Christopher Lynch, the brother of O'Reilly's mother, Ann, was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of 51-year-old Vera Cooney in Sandymount in September 1976.

Lynch, who is now aged 57, was twice found guilty of stabbing the woman to death but the Supreme Court overturned the verdict in 1980 because gardai interviewed him for 22 hours and would not allow him to sleep or see his family.

When 35-year-old O'Reilly was found guilty of murdering his wife Rachel two weeks ago Ann O'Reilly spoke about the second miscarriage of justice inflicted on her family.

She was referring to Christy Lynch, whose case was one of the most controversial to come before the Irish courts in the 1970s and 1980s. Joe O'Reilly was just five years old when the murder occurred.

Sources say when Joe O'Reilly realised he was the chief suspect in his wife's murder he told friends he would not be "stitched up like my uncle Christy".

Ann O'Reilly believes there are many parallels between her son and brother's cases and is confident Joe's conviction will also be overturned on appeal.

The 'Heavy Gang' Lynch alleged garda detectives from the infamous Murder Squad beat him and forced him to confess to the killing even though he had an alibi.

It was around the time of his trial that rumours first surfaced about the existence of a dedicated team of detectives specialising in extracting confessions from suspects. This group was known as the 'Heavy Gang'.

Christy Lynch was 26 years old at the time of the murder and was in the army attached to McKee Barracks. He had left school when he was 14 and worked in the dispatch department of the Irish Independent and later got a job with Dublin Corporation.

He lived in a flat in Rialto with his wife Marie and two-year-old daughter Debbie. He was gambling most of his wages on the horses and began to do odd jobs for cash in order to put food on the table.

On 5 September 1976 Lynch was paid �80 to plaster, paint and wallpaper a house at No 77 Strand Road in Sandymount. The owner of the house, Stewart Martin, had a key cut for him.

Only three other people possessed keys.

Vera Cooney lived in the top floor of the Victorian house and was Stewart Martin's sister-in-law. She worked for the Dublin Gas Company, had never married and was quite a nervous individual.

Lynch met Cooney at the house and they had a number of conversations while he worked. On Sunday 19 September, Lynch and his friend Eugene Delamere went to work at the house and found Vera Cooney's body.

She was lying at the top of her stairs and her head was covered with a quilt. She was wearing her pyjamas and a large kitchen knife was sticking out of her chest.

The two men immediately dialled 999.

A post mortem found that Vera Cooney had died after being stabbed three times.

The knife had been lodged so deep within her chest that the state pathologist had to get onto his knees and use a pliers to extract it.

There were marks on the victim's throat and neck which indicated that an attempt had also been made to strangle her. Gardai were immediately struck by the fact that a large sum of money in the house had been untouched and there were no signs anybody had broken in.

Preliminary investigations revealed Lynch had recently started a job at the house and he was immediately identified as a suspect.

Four hours after discovering the body, gardai asked Lynch and Delamere to go to nearby Irishtown garda station to make detailed statements. Lynch told the police what he knew but was asked to remain in the station to help with enquiries.

Eugene Delamere also remained in Irishtown and awoke at one stage to find his friend shouting, "I didn't do it." Delamere was eventually released but Lynch was kept in custody and interrogated. His wife Marie rang the station several times but was not allowed to speak to her husband. Christy Lynch had not been arrested and should have been allowed to make calls and leave the station when he wished but he wasn't.

He later swore under oath that he had repeatedly asked to go home but was told he couldn't.

Two Murder Squad detectives, Det Insp John Courtney and Det Sgt Mick Canavan, interviewed Lynch. Courtney would later rise to the rank of detective chief superintendent in charge of the squad.

Christy Lynch would later make several serious allegations against the detectives, all of which they vehemently denied in court. Courtney allegedly told him: "We are the special boys.

We're experienced at getting confessions. We've handled dozens of murders and know a murderer just by looking at him". Lynch also claimed he was called a "murdering bastard" and was repeatedly told he would stay in the station until he confessed. The detectives are also said to have told Lynch that if he denied the murder in court then the stress would kill his ill father. His sexual prowess was also allegedly scorned.

