Champion of the wrongfully accused faces sternest test yet

Michael Mansfield QC has made his name by overturning convictions against all the odds. His client list, which includes the Guildford Four, five of the Birmingham Six, the Tottenham Three, and Judith Ward, reads like a who's who of wrongful convictions throughout the past 25 years.

But the Barry George case will present him with one of his greatest challenges to date.

Mr Mansfield is a professional and will not have been caught off-guard. Even when the case was going well he will have been preparing for the possibility of a guilty verdict. On Saturday when the jurors were once again sent back to their hotel it must have been clear to him that there was a real danger the case could be decided against his client.

He might have even thought to re-examine his own courtroom performance – even though to the outside world it had once again appeared to be another faultless display of advocacy. Trial observers at the Old Bailey were impressed with the relaxed and skilful manner in which he presented complicated points of law in a way a jury would most easily understand them.

Throughout the trial he chose his phrases carefully, always with one eye on the watching media. It was the prosecution barrister, Orlando Pownall QC, who remarked after seeing a copy of Mr Mansfield's defence speech, that he could predict the newspaper headlines the following morning.

How right he was as nearly all of the papers followed Mr Mansfield's introductory statement to the court: "The case against this defendant is hanging by the merest of threads."

Some have accused Mr Mansfield of picking his cases and that the George trial, with its apparently leaky prosecution, was more evidence of this.

But that is not a criticism that holds water. Mr Mansfield has had his fair share of courtroom disappointments. The private prosecution of the men accused of murdering the black teenager Stephen Lawrence was thrown out for lack of evidence at the Old Bailey in April 1996. He went on to act for the Lawrence family at the inquest in February 1997, and finally spent 69 days on their behalf at the public inquiry where his observations helped shape Sir William Macpherson's final recommendations.

Mr Mansfield, a railway worker's son from Finchley, north London, is a passionate supporter of left-wing causes as well as a tireless campaigner in the UK's civil rights movement. But most of all he knows his reputation was built on fighting for individuals who believe they have been wronged.

Michael Mansfield is renowned as a colourful character, a bestselling author, as well as an expert in civil rights law. If he worked in the United States, his public profile would probably be on a par with that of O J Simpson's flamboyant lawyer, Johnny Cochran.

His early reputation was as a defender of the indefensible, His big break came in 1972 when he defended one of the alleged leaders of the Angry Brigade, an English anarchist group that bombed several ministers' homes.