They inferred quite heavily that Bellfield should have not have been able to defend himself in the traditions of our legal system. He is a vile man, and clearly guilty, and sadly he chose to defend himself on cruel and degrading matters that often had only fleeting relevance to the case, and had only initially arisen in the police investigation after her disappearance and were quickly dropped by the authorities - however they remained in the case file and thus could be called on to defend himself. Had he not used that line of defence, it would always remain in the case file and would always be ready for him to call on for an appeal in the future. Now, barring the discovery of new evidence, his defence is spent.
It isn't the fault of the law that he chose to use particularly nasty and humiliating lines of defence, it is a fault of judge who let him continue that line of defence when it became clear it was becoming too much of a vindictive and cynical attack, or that the judge did not order the court cleared so that, as far as possible, such sensitive lines of 'inquiry' were kept out of the public eye.
I don't agree with what he did in court. I don't like it. But demanding that the accused has the balance of law turned against them and preventing aspects of defence that are in some way (however small) relevant to the case, thus undermining the idea of a fair trail, is not something I'm ever going to agree with, no matter how it may be abused by some particularly detestable individuals.
I won't be ashamed of that either.
Anywho, back to another vile topic...
I think the fault lies with the Judge, who shouldn't have allowed the public humiliation of an already traumatised family. The fact that it took the family in a post court statement to reveal the trauma they had suffered and how appaling the questioning was is a poor, poor indictment of the system that allows it to happen in the first instance. There was absoultely no relevance whatsoever to the aspects of the defence which were raised other than to try and tarnish the name of a good family in the name of 'defence'. That is not a fair system or one which should be allowed.