THE MONK ...AND THE MINISTER
As gardaí prepare for Edward Hutch’s funeral today, the picture that proves just how easily his criminal brother moved among society, despite his notoriety
THIS is the extraordinary picture which shows just how easily criminal Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch has been able to move among polite society – including politicians and charity workers – despite his notorious past.
As The Monk today prepares to bury his brother Edward, victim of a savage feud between the Hutch family and the Kinahan crime gang, the extraordinary image shows the extent to which criminal figures have been allowed to be part of ordinary life.
In this image, Hutch is seen chatting to Drugs Minister Aodhán Ó Ríordáin at a charity boxing event in 2010 when the Labour TD was a councillor.
The event was attended by a number of rising political stars including General Election candidates Averil Power and Cian O’Callaghan of the Social Democrats.
The Labour Party said yesterday in a statement that Mr Ó Ríordáin had merely ‘exchanged pleasantries’ with Hutch ‘but that is the entire extent of his interaction with the individual’.
Mr O’Callaghan says he did not meet The Monk while Ms Power said she was not even aware he was there. The
Monk’s son Jason Hutch was fighting in the charity bout, which is why the notorious criminal was present.
The fact that a boxing event was a comfortable environment for a gangland figure is worrying in the context of the bloodbath at the Regency Hotel a fortnight ago which saw the Hutch/Kinahan feud explode into the public consciousness.
Hutch is regarded as one of the country’s most notorious criminals but insists he has never sold drugs.
Nicknamed ‘The Monk’ in his early criminal years, he was regarded as the main mover behind the robbery in 1987 of £1.7million from a Securicor van in Marino, north Dublin. He is also considered the prime suspect for the Brinks Allied depot robbery in Clonshaugh, north Dublin, in which £3million was stolen in 1995.
When the Criminal Assets Bureau began operating in 1997 following the brutal murder of journalist Veronica Guerin, Hutch was one of the bureau’s first targets.
By 1999 the case against him had reached the courts. In evidence before the High Court, CAB had claimed that Hutch was the leader of a criminal gang as it investigated the whereabouts of more than £4million – which it suspected was the proceeds of his criminal activities.
The Monk became one of the most notorious criminals in the country as a result of the case. However in a 2008 TV interview, he denied any involvement in the robberies and said that the ‘multimillion settlement’ he eventually reached with CAB related to tax problems rather than crime.
His denials were, however, treated with a enormous scepticism by gardaí and most of the public.
The fact that ten years on, his family are now involved in a bloodsoaked feud with a major international drugs gang will only lend further weight to those concerns.
Indeed only last week Hutch told a Sunday newspaper that he was involved in attempting to mediate a settlement in the gang war.
In 2010, however, The Monk was clearly able to enjoy a leisurely night at the charity boxing match being attended by a number of rising political stars. Hundreds of spectators paid as much as €75 each to watch the ‘white collar’ charity event, which included an array of politicians from Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Labour and Green Party councillors fighting it out for charity in Santry’s Crowne Plaza Hotel in Dublin.
Minister Ó Ríordáin knocked Fianna Fáil man Eoghan O’Brien to the canvas on the night in question.
Last week the Mail was given the photograph of Hutch talking to Mr Ó Ríordáin. When approached by the Irish Daily Mail yesterday, Minister Ó Ríordáin declined to respond several times when asked about meeting with Hutch in 2010.
A Labour spokesman told the Mail: ‘The Minister was at an event, a charity boxing event and Gerry Hutch was there. That’s clear.
‘Gerry Hutch’s son was part of the boxing match in which Aodhán Ó Ríordáin participated... I understand the Minister exchanged “pleasantries” with Mr Hutch but that is the entire extent of his interaction.’
Mr Ó Ríordáin himself is a former teacher in an inner- city school, where he would have seen first-hand the devastating effect of drugs on inner-city communities. This experience is thought to have heavily influenced his liberal approach to the drugs problem and his aim to decriminalise some substances.
Following the Regency Hotel shootings, in which Kinahan gang member David Byrne was killed, Mr Ó Ríordáin posted tweets that stirred up controversy. He tweeted: ‘70% of drug convictions are for possession for personal use. Garda time must be freed up to tackle drug gangs rather than their victims.’
Renua leader Lucinda Creighton said: ‘Minister Aodhán Ó Ríordáin’s suggestion that legalising drugs would have prevented the gangland killings in Dublin over the past few days demonstrates how far removed the Labour Party is from communities plagued by gangland crime.’
‘That is the extent of the interaction’