STAN Collymore's smug grin as 'not guilty' verdicts were read out at the climax of The Verdict (BBC2) should frighten any woman relying on the court process to convict a man of rape.

Throughout his jury service, the fallen football star harried his female co-jurors into compliance.

And in the end it was only Ann Summers queen Jacqueline Gold who refused to succumb to his verbal aggression. Yet Stan, with his flat Black County twang, clearly thinks he's a reasonable sort.

But the lack of self-awareness as he shouts anyone down who dares to offer an opposing view is what is worrying about men like Stan.

Barely able to contain his contempt for women, his demeanour and dismissive attitude shows what rape plaintiffs are up against when they enter the witness box.

He wasn't the only obnoxious Neanderthal on The Verdict, courtroom TV at its best. Foul-mouthed rapper MegaMan of chart-topping South London collective So Solid Crew was just as bad.

Yet his experience of spending nearly two years in a Category A jail while on remand for murder made his cursing and strutting understandable if not acceptable.

Jurors

He was finally acquitted after being tried three times because jurors couldn't make up their minds about him. Like Collymore, he was focused on the 'evidence', or lack of it. For these angry young men, a barrow-full of DNA was required, not to mention a bruised and battered body.

The idea that a woman might not go straight to the police to claim she had been gang-raped was incomprehensible.

Add to that the football star factor (the victim in this case accused a top soccer star of being one of the attackers) and the fact that her pal had sold the story to a tabloid for é30,000, and their stance was set in stone.

"You made up your mind from day one," said Patsy Palmer to Collymore, in a rare moment of blinding clarity. But the fiery redhead was soon cowed into submission.

Since the sex was not denied, consent was the issue and this case came down to belief - whose version of events did the jury find more credible, the victim or the accused?

Ultimately, the evidence was not there for nine of the jurors, and only three including Gold and former jailbird Jeffrey Archer held out, although the Tory peer changed his mind.

This was fictional and you wouldn't get jailbirds sitting on a real-life jury (though anyone who's spent time in court will have observed that some jurors look as if they've just wandered out of Strangeways).

But it didn't trivialise rape as some critics have suggested. Rather it was a compelling insight into why so few rapes result in a conviction.

What did you think? Have your say.