'Long day of CCTV' lets court see footage from weeks after Regency shooting

Members of the Garda Armed Support Unit provide added security at the Special Criminal Court where the trial of Gerry Hutch for the murder of David Byrne continues. File picture: Collins Courts

“It’s been a long day of CCTV” admitted Ms Justice Tara Burns, sitting alongside her fellow judges Ms Justice Sarah Berkeley and Ms Justice Grainne Malone at the close of Tuesday’s evidence. 

Throughout the trial of Gerry Hutch, accused of the murder of David Byrne in the Regency Hotel in February 2016, there has been a lot of CCTV footage shown to the court and, as Justice Burns said, Tuesday involved a whole lot more.

However, the time period being examined changed on Tuesday. The footage, prior to Tuesday, played as part of the prosecution’s case focused primarily on the day of the killing itself – February 5, 2016, with clips of vehicles in the morning and afternoon in the lead-up to the shootings.

It has also seen footage taken inside and outside of the Regency Hotel that afternoon as well as clips from the night before at the Regency, of individuals checking in and going for a drink in the bar.

On Tuesday, the court saw footage which fast forwarded a couple of weeks to February 20, 2016. Played in sequence, the clips served to play out a narrative beginning outside the home of Jonathan Dowdall.

In the opening statement delivered by prosecuting counsel Sean Gillane SC a week ago, he made reference to evidence provided by the former Sinn Féin councillor. The Special Criminal Court already heard Mr Hutch had asked Mr Dowdall to arrange a meeting with provisional republicans due to the escalation of the Hutch/Kinahan feud and the threats to his family and friends.

Footage from February 20, 2016

Footage showed Mr Dowdall enter his Toyota Land Cruiser at his home on the Navan Road in Dublin at around 7.19am on that morning. Clips showed a similar vehicle passing by areas such as the Ulster Bank in Phibsborough, a Boots pharmacy further up and then onto Botanic Avenue and towards Clontarf Road. 

By 8.14am, the vehicle Mr Dowdall was travelling in had reached the M1 toll plaza heading northwards. Around an hour later, at 9.11am, the vehicle is shown pulling into the BP Garage on the Newry Road. Two men get out of the car.

Mr Gillane said it is the prosecution case that the first man is Mr Dowdall and the second man is Mr Hutch. As the footage was being shown to court, Mr Hutch stared intently at the screen while also keeping his face blank of any visible emotion. Like most of the other days so far, he wore a navy suit jacket to court, with open top shirt, and using headphones to listen in to proceedings.

Footage both outside and inside the garage was shown to the court. The man whom the prosecution says is Mr Hutch enters with Mr Dowdall. “You can see him in jeans, green jacket and hat,” Garda Michelle Purcell, who is taking the court through the various bits of CCTV evidence, said.

The pair make themselves what appears to be a coffee at a stand within the shop, and the man alleged to be Mr Hutch grabs a newspaper and gives it to Mr Dowdall as they pay and leave.

The next pieces of footage shown to the court came later outside the Quays Shopping Centre in Newry. A man is seen exiting the Toyota Land Cruiser and meeting another man in the car park at around 7.10pm. The man who exits the Toyota is wearing the same clothes as the man the prosecution had earlier alleged to be Mr Hutch.

Further CCTV picks up Mr Dowdall’s vehicle at the M1 toll bridge southbound and footage from a camera at his home shows him returning just after 8.15pm.

Footage from March 7, 2016

In his opening statement, Mr Gillane told the court that Mr Dowdall drove Mr Hutch north to another meeting in Strabane in Co. Tyrone on March 7, 2016, and that their vehicle was the subject of surveillance. Again, the court on Tuesday saw footage from that day.

It shows a man the prosecution alleges is Mr Hutch picked up by Mr Dowdall that afternoon in the car park of Kealy’s Pub on the Swords Road near Dublin Airport. The court sees the vehicle at the M1 toll bridge northbound at 2.43pm that day. 

It would later see footage of the same vehicle outside the Maldron Hotel in Belfast. The man alleged to be Mr Hutch goes into the hotel briefly and speaks to staff at reception before they leave and drive off.

Mr Dowdall drops the man alleged to be Mr Hutch back to Kealy’s pub just after midnight, and he drives off in a BMW. Mr Dowdall arrives home around 12.30am.

Footage from March 9, 2016

The court also saw footage from March 9, 2016. This is the day that three AK-47-style weapons, which the prosecution says were used during the Regency shooting, were seized by gardaí after stopping a Vauxhall Insignia vehicle in Meath.

Shane Rowan was arrested and charged by gardaí for possession of these weapons, and with membership of the IRA, and subsequently jailed. The court first saw a clip of a man that the prosecution says was Mr Rowan at a petrol station in the Vauxhall Insignia in Ballybofey, Co. Donegal, before midday that day.

A car the prosecution says was the same one is seen just after 3pm, having made it to north county Dublin. Footage of several cars was shown to the court in and around Malahide Road Industrial Estate that afternoon. The court saw the path of these cars through many different parts of the industrial estate between 4.45pm and just before 6.30pm.

Mr Rowan was arrested by gardaí outside Slane later that evening.

Mr Gillane, closing off the day, told the court that the prosecution is “making good progress” in its case, which continues before the three-judge Special Criminal Court.