Former Sinn Féin councilor Jonathan Dowdall is willing to appear as a state witness in relation to the 2016 Regency murder of David Byrne, a court has heard.
In light of this new evidence, the trial of Gerry “The Monk” Hutch for the murder of Mr Byrne was adjourned for a week to allow for “a fundamental reappraisal of the defence strategy”.
The long-awaited trial had been due to begin on Monday.
Jonathan Dowdall, 44, of the Navan Road in Dublin, last week pleaded guilty to facilitating the murder of Mr Byrne at the Regency Hotel on February 5 2016.
Mr Byrne, 34, was shot dead at a crowded boxing weigh-in 2016, in one of the early attacks of the Hutch-Kinahan gangland feud.
The court was told on Monday that he was shot six times in an “execution-style killing” at the north Dublin venue, where a number of people were involved.
At a hearing of the non-jury Special Criminal Court in Dublin, the court heard how Dowdall and his father had been involved in the booking of a hotel room at the Regency the day before the killing.
The court heard that CCTV showed the room being used by Kevin “Flatcap” Murray, believed to be linked to the IRA, who the court heard was shown on CCTV as one of the figures involved in the Regency attack.
Mr Murray died in 2017 after being diagnosed with motor neurone disease.
Dowdall’s father Patrick Dowdall, 65, with the same address on the Navan Road, also pleaded guilty last week to facilitating the murder.
Patrick Dowdall appeared in court on Monday, sitting alongside his son.
Michael O’Higgins SC told the court that one Garda theory was that the Dowdalls had been “used in this process” in order to book the room in the Regency hotel the day before the fatal attack.
The defence argued that Jonathan Dowdall had been “somewhat compromised” by the familiar relationship between his family and the Hutch family.
The court heard that Dowdall’s mother had been a neighbour of Gerry Hutch, and the families had interacted in relation to loans, making bookings, and boxing clubs.
Detective Sergeant Patrick O’Toole told the court that he believed Jonathan Dowdall was “sincere and genuine” in his cooperation with Gardai, and that the offer to be a State witness was a “process that’s in train at the moment”.
When asked whether Dowdall had “indicated his willingness to give evidence” in court, Mr O’Toole said he had.
Dowdall’s legal team argued that the headline sentence should be “in the lowest module” of between “zero to five” years and that further mitigation should apply due to his cooperation.
Mr O’Higgins said that in mitigating the penalty down, “my client has given material assistance” to the prosecution, which he said was “of significant value”.
“…He is available to be a witness in the forthcoming trial, that does not happen very often,” Mr O’Higgins said, adding that there were “very good reason why that does not happen very often”.
Mr O’Higgins argued that there are often loyalties and a fear factor in terms of recriminations.
“His life and the life of his family is effectively over, he will have to get a new start, and he will spend his life looking over his shoulder.
“Every conversation with a stranger, he will have to remind himself to be discreet.”
Dowdall has four children aged between 11 and 25, the court heard.
The court heard that one of the more extreme consequences of becoming a state witness would include “never be returning to Ireland”, or returning in “clandestine circumstances”.
He said that this placed “a very heavy burden” on his family.
Mr O’Higgins added that Dowdall has been “the author of his own misfortune”.
He told the court his client did not have knowledge of how the hotel room would be used, which he argued was “very significant in terms of his moral culpability”.
“The action which my client performed was one that was almost instantaneously going to be brought back on him,” Mr O’Higgins argued.
The defence team for Patrick Dowdall described his agreement to a request to book the hotel room as a “catastrophic error of judgment”.
He told the court of a number of health ailments that his client suffers from, including depression, COPD, asthma, arthritis, and that he had two mini-strokes.
Mr Byrne’s mother and family members were also present in the courtroom on Monday.
There was a significant number of armed gardai present outside the Criminal Courts of Justice as the sentence hearing began.
Mr Justice Tony Hunt, one of three-judge panel, said sentencing would be handed down on Monday October 17.
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