LAST UPDATE | 6 Dec 2022

LAWYERS FOR MURDER accused Gerard ‘The Monk’ Hutch have suggested it is “irrational, illogical and inconceivable” that a decision not to prosecute Jonathan Dowdall for the Regency Hotel murder wasn’t entered as a “quid pro quo” for the ex-Sinn Fein councillor giving a statement to gardaí.

However Detective Superintendent Joseph McLoughlin told Brendan Grehan SC, for Hutch, that the decision to accept a plea from Dowdall to the lesser offence of facilitating the murder was made by the Director of Public Prosecutions in isolation to any potential statement that Dowdall might have made.

Grehan said he would be making submissions that Dowdall agreed to give a statement in circumstances where he had the “most powerful possible incentive” to implicate Hutch if he was going to succeed in getting the murder charge dropped.

Earlier, Detective Sergeant Patrick O’Toole agreed with Grehan that gardaí had no evidence to support Dowdall’s allegation that Hutch had “effectively confessed” to murdering Kinahan Cartel member David Byrne at the hotel other than Dowdall’s “say so”.

At the opening of the trial, Sean Gillane SC said the State’s case was that Hutch had contacted Dowdall and arranged to meet him days after the shooting. Gillane said the evidence would be that Hutch told Dowdall that he was “one of the team” that murdered Byrne at the Regency Hotel in 2016.

Cross-examination

Under cross-examination for a second day, Grehan asked Detective Sergeant Patrick O’Toole why Dowdall had been originally charged with the murder of Byrne. The detective said it had been on the direction of the DPP.

Grehan put it to the witness that the DPP does not “pluck things out of the air” and that he presumed it was on the recommendation of gardaí that Dowdall had been charged with murdering Byrne. There was evidence that would have pointed to a “prima facie” case against him for the prosecution, the witness replied.

Asked as to what that evidence was, the Detective Sergeant said it was “in relation to the booking of the room” at the Regency Hotel and the conversation between Dowdall and Hutch in the Land Cruiser jeep.

Gillane objected when Grehan asked the witness at what point did it change that Dowdall would no longer be charged with murder.

Rephrasing his question, Grehan asked the witness if he was aware of “anything else changing in terms of the garda view” other than the fact that Dowdall had arranged to make a statement and give evidence. The detective said Dowdall had put context and given explanations of the conversation between himself and Hutch in the jeep, that he had added new evidence that was not there before and that he had “filled in the gaps”.

The conversations between Hutch and Dowdall took place when they were allegedly travelling north to a meeting in Strabane in Co Tyrone on 7 March 2016 in Dowdall’s Toyota Land Cruiser jeep, that had been bugged by garda detectives.

The prosecution’s case is that Hutch had asked Dowdall to arrange a meeting with his provisional republican contacts to mediate or resolve the Hutch-Kinahan feud due to the threats against the accused’s family and friends.

Detective Sergeant O’Toole said today that Dowdall’s explanation for their conversation in the jeep was to have people meditate to prevent further persons being killed. He also said that Dowdall’s explanation for some of what he said on the audio recording was down to “bravado” and that he was on medication for depression at the time.

Grehan put it to the witness that Dowdall told gardaí that he was also telling lies about anything that implicated him in criminality. “He claimed he was acting up to Gerard Hutch and trying to act the hard man,” said the detective.

The barrister put it to the detective that he was willing to sign up to other “potential theories” including that Dowdall had somewhat “been used in the process”. “That was one theory, yes,” he replied.

“And that Dowdall had been asked to use his influence with any of his republican connections he had to try and quell the feud?” asked Grehan. “Yes that is what he told us that Gerard Hutch had asked him to do in the park,” replied O’Toole.

Grehan told the witness that he himself had volunteered that Dowdall was sincere and genuine in what he had told gardaí. “Yes, he was under threat, his wife and children felt they had no other option than to leave the country,” he said.

Counsel put it to the detective that there was not “a scintilla of other evidence” to support Dowdall’s allegation that he met Hutch on Richmond Road to hand over the key card on 4 February 2016. Detective Sergeant O’Toole said this was correct other than that Dowdall’s father was in the jeep with him.

Grehan told the witness that Dowdall’s father Patrick Dowdall had not made a statement. “Yes, his testimony was that he was present when the cards were handed over to Gerard Hutch at that location,” he replied.

The lawyer asked the detective if there was any other evidence “to support” Dowdall’s allegation other than his [Dowdall's] “say so” that he had met Gerard Hutch in a park after a Sunday World article was published and that Hutch had “effectively confessed” murder to him. The witness said there was not.

