The fallout from the trial of Milly Dowler’s murderer has proved discomfiting for defence lawyers.

Defence barrister Jeffrey Samuels QC has been vilified in the press for his questioning of Milly’s father and has apparently been sent threatening emails.

The High Court judge who presided over the trial has faced criticism for failing to curtail the questioning.

Leading criminal defence barrister Lady Kennedy, meanwhile, is among those to wonder out loud whether the judge should have exercised tighter control.

The trial process itself has also been attacked, for focusing on the rights of the defendant and allowing the family of the victim to be treated ‘like criminals’.

Sections of the media, victims’ rights campaigners and politicians have all called for changes in the law to reform the trial process to protect victims and witnesses.

The loss and pain of the Dowler family is unimaginable and it goes without saying that they have the deepest sympathy of all commentators.

But the furore over this trial brought to mind something one of my old university law lecturers said –‘hard cases make bad law’.

Tragic as this case is, it should not have the effect of changing the law and diminishing the robustness of the trial process.

It must be remembered that there was no forensic evidence linking Bellfield to Milly’s murder; and that during the police investigation evidence was uncovered to suggest that Milly was unhappy and may therefore have run away from home.

In addition, Mr Dowler initially lied to the police about his whereabouts on the day his daughter went missing, and as most murders of children tend to be committed by family members, he was initially treated as the prime suspect.

It was not Samuels who concocted the defence proposition that Milly had run away and been murdered by someone else, but Bellfield - using the evidence obtained from the police enquiry to support his assertion.

In presenting his client’s case, Samuels was doing his job - and a hard one it must have been.

If I were charged with committing a criminal act, I would not want a barrister who might be intimidated by the prospect of getting a bad press.

I would want them to use their best efforts in my defence.

And if the backlash from this trial means that defence barristers will be put in fear of advancing their client’s case, or the law is changed to curtail their ability to do so, that will not serve to improve the criminal justice system.

Indeed, it would increases the risk of miscarriages of justice.

The press have made much of the cross-examination of Mr Dowler, expressing disgust at the lines of questioning he faced on some very personal issues.

Yet the papers showed none of the restraint they called for from Samuels when it came to publishing details of the evidence.

I do not suggest that the judge should have restricted the reporting of the case, and I don’t criticise the papers for publishing the details - it is their job to be the public’s eyes and ears.

But I do suggest that media reaction to the trial smacks of hypocrisy, particularly as it was the reporting of Bellfield’s conviction for murdering Milly - with some articles including material that was not heard during the trial - that led to the collapse of the case against him over the alleged attempted abduction of another girl.

The police reaction to the trial, meanwhile, was also highly questionable.

Comments from the chief constable of Surrey Police, the force responsible for the investigation of Milly’s disappearance and murder, were surely ill-advised.

Mark Rowley said he was shocked by the gruelling cross-examination and said the criminal justice system showed a ‘disgraceful lack of humanity’ in its treatment of the Dowler family.

Yet newspaper reports suggest that his force was apparently so convinced that Mr Dowler was to blame for his daughter’s death that it kept him under surveillance.

The police have not confirmed or denied this.

The force denies that its investigations were hampered by their initial suspicions of Milly’s father, but has apologised for missing opportunities in the hunt for the killer that could have led to Bellfield’s arrest before he went on to murder two more victims.

DPP Kier Starmer said the trial has raised some ‘fundamental questions’ about the treatment of victims and witnesses in the court process.

That may be right if the CPS failed to advise the Dowler family properly of what to expect during the trial.

There have been failings in this case, that is clear - but they were not those of the barrister, the judge or the trial process.