Was Billy the Kid as mean and violent as history has portayed him - or was he really a nice yong man who'd been bullied as a child and now deserves a pardon?

He was the most notorious gunman in the history of the Wild West. Hundreds of books and films have offered accounts of his gun-toting exploits.

But, this second episode in The Wild West series asked, was Billy the Kid really a pussycat? Rather than gunning down innocent people perhaps he was really a nice lad who was kind to animals and helped little old ladies across the road.

Three experts pop on screen from time to time to debate whether Billy - or William Bonny, to give him his proper name - deserved the pardon that the present Governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson, is minded to give him.

He has a guilty conscience because one of his predecessors Lew Wallace - governor in Billy's time and also the man who wrote Ben-Hur - seems to have gone back on his word, promising the gunman a pardon but reneging on the agreement.

The experts added little, apart from their own prejudices. "He was such a son of a bitch," said one. "You'd have been right to be scared of him," added another.

The evidence remains cloudy despite the thorough efforts of the programme to research Billy the Kid's story down to the most minute detail. At least they don't attribute his lawless ways to his upbringing, although he was orphaned at 15 and soon in jail from horse thieving.

What they do say is that he was bullied, although whether shooting the person who's being beastly is the way to handle the situation is open to debate.

Billy wasn't entirely without blame. Making jokes about someone's name - the man he shot was called Windy, but don't ask why - isn't the best way to avoid confrontation.

His exploits happened against the background of the Lincoln County Wars involving corrupt landowners and an equally lawless sheriff. Not that the place was overflowing with lawmen. Lincoln County in New Mexico was the size of Ireland but, with just one crooked sheriff to maintain law and order, could justify the name of the most lawless place in the West.

Ironically, at one point during the violent Lindoln County War, Billy was sworn in as a deputy to enforce a warrant. But before you could say "Stick em up", he and his buddies were forming The Regulators to stop nasty land barons and bad sheriffs.

The makers have gone to a good deal of trouble with the reconstructions of incidents from Billy's life, which show him to be an avid letter-writer. He's forever penning notes to the Las Vegas Gazette putting his side of the story.

There's no doubt that he did shoot people and wasn't always entirely justified in doing so. But, one of those interfering experts points out, he was only following the way society operated in those lawless times. It was a matter of shoot first and ask questions later.

They decided that Billy should get his pardon. Now the current governor is planning a retrial in the summer of 2007; cold comfort for Billy the Kid who was shot dead at the age of 21, after escaping while waiting to be hanged.

One nugget of information they didn't uncover is that Billy the Kid is, on this occasion at least, a Geordie. David Leon, the actor portraying him in the programme, comes from Newcastle.

Just as deadly as any outlaw are very large crocodiles, although as Ron Whitaker has been working among them for 40 years, we must assume he's found a way to get along with them.

Since the fresh skin of a crocodile measuring 21ft long was found in 1983, he's been obsessed with finding another monster croc. Supersize Crocs follows Ron in his quest for his croc of gold, giving us lots of tips about croc-watching. Like the fact that morning is the best time to get a good look at one. While it's brushing its teeth, presumably.