This was a case like no other. Not only was it the longest terrorism trial in Australian legal history, it was conducted under the tightest security and was almost derailed by one young woman.

Each morning, the prison van would arrive at the court in a convoy under police escort. A busy Parramatta street was closed for a few minutes while the prison van sped down a steep driveway flanked by Extreme High Security Corrective Services Officers wearing flak jackets and armed with semi-automatic weapons.

Inside, there was the usual baggage screening in the foyer, but up on Level Three it was a different story.

Everyone who entered the court was required to show sheriff officers two forms of identification and the contents of any bags they were carrying. Mobile phones could not be taken inside the courtroom.

The jury selection was a logistical exercise in itself. A total of 5,000 potential jurors were called up, and in a week-long exercise they were whittled down to 15.

The judge, Justice Anthony Whealy, was painstaking in instructing jurors that religion, specifically Islam, was not on trial here.

Throughout the trial, the jurors were incredibly attentive. In the end, only 12 would decide on a verdict but it made little difference to these individuals. The law had been changed to protect major and long-running trials like this one.

The empanelling of 15 jurors ensured the trial would not be jeopardised if one or more of the jurors had to stand down. In the final months, three jurors were excused from the trial, leaving 12 in the last weeks of the case.

If there had been more than 12 jurors left at the end of the judge's summing up, it would have been up to Justice Whealy's associate to draw a ballot of the final 12 who would deliver a verdict.

Imagine spending more than 10 months of your life listening and digesting all the evidence in the trial and not having a seat at the table deliberating the guilt or innocence of the five accused. Perhaps it would be a relief.

When I was asked to cover this trial for the ABC in 2008, I was struck by the fact the five accused had been in custody since late 2005 without trial, or three years in jail without then ever having been convicted of a crime. It's now almost four years.

There was nine months of legal argument before this trial began. A raft of applications by the Crown and the defence meant Justice Whealy had to deliver 65 judgments before a jury was empanelled.

The pre-trial judgments included a raft of non-publication and suppression orders that would prove a minefield for any journalist charged with covering the trial.

Defying or being ignorant of these orders came with a real prospect of aborting one of the most expensive trials in New South Wales, not to mention contempt proceedings.

But it wasn't journalists that proved to be the worry. It was the revelation that a young woman who had been coming to court had been following the jurors to their cars and allegedly taking down detailed descriptions.

The defence called for the jury to be dismissed and the trial aborted.

The jurors were asked whether the young woman's surveillance would affect their deliberations. They said no and the judge gave the green light for the trial to continue.

The young woman was a relative of one of the accused. She told police she had acted entirely on her own.

The woman was not allowed to return to the trial and, funnily enough, I missed her friendly smile each morning as we both tried to get a good spot in the court to gauge the reactions of the five accused as they listened to the evidence.

I had been sitting next to her.

In an ideal reporter's world, I would have loved to have found out more about the five men on trial. My approaches to each of their lawyers were politely declined, however I was assured my request had been passed on to each of the men.

Not long afterwards, I was at the front of the court to request photographs of the men for the ABC's coverage of the verdict and I was met with big smiles from each of the accused as they waited in the dock to be taken down to the cells.

One of their sisters told me her brother came from a good family and that they felt under siege. She told me her family had a deep mistrust of the media and that she hoped the truth would prevail.

Philippa McDonald is a senior reporter for the ABC and has been covering the trial for ABC TV News.