Jonathan Dowdall says Gerard Hutch was ‘lying’ about not knowing those involved in Regency Hotel attack

Jonathan Dowdall told the Special Criminal Court Gerard Hutch was “lying” when he said that six people involved in the attack on the Regency Hotel did not know each other.

Dowdall said he knew Mr Hutch was involved “because he told me”.

He said Mr Hutch was “lying” to him on March 7th, 2016, when, during a conversation during a drive north, recorded by gardaí, Mr Hutch said the six did not know each other.

The former Sinn Féin councillor, a married father of four with an address at Navan Road in Dublin, concluded his direct evidence on Tuesday in the trial of Mr Hutch (59), last of The Paddocks, Clontarf, Dublin 3, who denies the murder of David Byrne (33) during a boxing weigh-in at the Regency Hotel on February 5th, 2016.

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Dowdall had been a co-accused of Mr Hutch on the murder charge but that charge was dropped last October after Dowdall, and his father Patrick, pleaded guilty to a charge of facilitating the Regency attack by the booking of a room in the hotel the evening before. Dowdall was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment last October for that offence.

Arising from his willingness to testify in the trial of Mr Hutch, the court has been told he continues to be assessed for the State’s witness security programme.

In direct evidence on Monday, Dowdall said he had met Mr Hutch in a Dublin park a few days after the Regency attack. He said Mr Hutch was “in a panic” and had told him he was upset about Mr Byrne being killed. Asked by prosecuting counsel Seán Gillane SC if Mr Hutch had said who had shot Mr Byrne, Dowdall replied: “He said it was him and Mago Gately.”

On Tuesday, he was asked about exchanges with Mr Hutch during their drive north on March 7th 2016. The court has been told the two travelled to meet dissident republicans with a view to having them mediate the Hutch/Kinahan feud.

Dowdall said Mr Hutch, during part of the conversation about six people involved in the Regency shooting, was “lying to me that they don’t know each other”. Dowdall said, when he saw the book of evidence in the case, he saw that they “are all family members and his friends”.

“It’s clear he’s telling me he doesn’t know but they all know each other.”

He said: “I knew Gerard was involved cos he told me, I knew Patsy was involved.”

He said he did not know Kevin ‘Flatcap’ Murray, a deceased dissident republican whom the prosecution contend was one of the six attackers. The court has been told CCTV evidence showed Murray entering, on the evening of February 4th 2016, a hotel room which Dowdall says his father was asked by Patsy Hutch to book for “a friend”. Dowdall said he did not know Murray was in the hotel room until the police told him.

He said references to “yokes” during the conversation with Mr Hutch was to three guns, AK-47s, used in the Regency attack.

Mr Hutch’s two co-accused – Paul Murphy (61), of Cherry Avenue, Swords, Co Dublin, and Jason Bonney (50), of Drumnigh Wood, Portmarnock, Dublin 13 – have denied charges of participating in or contributing to the murder of David Byrne by providing access to motor vehicles on February 5th, 2016.