TWO LONG-TIME friends of the Hutch family have received combined jail sentences totalling 17-and-a-half years at the Special Criminal Court for acting as getaway drivers during the notorious Regency Hotel attack in 2016 during which Kinahan Cartel member David Byrne was murdered.

Presiding judge Ms Justice Tara Burns said today that the two convicted men Paul Murphy and Jason Bonney had provided “intentional and organised assistance to the Hutch organisation”, which she called significant.

She said the non-jury court couldn’t find that the two defendants knew exactly what was to happen that day but they knew a “serious criminal event was planned” involving six men who needed to be individually removed from the scene.

The judge made the comments at the non-jury court today as she imposed a sentence of nine years on Paul Murphy (61), of Cherry Avenue, Swords, Co Dublin and jailed his co-accused Jason Bonney (52), of Drumnigh Wood, Portmarnock, Dublin 13 for eight and a half years.

The judge emphasised that the assistance provided by the pair was “significant” as two members of the hit team were carried away from the drop-off point at St Vincent’s GAA car park in north Dublin and away from detection. She said the three-judge court found that Murphy and Bonney had “acted in concert” with another four cars and were part of an operation that involved a high level of planning and coordination.

She said the court had been urged by the defendant’s lawyers to view their participation at the lower end of the offending but said it could not agree having regard to an analysis of the facts of the case.

“Events of the Regency [attack] cannot be carried out without the assistance of other people,” she highlighted.

Following a 52-day trial at the Special Criminal Court, taxi driver Paul Murphy and builder Jason Bonney were last month found guilty of facilitating the killing of Byrne, a Kinahan gang member, by acting as getaway drivers in a shooting “orchestrated” by the rival Hutch criminal organisation.

The pair had been at the gang’s “centre of operations” at Buckingham Village in the north inner city from where the hit team left on February 5 2016 to travel to the Regency hotel and carry out the attack.

Judgement

Delivering judgement at the non-jury court on 17 April, the three judges found that Bonney was the sole driver of a BMW X5 throughout that day and was driving the jeep at Bella Street in the north inner city and at St Vincent’s GAA car park when one of the gunmen, dissident republican Kevin Murray, known as “Flat Cap”, got into his jeep after the Regency attack.

Murray died from motor neurone disease in 2017 before he could be brought to trial.

In its judgement the court also found that Murphy had used his silver Avensis taxi to pick up one of the gunmen at St Vincent’s car park. Murphy had told gardaí that he was working as a taxi driver on the afternoon of the Regency attack and that receipts in the taxi would support this. Having regard to Murphy’s movements on the day the Special Criminal Court was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that at the very least the fare receipts were “inaccurate” and did not establish that Murphy was engaged on these fares at the times asserted, if at all.

Ms Justice Burns said in her judgement that the court was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt of the existence of the Hutch Criminal Organisation and that the defendants Murphy and Bonney knew of its existence when they provided access to their individual cars at St Vincent’s GAA club intending to facilitate the commission of a serious offence by the Hutches.

She also said that the court was satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the Regency attack, during which David Byrne was shot dead, was orchestrated by the Hutch criminal organisation.

The court heard on Monday during the sentence hearing that Bonney has no previous convictions, once ran a building company employing 10 people and had not been “on garda radar” prior to this offence.

Defence counsel Bernard Condon SC, for Paul Murphy, submitted to the three-judge court during the sentence hearing that his client ought to to be considered to be at the lowest level of ladder of responsibility.

“Many people were involved at all sorts of levels, there was no evidence of any level of organisation whatsoever in relation to Mr Murphy,” he said.

The non-jury court has heard that Murphy has 67 previous convictions which include public order offences, road traffic offences, larceny and criminal damage. They have all been dealt with at District Court level. Murphy, the court heard, had changed his name by deed poll from Christopher Ryan to Paul Murphy in 1987.

Sentencing

Before handing down the sentence today, Condon told Ms Justice Burns that he wanted to query the number of previous convictions for his client.

Delivering the sentence for both men today, Ms Justice Burns said each accused had acted as getaway drivers for two members of the hit team who carried out the attack. She said the assistance provided was significant as two men were carried away from the drop-off point and away from detection. In terms of how Murphy and Bonney came to provide the assistance, the judge said the court found that the pair had acted in concert with another four cars. She said Murphy and Bonney were part of an operation that involved significant planning and coordination.

