Gerard Hutch trial: Jonathan Dowdall 'had a history of lying', court hears

Former Sinn Féin councillor Jonathan Dowdall has said he is ashamed of some of the things he said to Gerard Hutch in secret garda (police) recordings of conversations between the two men.

Mr Hutch is on trial for murdering David Byrne, 33, at Dublin’s Regency Airport Hotel in 2016.

Dowdall was due to stand trial for the same offence, but pleaded guilty to the lesser offence of facilitating murder.

Mr Hutch from the Paddocks, Clontarf, denies the murder charge.

The three-judge non-jury court has been listening again to the secret recordings.

A recording device was planted in Dowdall’s jeep which recorded around 10 hours of conversation between the pair.

Some of the clips were played to the court on Tuesday, and Dowdall was asked to explain the contents of the conversation.

In the tapes Gerard Hutch says: “I want these three yokes out of here.”

In evidence on Tuesday, Dowdall says that is a reference to three AK-47 weapons.

Dowdall described some of what he said in the recordings as “crap talk”.

In a tape played to the court, Dowdall questions Gerard Hutch about a meeting he had with dissident republicans about handing over the “yokes” to them.

He asks whether Mr Hutch told the dissident republicans the Hutches were involved in the Regency Airport Hotel attack.

Mr Hutch replied that he did not.

Dowdall was jailed for four years after admitting to facilitating the killing by renting a room at the hotel.

The court was previously told that the murder of Mr Byrne during a boxing weigh-in at the Regency Airport Hotel was carried out as part of a feud between the Hutch and Kinahan crime gangs.

It was the second killing in the Hutch-Kinahan feud that has claimed at least 18 lives.

In evidence on Tuesday, Dowdall said the sons of Gerard Hutch’s brother, Patsy, “started it. It wasn’t Gerard”.

In the recordings Gerard Hutch said gardai “are running around like headless chickens”.

He added that the six men involved in the murder do not know each other.

But on Tuesday in evidence, Dowdall said he believes that was not true after reading who had been charged.

On Monday, Dowdall said Gerard Hutch told him that he had shot dead Mr Byrne alongside another man referred to in court as Mago Gateley and that he was upset and not happy about it.

The court has been listening to conversations between the two men about their attempts to get dissident republicans to mediate in the dispute.

Lawyers for Mr Hutch, 59, had previously argued at the Special Criminal Court in Dublin that Dowdall’s willingness to give evidence against their client was a quid pro quo for having the murder charges dropped.

The presiding judge in the court, Ms Justice Tara Burns, rejected that argument.

Dowdall has agreed to take part in the Irish witness protection programme in order to give evidence at the trial.