Next witness

The next witness, Detective Garda Cathal Connolly who assisted the previous witness by taking notes of the meetings with Dowdall, told Grehan that Dowdall had come out with “a stream of consciousness” at a meeting on 18 May 2022, mentioning dozens of people’s names and saying “serious criminal things about them”.

The detective also agreed that Dowdall had also provided four names of individuals who “he believed were on the job”.

Detective Garda Connolly said Dowdall had told the gardaí at the end of that meeting: “Lads, whether you believe me or not, I’ve nothing to do with this.”

During a meeting on 4 July 2022, gardaí put to Dowdall some of what he had said in his bugged audio conversation with Hutch. Reading these comments back, Grehan noted that Dowdall had said “I’m trying to tell Gerard Hutch what I think he wants to hear” and that Dowdall was “making myself out to be something I’m not so he would trust me. I talk a lot when I’m nervous and this is made worse as I’m taking tablets and constantly repeating myself”.

Dowdall said he was “disgusted and ashamed of myself for how I was acting and what I was saying” when he went through the transcripts.

The witness agreed with Grehan that Dowdall “explains away” what was attributed to him on the transcript.

Referring to putting a bomb under a caravan in Wexford, Dowdall said he never met a man who was mentioned and it was “all nonsense”.

Dowdall said he also made a joke of the “three yokes” used, that he has never paid attention to guns and didn’t know that a gun could be traced.

Referring to the line that “the six people” involved in the Regency didn’t even know who they were, Dowdall said it was clear that he did not have a clue who these were other than what Gerard and Patsy Hutch had told him. “Gerry is lying too as they all know who each other are as all family members and friends and they all met in Buckingham Village that day,” said Dowdall.

Detective Garda Connolly said the six people referenced by Dowdall referred to the “logistical people” and agreed with counsel that it appeared “on its face” to mean that Hutch was lying on the audio that the six people didn’t know who they were.

The witness agreed with Grehan that Dowdall told gardaí that he met Hutch at the forecourt of a petrol station on Richmond Road on 4 February 2016, where the key card to the hotel room was handed over.

Email

Detective Superintendent Joseph McLoughlin of Ballymun Garda Station, who took over the Regency investigation from 1 August this year, testified that he had received an email from Dowdall’s solicitor Jenny McGeever in their first correspondence on 2 August 2022.

In the letter McGeever states: “The question now remains as to what is to occur next. Jonathan Dowdall has indicated his willingness to give evidence for the prosecution. He has also indicated that in the event that that occurs, the DPP would have to enter a nolle prosequi in respect of the charge of murder of which he is at present an accused. Clearly he cannot be a witness and an accused in the same bill of indictment”.

“We wish also to emphasise that our client is requesting that the DPP enter a nolle prosequi in respect of the count of murder on the basis that he is not guilty of that offence and not on the basis of any quid pro quo. Unlike many other cases where accomplices and participants in an offence indicate a willingness to give evidence, my client’s firm instructions are that he had no involvement in the murder. I am proceeding on that basis.

“I am asking An Garda Síochána to liaise with the Office of the DPP to evaluate the information provided by him and to make a decision on whether Jonathan Dowdall is required as a witness for the prosecution in the forthcoming trial. This must be done as a matter of great urgency.”

Grehan suggested to the witness that the only logical reading of the email is that it would be necessary for the DPP to drop the murder charge if they wanted Dowdall to give evidence. Detective Superintendent McLoughlin said these two things were “linked” by the solicitor in the email. “She isn’t doing anything necessarily wrong, she is representing her client’s best interests,” said Grehan.

The detective agreed with Grehan that it was clear in McGeever’s mind that Dowdall was only going to be available to give evidence for the prosecution in Hutch’s trial if the DPP entered a nolle prosequi on the murder charge and that the solicitor had “linked the two of them” in her email.

The witness became aware on 2 September that the DPP were not willing to enter a nolle prosequi on the murder charge against Dowdall and he informed McGeever.

Asked by Grehan if he could take it that a decision was also made as to whether Dowdall would be required as a witness for the prosecution in the trial, the witness said that Dowdall had not made a statement at that point so it would not have been possible for the DPP to make a decision as to whether he was required.

Detective Superintendent McLoughlin said he became aware on 12 September from communication from the DPP that Dowdall was offering to plead to a charge of facilitating the murder and that three days later on 15 September he became aware that the DPP was willing to accept that plea and that a nolle prosequi would be entered in respect of the murder charge. He also became aware that Dowdall intended to make a statement on the same day.

