After more than three years and in the wake of two inquiry reports and an Old Bailey trial, the inquest into the death of Jean Charles de Menezes was supposed to put an end to the rumours, conspiracies and misunderstandings.

This was going to be modern, open and hugely expensive. Justice would be done and it would be seen to be done. Conference space was hired at the Oval cricket ground to accommodate the battery of lawyers and provide enough room for any member of the public to attend. The Long Room, usually the preserve of Surrey CC members, was set aside as an overspill area and media annex.

But somehow, in the last days of this tribunal, that commitment to transparency and fairness seemed to be forgotten in an increasingly acrimonious atmosphere.

Sir Michael Wright QC, the coroner, restricted the verdicts available to the jury - denying them the choice of unlawful killing. Until now the media has been prevented from reporting that lawyers for the de Menezes family rushed to the High Court to challenge that decision then withdrew from the inquest process in protest.

Their dissatisfaction means that the prospect of further legal battles lies ahead. There will be a High Court bid to overturn the inquest verdict, the possibility of another inquest and the continued use of the tragic death of Mr de Menezes as a political football.

The inquest had opened on September 22 to general approval and for weeks everything seemed to be going unexpectedly smoothly. There were almost 50 police officers giving evidence anonymously but they included Charlie 2 and Charlie 12 - the two CO19 firearms officers who shot Mr Menezes dead on a Northern Line Tube train.

The officers had never faced a public examination before and the de Menezes family, through its powerful legal team, would be allowed to ask any questions it wanted.

Michael Mansfield QC, the family's counsel, did just that - quizzing the firearms officers, the surveillance teams, Mr de Menezes's fellow passengers and the senior Metropolitan Police officers who commanded the botched operation on July 22, 2005. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick, who had been exonerated of any blame by an Old Bailey jury last year, looked uncomfortable in the face of Mr Mansfield's relentless cross-examination.

As the witnesses spoke the documents they referred to popped up on large screens around the court and in the annex. Everyone could see the police officers' notes, the pictures of the real fugitive which were not given to the surveillance team, the crude stick man drawing showing the position of Mr de Menezes's body on the floor of the carriage and the pathologist's diagram of where the seven dum-dum bullets hit his head.

In court the members of that most stuffy of professions, the Bar, had forsaken their gowns and wigs in another show of modernity and anyone following the case from afar could access a website which carried full transcripts of every day's hearing.

The sense of a legal process in fearless good health lasted until the penultimate week, when the one question the de Menezes family and its supporters had wanted answered was struck out. For the family the key issue was whether or not Jean Charles been unlawfully killed. It was the verdict that had been dreaded (but gloomily expected) at senior levels in Scotland Yard.

When Sir Michael ruled it out in the first hour of his summing up speech he was acting perfectly within his rights as a coroner and in accordance with the Coroner's Rules. But the impression given, in a politically sensitive and high-profile inquest, was that the freedom of the jury to make its own decision was being severely restricted.

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