Gerard Hutch denies murder as Regency trial hears tracker found

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

Gerard Hutch’s murder trial at the Special Criminal Court was adjourned until 2pm on 21 November 2022, after prosecutors said a working copy of tracker records had been found.

Prosecutor Sean Gillane SC said the Garda National Cyber Crime Bureau found the copy on a securely stored desktop computer that had been listed for destruction. The records came from a tracker deployed on Jonathan Dowdall’s jeep.

Gillane said the copy was available for examination and that he hoped to provide the defence with more information later that morning. He said the discovery had been confirmed to him on 20 November 2022.

Hutch’s defence counsel, Brendan Grehan SC, asked the three-judge court for time to decide how to proceed. Assistant Commissioner Orla McPartlin had been expected to give evidence, but Gillane said he was not ready to call her.

The previous week, the defence had raised concerns about the destruction of the tracker records. Retired Detective Inspector Ciaran Hoey had testified that he ordered their destruction under a review of older National Surveillance Unit data, and that he did not believe they would be used in the prosecution.

Hutch denied murdering David Byrne, who was killed at the Regency Hotel in Dublin on 5 February 2016. The prosecution alleged Dowdall drove Hutch north for a meeting with republicans after the shooting; the tracker records were recovered during the trial.