SENSELESS
Victim’s mother tells court of heartache after Kinahan feud shooting horror
A GRIEVING mother told a court yesterday about the horror of the “senseless” Kinahan-hutch feud.
Vera Hutch spoke out in a victim impact statement as the three people who murdered her son were sentenced.
She said: “We struggle every day as a family and can’t comprehend why this happened.
“There are many times I have even wished that I had died that morning with Gareth.”
As this was read out in the Special Criminal Court, INLA man Jonathan Keogh – who was hired for the killing – shouted: “What about everyone else’s families... F***ing b ****** s, rats.”
Hutch was shot as he got into his car outside his Dublin home. Keogh, 33, was found guilty along with his sister Regina, a mum of five, and Thomas Fox.
INLA terrorist Jonathan Keogh shot dead Gareth Hutch as a Kinahan-hired gun for money, the Irish Mirror can reveal.
He was convicted yesterday of the gangland feud slaying along with his sister Regina – who is a mother of five – and Thomas Fox.
The murder shocked the nation after it was captured on CCTV and the victim – a nephew of Gerry “The Monk” Hutch – was seen being blasted four times as he went to his car outside his Dublin home in 2016.
A source said: “Keogh was hired by the Kinahan clan to carry out the murder and it was just for the cash.
“He had been a member of the INLA and, in keeping with that gang, he is known as a callous killer and had placed himself in a position to carry out murders for hire.”
Keogh was found guilty by a threejudge panel at the Special Criminal Court of pulling the trigger with a second unidentified man.
His 41-year-old sister was found guilty due to her involvement in the organisation of the murder. Fox, 31, was also convicted of unlawful possession of a Makorov 9mm handgun.
SHOCKED
The victim’s heartbroken mother told of her daily struggle in a victim impact statement read out in court yesterday by Gda Eoin Treacy.
But this was interrupted by Keogh of Gloucester Place, central Dublin, shouting: “What about everyone else’s families?
“What about all the other families, sorry judge. F ***** g b ***** s, rats.”
Keogh was a member of the INLA with his brother Michael who was murdered in the feud a year after Hutch was slain.
The 37-year-old was shot dead in the early hours of the morning on May 31, 2017, as he sat in his car in an underground car park of the flat complex where he lived in Dublin’s north inner city.
Jonathan Keogh had used his republican connections to flee the country after Hutch was murdered on May 24, 2016, at the Avondale House flats complex on North Cumberland Street in Dublin.
He was hiding in the North and in the Britain and murder investigators from the Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau had liaised with their counterparts in the UK National Crime Agency who were monitoring the killer’s movements.
A source added: “Once gardai had a European Arrest warrant they moved in on him in June 2017.
“He was then taken from Britain and repatriated via Casement Aerodrome at Baldonnel.
“The EAW was critical to this case and he was arrested almost instantly and brought home – the interaction with British police was exceptional.” Mr Justice Tony Hunt, presiding, found the three guilty of the “deliberate and callous murder”.
The court found Keogh fired the fatal shots in a “cold-blooded manner”.
It also said he “had a hand in almost every aspect” of the planning of the murder.
The non-jury court found Fox, of Rutland Court, central Dublin, made a “probable” contribution to Hutch’s murder.
The judges said he was a subordinate of Jonathan Keogh and acted under his general influence and direction. Regina Keogh, of Avondale House, Cumberland Street North, Dublin, ”colluded” with her brother to cause serious injury to the victim and was guilty of murder due to her involvement with her brother’s affairs.
The court said the attack on fatherof-one Hutch was not a “spontaneous murder or reactive killing”.
He suffered two bullet wounds to the back of the neck, one to the lower back and one to the right of the upper chest.
Mr Justice Tony Hunt, sitting with Judge Patricia Ryan and Judge Michael Walsh, spent eight hours over two days reviewing the evidence that had been presented to the court.
There was a heavy presence from the Garda Public Order Unit in the court as yesterday’s verdicts were delivered.
Following their convictions, the three defendants returned to court 15 minutes later to be sentenced to the mandatory term of life imprisonment, backdated to when they each first went into custody.
A victim impact statement from Mr Hutch’s mother Vera Hutch was read to the court and she told how her world had been changed forever since the death of her son. The statement said that for more than 35 years she had the privilege and honour of being the victim’s mother before he was “senselessly and cruelly taken from” them.
Mrs Hutch said: “It has been almost two and a half years since Gareth was taken from us and it still haunts me every day.
“It hurts emotionally and mentally just to get out of the bed in the morning. I can’t sleep most nights without nightmares of the horrific morning on May 24, 2016.”
Her statement explained the pain
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»»Terrorist’s sister and another man convicted
her family has suffered is “unbearable” and they will never get over it.
She added: “We struggle everyday as a family and can’t comprehend why this happened.
“There are many times I have even wished that I had died that morning with Gareth.”
Mrs Hutch said she had to remind herself that her family and grandchildren need her but they no longer feel safe and his death has destroyed their family.
She added: “We will never get to see Gareth again, never get to see him smile or laugh which was contagious once you heard him. You have taken away my will to live, you have broken my spirit.
“Not only did you take away my son, you have taken away a brother, uncle, friend, and most of all a daddy.
“I feel an enormous amount of sadness that his son loses out on having a daddy at the most critical time in his life. “Gareth was denied the opportunity of watching his son grow up, he will never get to bring him to his first football game.
“Now I ask the court to consider the magnitude and impact of this crime on my family and his son.i realise you have the final say, but considering the violent and callous nature of this crime and the little value of life, a maximum sentence should be served.
“Any time incarcerated is nothing compared to what my family will experience for a lifetime.”
The Kinahan-hutch feud began with the double-cross murder of Gary Hutch in Spain in September 2015 before the killing moved to Dublin with the shooting of David Byrne at a boxing weigh-in at the Regency Hotel in February 2016.