Osgur Breatnach’s wrongful conviction for Sallins train robbery declared a miscarriage of justice
Fiona Magennis
Osgur Breatnach’s wrongful conviction for the Sallins train robbery half a century ago has now been declared a miscarriage of justice.
The mail train robbery took place on March 31st, 1976, when the Cork-to-Dublin train was diverted near the Co Kildare town, and an estimated £200,000 was stolen.
Breatnach was found guilty by the non-jury Special Criminal Court in December 1978, but his conviction was overturned a year and a half later after a court found his confession had been obtained under oppression.
At the Court of Appeal on Tuesday, Judge Isobel Kennedy said a newly discovered fact shows that there has been a miscarriage of justice.
She said the newly discovered fact concerned alibi evidence. She said there was no dispute from the Director of Public Prosecutions that that constitutes a newly discovered fact.
She noted that Breatnach asserts in his affidavit that he had “no hand, act or part” in the Sallins train robbery.
Judge Kennedy said the court was satisfied that the threshold for granting a Miscarriage of Justice certificate has been met.
Breatnach, who is now aged 75, was one of a number of members of the Irish Republican Socialist Party who were subsequently arrested.
During interrogation, three men signed alleged confessions, and all exhibited injuries they claimed were inflicted by gardai.
The confessions were obtained at the hands of the “Heavy Gang” garda unit, whose treatment of prisoners in custody became the subject of an Amnesty International report in 1977.
In December 1978, Breatnach and two others were convicted by the Special Criminal Court on their statements.
Breatnach was sentenced to 12 years in prison, but his conviction was quashed in May 1980, after the Court of Criminal Appeal ruled that his confession had been obtained under oppression. He had spent 18 months in jail by the time of his release.
Within the same month, the IRA claimed responsibility for the theft.
