Court admits recordings sought by prosecution in Gerard Hutch trial

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

The Special Criminal Court admitted recordings of conversations between Gerard Hutch and Jonathan Dowdall in Hutch’s murder trial on 2 December 2022. The prosecution sought to use the recordings; the defence had applied to exclude all or most of them.

Presiding judge Ms Justice Tara Burns delivered the three-judge court’s ruling. The court found that gardaí had no power to gather evidence in Northern Ireland, but admitted the conversations in the interests of justice. It was satisfied that the surveillance officers had acted in good faith and did not know their actions were illegal at the time.

The judges rejected the defence challenge to the authorisation of the device but accepted that its operation outside the State was illegal. The court also found no breach of Hutch’s constitutional right to privacy.

Hutch has pleaded not guilty to murdering David Byrne, who was shot at the Regency Hotel in Dublin on 5 February 2016. His co-accused, Paul Murphy and Jason Bonney, have pleaded not guilty to participating in or contributing to the murder by providing access to motor vehicles on that date.

Dowdall pleaded guilty before the trial to facilitating the Hutch gang by making a hotel room available ahead of the murder. The Special Criminal Court sentenced him to four years in prison. The proceedings were reported on 2 December 2022.