Ms Eroline O'Keeffe, the Irishwoman whose son Trevor was murdered by a serial killer in northern France in August 1987, yesterday won her lawsuit against the French state for denial of justice and was awarded €25,000 in damages and €2,300 in lawyers' fees.
"Serious misconduct was noted. The state was responsible, so the state must pay damages," said a judge in the Paris Palais de Justice.
The confusion that surrounded the case of the suspected serial killer Pierre Chanal and the "Disappeared of Mourmelon" continued until yesterday's verdict.
Ms O'Keeffe and her sister Ms Noeleen Slattery were told the verdict would be handed down at 2 p.m. and were waiting in a café across the street when it was read out at 1.30 p.m.
A lawyer and a TF1 television crew were the only witnesses to the culmination of one of France's most infamous judicial sagas.
The families of Chanal's other victims did not even know that their case had been integrated with Ms O'Keeffe's, so none were present.
Ms O'Keeffe filed the lawsuit against the French state in June 2002, before Pierre Chanal was charged with the murder of her son and two other young men. She criticised the magistrate initially responsible for investigating her son's murder for losing evidence, failing to charge Chanal and then freeing him on parole after he was convicted of raping and torturing a Hungarian hitch-hiker in 1988.
French authorities so bungled the investigation that there was insufficient evidence to try Chanal for the murders of five men who disappeared in similar circumstances between 1980 and 1988.
The compensation awarded to all eight families yesterday constituted recognition that Chanal had probably killed them all.
Chanal was to have been tried for murder in the Reims Assize Court in October 2003, but committed suicide on the first night of his trial.
The families of Chanal's other victims subsequently joined Ms O'Keeffe's lawsuit and 35 relatives of Chanal's seven other victims were awarded €25,000 each.
The amount won by Ms O'Keeffe is far less than she has spent travelling to France several times a year for the past 17½ years. "But it was never about money. I'd prefer that Chanal was still in jail."
Ms O'Keeffe believes that Chanal was protected by the French state because he was in the armed forces there. "I think they covered up for Chanal all along. Then they allowed him to kill himself.
"When they let Chanal die, that was the end for me, really. At least I did everything I could for Trevor."