Jill Dando’s final acts were those of a woman on the cusp of a new life with the fiancé she loved. She was engaged to marry Alan Farthing, a consultant gynaecologist, in five months. Friends said that it was clear that the couple were deeply in love and that Miss Dando had talked of having children.

On Monday April 26, 1999, the day of her death, she made him breakfast at his house in Chiswick, where they had spent part of the night writing letters to wedding guests, before she set off to her home in Fulham.

Stuck in traffic on the way, she took a call from the Prince Edward Theatre to confirm tickets for the musical Mamma Mia! that night — a surprise birthday present for Mr Farthing.

Friends recalled how Miss Dando seemed focused on a charity function she was to attend that afternoon. The agent at the theatre said that she was “excited and bubbly” during what was to be her last telephone conversation. Only 17 minutes later she was shot dead at point-blank range as she walked up to her front door.

The murder shocked a nation that had been charmed by the warmth Miss Dando had exhibited in her television appearances.

Her broadcast career had begun when, spurred by her mother’s encouragement, she had moved into radio from her local paper in Weston-super-Mare, which she joined after completing A levels. Miss Dando’s mother was convinced that her daughter’s good looks and affable manner would make her a hit on television, and her break came when she landed a job presenting Spotlight for BBC South West. In 1988 she made her debut on national television at the age of 26 co-presenting Breakfast News.

Her mother died of leukaemia in 1986 at the age of 58 — before she could enjoy the ascent to fame that she had helped to inspire. Miss Dando was devastated by the loss.

“She didn’t live to see my TV success, but she was so proud when I got the job on radio,” she recalled.

Later that year she met Bob Wheaton, the editor of the Six O’clock News who was to become editor of BBC Breakfast Time. They soon began a relationship. After joining the Holiday programme she went on to co-present Crimewatch with Nick Ross. It was on these prime-time programmes that her “girl next door” demeanour secured her place in the affections of the British public.

Despite her celebrity status she shunned many of its trappings and continued to live a relatively normal life. She had an unassuming manner but the consequences of her celebrity were inescapable.

She attracted “unwelcome and unpleasant” attention. Jonathan Laidlaw, QC, for the prosecution, told the jury of one incident when an infatuated elderly man delivered an “admiring” letter to her door.

The endless travel to the world’s most exotic destinations for Holiday took its toll on her relationship with Mr Wheaton and in December 1996, two years after she moved to Fulham, they parted amicably.

In November 1997, her friend, Jennifer Higham, introduced her to Mr Farthing, who was recently separated. They began spending time together and a month later travelled to Australia. They soon fell in love. In November 1998, Mr Farthing’s divorce was finalised and three months later the couple announced their engagement.

Mr Farthing, 44, has since married Janet Stowell, a 30-year-old junior hospital doctor. Friends and relatives of Miss Dando are said to be “extremely pleased for him”.

Mr Farthing has asked for his privacy to be respected and a former spokesman said yesterday that he would not be giving a response to the verdict.

After Miss Dando’s death, which led to one of the biggest murder inquiries in British history, she was laid to rest, next to her mother, in a secluded corner of a hilltop cemetery in Worle, Somerset, near the seaside resort where she was born.

Mr Farthing, with Miss Dando’s elderly father and her brother, were among the first to visit the grave. The inscription on the black marble stone reads: “Jill Dando, 1961-1999. Your beautiful smile, that unaffected elegance, a genuine star — we love you.”

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