LAST UPDATE | 17 Apr 2023
GERARD HUTCH HAS been found not guilty in the Special Criminal Court trial for the murder of David Byrne in the Regency Hotel in Dublin in 2016.
The verdict in the high-profile trial was delivered this afternoon by the non-jury court, with presiding judge Justice Tara Burns sitting with Judge Sarah Berkeley and Judge Grainne Malone.
Hutch (60), know as ‘The Monk’ and last of The Paddocks, Clontarf, Dublin 3, denied the murder of Byrne (33) during a boxing weigh-in on 5 February 2016.
Though he has been found not guilty, his two co-accused, Paul Murphy (61), of Cherry Avenue, Swords, Co Dublin and Jason Bonney (50), of Drumnigh Wood, Portmarnock, Dublin 13, were found guilty of the charges they faced.
Murphy and Bonney had been charged with participating in or contributing to the murder of Byrne by providing access to motor vehicles.
Acquitting Hutch, Ms Justice Burns said the court finds him not guilty of the offence of murder.
Sadie Byrne and James ‘Jaws’ Byrne, the parents of the late David Byrne, were in court to hear the court’s not guilty verdict.
Hutch walked from court a free man and was followed by reporters down the street outside the Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin.
Delivering the court’s judgement on Hutch’s charge, Justice Burns delivered a scathing assessment of the evidence of former Sinn Féin councillor Jonathan Dowdall.
Dowdall (44) 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 murder.
Dowdall was being assessed for the Witness Protection Programme when he gave evidence for the State against Hutch.
Justice Burns today said that Dowdall “wasn’t transparent in court” and that the court must consider his reliability.
“It cannot be said that Jonathon Dowdall found God, he was acting out of his own self interest,” the judge said.
The judges also found that sections of audio from a listening device inside a vehicle as Hutch and Dowdall allegedly travelled to Northern Ireland did not give rise to inference that Hutch was present at the Regency at the time of the shooting.
The court found that the recordings do not contain an admission that Hutch was present at the Regency, adding that in reality the recording was an interaction between criminals who are not honest with each other.
The court said that the recordings could give inference to the idea that he organised the shooting but that this question wasn’t the case that was being tried.
At most, Justice Burns said the evidence gave rise to the possibility that he “gave the go-ahead” but the case against Hutch, she said, is not one of common design.
Even if it were one of common design, the judge said that there would be a “question mark over that also”.
All three men were in court to hear the verdicts today.
Hutch wore a white shirt and a dark blazer and is sporting long hair and a beard. Murphy and Bonney wore hoodies and were seen chatting before the court was asked to rise.
Hutch sat still as his verdict was delivered.
Bonney and Murphy judgements
The non-jury court agreed with the State’s case that Paul Murphy’s Toyota Avensis taxi and Jason Bonney’s black BMW X5 jeep were part of a convoy of six cars that parked up at St Vincent’s GAA club grounds in Marino before the Regency shooting.
The prosecution had argued that the pair had then helped two of the raiders escape.
Delivering the court’s judgment, Ms Justice Tara Burns said the court is satisfied of the existence of the Hutch Criminal Organisation and that the accused men Murphy and Bonney knew of its existence when they made their cars available to the crime group.
She also said that the court is satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the Regency attack, during which David Byrne was shot dead, was orchestrated by the Hutch organisation.
While delivering the judgment in relation to Bonney, Ms Justice Burns said that the court had been “lied to in the most malevolent manner” when Jason Bonney’s deceased father was “implicated” in the Regency attack.
“That anyone thought this would be accepted by the Special Criminal Court is quite simply amazing,” she said.
She said she was satisfied that Bonney was the only person driving his BMW throughout that day and that he was the driver when one of the gunmen, Kevin Murray, got into the car at St Vincent’s GAA carpark following the shooting.
In relation to Murphy, she said that the Avensis seen on CCTV footage before and after the shooting belonged to Murphy and that he remained driving it for the afternoon.
Kevin Murray died in 2017.
The shooting
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.
The trial heard evidence from Dowdall along with audio taken from a listening device inside a vehicle as Hutch and Dowdall allegedly travelled to Northern Ireland to meet Republican paramilitary contacts.
There was heavy security inside the court and around the court building ahead of the verdicts.
Strong garda presence inside the Special Criminal Court as the court room is already full to hear the verdict in the trial of Gerard Hutch for the murder of David Byrne at the Regency. pic.twitter.com/t4Wj9IZJW8
— Eimer McAuley (@eimer_mcauley) April 17, 2023
Prosecution
Prosecuting barrister Fiona Murphy told the trial in her closing speech in January that Hutch was one of two gunmen disguised in tactical gear who shot Kinahan Cartel member David Byrne in a “brutal and callous execution” as the victim scrambled on the ground of the Regency Hotel amongst “complete carnage”.
Murphy claimed the covert recordings showed Hutch had authority over the AK-47 rifles used in the attack and was seeking someone to assist in defusing the aftermath of the very serious situation that developed.
She said that Hutch was talking about the movement of the weapons at a crucial time in which they ultimately ended up in transit and were seized by gardai from convicted IRA man Shane Rowan just two days later.
Murphy said there was “no denial or pushback” from Hutch in the audio against implications that he was centrally involved in the Regency attack.
Defence
However, Hutch’s barrister senior counsel Brendan Grehan argued in his closing address that the prosecution case against his client stands or falls on whether the Special Criminal Court can believe the evidence of the “proven and admitted liar and perjurer” Jonathan Dowdall.
Grehan told the court that Dowdall is a “master manipulator” who decided he would give evidence against Mr Hutch to get his own charge of murdering David Byrne dropped.
The defence barrister said the only evidence against Hutch, besides Dowdall’s “flawed” testimony, is the eight-hour audio recording of conversations between Hutch and Dowdall in which the prosecution alleges the accused made tacit admissions about his role in the shooting at the Regency Hotel.
Grehan submitted: “I challenge anyone to find any unambiguous admission to involvement in the Regency anywhere in the transcript.”
- Reporting by Eimer McAuley and Eoin Reynolds at the CCJ, Rónán Duffy and Niall O’Connor
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