Brendan Grehan described it as a submission, but to most observers it was an attack. On Wednesday afternoon, after the jury were dispatched to begin their deliberations, Eamonn Lillis's lawyer got to his feet. He had a problem with the judge's charge, the final instructions to the jury before they depart. He addressed the trial judge, Barry White, beginning with what sounded like a lecture designed for first-year law students.

"Under the constitution, an accused is entitled to have trial by jury, with a fair and impartial judge," he said.

"The judge is supposed to not totally weigh matters on one side or the other… a jury trial should not be usurped in a manner that is driven towards a particular verdict."

Grehan moved onto how the judge had reviewed the evidence for the benefit of the jury. "You trawled through matters and gave a partisan, unbalanced and highly selective version of events which was directed towards the jury bringing in a verdict of guilty of murder… from beginning to end, it was directed to a particular purpose. I waited in vain for any balance."

Grehan was accusing the judge of failing to live up to the pledge of impartiality. He enumerated a number of instances where the judge had provided an interpretation, or partial version of the evidence, that was favourable to the prosecution.

By the standards of the legal business, it was an astonishing attack. While Grehan was outlining his grievances, the judge kept his head down, furiously documenting the complaints of his conduct. When he did engage with Grehan minutes later, he was visibly angry.

By then, Grehan had asked for the trial to be aborted.

"It can't be fixed," he said. "In these circumstances I feel I've no alternative but to ask the court to discharge the jury."

The forthright attack on the judge had few precedents. In a business that is polluted with needless obsequiousness before judges, here was a barrister laying down the law.

White is one of the most experienced criminal court judges on the bench. He is a highly regarded judge, and prior to his appointment to the bench was a leading criminal barrister.

Last April, he presided over the trial of 49-year-old David Bourke who was accused of murdering his wife Jean Gilbert at their home in Castleknock. At a break during that trial, when the jury was absent, the judge addressed prosecution counsel Isobel Kennedy.

"Whoever decided this is murder rather than manslaughter should bring themselves into court," he said. Kennedy replied that that was a matter for the jury. Ultimately, the jury found Bourke guilty of murder.

On Wednesday last, after Grehan's submission, White recalled the jury.

"I told you at the outset of my charge that I didn't hold a sword for the prosecution or a shield for the defence.

I hope you do not think that my charge was directed towards securing a particular verdict because it was not."

He went on to address aspects of his charge which he agreed merited remedy.

There were other controversial aspects to the Lillis trial. Opening the case for the DPP, Mary Ellen Ring said the deputy state pathologist would say that the pathology evidence suggests Celine Cawley died as a result of receiving a blow to the front of her head, followed by two more blows to the back of the head while she was lying face down. The image presented by such a finding was of a killer effectively finishing her off with two further blows as she lay incapacitated from the first.

When Curtis gave his evidence, he outlined just such a scenario. Cross-examined by Graham, he conceded that the nature of the wounds would "suggest" such a scenario rather than "strongly suggest" so.

Central to his thesis was that Cawley's body was found face down. He told the court he had been informed by a garda that she was found in this position. He couldn't remember which officer had given him that information.

The following day, Curtis was recalled. Judge White noted that he had checked the transcript and the only reference he could find to the position in which the body was found was from the emergency dispatcher. That suggested the body had been found on its side.

Prosecuting counsel Ring told the count that despite inquiries, the DPP was unable to establish which garda had informed the pathologist that the body was found face down. Yet a damning thesis had been included in the pathologist's report, and the prosecution's case had opened with an image of the accused finishing off his wife as she lay face down following an initial blow. The interests of justice were hardly served by this cock-up between the garda and the pathologist's office.

The force was also central to the controversy surrounding the shielding of Jean Treacy from cameramen outside the court on the day she gave evidence. She was whisked in and out of the courtroom in great secrecy, sparing her the ordeal of entering through the front door at the mercy of cameras.

After she left, the garda set up a provisional roadblock in the event of a media packing following the vehicle in which she was transported.

Undoubtedly, the garda decision to afford Treacy privileged access to and the Criminal Courts of Justice building was informed by a desire to ensure she gave her evidence under the best conditions possible.

An unofficial line emanating from the garda is that she wouldn't play ball if she was exposed to the cameras.

But she had no choice. She was obliged to give evidence under pain of contempt, which carries a jail sentence. Her evidence was not crucial to the case, and was based on statements she had provided to the gardaí.