Is the Diana inquest a poisoned chalice? Baroness Butler-Sloss's surprise decision to stand down from the inquest into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales an Dodi Fayed means that her successor, Lord Justice Scott Baker, is the third person to take over the troubled inquiry in nearly ten years since the pair were killed in a Paris car crash.

At first hearing, the news was a shock: Lady Butler-Sloss rose to the highest ranks, in her time, of any woman in the judiciary, becoming the most senior family judge as President of the High Court's Family Division.

Her appointment by the Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, when Michael Burgess, the Surrey coroner, pulled out pleading pressure of work, seemed an obvious choice: an experienced, safe pair of hands, she had a reputation for efficiency couped with compassion and experience of some of the most heart-rending "life and death" decisions to come before the courts.

But from the start, Lady Butler-Sloss faced a series of challenges that demonstrated - if there had ever been doubt - that this was not only the most high-profile case she would preside over; it was one fraught with legal hurdles and pressures beyond the confines of the courtroom.

In the short space of time since she opened the preliminary hearings in January, Lady Butler-Sloss has been overruled on key decisions: she was successfully challenged over holding the preliminary hearings in private and then on her decision not to hold the inquest with a jury.

Finally, despite her wish to have the inquest finished by August, the 10th anniversary of the couple's death, she was forced to agree to adjourn the start until October.

In court, without her wig, she seemed surprisingly vulnerable up against the experienced criminal practitioners such as Michael Mansfield, QC, who represent Mohamed al Fayed, Dodi's father.

She expressed concern about the volume of evidence, asking if jurors would be able to have computers where they could see the evidence on screen - common practice in big fraud trials.

And she expressed frustration: in a rare burst of annoyance she lost her temper when trying to set the date for the next hearing and counsel originally indicated it could be some weeks before they were all available.

Brought out of retirement to take on the job, she suddenly must have realised that this was not going to be a swift hearing that she was able to tackle, like any other case in the family courts, without a jury and within a short space ot time.

In her statement today, she openly acknowledged that she "lacked the experience required to deal with an inquest with a jury."

Perhaps she should have had the foresight to have predicted that she would be unable to dispense with a jury.

But if her decision to step down is now finally the right one, it will only serve to fuel the conspirary theorists who believe - well before a decision is due - that the inquest will never provide the truth to what happened in Paris ten years ago.