LAST UPDATE | 24 Jan 2023

THE STATE HAS concluded its case against Gerard ‘The Monk’ Hutch, who is charged with the murder of Kinahan Cartel member David Byrne at the Regency Hotel, and his two co-accused who deny participating in the murder by providing access to vehicles.  

After the conclusion of the prosecution case today, defence barrister Brendan Grehan SC, for Hutch, told presiding judge Justice Tara Burns that the defence are not calling any evidence on his behalf nor will his client take the stand.  

Defence counsel Bernard Condon SC, for Paul Murphy, said his legal team would not be calling evidence either but that he needed to make a submission about the jurisdiction of the court.  

Today, in the trial’s 50th day, Sean Gillane SC, prosecuting, told the three-judge court that the prosecution case was now closed. 

The lawyer also informed the judges that the prosecution had disclosed a statement to Bonney’s barrister John Fitzgerald SC relating to a witness which the prosecution proposed to call in respect of his client’s alibi and after the “alibi evidence is itself produced”. 

Fitzgerald, for Bonney, said he received the statement early this morning and may look for a small bit of time to consider the matter.  

Accused Murphy yesterday challenged the admissibility of licence plate evidence and the court delivered a ruling on that this morning. Presiding judge Ms Justice Tara Burns today ruled the license plate evidence inadmissible saying “the court can’t be satisfied as to the provenance or reliability” of the information contained in the evidence.  

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

Hutch’s two co-accused – Paul Murphy (61), of Cherry Avenue, Swords, Co Dublin and Jason Bonney (52), of Drumnigh Wood, Portmarnock, Dublin 13 have pleaded not guilty to participating in or contributing to the murder of Byrne by providing access to motor vehicles on 5 February 2016. 

Ex-Sinn Féin Councillor Jonathan Dowdall, a former co-accused of Hutch who facilitated Byrne’s murder and turned State’s evidence, has said that Hutch told him in a park several days after the Regency attack, in or around 8 February 2016, that he and another man had shot Byrne at the hotel.

Murphy’s light coloured Toyota Avensis taxi and a BMW X5 which the prosecution say was driven by Bonney on the day are alleged to have been part of a convoy that parked up at St Vincent’s GAA club grounds before the shooting and then transported the assailants from the Regency Hotel shooting after a Ford transit van was abandoned. 

It is the prosecution’s case that a silver Ford transit van containing six people left the Regency Hotel after the shooting, including three persons dressed in tactical garda clothing. The raiders then made good their escape by using a number of parked vehicles at St Vincent’s GAA club.  

Gillane said in his opening address that “an integral part of the operation” which led to Byrne’s death was the means by which the tactical team escaped, which is central to the case of Bonney and Murphy.  

The court has already heard that the defence case for Bonney will be that on 5 February, he never drove his jeep, which the prosecution say was used in the attack, south of Newbrook Avenue, Donaghmede, [north of the Regency Hotel] but his father did.

It is the prosecution’s case that Bonney was driving a black BMW X5 on the day of the murder and had transported a man in a flat cap, who minutes earlier had raided the Regency Hotel, from St Vincent’s GAA grounds. 

Bonney’s alleged alibi

Julie McGlynn gave evidence in Bonney’s defence today and told defence counsel John Fitzgerald SC that she grew up on Newbrook Avenue in Donaghmede and that her mother was living in the house in February 2016.

She said she knew Bonney “30 odd years”.

The witness said she was in her mother’s house on the morning of 5 February 2016 as she was having a party there for her then 13-year-old son. Her mother went to mass at 10am and McGlynn was getting things ready for the party.

At 11am or a bit afterwards, the witness said there was a knock at the front door and Willie Bonney, the accused’s father who has since died, was looking for her mother. 

McGlynn said she gave Willie Bonney a cup of tea when there was another knock at the door and accused Jason Bonney was standing there. She said there was “just chit chat” before both men left her mother’s house around 11.30am.

“I walked the two of them out to the front gate. Jason went across the house [on the opposite side of the road] and Willie got into the jeep and drove off,” she said.

Asked if the jeep in the book of photographs looked familiar to her, McGlynn said it looked like the BMW X5 that Willie drove off in that morning as her sister has the same vehicle.

The witness said she saw Jason Bonney later on that day after she picked her children up from the bus at 2.35pm, which is beside Donaghmede Shopping centre.

She arrived back at her mother’s house between 2.45pm and 2.50pm and couldn’t get into the driveway as there was a truck parked outside the house.

McGlynn went across the road and asked “the lads” in the garden where Jason Bonney was as she had seen him driving the truck previously.

They called Jason Bonney out and he apologised to the witness before moving the truck.

Jason handed her son, who was in the car, “a tenner for his birthday”. She said the conversation with accused Jason Bonney “definitely” took place shortly before 3pm as she had collected the children from the bus.

She denied under cross-examination by Gillane, that she was to be gifted a plot of land at the side of the accused’s home.

She also denied she was not telling the truth, as the State contended the accused’s father had never driven his son’s jeep that day, and told the court: “I’m telling you it is true, definitely true”.

A second defence witness testified today that he also saw Bonney’s father driving the jeep saying: “I seen the jeep coming very close to me and I looked in the mirror and I said Jesus, that’s Wille Bonney driving that jeep. He came up close to me and I said bloody hell, I wonder what’s going on?”

The trial has heard that Byrne was shot in the lobby of the hotel at around 2.32pm on 5 February.

CCTV Footage has also been shown of six people on Charlemont Lane – including a man in a wig pulling a suitcase and a man with a flat cap carrying a bag- running along a lane towards various cars at St Vincent’s GAA club at 2:40pm.

The State’s case is that the late dissident republican Kevin Murray was the man seen wearing a flat cap when Byrne was killed and that he cooperated with the “tactical team” that raided the Regency Hotel on 5 February. Murray died from motor neurone disease in 2017 before he could be brought to trial.

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

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.

Comments are closed as legal proceedings are ongoing.