Hutch trial hears of mayhem and panic, but little input from the Monk himself
A prison van with a Garda escort leaves the Special Criminal Court on Tuesday after the first day of the trial of Gerry Hutch for the murder of David Byrne in the Regency Hotel in 2016. Picture: Collins Courts
It was a loud and clear “not guilty” when Gerard Hutch was asked how he pleaded to the charge of murdering David Byrne, before taking his seat again and adopting a fairly neutral gaze.
Wearing a navy suit jacket, with an unbuttoned collar and no tie, it was the one and only time we’d hear from Mr Hutch on a day when his landmark, long-awaited trial began before the non-jury Special Criminal Court in the Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin.
He looks quite different now to the photos many of us will have seen of the man nicknamed The Monk.
Those photos are still regularly used in news reports now. Sure, some of those stills of the short, black-haired Mr Hutch used in news reports today are from when he appeared on RTÉ’s back in 2008. Some date back even further.
The man sitting in the dock on Tuesday had long, greying hair. He’s spent the last year incarcerated, on remand charged with Mr Byrne’s killing. He’s been in custody since his arrest by the Guardia Civil in Spain in August 2021 and subsequent extradition to Ireland the following month.
Mr Hutch remained mostly passive throughout the first day of his trial in Courtroom 11 of the CCJ on Tuesday.
The reported earlier this month that hearing aids had been installed at the Special Criminal Court to allow the accused to hear proceedings and, sure enough, he was wearing headphones throughout.
At one stage, during quite technical evidence where maps of certain areas were analysed, he noticeably yawned briefly.
However, during a break in the afternoon where the court rose briefly, he engaged in animated discussion with his legal counsel before proceedings for the day were brought to a close shortly before 3.30pm.
The media has long covered the affairs of Mr Hutch, so it was little surprise to see the courtroom packed with journalists — albeit in the afternoon they were clearly outnumbered by barristers.
It’s also little surprise given the notoriety of the event itself; a brutal killing at the weigh-in before a boxing event. In the following months, more killings followed in the subsequent feud between warring factions that was referred to plainly in court yesterday as “the Hutch-Kinahan feud”.
Sitting alongside him were Jason Bonney and Paul Murphy, both accused of participating in or contributing to activity that could facilitate the commission of a serious offence — namely the murder of Byrne — by a criminal organisation by providing access to specified vehicles on the day of the murder.
Mr Bonney, wearing a grey hoodie, said not guilty when asked how he pleaded. Mr Murphy did likewise, pulling a facemask down so he could audibly say “not guilty” to the court.
Also in the court was the mother of David Byrne, Sadie Byrne, and other family members to hear the opening of the trial.
For around an hour, it was Sean Gillane SC, for the Director of Public Prosecution, who set the scene. It served as an efficient reminder of the appalling events at the Regency Hotel in Dublin on February 5, 2016, and their aftermath.
Mr Gillane said senior gardaí would tell the court of the background to the “wild and murderous feud” that became infamously known as the Hutch-Kinahan feud.
The court will hear of the activities, organisations, and structure of the Hutch criminal organisation, he said.
On the specific event itself, the killing at a boxing weigh-in at the north Dublin hotel, the court heard from Mr Gillane that it was a “tactical operation” where one of the members of this tactical team “calmly and coldly” shot Mr Byrne a number of times when he was already lying on the floor.
“It was immediately apparent that the execution-style killing of Mr Byrne, along with the sophisticated planning and number of personnel, that this spoke to the involvement of an organised, well-financed group,” Mr Gillane said.
Mr Gillane said that Mr Hutch was one of these people who entered the Regency Hotel that day to carry out this attack.
The court heard in detail of how a man in a flat cap and man disguised as a woman entered the hotel near the close of the weigh in. Shortly after, three men disguised as gardaí and armed with AK47s also entered the hotel.
“The shooting was clearly not indiscriminate,” Mr Gillane told the court, adding there was evidence of it being “militaristic”, “macabre” and “targeted”.
“Clear individuals were being looked for,” he said. One of these individuals was clearly sought for in vain. The court heard that the man in the wig uttered sentences such as “I don’t know where he is” and “I couldn’t fucking find him”.
After the shooting of Mr Byrne, the “tactical team continued at speed to look through the bar area, reception area and secondary public entrance”, Mr Gillane said.
Giving evidence later on in the day, former president of the Boxing Union of Ireland Mel Christle described “mayhem” in the room when the shooting started.
Mr Christle went on to describe in detail seeing the body of a man who’d been killed in the reception area of the hotel, and the “general panic” in the venue.
“You could see a general weakness in people, including the staff,” he said. “They’d never witnessed anything like this.”
As said, much of the detail of the Regency Hotel shooting has been well aired on numerous occasions. The huge eye-openers came in the form of the details of the evidence of former Sinn Féin councillor Jonathan Dowdall.
Dowdall was sentenced on Monday to four years in prison, after pleading guilty in advance to a lesser charge of facilitating the Hutch gang by making a hotel room available ahead of the murder.
The court heard that that after his father Patrick Dowdall checked into the hotel, Gerard Hutch later approached Jonathan Dowdall’s vehicle and asked for the key card to access the hotel room and these were handed to him.
Mr Gillane called it “an important step in what would happen”.
Mr Gillane said Mr Hutch contacted Dowdall to arrange to meet him in a carpark in Whitehall days after the shooting to discuss a photograph of the man in the wig and the man in the flat cap which had been in the newspaper.
The “very worked up and edgy” Mr Hutch said to Dowdall that he had been part “of the team” that had shot Mr Byrne, Mr Gillane told the court.
The court also heard that the pair drove north for a meeting in Strabane with Republican figures, where their vehicle was under surveillance. Matters such as trying “to make peace or agree a ceasefire” with the Kinahan crime group were discussed.
Further, the court heard that Mr Hutch had said one of these Republican contacts “knows it was them at the Regency”.
Dowdall is expected to give evidence to the court at a later date in the trial that is estimated to last up to 12 weeks and potentially spill over into the new year.
Summing up his opening statement, Mr Gillane said: “The prosecution case is this deliberate killing was carried out without restraint by group of people of which Mr Hutch was one.”
Headphones on, around an hour after he had spoken to say he was pleading not guilty, Mr Hutch remained as he had been, and would continue to be, throughout much of the day. Impassive.
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