Person who pursued two attackers recognised one as Jonathan Keogh, court told

An individual who pursued two attackers involved in the fatal shooting of Gareth Hutch recognised one of the men as murder accused Jonathan Keogh, his trial has heard.

Mr Hutch (36), nephew of Gerry "the Monk" Hutch, was shot dead as he was getting into his car outside Avondale House flats on North Cumberland Street in Dublin on the morning of May 24th, 2016.

Mr Keogh and his sister as well as another man, all from Dublin 1, are on trial at the non-jury, three-judge court accused of murdering Mr Hutch.

Thomas Fox (31) with an address at Rutland Court, Regina Keogh (41) from of Avondale House, and Jonathan Keogh (32) of Gloucester Place, have pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr Hutch.

Mr Fox has also denied unlawfully possessing a Makarov 9mm handgun on May 23rd, 2016 at the same place.

Det Sgt Enda O’Sullivan told prosecution counsel Paul Burns SC that gardaí ­ received confidential information from a “named individual” who pursued the two attackers and recognised one of them as Jonathan Keogh. As a result, Det Sgt O’Sullivan obtained a search warrant to search a house at Upper Sean McDermott Street, the home of Mr Keogh’s father.

The warrant was executed at 3.30pm on May 24th – the day of the shooting. Det Sgt O'Sullivan said that a Samsung Galaxy box and a Meteor SIM pack were found in the kitchen of the house at Upper Sean McDermott Street and a second Meteor SIM pack was found inside the kitchen door.

Defence barrister Sean Guerin, for Mr Keogh, argued there was no evidential basis for the warrant to search Mr Keogh’s home but the three-judge court ruled the warrant was valid.

The court heard Regina Keogh arrived at her father’s house when gardaí ­ were there. A search of Ms Keogh’s flat was conducted later that day but nothing was recovered.

Det Sgt O’Sullivan said he was able to view further CCTV footage from Avondale House on May 25th where he observed two of the suspects going towards Mary McDonnell’s flat. He was later granted a warrant to search her flat.

The prosecution contend that the evidence of Ms McDonnell is “important” as the three accused used her home “as a base” to wait for Mr Hutch in the hours prior to the attack. Her kitchen window had a view into Mr Hutch’s flat.

In his evidence, Garda Damien Murphy said he was part of a team of gardaí­ who obtained a search warrant for Ms McDonnell's flat. He said that as he came into the flats complex he saw Ms McDonnell putting a black bag into a bin.

He went over to the bin and retrieved this bag, which contained cigarette butts, as well as baby wipes and white plastic or surgical gloves. Gda Murphy said he also retrieved a pack of Huggies baby wipes from the kitchen of McDonnell’s flat.

In his opening speech, Mr Burns said it was the State’s case that Ms McDonnell gave the two shooters wipes to clean down their weapons as well as plastic bags to put the guns into prior to the shooting.

Gda Murphy said that he returned to the flat on May 28th and retrieved a pink dressing gown from the main bedroom, as well as a number of latex gloves, which were inside it.

The court previously heard that it was in the course of gardaí searching Ms McDonnell’s flat that she began to talk to gardaí by way of a voluntary conversation. She was later arrested on suspicion of murdering Mr Hutch and was ultimately charged with withholding information, but that charge was subsequently withdrawn. On May 8th this year she was provided with a letter of immunity.

The trial continues on Monday before Mr Justice Tony Hunt, presiding, sitting with Judge Patricia Ryan and Judge Michael Walsh.