She added: “Arriving at St Vincent’s GAA car park was not by chance, it was part of a planned operation involving six cars arriving at the St Vincent’s which involved significant planning and coordination. There was evidence of Paul Murphy waiting at the Beachcomber premises on the Howth Road waiting for Jason Bonney to pass him and they made the onward convoy journey to St Vincent’s GAA car park”.

The judge went on to say that having arrived at St Vincent’s GAA car park, the six cars waited for 35 minutes for the gunmen to arrive from the Regency attack, which demonstrated the intentional and organised assistance provided to the Hutch organisation. She called this significant saying that the defendants had knowledge that “a significant crime operation was underway”.

Each, she said, had interaction with “the centre” of the serious operation planned at Buckingham Village that morning with Bonney attending there once and Murphy twice. This established their connection with the serious operation planned, she stated.

The judge said the offence committed by the pair was aggravated by the fact that the murder of Byrne had occurred, regardless of whether the defendants had knowledge or not of the serious criminality event planned involving six men. She said their actions amounted to “intentional, planned and organised behaviour” as they were both available to individually remove two of the hit team from the scene.

She said the court had been urged to view the defendant’s participation at the lower end of offending but said it could not agree having regard to an analysis of the facts of the case.

“Events of the Regency [attack] cannot be carried out without the assistance of other people,” she stressed.

She said the court’s view of the men’s participation was that they made themselves available to the hit team, which she said fell in the upper range of offending.

Having regard to the gravity of the offence, the judge set a headline sentence of ten years for both men but said the court must have regard to their personal circumstances.

Referring to Bonney, the judge said he was married with two children, had fostered a child, was of previous good character and a hard working man all his life. She said he was successful in business as a builder and was an accomplished boxer but had serious cardiac issues.

“He has active voluntary involvement in the local community and had a great interest in assisting youths in boxing. The many references speak highly of Jason Boney,” she added.

Turning to Murphy, Ms Justice Burns said his relationship with his wife had ended after this event and that he had been in another relationship since then. She described him as a father of five with 67 previous convictions but said that there was dispute in relation to this which the court did not have concern for. She said he had a long work history particularly as a taxi man.

She said the court would take account of the men’s mitigating factors and would reduce the headline sentence by one year for Murphy and 18 months for Bonney.

Ms Justice Burns sitting with Judge Sarah Berkeley and Judge Grainne Malone sentenced Murphy to nine years in prison and imposed a final sentence of eight-and-a-half years imprisonment on Bonney.

Murphy’s sentence was backdated to 17 March this year and Bonney’s sentence was backdated to 14 April last.

The three-judge, non-jury Special Criminal Court heard that the shooting took place during a boxing weigh-in at the Regency Hotel. A man dressed as a woman and another man wearing a flat cap, who were armed with handguns, stormed the hotel followed by three people dressed in tactical-style garda uniforms carrying assault rifles.

Byrne (33), from Crumlin, was shot by two of the tactical assailants and further rounds were delivered to his head and body at the hotel in Whitehall, Dublin 9.

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

Last month, Paul Murphy, of Cherry Avenue, Swords, Co Dublin and Jason Bonney, of Drumnigh Wood, Portmarnock, Dublin 13 were each found guilty of the charge of participating in or contributing to the murder of Byrne (33) by providing access to motor vehicles on 5 February 2016.

Acquittal

Crime figure Gerard “The Monk” Hutch was acquitted last month by the Special Criminal Court of the murder of Mr Byrne and walked from court a free man.

In acquitting Hutch, the Special Criminal Court found that it could not rely on the unsupported evidence of the former Sinn Féin councillor and convicted torturer Jonathan Dowdall.

It also found that surveillance audio recordings of a conversation between Dowdall and Hutch did not corroborate Dowdall’s claim that Hutch had confessed to being one of the hitmen at the Regency Hotel where Byrne was shot dead.

Gerard Hutch (60), of The Paddocks, Clontarf, Dublin 3, had denied the murder of David Byrne (33) during a boxing weigh-in at the Regency Hotel on the Swords Road, Whitehall, Dublin 9 on 5 February 2016.