Hunger strike left me with damaged liver & kidney..gardai left me needing a hearing aid
A MAN who went on hunger strike after being wrongfully imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit has revealed the life-long damage it had on his body.
Nicky Kelly was convicted for the Sallins Mail Train Robbery in 1976, a crime he was cleared of after serving four years at Portlaoise Prison.
Kelly and two other men, Osgur Breatnach and Bernard Mcnally who were also cleared, claim they were tortured by Special Branch gardai until they confessed to the £200,000 train heist.
The 71-year-old Wicklow native fled to America after jumping bail but was handed a 12-year sentence in his absence and jailed on his return in 1980.
He told the Irish Sunday Mirror: “I have never really talked about it [hunger strike]. It wasn’t a decision I made lightly but I had exhausted every court.
“I had no other option. It got to a stage where I felt I had to pin my own welfare, my own health, to highlight my issue on an international level.
“It did have that impact but it had a price and that’s why I’m in the hospital. I have internal problems with my liver and kidney.”
Nicky Kelly recounts details of his 38-day hunger strike – when his
Money will never replace those years or the damage done to my health NICKY KELLY ON RTE’S CRIMES & CONFESSIONS
weight plummeted from 12 stone to just five and a half stone – in an RTE documentary.
Crimes & Confessions links three cases and examines the existence of a Garda “Heavy Gang” coercing suspects to own up to crimes they did not commit.
Mr Kelly said despite being tempted to come off his hunger strike he couldn’t be swayed.
He said: “You are locked in a cell and they bring the best of food in to you every day, food you never got on a normal day. It was like being in a hotel.”
He admitted that depriving his body of sustinence has had long-term implications and he is suffering greatly with his health.
He continued: “What happens after the course of a few weeks is that your body actually starts eating the juicier parts like the lubricant and gristle on your fingers and that which we take for granted.
“On your liver and kidneys too. I did some permanent damage to my liver.
“When I was released I went to see this specialist [who] kept saying to me, ‘You know down the line you are going to pay a price for this, there are going to be repercussions’.
“I have an appointment to go to an ear specialist to get these hearing aids.
“It comes from being sat in a chair and having a guy shout questions at me and if they didn’t like the answers given then the guy at the
Man wrongly convicted of train robbery speaks out
back would smack your ears. My ears started bleeding. It’s a torture technique that was developed in Germany.” The Provisional IRA eventually claimed responsibility for the robbery and Mr Kelly was released on humanitarian grounds and his conviction overturned.
In 1992, he received a presidential pardon and Ir£1million in compensation. He is now calling for an independent inquiry into what happened to him, vowing to pursue a case with the UN if he has to.
And he said he is still waiting for an apology for what happened to him from the guards and the State. He said: “I will be going to the United Nations, I already have a lawyer.
“My only fear is that with all these health implications that I’m going to die before anything happens.
“I got a presidential pardon. There was never an apology from the guards and the Government.
“Money will never replace those years or replace the damage it has done to my health.”
He added: “I’m not bitter about it all but I have never forgotten.” ■ Crimes & Confessions is on RTE One tomorrow at 9.35pm.