Hutch/Kinahan feud wasn't started by 'The Monk' or Kinahans, Dowdall tells court

Jonathan Dowdall also told the court that Gerard Hutch lied to him during a conversation that was secretly recorded

Amid heightened security arrangements at the Criminal Courts of Justice on Tuesday, Jonathan Dowdall gave evidence for a second day in the trial of Gerry Hutch. Picture: Collins Courts

Ex-Sinn Féin councillor Jonathan Dowdall, a former co-accused of Gerard 'The Monk' Hutch who has turned State's witness, has told the Special Criminal Court that it was neither the Kinahans nor the accused man who "started the shooting" in the Hutch/Kinahan feud.

Dowdall, the key witness in the Regency Hotel murder trial who has pleaded guilty to facilitating Kinahan Cartel member David Byrne's murder, told the trial on Tuesday that he agreed to help by approaching republicans in Northern Ireland to mediate in the dispute. 

At the time, he said he thought that the Kinahans "wrongfully believed" that Gary Hutch [Gerard Hutch's nephew through his older brother Patsy] was involved in trying to kill Daniel Kinahan and that the Kinahans were also blaming Patrick Hutch, who is Gary's younger brother. Dowdall said he believed "innocent people were trying to be killed" and wouldn't have gotten involved if he had known the truth. 

He added: "Gerard didn't start it. It was Patsy's sons that started the shooting. It wasn't even the Kinahans."

Dowdall also told the court that Gerard Hutch lied to him during a conversation that was secretly recorded by members of the National Surveillance Unit on March 7, 2016, about one month after the Regency shooting.

Prosecution counsel Sean Gillane SC today played clips from the 10 hours of an audio recording of conversations between Gerard Hutch and Dowdall while they were travelling north to a meeting in Strabane in Co. Tyrone on March 7, 2016, in Dowdall's Toyota Land Cruiser jeep, that had been bugged by garda detectives. 

Mr Gillane asked the witness to explain parts of what was said in the recorded conversations. Dowdall said that in one extract he was speaking to Gerard Hutch about things that were written in the newspapers about the Byrne murder and that Mr Hutch told him that the six people involved in the shooting didn't know one another.

He added: 

He's lying to me saying they don't know each other. I believed they didn't know each other until people were charged and I seen the book of evidence. They are all family members and they are all his friends. 

"I know connections to most of them. It is clear, he is telling me they don't know each other but they all know each other."

In the recorded conversation, Dowdall is heard saying that the newspapers don't have a "fuckin clue about the Regency". Dowdall says: "I don't think the police know what is being portrayed in the paper but they're saying we know who the six people are". Gerard Hutch then says "they don't know" and that "sure the fuckin six people don't even know" and that "no one fuckin knows". 

Gerard Hutch said that "the people that were there themselves don't fuckin know" and that it was "all speculation" looking at "the snaps" apart from "the man and woman". He added: "The cops are going around like headless chickens" and that "loads of fuck-ups have after been made".

Amid heightened security arrangements at the Criminal Courts of Justice on Tuesday on Parkgate Street in Dublin, Dowdall gave evidence for a second day in the trial of Mr Hutch (59), last of The Paddocks, Clontarf, Dublin 3, who denies the murder of Kinahan Cartel member David Byrne (33) during a boxing weigh-in at the Regency Hotel on February 5, 2016.

Dowdall, who was wearing a navy suit and a light shirt, was brought into court by two gardaí and three prison officers through what would ordinarily be the jury entrance rather than the cells or public entrance. Facing the three accused men, who are sitting together in the dock of the non-jury court, Dowdall listened to various clips from the covert recordings of the conversation between himself and Mr Hutch. 

'The three yokes'

Asked by Mr Gillane what is meant by his reference to "the three yokes", Dowdall said "that was the three guns, the three AK-47s". He said Mr Hutch had told him earlier that day that he had given the guns to the Republicans they had met with in Northern Ireland that day.

In the audio recording, accused man Gerard Hutch was heard telling Dowdall that "these three yokes we're throwin them up to them either way", in what the prosecution has said is a reference to giving the three assault rifles used in the Regency Hotel attack to Republicans in the North.

Gerard Hutch could also be heard saying in the audio: "There's a present them three yokes" and that he wanted "to throw them up there to them as a present". The accused also said he had to "push him" to get "them outta the village".

'The village'

Mr Gillane put it to Dowdall on Tuesday that he made reference in the audio recording to the "village" and asked him what he meant by this. Dowdall replied: "Patsy had come up to me a number of times and the thing about the CCTV was in other parts of the transcripts, repeating what Patsy told me about the CCTV. This is what Patsy told me".

The witness continued: "I was told the van that was used was parked at Buckingham Village and he [Patsy] got rid of the CCTV because of that reason. Some woman was supposed to have got rid of the CCTV, don't know who she is, he [Patsy] told me at the time he got rid of the CCTV cause he drove the van."

Dowdall confirmed to counsel that the word "village' in the audio meant Buckingham Village.

Former Sinn Féin councillor Jonathan Dowdall (pictured) was brought into court by two gardaí and three prison officers through what would ordinarily be the jury entrance rather than the cells or public entrance. File picture

The trial has heard it was outlined in a warrant that gardaí believed a Ford Transit van was used to transport the Regency assailants to and from the hotel, that this van was stored at a car park at Buckingham Village in Dublin's north inner city prior to the murder and that the keys for the Ford Transit van were left with a woman for collection.

The trial has also heard that gardaí who obtained a search warrant for the home of Patrick Hutch Senior at Champions Avenue in Dublin 1 observed a key for a Ford vehicle on a key rack in the hallway of the house but did not recover it.

Sadie Byrne and James 'Jaws' Byrne were in court to hear the man who facilitated the murder of their son David testify for the State.

The trial continues this afternoon before presiding judge Ms Justice Tara Burns sitting with Judge Sarah Berkeley and Judge Grainne Malone.