On April 26, 1999, Nigel Dando was at his desk at the Bristol Evening Post, where he was chief reporter, when he got a call from a contact on the Daily Mail.

It was about his sister, the hugely popular TV presenter Jill Dando.

&He said he&d heard that Jill had been involved in some sort of accident, and had I heard anything?& the former journalist tells me from his dining room.

&It was 10 o&clock in the morning.

I rang Jill to check she was OK, and couldn&t get hold of her.

And then he rang back about half an hour later, and said, ‘I think it&s a bit more serious than that — she&s been stabbed in the street where she lives and taken to hospital&.&