MAKE SURE TO KEEP IN HUTCH...

Armed robber says he had mobile phone in his Wheatfield cell to call Pieta House

A SENIOR member of the Hutch crime gang has been given an additional one month in prison after he was caught with a mobile phone behind bars.

Keith Murtagh was handed down the sentence on Friday after he told Blanchardstown District Court he had the phone in his possession for the purposes of contacting Pieta House as he was struggling with his mental health in prison.

Murtagh (39), formerly of Mariner’s Port, Sheriff St, Dublin and currently residing at Wheatfield Prison, was charged with the offences arising from a search carried out by officers in the prison on May 23 last year.

FEUD

The charges of possession of a telecommunications device without the permission of the governor of the prison is contrary to Section 36 of the Prisons Act 2007.

The offence carries a maximum sentence of 12 months in prison at District Court level.

Murtagh, the court heard, has two previous convictions for possession of a mobile phone in prison.

The court heard Murtagh, who is serving a sentence for armed robbery, is currently doing well in prison and is raising money for Temple Street Children’s Hospital.

A sentence of one month was added to his existing jail time.

A senior member of the Hutch gang, Murtagh survived several attempts on his life linked to the Hutch-Kinahan feud.

In November 2019, he was jailed for 12 years for his role in the armed robbery of a Dublin post office.

He had pleaded not guilty to robbery at the Roebuck Post Office at Farmhill Road, Goatstown, Dublin, on January 5, 2016.

SHOTGUN

Murtagh had also pleaded not guilty to possession of a shotgun and possession of a shotgun cartridge on the same date.

After a 10-day trial, held the previous July, at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, a jury returned unanimous guilty verdicts on all charges.

Passing sentence for the offence, Judge Melanie Greally said the case was aggravated by the premeditated nature of the incident, during which a firearm was discharged.

She noted that Murtagh had a previous conviction for a similar type of offence.

The judge said she gave the accused credit for meeting gardai voluntarily and giving them a DNA sample, his difficult childhood, the fact that he was a young man making the best of his situation in prison and that he runs for charitable causes.

She sentenced Murtagh to 12 years’ imprisonment, which she backdated to the date he first went into custody in November 2017.

At an earlier sentence hearing, Det Garda Lisa McHugh told

Dean Kelly, prosecuting, that on the date in question, two men entered the post office, one armed with a handgun and one with a shotgun.

She said the man with the handgun ordered people to get on the ground while the other man discharged two shotgun blasts into the glass partition.

This man then climbed over the desk into the back of the post office.

A total of €2,754 was stolen from there and €420 from the tills of a food shop on the same premises.

At that time, Murtagh had 42 previous convictions, including convictions for attempted robbery and unlawful possession of a firearm relating to an attempted robbery of a cash-intransit van in Lucan on May 15, 2009.

EVIDENCE

Garnet Orange, defending, asked the court to have regard for the fact that his client had spent most of his life in prison.

He said Murtagh had done a number of mini marathons while in custody to raise money for good causes.

Mr Orange said his client accepted there was evidence before the jury that entitled it to come to its verdict, but he maintained his innocence.

Murtagh had been blamed by the Kinahans for involvement in the Regency Hotel shooting murder of David Byrne.

However, Murtagh’s involvement has been strenuously denied by his family, and gardai have not