'This is not a whodunit,' defence counsel told the jury in the first programme in the BBC series The Trial.

'This case is not about disputing evidence; it is about what interpretation you put on evidence.'The case against the defendant - a 23-year-old accused of stomping a retired civil servant to death - in 'The loan path murder' centred on circumstantial evidence - his watch was found near the body and he had, apparently, changed his clothes between leaving the pub and getting home that night.

As his QC, Gordon Jackson, pointed out, there were no witnesses, no forensic evidence, and no admission of guilt.The makers of the series insisted that the jury verdicts were kept secret until each of the five programmes was broadcast.

But, despite Mr Jackson's assertion to the jury, in true 'whodunit' style the solution to the mystery was staring you in the face all along.

If the jury had acquitted, or returned a lesser verdict than the one it did, the programme would surely had to have been called, 'The loan path killing', or even 'The loan path culpable homicide'.The embargo on the verdicts has been cited by at least one leading lawyer as proof that the broadcasters are only interested in sensationalism and entertainment.However, series producer Nick Catliff sees no conflict between producing a series that entertains and informs.

The embargo was imposed so that viewers would be less inclined 'to switch off after three minutes', he says.

'I want people to watch.

I make no apology for that.' A programme cannot educate and inform unless it is interesting enough to make people keep watching, he says.There are, perhaps, some unlikely names among the solicitors who are the strongest critics of The Trial and of the televising of court proceedings gener ally.Mark Stephens - a TV regular and solicitor who knows more than most about using the media to his clients' advantage - fears that cameras in the courtroom would skew jury verdicts against defendants and further erode the presumption of innocence.

'There is something...very sordid about viewer as voyeur of the neat pigeon-holed elements which destroy lives,' he wrote in [1994] Gazette, 16 November, 2.Similarly, the Law Society's head of press and parliamentary affairs, Sue Stapely, a former BBC producer and regular exhorter of the profession to be more media friendly, is also opposed.

'I am anxious about the effect cameras clearly had on the people whose lives were under scrutiny - for example, the defendants.

The young man who featured in the first programme has already said he regrets agreeing to participate and did not realise the impact it would have on his family.

There is something exploitative about this which makes me nervous.'Roger Ede, secretary to the Law Society's criminal law committee, is sceptical about how much viewers would have learned about the criminal justice system from the series.

'In the "The loan path murder", you only saw half the case.

There were all sorts of unanswered questions,' he says.Indeed, lay viewers could have done with some explanation as to how the defendant's QC seemed to be seeking to ride two horses at once.

On the one hand, he was trying to persuade the jury to acquit on the basis that his client had had nothing to do with the attack on the dead man.

But, on the other, if they did not believe that, he was hoping for a verdict of culpable homicide on the basis that if it had been the defendant who kicked in the victim's head, he had not meant to kill him.Although Mr Jackson was seen explaining this dual strategy to the camera, we were given no enlightenment as to how two, apparently mutually exclusive, positions could be argued at once.Mr Ede was concerned about viewers being wrongly swayed.

'You find yourself being influenced by things you should not be influenced by; for example, the defendant not giving evidence.

That is not supposed to lead you to infer guilt.'But while there are some unlikely critics, there are also some perhaps equally unlikely supporters.

Ian Ryan, solicitor to Colin Stagg, who was cleared of the murder of Rachel Nickell after the judge threw out the case, says: 'With the benefit of hindsight, it would have been better without a shadow of a doubt for it to be filmed.'With something like the Stagg case you are very dependent on how the newspapers decide to report it.

There has subsequently been a slight whispering campaign about the judge being too robust.

But if people had seen or heard four or five days of evidence and then heard his judgment, they would not have any doubt that he was right.'Roger Smith, director of the Legal Action Group, remains ambivalent about allowing in the cameras.

He describes his position as being 'yes in theory, but probably no in practice.

I think trials are riveting watching: really good television - which is a problem.'There is a feeling that programme makers will be tempted to play up the drama.

For example, in 'The loan path murder', the voice-over intoned: 'Within three days, [the defendant's] family will see him walk from court as a free man, or starting a life sentence for murder.' When his girlfiend was about to give evidence: 'Only [she] can testify to what he was wearing when he came home...'It is also clear that programme makers bring a set of different values and priorities to bear in deciding what is important in a case.

For example, producer Nick Catliff insists that 'the whole question of whether it was murder or culpable homicide centres around' a particularly grisly photograph of the victim's injuries being studied by the pathologist and held to camera for several seconds.For Mr Catliff, clearly, this was (just like in the movies) the key dramatic moment of the case, the turning point, which was far more important than any legal argument about what interpretation to put on any of the evidence.1995