The senior judge on the sitting Court of Criminal Appeal, Fidelma Macken, said the court was dismissing the DPP's appeal against the leniency of sentence handed down to O'Donoghue, who had been sentenced to four years in prison for the manslaughter of 11-year-old Robert Holohan. The hearing lasted two minutes.

The parents of O'Donoghue, and the bereaved Holohans, were set free to reach out for some kind of closure. It's been 21 months since they were tossed into a private hell that is beyond the imagination of most of us.

As far as the administering of the case goes, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) comes under the harshest light. The DPP could be faulted on a number of points. Initially, the charge against O'Donoghue was manslaughter. Semen was found on the body of Robert Holohan. The charge was cranked up to murder. Following an independent analysis of the semen, it emerged that it wasn't an open-and-shut case. Linking O'Donoghue to the semen would prove very difficult, and any attempt to do so could prejudice the trial by introducing a sexual motive on a flimsy basis.

The case for murder now looked threadbare, but what could the prosecutor do? Withdrawing the charge would spark an outcry. To continue on a basis far less sound than that on which the murder charge was pressed might be a serious error.

The case went on last November. O'Donoghue, who admitted manslaughter, was found not guilty of murder. All of the evidence pointed directly at that result. In some quarters, the DPP was criticised.

Then at the sentencing hearing in January, Majella Holohan told what the court hadn't heard. A series of allegations painted a devious killer. She wanted to know how justice could be administered without taking account of the incriminating sample, and a series of other clues that pointed to a monstrous crime.

Sentencing O'Donoghue, Judge Paul Carney wondered why the DPP hadn't pressed separate charges on O'Donoghue's deception after the killing, when Robert's body was missing for nine days.

Again, flak rained down on the prosecutor. Why weren't more charges pressed? Why hadn't all the other evidence been introduced? What were the exact reasons for not doing so? Tell us. We demand to know.

Clawing out of that corner, the DPP appealed the verdict. Majella Holohan wrote to the office, pleading justice. The grounds looked flimsy once again.

The result was a foregone conclusion. And now, for the Holohans in particular, maybe the slow process of partial healing can begin.

The DPP could be criticised for decisions taken at every step of the process. Equally, if the office hadn't taken those specific decisions, it would also have been left open to criticism.

What the case highlighted is the new paradigm that exists in the prosecution of cases that capture the public imagination. The prosecutor has to take account of the law, the accused's rights and public confidence. Increasingly, public confidence is prey to hysteria and demands for victim-led justice.

We have come a long way.

Where once institutions such as the DPP were unaccountable, now media scrutiny can tip over into fear-mongering and hype. Bar-stool sages determine guilt and innocence on radio phone-in shows.

Politicians attempt to mine whipped-up outrage for cheap votes. Where once victims were largely ignored, now they are elevated to the ultimate arbiters of justice. Emotion rather than the dispassionate application of the law is seen as the moral compass.

Maintaining public confidence against that background is no easy task for the DPP. It was inevitable in the O'Donoghue case that the weighting of competing interests and rights would be a minefield. The result was messy, but hopefully lessons have been learnt that can be applied to future cases.

The system is imperfect and requires constant tweaking but now, more than ever, as the mob often hovers with intent, it needs to be robust.