The Court of Criminal Appeal has overturned the country's first successful cold case murder conviction.

The three-judge court found that prejudicial evidence used to 'blacken' the name of Vera McGrath was heard at her trial and had the effect of rendering it unsafe and unsatisfactory.

Presiding judge Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman said the court would quash the conviction and direct a retrial of Mrs McGrath, who was jailed for life in July 2010 having been found guilty by a Central Criminal Court jury of the murder of 43-year-old Bernard Brian McGrath, 23 years after he was killed.