BRITISH VIEWERS UPSET BY GUILTY VERDICT IN U.S. TRIAL OF NANNY.

Byline: Warren Hoge The New York Times

Britain reacted to the murder conviction in Cambridge, Mass., of Louise Woodward with shock, bewilderment and anger at American judicial practices, and pledges of solidarity with Woodward, a 19-year-old English au pair.

As the verdict was announced at 2:39 a.m. local time, sobbing friends and supporters screamed, ``She didn't do it'' at a television monitor in the Rigger, the pub in her home village of Elton in Cheshire in northwest England where they have been keeping vigil.

A bedsheet with the words ``Justice? No'' was promptly hung from the side of a house on the main street, and hours later shopkeepers posted ``Not Guilty'' signs in their storefront windows.

``One of the shocking things to me,'' said Stephen Jakobi, a British lawyer who heads a group called Fair Trials Abroad, ``is I am used to getting innocent people convicted in places like Morocco and Thailand and Russia, places where the trial system is not a mature system like in the United States.''

Britons have been following the trial in large numbers on live television, and the overwhelming view here is that Woodward was innocent of the charge of killing Matthew Eappen, an 8-month-old in her care. Matthew's parents, Deborah and Sunil Eappen, have drawn sympathy for their loss but have been portrayed as overly vindictive in their expressions of disdain for Woodward and their desire to see her imprisoned for life.

A headline in one tabloid, The Mirror, read, ``Louise's Torture.'' Another, in The Sun, said, ``Louise Was Treated Just Like a Slave.''

A British woman who said she had turned down the job that Woodward eventually accepted was widely quoted in the media on Friday. The woman, Catherine Blood, said she had visited the Eappen home in Newton, Mass., and concluded that she would not be happy working there. ``I got a strange feeling it was not right there,'' Blood said, ``sort of a gut feeling.''

Commentators and lawyers criticized the openness of the trial, citing the use of cameras in the courtroom and the theatrical conduct they believed it had inspired in participants like Judge Hiller Zobel.

Hazel Mayamba-Kasongo, 41, the spokeswoman for a fund-raising campaign in Woodward's behalf, said that the American manner of trying a case ended up as more of a ``carnival'' than the kind of formal and discreet trial the British are accustomed to.

Woodward's mother, Sue, a secretary, told ITN television Friday night that the live coverage of the trial was ``ridiculous.'' She added, ``It's a horrible experience for anyone, and I pray to God that it never ever happens in England.''

``Because we do have a fine judicial system,'' she said, ``and it isn't run as entertainment. And that's what it's being treated as, a piece of entertainment.''

Jonathan Caplan, a leading criminal lawyer in London, said, ``The more you see of these trials, they show you what a shambles the American criminal justice system is.''

But an editorial in The Evening Standard took cautioning note of any jingoistic reaction, saying, ``There is an unattractive tendency in this country towards a knee-jerk response whenever a British citizen is found guilty in a foreign court, of presuming that there must be something wrong with the system of justice in the country which sentences them.''

A greater resort to flag waving was also curbed as the organizers of a solidarity campaign headquartered in the Rigger pub noted that many of those calling to say they were dismayed by the verdict and the treatment of Woodward were Americans.

``We have been receiving pledges of money nonstop since 3 o'clock this morning,'' Mayamba-Kasongo said, ``and it has been worldwide, with a lot from Americans, and particularly from Boston itself.''