Terry Irving spent 1,671 days in prison for a crime he did not commit.

On Thursday, Queensland’s supreme court decided he was owed $130,000 in compensation for an ordeal that has consumed his life for more than three decades – years fighting from prison to clear his name, and 28 more seeking vindication.

Irving, an Aboriginal man from north Queensland, was maliciously prosecuted and wrongfully jailed in 1993 for a bank robbery in Cairns.

He was released from prison by the high court in late 1997, after the state conceded he had not received a fair trial. The chief justice, Sir Gerard Brennan, said he had “the gravest misgivings about the circumstances of this case” and that it was “a very disturbing situation”.

Since then, Irving has been seeking an apology and compensation for his

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