
At Heathermount, George may also have had his first contact with guns. In the spring of 1972* the school built a small-bore rifle range, much against the wishes of some parents and governors. Although it closed a year later, George would have known about and probably used the facility.
This grasp of the practical, enhanced by later experience in the Territorial Army, helped convince the police that he was able to modify the gun and the bullet that killed Jill.
*Barry George would have been aged 12 in 1972. Therefore if, as Nick Hopkins and Steven Morris stated in their article, Barry was aged 14 when he first attended Heathermount and the rifle range closed a year later in 1973 (when Barry was aged 13) he would not have used the facility.
INNOCENCE FRAUD WATCH 