Stripped down to vest and underpants After 16 hours of being interviewed Lynch claimed the interrogation took a nasty turn. He said: "They had stripped me off down to my vest and underpants and they made me stand to attention just out from the wall and I couldn't lean back against it and they stood on each side and I was left like that for about two hours. When I swayed they punched me to the left and I would go across and they would punch me back to the right and they pushed me back and forth between the pair of them all night."

At 12pm on Monday 20 September 1976, Marie Lynch came to Donnybrook station where her husband was now being held. He had now been grilled by the experienced detectives for 20 hours. Christy was allegedly told he couldn't see his wife until he confessed.

An hour or so later he was left alone with a copy of the Irish Independent which featured Vera Cooney's murder on its front page. The article featured a number of inaccuracies and wrongly claimed the woman had been strangled with a cord. At about 2pm Christy Lynch told gardai:

"I killed Vera Cooney. I did it with a bit of cable. I stabbed her with a knife from the kitchen table." She had in fact been strangled with a scarf. He signed a statement and was finally allowed to sleep after 22 constant hours of questioning. When he awoke he was charged with murder.

Only evidence was confession On 27 May 1977 it took the jury just four hours to find Christopher Lynch guilty of murder. The only evidence offered by the prosecution was the statement the soldier had made admitting his guilt. The Court of Criminal Appeal ordered a retrial later that year on the basis that his statement was not admissible in court. The second trial took place at the Central Criminal Court in April 1978. Just as in the previous case, the statement made by Lynch was deemed to be admissible. Lynch's counsel argued that gardai had coached him by telling him Cooney had been stabbed three times and strangled with a scarf but the police were adamant he confessed of his own free will and offered details only the killer could have known, unprompted. He was found guilty for the second time and handed a life sentence following a 13-day trial.

Christopher Lynch was represented in court by Diarmuid O'Donovan, who went on to become one of the country's most respected judges before his death earlier this year. O'Donovan took the case personally and did not feel that a man should spend the rest of his days behind bars solely on a statement he made after being denied sleep and legal advice. O'Donovan made one last attempt to exonerate his client and appealed to the Supreme Court. Legal observers were shocked when the court agreed to look at the Lynch case.

The three-judge court took possession of all the documents in relation to the case in early 1980.

On 16 December it came back with a decision that was scathing about the gardai. The ruling read: "The fact that for almost 22 hours the appellant was subjected to sustained questioning, that he never had the opportunity of communicating with his family or friends and that he never was permitted to rest or sleep until he made an admission of guilt, all amount to such circumstances of harassment and oppression as to make it unjust and unfair to admit into evidence anything he said." The judges added: "A ruling admitting evidence in a criminal trial, we recognise, has the necessary effect of legitimising the conduct which produced the evidence."

Prison guards threw party Because the sum total of the state's case was Christy Lynch's own statement, he was set free and declared an innocent man. His release from Arbour Hill prison was delayed for several hours because the prison guards threw a party to celebrate the court's decision. He had spent nearly four years in jail. Diarmuid O'Donovan regarded seeing Lynch's conviction being overturned as the finest victory of his legal career.

Nobody was ever arrested or charged with Vera Cooney's murder and the case still officially remains open. Christy Lynch rejoined the army after his release and moved back in with his wife and daughter. They also had another son.

Lynch now lives in England. Although he looked into the possibility of suing the state for compensation, he was never compensated for his wrongful conviction.

The Lynch case was first highlighted by journalist Gene Kerrigan, who has written about it extensively over the last 30 years. The miscarriage of justice was brought up in Dail Eireann in February 1981 by former Labour leader Dick Spring. He said Lynch's confession was "extracted from him following 22 hours in police custody that were both oppressive and intimidating. There was no other evidence against him. The Supreme Court found that the confession made by Lynch could not possibly have been true."

Ann O'Reilly is known to have taken her brother's treatment at the hands of the gardai particularly badly. She is said to see many similarities with his case and Joe O'Reilly's and this is why she has stood by her son even though many people see the evidence against him as damning. She is said to be confident his conviction will be overturned on appeal.

Joe O'Reilly also knew of the miscarriage of justice inflicted on his uncle and regularly said that the same thing would not happen to him.

Christy Lynch was able to get on with his life with relative anonymity. But whatever happens with Joe O'Reilly's appeal, he will be forever recognisable wherever he goes.