First of all there was the phonecalls. Her friends from school wanted to know about her cousin, who was staying with the family. What, they asked, had he done in the past?

Lucy was 16. She didn't know much about James O'Donoghue, except that he was her father's nephew. She didn't know that he'd spent 12 years in jail for violently assaulting and raping a woman.

Then the Kerryman hit the streets of Ballybunion on 7 April 1999. The frontpage article referred to the presence of a sex offender in the town. The phone at the Greys' home on the Marconi estate in the town began to ring. Lucy was told she was no longer welcome in the youth club. The teenage life she had constructed started to fall apart. "My friends began to ignore me, " she said. "I couldn't believe what was happening. I was crying all the time. I didn't want to go back to Dublin."

She had arrived in Ballybunion from Dublin with her parents and four siblings when she was 12. "I was very excited when we moved down there. I settled in well, went to school, got on great with my friends. There was loads of activities."

Now, four years on, that life was snatched from her. Five days after the newspaper article appeared, the family moved back to Dublin.

For six months they lived out of a B&B in Rathgar. The changed circumstances represented a sharp fall from the security of small-town Ireland to the uncertainty of a homeless existence in Dublin.

"I'd wake up and my Ma would be crying her eyes out, " Lucy said. "Her and Da didn't talk. He was drinking all the time.

It all fell apart."

Lucy Grey didn't sue the state for damages, but her brother Francis and parents Alan and Phyllis did. They contended that their constitutional right to privacy was breached when a garda tipped off a journalist that O'Donoghue, recently released from prison, was staying in the Greys' Ballybunion home.

On Wednesday, Judge John Quirke awarded Phyllis Grey Euro50,000, her husband Alan Euro15,000 and son Francis Euro5,000. The state, represented though the minister for justice, denied liability, but Quirke ruled that a garda had been responsible for the leak.

The story is one replete with moral ambiguities. A huge upsurge of convictions for sex offences since the 1990s means that a considerable number will continue to be released into communities over the coming years. What can and should be done if one such individual ends up living near you?

The Greys moved to Ballybunion under the Rural Resettlement Scheme in 1995. They settled in well, moving between rented accommodation before getting a house on Marconi Avenue.

Alan worked as a steel erector on various sites throughout Kerry, Clare and Cork.

Release In February 1999, he received a call from his brother, whose son, James O'Donoghue, was due for release. Prior to his imprisonment, he had been viciously assaulted, and his father feared for his safety in Dublin. Alan Grey agreed to take him in on a temporary basis. The decision caused some tension between Grey and his wife.

O'Donoghue arrived on 15 February, the day he was released from prison. On 16 March, a woman was sexually assaulted in Clondalkin. The subsequent investigation threw the net wide, and Ballybunion gardaí were requested to check O'Donoghue's whereabouts on the date in question. That inquiry was recorded in Listowel garda station.

Garda Daniel O'Connor met the Grey parents and was told O'Donoghue was staying with them. O'Connor compiled a report relaying his understanding that O'Donoghue intended to "remain in Ballybunion permanently as he claims he cannot go back to Dublin". That report was sent to an officer known as a collator in Tralee garda station. The original inquiry was logged in Listowel garda station.

Prior to the publication of the Kerryman article, personnel in three stations were aware of O'Donoghue's presence in Ballybunion.

Two gardaí visited the Greys on 4 April.

Francis Grey claims he was assaulted by one of the officers on that occasion, but the court didn't accept that the evidence presented proved on the balance of probabilities that an assault occurred. Two days later, Alan and Phyllis Grey accompanied O'Donoghue back to Dublin. They returned the following day and informed the local garda station that O'Donoghue was no longer living with them. That evening, the Kerryman hit the streets with the story of a sex offender in Ballybunion.

Five days later, under extreme pressure, the Greys moved back to Dublin.

The court found that a member of the gardaí leaked the details of the O'Donoghue story to Conor Keane, the author of the report. Any number of gardaí could have been responsible for the leak.

Any officers in possession of the information faced a stark dilemma. There was a rapist in Ballybunion, whom it was believed was likely to offend again. (As it happens, he eventually did, and is now serving another long sentence. ) What to do? If an officer lived in the town, he would know women potentially at risk. If his family or friends were among those who swelled the town's population from 2,000 to 5,000 in the summer, he would also have been worried. If he had friends or relatives living there permanently, a similar concern arose. If a female officer had access to the information, her fears would have been even more immediate.

Members of the force routinely leak information to journalists about crime and criminals, but this type of case was different. The offender - and the Greys with whom he was staying - were entitled to their constitutional rights. But primal instincts of protection are not easily dismissed by individuals, even if they run counter to a duty to serve and protect society as a whole.

Giving evidence, the district superintendent Michael Maher said passing on details of the presence of a sex offender in the area to neighbours could create hysteria and lead to vigilantism. It might, he said, result "in a bigger crime on your hands than what you were trying to prevent". He had not leaked the information, and he wasn't aware of any garda who did.

When the Greys moved back to Dublin, they were provided with B&B accommodation for six months. They slept in a single room and were required to leave the premises between 10am and 5pm. They often sat out the day in their car, surviving on takeaway meals and loitering in fastfood restaurants. Phyllis Grey suffered depression, and made one suicide attempt.

Her psychiatrist was of the view that "a significant emotional scar will remain which will render her vulnerable to further depressive episodes". She also suffered post-traumatic stress which was finally resolved early last year.

Inform Since the Ballybunion episode, a new law has been in force that compels released sex offenders to inform the local superintendent of their presence in an area. In the UK, the law goes further, allowing state or local authority figures to also have access to this information. In the US, the socalled Megan's law makes it permissible for members of the public to obtain these details. As a result there have been incidents of vigilantism in both those jurisdictions.

While the law is now developed to keep tabs on released offenders, its policing remains difficult. The treatment regime for sex offenders also leaves a lot to be desired. A comprehensive system of assessing the risk of re-offending, and attempting to minimise that risk, does not operate to any proper standards.

On Wednesday, Phyllis Grey thanked the family's friends in Dublin and in Kerry for their support over the seven years since they were effectively driven out of Ballybunion.

The verdict represents a closure of sorts for them. Later that day, on a radio phone-in, a woman pointed out that O'Donoghue's primary victims are unlikely to ever arrive at their own closure.