Patrick Hutch pleads not guilty to Regency murder charges

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

Patrick Hutch has pleaded not guilty to murder and related firearms charges at the Special Criminal Court, in a report published on 23 January 2018. The charges relate to David Byrne’s death at Dublin’s Regency Hotel on 5 February 2016.

The prosecution said two gardaí identified Mr Hutch as a man dressed as a woman in a photograph taken at the hotel. It rejected a suggestion that the detectives went to Ballymun Garda Station intending to identify a member of the Hutch family.

The defence challenged the reliability and admissibility of the identification evidence, including similarities between the detectives’ statements and missing records. The prosecution accepted that excluding the identification evidence would end the case against Mr Hutch.

The three judges were due to give their ruling on 2 February.