THE story of the March 1976 Sallins mail train robbery, and the miscarriage of justice which permitted an innocent man, Nicky Kelly, to be jailed may seem to date to a different, distant era, but is a vital tale for modern Ireland.

The blurb on the back-jacket of Patsy McGarry's book, While Justice Slept, doesn't overstate the case when it says the US has had Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib;

Britain has the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four; Ireland has Nicky Kelly.

Kelly signed a confession admitting his part in the heist, during interrogation at the Bridewell garda station following over 40 hours of detention during which time, Kelly insists, he was savagely beaten.

In total, four men with connections to the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) allegedly confessed to the robbery during interrogation in garda custody; Nicky Kelly, Osgur Breathnach, Brian McNally and John Fitzpatrick.

But Kelly jumped his bail and fled the country. He was tried in absentia along with Breatnach and McNally, before the non-jury Special Criminal Court, where the trio were found guilty, thanks in no small part to their confessions, and sentenced to between nine and 12 years in prison.

In 1980, Nicky Kelly returned to Ireland after Breatnach and McNally's convictions were quashed on appeal. The Wicklow man expected to be acquitted, but he served four years before being released on humanitarian grounds.

In April 1992, Kelly was granted a presidential pardon, by thenpresident Mary Robinson, "in light of the Attorney General's advice and following receipt by him of the views of the Director of Public Prosecutions and relevant factual information".

But the question remains: how did Kelly sign a confession for a crime he did not commit? And why has there never been any public inquiry to establish an answer to this? In answering this issue, potentially damning questions need to be asked about the entire criminal justice system and in particular the role of An Garda S�?och�?na and the government.

McGarry achieves what has hitherto not been done in respect of the Sallins robbery. The author and award-winning Irish Times journalist interviews one of the men who actually carried out the robbery. "Frank", as he is referred to in the book, asks why the garda�?, who called to his house within hours of the raid, didn't even check that the bonnet of his car was still warm. If they did, he was in trouble. By accepting at some face value that he had been in his bed, the detectives effectively gave him his alibi. The robber says that he later told garda�? that he was involved in the raid and claims that the state had to be aware that Nicky Kelly was not the culprit, insisting, "Kelly and the rest couldn't have robbed a chip van."

In the concluding chapter, 'The story of this book', McGarry notes his own first involvement with the Sallins case. This reviewer found highly interesting the author's recollection of the 1977 Irish Times articles on the possible existence of a "heavy gang" in the garda�?, whose job it was allegedly to extract confessions from suspects.

It is a refreshing reminder of what good investigative journalism can achieve. Especially today, when a significant amount of crime reportage is based on the words of some influential garda sources who reporters are reluctant to offend.

McGarry began writing this book as far back as 1993, under the title When Justice Sleeps, but could not find a publisher willing to take the legal risks. Some compromise towards that risk is made by the removal of the names of garda involved in the case. This omission does not diminish the work.

It is perhaps "Frank", the actual robber, who best appears to sum up An Garda S�?och�?na in 1970s Ireland and the force's extremes.

"They were like any organisation.

Like the IRA. You meet every kind, the good, the bad bastard and everything in-between, " he tells the author.

The force has only recently been pushed in the direction of independent investigation in respect of alleged wrongdoing. It has been mired by the scandals of Donegal and alleged misbehaviours elsewhere. As a treatise on the failures within the Irish criminal justice system covering a critical time prior to many subsequent and perhaps avoidable police scandals, this is one of the finest books on justice and injustice in modern Ireland.

John Burke is Sunday Tribune Crime Correspondent