The Dublin Railway Murder

by Thomas Morris

Even among those who believed that James Spollin was guilty, few suggested that the jury had reached the wrong decision. In a thoughtful editorial published immediately after Spollin’s murder trial, The Times argued that ‘it would be impossible to say that the evidence was conclusive, and the verdict a wrong one’. Reading the transcript of the trial today, it is difficult to see how a competent and impartial jury could have reached any other verdict. The prosecution had no physical evidence connecting Spollin with the crime scene. They could not link him to the supposed murder weapons, or prove that he had been anywhere near Mr Little’s office on the night of the cashier’s death. The most damaging evidence offered against Spollin was the allegation, made by two of his own children, that he had lied about his whereabouts on the evening of the murder – but the inconsistencies in their testimony, ruthlessly exposed in cross-examination, rendered their contribution almost worthless. Once the evidence of Lucy and Joseph Spollin was disregarded, the case against their father looked not so much flimsy as non-existent. The Crown argued that he knew the station buildings well, and that the stolen money had been found near his cottage. But these facts made him no more likely to have committed the crime than dozens of other railway employees. There was a gaping void at the heart of this prosecution, and everybody knew it. The one person whose evidence might have proved James Spollin’...