That aspiration lasted less than 24 hours before being kicked into oblivion. On Wednesday morning, the Irish Independent's lead story was based on a letter to its editor from a Dublin doctor, Bill Tormey, which purported to criticise a report into the death of Brian Murphy that had been prepared by the state pathologist Marie Cassidy.

Cassidy's report from the results of the original autopsy was substantially different from the original autopsy conducted by her predecessor, John Harbison. Harbison said that Brian had been killed as a result of injuries caused by blows, or more likely a kick, to the head.

Cassidy claimed that the effects of drink (alcoholinduced apnoea, she called it) was the main cause of death.

Tormey, who will run for Fine Gael in next year's election in Dublin North-West . . . he's not tipped to win a seat . . . generated huge publicity for himself on the back of his letter (also received by the Irish Times, which decided not to publish it). He was on Morning Ireland and The Last Word on Wednesday and was allowed a party political broadcast on the Late Late Show on Friday night. He has claimed to have the backing of four other medics in Beaumont Hospital, where he's the consultant chemical pathologist, although he hasn't name them and they have so far been oddly shy in coming forward to identify themselves and to publicly back his statement.

This may be because of the tendentious nature of much of what was said in the letter. Tormey based most of his argument on Brian's blood alcohol level, which he said was 100mg% of alcohol. After the first mention of that figure, he went on to reference it three more times as he built up his argument.

Had Tormey bothered to contact anybody with accurate notes of the trial or (radical suggestion, this) looked up the archives of either the Irish Times or Irish Independent, he would have found that Brian's blood alcohol level was 132mg%. Brian had also smoked two cannabis joints, according to Harbison's evidence at the trial.

That Tormey's figure was more than 30% out might well have strengthened any initial impression you had that his letter was top of the head, ill-considered and premature.

When Cassidy pointed out the inaccuracy of his figure on Wednesday, Tormey made another statement. He had "got the impression" that the 100mg% figure was correct, he said, but claimed that it didn't make any difference to the point he was trying to get across, which was that Cassidy's conclusions were "fanciful". As a summation of his own efforts at long-distance autopsy, however, you couldn't find a better description than that. If he can't get the very basic facts right, what credibility should we attach to anything else he has to say?

Tormey wasn't the only one tossing around unsupported allegations during the week. Majella Holohan, the mother of Robert, the 11-year-old boy who was killed by Wayne O'Donoghue in Co Cork last year, gave an interview to the Evening Herald in which she claimed that O'Donoghue had sexually abused her son. Gardai, she said, had evidence to back up this claim.

Since hearing that a small semen sample had been found on Robert's hand, Mrs Holohan has become obsessed by the belief that her son was being sexually abused by Wayne O'Donoghue. She has claimed over the last few months that Robert was "groomed" by Wayne for such purposes and now claims that gardai know about the abuse. "It's all in the garda file and that is the key thing, " she told the Herald.

It's not clear who in An Garda Siochana is telling her this because the official garda line, articulated by an investigating officer on RTE television last year, is that there was no sexual element to Robert's death.

As a general rule, indeed, Mrs Holohan should beware of off-therecord and unofficial briefings from gardai. And if she heard some of the rumours that were being passed on to reporters by gardai before Wayne O'Donoghue's arrest last year, she probably would.

If that sounds harsh, I apologise.

The grief that Mrs Holohan and her husband are feeling, that Brian Murphy's parents are feeling, is unimaginable to those of us who have not been in their position. I don't want to increase that pain, but it seems to me that a desire to honour the grief of both families, and to respect the memories of Robert and Brian, is getting in the way of unemotional analysis of what has happened to them.

When clownish rags like the Sun call Wayne O'Donoghue a paedophile, you can shrug it off as par-for-the-course dementia in that organ. When the Irish Times and the Irish Independent start to give oxygen to conspiracy theories, however, it's time to shout stop.

"The scientific findings do not provide any support for the view that any sexual acts took place between Wayne O'Donoghue and Robert Holohan, " according to a DNA analysis by forensic scientist Emma Lynch, who examined samples from Robert, Wayne, Wayne's two brothers and his father.

That is the only evidence available in regard to Mrs Holohan's allegations and it proves her, comprehensively, wrong.

As a grieving mother, however, she is duty bound to ask questions about the death of her son, just as the Murphys are bound to speak out about the death of theirs. It's just a pity that people who are in a position to help them, be they journalists, doctors or politicians, seem to have other agendas to pursue.