Courts

Ten hours of recorded conversation between Hutch and Dowdall to be heard by court

Non-jury court will listen to audio and rule on defence’s argument that majority of recordings took place outside State

Defence contends that much the ten hours of conversation featuring Gerard Hutch (pictured) and Jonathan Dowdall took place outside the State. Photograph: Reuters

Alison O'Riordan
Thu Nov 17 2022 - 16:50

Judges at the Special Criminal Court have ruled that they will listen to ten hours of conversations between murder accused Gerard ‘The Monk’ Hutch and ex-Sinn Fein Councillor Jonathan Dowdall that were captured by gardaí, despite Dowdall’s bugged jeep having been outside of the State during the majority of the recordings.

Mr Hutch’s defence lawyer Brendan Grehan SC submitted today that his team’s “core argument” would be that gardaí were aware that Dowdall’s Toyota Land Cruiser was outside the jurisdiction for eight of the ten hours of those recordings from March 7, 2016 and that the evidence harvested from that “illicit fruit” should be excluded from the trial.

The non-jury court will rule on the extraterritoriality issue raised about the audio recordings once it has finished listening to the ten hours.

Prosecuting counsel Sean Gillane SC described the recordings as “part of the core” of the State’s case.

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Mr Hutch (59), last of The Paddocks, Clontarf, Dublin 3, denies the murder of Kinahan cartel member David Byrne (33) during a boxing weigh-in at the Regency Hotel on February 5th, 2016.

The prosecution case is that Mr Hutch had asked Dowdall to arrange a meeting with provisional republicans to mediate or resolve the Hutch-Kinahan feud due to the threats against the accused’s family and friends. Dowdall had driven Gerard Hutch to meet the republicans on February 20th, 2016, Mr Gillane told the court. Evidence has been given that a tracking device was on Dowdall’s jeep when it travelled north on February 20.

The State also said in their opening speech that Dowdall drove Gerard Hutch north to a second meeting in Strabane in Co Tyrone on March 7th 2016 and that the vehicle was the subject of audio surveillance. Mr Gillane said Dowdall and Mr Hutch’s conversation was recorded and “many topics were traversed” including events at the Regency, the existence of the feud with the Kinahan Organised Crime Group, the personnel and “efforts to make peace or agree a ceasefire”.

The Special Criminal Court has already viewed CCTV footage of what the State says is Mr Hutch making two separate journeys to Northern Ireland with Jonathan Dowdall on the dates in question.

Mr Grehan said that the audio from March 7th was approximately ten hours long, covering a timespan from approximately 2.20pm in the afternoon to approximately the same time after midnight.

He said it would be the defence’s contention that the first part of the audio covers the time period up to 3.10pm on March 7th when Mr Hutch is the front seat passenger in Dowdall’s Land Cruiser, which crosses the border on the M1 at the Carrickdale Hotel in Dundalk, Co Louth.

“From that point on, for approximately the next eight hours, the jeep is in Northern Ireland, outside this jurisdiction and any material garnered at that stage is outside the remit of the Criminal Justice Surveillance Act 2009 and the remit of gardaí and the NSU,” he outlined.

After rising for a few minutes, presiding judge Ms Justice Tara Burns said in light of the fact that Mr Grehan was not “fully objecting” to the matter it was preferable to hear the audio recording “in one go rather than breaking it up”. She ruled that the court would deal with it “as a block” rather than separating matters.

The court also heard from Garda National Surveillance Unit Member AQ, who cannot be identified by order and confirmed to Mr Gillane that he deployed a surveillance device on Dowdall’s Land Cruiser on a date after February 17th, 2016, which was “to capture conversations exclusively” within the vehicle. The device was retrieved before May 14th that year, he said.

Under cross-examination, Member AQ agreed with Mr Grehan that he had deployed the audio device by placing it into the car.

The officer said the device had no capability of being listened to “live”. Once the device was deployed, at certain stages it was downloaded and then uploaded on to the system in his office.

Member AQ told Mr Grehan that he had also put the tracker device on the Land Cruiser. He said a tracking device was deployed outside the vehicle, which tracked the movements of the jeep in live time, and inside was the audio device.

Member AQ said the audio device cannot be interfered with as it is password protected and once it is uploaded only the name of the file can be changed.

Mr Dowdall (44), a married father of four with an address at Navan Road, Cabra, Dublin 7 – was due to stand trial for Mr Byrne’s murder alongside Gerard Hutch but pleaded guilty in advance of the trial to a lesser charge of facilitating the Hutch gang by making a hotel room available in advance of the murder.

Mr Hutch’s two co-accused – Paul Murphy (59), of Cherry Avenue, Swords, Co Dublin and Jason Bonney (50), of Drumnigh Wood, Portmarnock, Dublin 13 have pleaded not guilty to participating in or contributing to the murder of David Byrne by providing access to motor vehicles on February 5th, 2016.

The trial continues on Monday before Ms Justice Burns sitting with Judge Sarah Berkeley and Judge Grainne Malone.

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