Barry George, who was cleared last week of murdering the Crimewatch presenter Jill Dando, is considering legal action over the picture of a masked gunman that police claim is him.

The photograph, which shows a man brandishing a handgun and wearing a gas mask, was shown to the jury at Mr George’s trial.

It has also been widely published by the media, which was told by the Metropolitan Police that it depicts Mr George, aged 48.

But the cleared man, who served eight years in jail for Miss Dando’s murder, said in interviews at the weekend that he was not the person in the photograph. “This picture is not me at all,” he told the News of the World. “There are still potentially ongoing legal matters towards that.”

The interviews were the first time that Mr George has answered questions about the allegations against him since shortly after his arrest in May 2000.

He declined the opportunity to give evidence at either of his Old Bailey trials.

Mr George, a convicted sex attacker, said: “I never refused to give evidence. My legal team advised me it would be inappropriate from a medical point for me to take the stand. I could have had an epileptic seizure in the stand, and that wouldn’t have been good at all.

“When the police asked me if I killed Jill Dando, I was advised to say ‘no comment’ for legal reasons.”

Miss Dando was shot dead on the doorstep of her West London home in 1999. Mr George told Sky News: “I will look anyone in the eye and state I have not killed Jill Dando.”

He said he was willing to take a lie detector test to prove his innocence.

He said that at the time Miss Dando was murdered he was elsewhere in the area “stalking” another woman. “I walked with her for a bit and from her perspective, maybe it was unwanted attention. But she didn’t make that clear,” Mr George said.

He admitted that he had frequently pestered women in the past, but said that he was a changed man.

Mr George also apologised to the woman who was the subject of an attempted rape by him more than 25 years ago. He claimed that the attack occurred at a time when he was lonely and finding it difficult to make friends.

Scotland Yard has expressed its “disappointment” with the Old Bailey jury’s verdict that Mr George was not guilty.

Mr George said he did not think that police would ever catch Miss Dando’s killer. He also expressed sympathy for Miss Dando’s family, saying: “I can’t begin to understand or feel what they must be going through.”

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