How The Heavy Gang Put Innocents Behind Bars
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What triggered the miscarriage of justice certificate for Oscar Breathnach?
Earlier this week, Oscar Brownock received a miscarriage of justice certificate in relation to his wrongful conviction for the Salons train robbery.
And this is Oscar himself speaking to the hard shoulder this week.
I heard screams in my cell and I was taken out of my cell and taken down to a tunnel that leads from the Bridewell to the district court. And when I saw the gate was closed, I realised I was going to get a beating because there were loads of detectives there. What I soon realised was that it wasn't a beating, it was in fact becoming torture.
So how did an innocent man end up behind bars? Patsy McGarry, Irish Times contributor and author of While Justice Slept, joins me now to tell us about what was known as the Heavy Gang. Patsy, good morning and welcome. Thank you, Pat. Now let's go back to what precipitated all of the events which led to the certificate being given to Oscar Ballack during the week. It began with the train robbery.
It began with the train robbery 50 years ago on the 31st of March, 1976, when about a quarter of a million pounds, which is a lot of money in those times, was taken off a train. The driver was slightly injured and the gang got away. And the Gardaí rounded up, to use the phrase, the title of the book, The Usual Suspects. Protesters, basically, who are fairly hard Republicans, including Oscar Branagh, Nicky Kelly, Brian McNally in particular. And they were badly bruised or emerged badly bruised after encounters with Gardaí over the following approximately 48-hour period, brought before the district court and were charged in connection with the robbery, all three of them. And it went to trial in 1978 and the first trial
It was a phenomenon in its own right. It became the longest trial in history before it collapsed. And it collapsed because one of the judges was deemed to be sleeping. All sorts of ridiculous things were undertaken by counsel for the defense.
I mean, they tried to waken him, you know, to pretend he was never asleep. What did they do? What kind of...
Paddy McEntee, the leading counsel for the defendants, basically started dropping books from a height to make a noise. The judge had concerned just John O'Connor to waken him up. Called for toilet breaks. And it wasn't working. Neil Kiley wrote an article in Hibernia magazine. And it was a risky thing to do because they could have been up for contempt of court. Claiming that the judge was asleep. Asserting that the judge was sleeping. And nothing happened. So anyhow, it went too far as far as counsel was concerned and McAtee formally put it to the three judges that one of them had been falling asleep. They were very annoyed about this. They retreated to their chambers to consider the matter and found as a finding of fact that Judge O'Connor was not sleeping.
This was appealed all the way to the Supreme Court and really the judges on the higher levels met it with great disdain and anger themselves that this would be asserted. And they stood by the finding that he had not been sleeping. And a few weeks afterwards, after the trial resumed, Judge O'Connor died. He had had a cardiac condition and it transpired he was in medication for the cardiac condition.
Which was causing him to be drowsy and fall asleep. So has there ever been kind of an apology from the judiciary about getting it so wrong? Not at all.
And in fact, that was only the first of many things people would assert, including myself, that they got wrong in this whole long saga that's gone on for 50 years. The trial, that trial, after 65 days, already the most expensive in the history of the state, had to be collapsed. And it's resumed again at the end of 1978. And the big issue there, as always, was whether the confessions beaten out of these men, alleged, would be accepted as evidence. And when it was decided by the special criminal court in the second trial that the confessions were to be accepted as evidence, people like, the three men concerned, Oscar Branagh, Brian McNally and Nicky Kelly, knew their goose was cooked.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What triggered the miscarriage of justice certificate for Oscar Breathnach?
0:01–5:17
2
What happened during the Sallins train robbery investigation in 1976?
5:17–8:08
3
Why did the first long trial collapse and what was the 'sleeping judge' controversy?
8:08–15:38
4
How were confessions and allegations of Garda brutality handled at the second trial?
15:38–17:37