The two detectives arrived at Eamon Touhey's house at 10.20pm. It was 29 March 2002. Seven weeks earlier, the body of Touhey's 23-year-old son, Shane, had been found in the river Brosna. He had been missing for a week.

Touhey, who lives in Rahan, eight miles from Tullamore, came outside and sat into the garda car. The detectives told him they were aware he was making serious threats against local people. According to a subsequent allegation in the High Court, the cops had information suggesting Touhey had attempted to hire a gunman to kill two local people, whom he held responsible for his son's death.

Touhey denied making threats against anybody. He was consumed with rage against three men whom he blamed for Shane's death. The meeting lasted an hour. It was the first in a number of meetings gardaí organised with Touhey over the following month. In that time, and for the years that followed, Touhey's anger didn't appear to subside.

Last month, the Central Criminal Court heard testimony that in the summer of 2004, Touhey tried to solicit a man in Navan to kill the people he held responsible for his son's death. Touhey denied the charge. The case was weak and, after three days, the trial collapsed.

Touhey had pleaded guilty to issuing a threat to kill in the presence of a garda. On Friday, he was sentenced. The Central Criminal Court heard some of the background to a tragedy in which three families found themselves the focus of the obsession of a man who couldn't come to terms with his loss.

Shane Touhey was, by all accounts, a quiet, inoffensive young man. There are suggestions he may have been the subject of bullying locally, but the extent of this is unclear.

On Friday 1 February 2002, he was socialising in the Mill House disco in Clara. At 2.40am, Touhey arrived in Devine's taxi office alone. He wanted a taxi home to Pullough, nine miles away. He was told it would be about an hour. He fell asleep on a chair. Forty minutes later, Joseph Gallagher and Frankie Kenna, two 19-year-olds, arrived in to wait for a taxi. They also were going to Pullough.

The two youths left and returned with food. Touhey was asleep most of this time. According to the dispatcher, there was no interaction between the two and Touhey, even though they were well-known to each other.

Around 3.35am, a hackney pulled up across the road. It was driven by 42-year-old Noel Kidney, also of Pullough. By then, Gallagher was outside on his mobile phone. His companion left to cross the road. So did Touhey.

For some reason, Shane Touhey didn't get into the taxi. In a statement, Kidney said he was tired after a long day and Touhey lived in Rahan, a few miles further on from Pullough. "Whereas I am now sorry I did not take Shane Touhey home, I was satisfied he would have got a taxi home when I left him," Kidney said.

Phone records and witnesses corroborate the stories given by Gallagher, Kenna and Kidney. All were back in Pullough by 4.20am, the approximate time another witness saw Shane Touhey walking in River Street, Clara.

Some time after that, Touhey entered the River Brosna. The post-mortem concluded death was due to drowning. "Nowhere, front or back of the body, did I discern a bruise," state pathologist John Harbison reported.

The investigation was extensive. Over 40 witnesses were interviewed. The conclusion was that there was no evidence of foul play. A second investigation concurred.

According to a High Court affidavit, Tullamore gardaí got word in late March 2002 from another garda division that Eamon Touhey had attempted to hire gunmen.

The alleged intelligence report contained details, including an agreed fee of €10,000 and an offer by Touhey to provide weapons. Touhey has denied ever acting in this manner.

On 29 March, the two detectives made their visit to Touhey's home. They also informed the three men whom Touhey blamed that they may be in danger. Eamon Touhey was never charged in relation to the alleged attempt to hire a hitman in this instance.

He was charged and acquitted of soliciting the man in Navan two years later.

In the month after the detectives visited Touhey's home, gardaí organised a number of meetings with Touhey. In one, at Tullamore garda station, the three men and Joseph Gallagher Snr were present in an attempt to defuse the situation. Touhey showed rage towards the three as they attempted to explain what had occurred that night. The meeting wasn't a success.

Later, in Clara station, Touhey produced a tape recording of an interview he conducted with a witness, which he said backed up his case. When he played the tape, Touhey could be heard telling the witness he, the witness, had not told gardaí the full truth, but the witness replied that he told gardaí all he knew.

He hired two American pathologists, but nothing came of it. One theory Touhey harboured is that Shane was hit by one of the car doors before the men drove off. There is absolutely no evidence this assault occurred.

For the families of the three men at the centre of Touhey's ire, the last six years have been shattering. Their families' homes are within a few miles' radius of each other. Joseph Gallagher's family felt compelled to install CCTV and alarms.

In May 2007, the Gallaghers took the unusual step of applying for a High Court injunction to restrain Touhey from hiring contract killers to murder Joseph Jnr. The alleged intelligence report from March 2002 was cited in the application. The injunction was granted.

A letter Joseph's sister Joy wrote to Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy last month read: "The fear we live with is cruel and unfair. Neither my brother Joseph nor any member of my family has ever done anything wrong to another living soul. I am not going to go into the rest of my family's suffering in written detail right down to constantly looking over our shoulders and nervous in our own home to the point where we had to put in CCTV, alarms and a German shepherd. Even at that, there have still been a lot of sleepless nights where we sit by the window fearing for our safety."

The families have also had to live under a cloud locally. While there was much publicity around the investigations, there was little coverage when they were vindicated. In a cor-respondence last January to gardaí, Joy wrote: "We have been directly referred to as 'murderers' throughout the Christmas period."

On Friday, the court heard Noel Kidney considered himself a nervous wreck as a result of Touhey's threats. His social life is curtailed and he is very security conscious. Frankie Kenna moved to Tullamore to get away from it all. He says he is nervous when he returns home to see his mother.

Detective inspector Aidan Boyle told the court, since Touhey was charged two years ago there have been no further incidents. Defence barrister Martin Giblin apologised to the three men on behalf of his client and said Touhey was giving an undertaking not to cause any harm to them or their families.

Judge Barry White handed down a suspended five-year sentence on condition Touhey stay away from the men and their families. "You have to look on today as the first day of the rest of your life," White said. "You cannot take the law into your own hands."