Ireland's Court of Appeal declared the decades-old conviction of Osgur Breatnach for the Sallins train robbery a miscarriage of justice on Tuesday, citing newly discovered alibi evidence that undermined the case against him.
Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy said fresh facts concerning alibi evidence demonstrated the wrongful nature of the verdict, and the Director of Public Prosecutions did not contest the finding. Breatnach, now 75, was among six men arrested following the March 1976 heist near Sallins, Co Kildare, in which an estimated £200,000 was stolen from a diverted Cork-to-Dublin train. He was found guilty by the non-jury Special Criminal Court in December 1978 and sentenced to 12 years, serving 18 months before his conviction was quashed in May 1980 after a court ruled his confession had been obtained under oppression. The admissions were extracted by the Heavy Gang garda unit, which drew scrutiny from Amnesty International in 1977. The Irish Republican Army had claimed responsibility for the robbery within weeks of the theft.