“The roadblock was clear in respect of Dowdall giving evidence?” asked Grehan. The barrister said that these “two things were running along side by side” to which the witness replied that that the plea to facilitation was not linked to Dowdall’s statement.

Counsel asked the witness if he was seriously contending that the matters were not related. He said his understanding was that the decisions were not related are were separate matters despite receiving both pieces of information at the same time.

The court has heard that the DPP wrote to Dowdall’s solicitor on 16 September this year to say that a plea to facilitation was acceptable and that a statement was then taken from Dowdall at Dublin Airport Garda Station on 23 September.

Asked why the taking of the statement took so long, the detective said that gardaí had received intelligence at the time and that it was his firm belief that once a statement was taken there was a severe threat to Dowdall’s life and that an attack was likely. Gardaí had to put in place proper mitigation measures to ensure Dowdall and his family’s safety, he said.

The detective said it was a matter for the DPP to use Dowdall as a witness in trial after a statement was taken from him.

“I have to suggest to you that it is irrational, illogical and inconceivable that the two matters weren’t inconceivably linked; that a nolle prosequi was entered as a quid pro quo for Dowdall giving a statement,” said Grehan. The witness said that he could only speak to his understanding of it and that the decision in relation to the plea to facilitation was made by the DPP in isolation to any potential statement that Dowdall might have made.

Counsel put it to the witness that the choreography of the manner in which the information was communicated to him on 15 September made it very clear that the two matters were considered in tandem. “It was my understanding that they were considered and the decision to accept the plea was a standalone decision,” he replied.

At the end of the day, Grehan said he would be making submissions tomorrow that Dowdall agreed to give a statement in circumstances where he had the most powerful possible incentive to implicate Hutch if he was going to succeed in getting the murder charge dropped. He said his second complaint would be the lack of video recording of the encounters that took place between garda and Dowdall, which put the defence at a disadvantage in terms of cross-examining the evolution of the accounts.

Admissibility of evidence

Last Friday, Grehan, for Hutch, said he wished to raise an issue on the admissibility of evidence to be given by Dowdall on foot of the Supreme Court decision in DPP v Gilligan.

In the Gilligan case, the Supreme Court found that while the evidence of a witness in a protection programme is admissible, it should be excluded if the circumstances in which it came about fall below the fundamental standard of fairness.

Grehan is challenging the admissibility of evidence to be given by Dowdall, who was a former co-accused of Gerard Hutch but has turned State’s witness. Dowdall has already been sentenced by the non-jury court for the lesser offence of facilitating the murder.

The evidence is being heard as part of a voir dire – or ‘trial within a trial’ – to help the court’s three judges determine its admissibility.

Hutch (59), last of The Paddocks, Clontarf, Dublin 3, denies the murder of David Byrne (33) during a boxing weigh-in at the hotel on 5 February 2016.

Jonathan Dowdall (44) – a married father of four with an address at Navan Road, Cabra, Dublin 7 – was due to stand trial for Byrne’s murder alongside Hutch but pleaded guilty in advance of the trial to a lesser charge of facilitating the Hutch gang by making a hotel room available ahead of the murder.

Dowdall has been jailed by the Special Criminal Court for four years for facilitating the Hutch gang in the notorious murder of Byrne.

The former Dublin councillor is currently being assessed for the Witness Protection Program after agreeing to testify against former co-accused Gerard Hutch, who is charged with Byrne’s murder. Dowdall is expected to give evidence against his former co-accused Hutch in the coming days.

His father Patrick was jailed for two years before the Regency trial started after he also admitted his part in booking a room for the raiders.

Byrne, from Crumlin, was shot dead at the hotel in Whitehall, Dublin 9 after five men, three disguised as armed gardaí in tactical clothing and carrying AK-47 assault rifles, stormed the building during the attack, which was hosting a boxing weigh-in at the time. The victim was shot by two of the tactical assailants and further rounds were delivered to his head and body.

Byrne died after suffering catastrophic injuries from six gunshots fired from a high-velocity weapon to the head, face, stomach, hand and legs.

Hutch’s two co-accused – Paul Murphy (61), of Cherry Avenue, Swords, Co Dublin and Jason Bonney (50), of Drumnigh Wood, Portmarnock, Dublin 13 have pleaded not guilty to participating in or contributing to the murder of David Byrne by providing access to motor vehicles on 5 February 2016.

The trial continues tomorrow before Ms Justice Tara Burns sitting with Judge Sarah Berkeley and Judge Grainne Malone.

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