The Indo Daily: Justice Derailed
‘It could happen again’ – man wrongly convicted of Sallins train robbery continues call for inquiry nearly 50 years on, says he was tortured into a confession by ‘The Heavy Gang’ and insists State covered it up.
Over forty thousand listeners heard the Indo Daily Podcast of the Sallins case recently which included a long interview with Osgur Breatnach. The podcast was devided into two sections and will be repeated in two parts before it is available permanently on archieve.
The Irish Independent and the Belfast Telegraph covered each podcast in seperate full page stories.
Banged up in the Bridewell
The IRSP members wrongly imprisoned for IRA heist (Part 1)
Innocent man says he was tortured into a confession by ‘The Heavy Gang’ and insists State covered it up. Osgur Breathnach was 25 at the time, and the editor of the socialist newspaper The Starry Plough, and a member of the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP).
On the night of March 30th, 1976, a gang of armed men held a family hostage in rural County Kildare and derailed a mail train carrying the equivalent of over €1 million in cash and valuables.
It was one of the most audacious robberies in the history of the Irish state—but today, it is remembered for very different reasons.
What followed was one of the longest and most controversial trials in the history of the Irish state—one that would see Osgur Breatnach’s conviction overturned, but not before spending 17 months in Portlaoise prison.
The IRA would later claim responsibility for the Sallins robbery, and nearly five decades on, Osgur is still seeking justice for his treatment in the Bridewell Garda station and wrongful conviction.
Ep 2 – The Sleeping Judge
The Sallins train robbery was one of the most daring and lucrative heists in the history of the Irish State. And for Osgur Breathnach, a journalist and activist, it was the beginning of an ordeal that haunts him to this day.
He was arrested that morning in 1976, as one of six accused of carrying out the robbery. One week before Christmas of the same year, he and his co-accused were brought into the Special Criminal Court and charged with the crime. It would become one of the most dramatic and longest-running criminal trials in the history of the State.
During the trial it was alleged that one of the non-jury Special Criminal Court judges was falling asleep and not hearing evidence, but when this was raised by the defence team, it was ignored. Then the same judge died and it transpired he had been in ill health and on medication.
The trial was abandoned and a new trial a few months later focused on the “confessions” of the men.
Osgur would later be convicted of the crime and sentenced to 12 years in Portlaoise prison. The IRA would eventually take responsibility for the infamous heist, leading to a presidential pardon and two convictions being overturned.
In the final episode of this two-part Indo Daily documentary special, Kevin Doyle revisits the Sallins Train Robbery, speaking to Osgur Breathnach about the trial of the ‘sleeping Judge’, living with PTSD, and why he feels a public inquiry is justified for he and his co-accused.
The Sallins Case is one case that exposes Gardai of implementing a state policy of torturing suspects, on an epidemic level, in the 1970 and 1980s. This criminal policy was not confined to legal political opponents and spread across the community.
Despite obligations under UN and European law to investigate the widespread evidence, sucessive governments have continued to cover up the truth.
This refusal constitutes a new, daily, ongoing ‘Cruel and Inhuman Treatment’ of all torture victims, according to the UN Convention Against Torture and the European Convention of Human Rights.
