Evidence identifying Patrick Hutch at Regency Hotel ’sullied and tainted’, court hears

The case against Patrick Hutch, who is accused of murdering David Byrne at the Regency Hotel in Dublin almost two years ago, will collapse if a ruling on contested evidence identifying the accused in a photo favours the defence, the Special Criminal Court heard today.

Submissions closed today at the three-judge, non-jury court on the admissibility of evidence that two detectives, Fergal O’Flaherty and Jonathan Brady, identified Mr Hutch as a man dressed as a woman and holding a gun in a photo that had been taken outside the hotel on the day of the fatal shooting there.