There was something hauntingly familiar about the face John Renehan saw on television.
He was certain that it was his father, who had officially been found dead and was cremated five years ago.
Yet there before his eyes on the screen was his father, in a care home and the subject of an appeal on a show about missing people for anyone who knew him to come forward.
‘I sat down in shock. I was sure it was him straight away,’ said Mr Renehan, 42. ‘You know when it’s your father. We look the same and have the same characteristics. It was like looking in the mirror.’
He contacted police and four weeks later DNA tests confirmed that the man he saw on the TV screen is indeed his father John Delaney, now 71.
Father and son have had an emotional reunion and an inquiry is under way to establish the identity of the mystery man for whom Mr Renehan organised a cremation in 2003.