The English television personality, Jill Dando, was murdered by a military-obsessed gunman with a grudge against the BBC and a fascination for celebrities, the Old Bailey heard when the trial opened yesterday.
Mr Barry George disliked the BBC because he believed the corporation had mistreated his idol, Queen singer Freddie Mercury, the court was told.
The prosecution says he fired a single shot through Dando's head as she returned to her home in Fulham, west London, on April 26th, 1999. Her body was found huddled in the doorway of her home after a neighbour heard her screams.
Mr George (41), unemployed, of Crookham Road, Fulham, west London, denies murdering 37-year-old Dando.
Mr Orlando Pownall, prosecuting, told the court that Mr George had repeatedly lied and tried to cover up his tracks with an alibi. Although no one had seen the attack, witnesses recounted seeing the defendant close to Dando's home in the hours before killing.
When police eventually raided his flat in Crookham Road, just yards from Dando's home, they found a number of books about the military as well as a photograph of Mr George wearing a military respirator and holding a pistol.
There were other photographs taken of the television while newscasters and presenters were appearing, Mr Pownall said.
Mr George had obsessive aspects to his personality, which were significant and relevant to the case, according to the prosecution. He had allegedly changed his name a number of times and once called himself Steve Majors after the actor Lee Majors, from the Bionic Man, and the character in the series, Steve Austin.
Mr Pownall said he had also told people that he was Freddie Mercury's cousin and called himself Barry Bulsara - Bulsara was Mercury's real name.
He also called himself Thomas Palmer, after an SAS man involved in the Iranian embassy siege, the jury was told.
The court was told that Mr George appeared to have a particular interest in the BBC and told one woman he disliked the corporation "because of the way it had treated Freddie Mercury".
Mr George bought regular copies of the Radio Times and documents seized from his flat contained references to telephone numbers at the BBC.
Photographs of presenter Anthea Turner were also seized, the court was told.
Mr Pownall said: "In interview he suggested that he had not heard of Jill Dando before her death and did not know what she looked like. Such a suggestion was patently false."
In 1985, Mr George lived in a hotel in Gloucester Road where witnesses said they saw him with weapons.
The trial continues on Tuesday.