‘He ran fast and he seemed panicked’
Woman tells trial she saw man accused of murder
A MAN accused of murder looked ‘panicked’ as he ran up a street on the morning Gareth Hutch was shot dead, a witness told the Special Criminal Court.
The man, Jonathan Keogh, is one of three defendants accused of murdering Mr Hutch, 36, who is nephew of Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch.
The prosecution say Mr Keogh was one of two gunmen, together with another man, who directed the attack which killed Mr Hutch on May 24, 2016, in Dublin.
In evidence yesterday witness Colette Geoghegan told the court she left her house at 9.50am that day with her partner, Maurice Farrell.They were walking down Summerhill when they saw Mr Keogh, whom she knew. ‘He was running fast enough, he seemed panicked ,’ she said.
When Ms Geoghegan got to her destination, she heard there had been a shooting.
She listened to the news when she returned home and went to see a friend, she said.
Later, this friend produced an envelope with money inside. ‘There was quite a large amount of 50 pound notes,’ she said.
Ms Geoghegan said she minded her friend’s children that night for the first time. The next day her friend called her from a number she did not recognise, the court heard.
Maurice Farrell told the court Ms Geoghegan had a friend who was Mr Keogh’s partner at the time and he would see the accused ‘coming and going’ in the area.
Another witness, Jim Holmes, yesterday told the court that he was also walking in the direction of Gardiner Street at 9.50am on the morning when he saw two men running in the centre of the road. One wore a balaclava, which looked ‘suspicious’, so he rang 999.
State pathologist Marie Cassidy’s post-mortem report was read out in court.
In it she said Mr Hutch died as a result of gunshot injuries.
He suffered four such injuries: two to the back of the neck, one to the lower back and one to the right of the upper chest.
The court heard evidence from Garda Jack Costigan, who said that when he arrived at the scene Ross Hutch, Gareth’s cousin, approached him in an ‘erratic manner’ and asked him what had taken him so long to get there.
Garda Jason Walsh said there was a large crowd in the car park ‘roaring and shouting’. The officer said he recognised Ross Hutch and asked who was on the ground and was told: ‘You f ****** know who it is. Do your job.’
A statement by John Hutch, father of the dead man, was also read out in court. In it he said he identified his son’s body to Detective Fergal O’Flaherty at 12.53pm on May 24. The court previously heard John Hutch arrived to Avondale House on a moped that morning and saw his son’s body on the ground.
Thomas Fox, 31, with an address at Rutland Court; Regina Keogh, 41, from Avondale House, Cumberland Street North; and Mr Keogh, 32, of Gloucester Place, all Dublin 1, have pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr Hutch outside Avondale House.
Mr Fox has also denied unlawfully possessing a handgun.
The trial continues.
Dead man nephew of Gerry Hutch