By Kim Chisnall

You know a press scrum has reached fever pitch when you can hear the crashing sound of a photographer’s ladder falling to the ground - followed swiftly by the shouting of abuse. As soon as an unmarked car pulled into the street next to the City of Westminster Magistrates Court, everyone with a camera would run. Julian Assange: International Man of Mystery, was due any minute.

Inside the courthouse, more then 60 journalists waited to be allowed inside the courtroom. To pass the time a Croatian journalist interviewed some Italian colleagues about how WikiLeaks had effected the government in their country. Standing next to me was an Albanian journalist who told me that while he freelanced for newspapers back home, he was mainly an investigative reporter. He said the last bit in a whisper, almost as if it was a secret.

But if there's one thing that WikiLeaks has taught us, there are no secrets.

When Julian Assange strode into the dock he certainly didn't look like a man with something to hide. He raised his hand briefly in greeting and then took a seat. When the registrar asked him if he would give his consent to return to Sweden and if knew what that meant, he replied in a clear booming voice: "I understand and I do not consent."

Adding to the sense of occasion were the invited guests. There to vouch for Assange's character were a number of household names: John Pilger the journalist, the socialite Jemima Khan and the film director Ken Loach. Only Pilger had actually met Assange, the others were still prepared to put up £20,000 as a guarantee that Assange wouldn't skip bail.

Why stump up cash for a stranger? Because as much as the judge insisted that this case had nothing to do with WikiLeaks (or Wikipedia as he at one point called it, to much sniggering from the journalists), Assange IS WikiLeaks and his supporters increasingly see an attack on him as an attack on freedom of information.

The judge began his summing up by talking about Assange's good character, praising him for voluntarily surrendering himself to police and commenting on the strength of his support in court. For a split second it looked like the judge was going to grant bail, but in the end it was clear he considered him a flight risk.

So this media circus will have an encore performance - next Tuesday his lawyers will appeal the bail ruling - the photographers better get a firm grip on those ladders.

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