A cushion is placed on Hutch’s hard bench in the court
Greying Monk takes the soft option for his murder trial...
IT WAS the most mundane of evidence but it appeared to amuse murder accused Gerry Hutch greatly.
In a long line of ‘civilian’ witnesses, including business owners and householders who provided CCTV evidence to gardaí investigating the murder of David Byrne at the Regency Hotel, a young woman took the stand on Friday morning at the Special Criminal Court.
Under cross-examination by a tetchy defence counsel, the cashier at Donnycarney Credit Union giggled as she attempted to recall when gardaí came in to view the CCTV.
As she laughed, Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch, joined in the joke and chuckled.
Still smiling broadly, his eyes were trained on the young woman as she left the witness box a few minutes later.
It was typical of 59-year-old Hutch’s relaxed demeanour on the fourth day of his trial for the murder of Kinahan associate Byrne at the Regency Hotel in Dublin in February 2016.
The man known as The Monk has spent the last 13 months in custody after his arrest in Spain in September last year.
‘Smiling broadly, his eyes trained on young woman’
Gone is the short black hair and prominent scar familiar from images of him as a younger man. Instead, he now sports a thick head of wavy black and grey hair sitting just above shoulder length. The scar on his chin has faded and his face is ruddy and weather-beaten.
By Friday, he’d ditched the suit jacket he’d worn on the first day of the trial and wore jeans and black leather boots and a faded green sweatshirt straining over a small paunch.
Beside him sat his two co-accused, Jason Bonney and Paul Murphy. All three have pleaded not guilty.
They dressed down with Mr Bonney in jeans, a hoodie and brown leather shoes and Mr Murphy wearing a white T-shirt and jeans and sneakers.
Their casual attire was at odds with the rest of the courtroom where suits and a liberal smattering of bullet-proof vests were the order of the day.
Armed plain-clothes Garda officers mingled with uniformed members, their gaze flitting repeatedly over every person in the packed courtroom.
Outside in the concourse, armed officers strolled watchfully.
The three accused sat together on the short bench, ignoring each other during proceedings. But during breaks they leaned in and spoke intently to each other. They sat on the hard bench for the short sitting of less than an hour-and a-half.
But by afternoon a thin square cushion had been placed on the part of the bench where Hutch sat.
For the most part, he concentrated on flicking through his copy of witness statements, parts of which were marked in pink highlighter pen. He made other marks in the border with his pencil, reading glasses perched at the end of his nose and headphones on, listening intently to the court hearing.
At times he stole quick, glancing looks at the press bench where the crime correspondents who have followed his life and times sat.
On Friday afternoon all three men watched intently as CCTV footage of the movements of a black BMW jeep, from north Co. Dublin to the city centre, on the day of Byrne’s murder were shown.
Prosecuting counsel Seán Gillane said it was the State’s case that Byrne’s murder team escaped and burned out a Ford van before heading for St Vincent’s GAA grounds.
Here, six vehicles were waiting to bring the gunmen away.
The State maintains the black BMW four-wheel drive was driven by Mr Bonney and that a grey Toyota Avensis taxi was driven by Mr Murphy.
The unprecedented security operation in place at the criminal courts could be in place until early in the new year as it is not expected the trial will conclude until then.
On Tuesday, Mr Gillane opened the case with an outline of the evidence. Some of it was already in the public domain, other parts had never been heard before.
The prosecution described how the attack took place shortly before 2.30pm on February 4, 2016, during a boxing weigh-in ahead of the Clash of the Clans event the following day.
Five gunmen, including Kevin Murray and a man dressed as a woman, as well as three men disguised as gardaí, entered the hotel and shot dead Byrne, 33, a father of two, before fleeing.
The attack was ‘performative and targeted’ and it was clear that particular individuals were being looked for, the court heard.
Mr Gillane said the shooting was ‘not indiscriminate’ and had elements of militarism, taking place in the city centre, in the middle of the day in front of crowds.
The court was told it would be apparent the execution-style killing, combined with sophisticated planning and requiring personnel, spoke to the ‘involvement of an organised, resourced group’.
It would be alleged that after this happened, Mr Hutch contacted former Sinn Féin councillor-turnedState’s witness Jonathan Dowdall and arranged to meet him in a park in Whitehall in north Dublin.
Mr Gillane said that during that discussion a ‘worked-up and edgy’ Mr Hutch said ‘they had carried out the murder’ and that ‘he had been one of the team that shot David Byrne in the Regency’.
Dowdall was asked to arrange a meeting with republicans because of an escalation in threats to the accused’s friends and family. On March 7, both men met near Dublin Airport and drove to Strabane, Co. Tyrone, to meet a named republican. The vehicle was bugged and the conversations were recorded.
Many topics were discussed, including the Regency events and the Kinahan group, with recent history and personnel talked about at length, including efforts to make peace or agree a ceasefire.
Mr Hutch said at one point ‘he wasn’t going to show a weak hand looking for peace’ and later added: ‘It’s very hard to get involved where the Kinahans are concerned because it doesn’t work.’
The trial had been due to open earlier this month, but was delayed after co-accused Dowdall admitted facilitating the killing.
On Monday, he and his father Patrick, 65, became the first people to be convicted and sentenced over the Regency Hotel attack. Dowdall Jr was jailed for four years and his father for two years.
He stole quick, glancing looks at the press bench