The women who brought down Greece's Golden Dawn

Legal experts note role female lawyers took in confronting far-right party's violent tactics

Behind the bench, before her mostly male audience, as the marathon trial of Golden Dawn entered its last act, supreme court justice Maria Lepenioti did what she has done every week: she kept the peace.

It has not been easy. Emotions have often run high. Even as the curtain is about to come down on proceedings with a ruling on if those convicted will be jailed before an appeal can be heard, the Greek judge, both laconic and low-key, has had to pull off an extraordinary balancing act presiding over a case that has put more Nazi leaders and sympathisers in the dock than at any time since Nuremberg.