Three men plead not guilty in Peter Butterly murder trial

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

Edward McGrath, Dean Evans and Sharif Kelly have pleaded not guilty to murdering Peter Butterly at the Special Criminal Court. The proceedings were reported on 21 October 2014.

Peter Butterly was shot dead in the Huntsman Inn car park in Gormanston, Co Meath, on 6 March 2013. Dean Evans and Edward McGrath have also pleaded not guilty to firearm offences. Those charges concern the same location and date.

The court heard that gardaí sought judicial approval to use a tracking device on a Toyota Corolla seen entering the Huntsman Inn shortly before the shooting. Prosecuting counsel Alex Owens SC said gardaí were seeking the court's protection over how the device was deployed.

Much of the proceedings concerned applications to disclose previously redacted material relating to garda surveillance and information David Cullen had provided to gardaí.

The report said that, the previous Thursday, the court had ordered the professional names and addresses of eleven National Surveillance Unit garda witnesses to be provided to the defence. It also excluded the public during their testimony and prohibited publication of their entire evidence to protect the unit's methodology.

The non-jury court was due to rule on the disclosure applications the following afternoon. The full hearing was expected to begin that afternoon before Judges Margaret Heneghan and Cormac Dunne, with Ms Justice Deirdre Murphy presiding.

This report covers an earlier stage of the case. Later developments are not reported here.