Family puts pressure on DPP to reopen murder case

THE Director for Public Prosecution was under new pressure last night to re-open the case of a grandmother believed to have been strangled in her sleep five years ago.

With an inquest finding Joan McCarthy, 47, was unlawfully killed, relatives demanded the authorities reverse their decision to scrap a murder charge.

Her daughter, Aisling McCarthy, said: “My family has been torn apart by what has happened to us and by what the gardaí and Director of Public Prosecutions have done to us.”