Ray Kennedy jailed for perverting course of justice

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

Ray Kennedy was sentenced at the Special Criminal Court on 12 July 2021 to four years in prison, with two and a half years suspended, leaving 18 months in custody. Presiding judge Mr Justice Tony Hunt suspended part of the sentence on humanitarian grounds.

Kennedy was found guilty in May 2021 of perverting the course of justice by destroying a mobile-phone SIM card on 6 March 2013 during the Garda investigation into Peter Butterly’s murder. He had pleaded not guilty.

Butterly, a father of three, was shot dead in the car park of the Huntsman Inn at Gormanston, Co Meath, on 6 March 2013. Mr Justice Hunt said Kennedy had arranged to meet Butterly and disposed of the SIM card while waiting to be interviewed by gardaí.

The judge noted that Kennedy had co-operated with the investigation into the destruction of the card and that his daughter had a documented condition. Kennedy’s legal team had requested a fully suspended sentence, but the judge said he could not grant one. Kennedy entered a €100 own-bond agreement to be of good behaviour for two and a half years upon his release from prison.

It was Kennedy’s second trial connected with the murder. In December 2019, after a 36-day trial, the non-jury court directed that he be found not guilty of IRA membership after gardaí refused to release secret material despite a court ruling that it should be disclosed.