Jonathan Dowdall has told the trial of Gerry Hutch that the accused told him that he [Hutch] and ‘Mago’ Gately shot David Byrne.
The shocking claim was made by Dowdall, who on Monday took the witness stand on the 30th day of the Special Criminal Court trial of Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch over the murder of Mr Byrne at the Regency Hotel on February 5, 2016.
Dowdall, dressed in a dark navy blazer and blue shirt, sat in the jury section of Court 17 - on the other side of the room to accused man Hutch.
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And in the course of examination by Prosecuting Counsel Sean Gillane, Dowdall outlined his alleged meeting with Gerry Hutch at a park in Whitehall, Dublin on the Monday after the Regency Hotel shooting.
Dowdall, speaking into a microphone and looking away from the accused, told Mr Gillane that he was contacted to meet Hutch at a “small little park near the church” in Whitehall.
He said he drove there in his Toyota Land Cruiser and went in through a small gate where he met Hutch at about 11 or half 11 in the morning. “When I arrived Gerard was there,” he said. “He was on his own. He asked me did Patsy ring me and did I speak to Patsy. I said no."
Dowdall said Hutch asked him “did I see the papers,” - specifically the Sunday World which had a picture of a man in drag and a man wearing a flat cap running out of the Regency Hotel following the shooting on February 5, 2016.
Dowdall said he told Hutch he had seen the paper and “I told him who I thought a person looked like,” - claiming the “person in drag” was “Patrick.”
Asked if Gerry Hutch said anything else Dowdall told Mr Gillane that the accused was “in a panic.”
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“He wasn't like any other time I ever seen him.”
He said Hutch had said people had called to his nephew's house and that other contacts had been made. He claimed Hutch asked him “could I contact people in the North.” Dowdall then claimed that Hutch told him it was “them at the hotel.”
He said meaning it was “him [Gerry Hutch] and them at the hotel.”
Dowdall said: “[Gerry Hutch] told me he was upset." It wasn’t what he said but how he was saying it, he said.
He said Hutch told him it was “them at the hotel” and he was “not happy about shooting that young lad David Byrne.” Mr Gillane asked did Mr Hutch say who shot Byrne and Dowdall said he said it was him and ‘Mago’ Gately.”
Mr Gillane asked Dowdall how Mr Hutch was at this time.
“He was very agitated. He wasn’t himself. Think he knew that sh*t was hitting the fan. He was upset over killing the lad David.”
He said Hutch was “paranoid that people were watching him in the park.” He said it was “Patrick” in the photo and said that there was “going to be a lot of innocent people killed.”
Dowdall said Hutch told him that people were “knocking on family members doors and he needed to get someone to try and sort something out.”
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Dowdall said “I told him I couldn’t see myself getting involved.” He said he came out of the park and had no intention of contacting anyone at that point - and that he was “worried over a room being booked” at the Regency Hotel.
He said that being told what he was told “is like being told where money is being buried.” He said he wished he hadn’t been told that by Hutch and was afraid that it would lead back to him.
Earlier, Dowdall was asked by Mr Gillane about the murder of Gary Hutch in Spain in September of 2015.
Dowdall said he was “told” that “the Kinahans believed Gary was an informant and that there were certain things going on in Spain and they were blaming Gary.”
Dowdall said he knew Gary Hutch when they were younger but he hadn’t seen him since he was 10 years old.
Dowdall said he “believed” the information at the time but he “didn’t know anything about they Kinahans or the dynamics of who was who.
“I was just told there was problems with Gary,” he said.
He said he was told the Kinahans believed that Patrick Hutch had tried to shoot Daniel Kinahan in Spain.
“I was told that Patrick Jr was being accused of trying to kill Daniel Kinahan in Spain and I was told he didn’t do it,” Dowdall told the court.
Dowdall said there was a “sum of money” asked for by the Kinahans and that it was a E200,000 “demand” placed upon the Hutch family.
Dowdall said he only found out later that the money was “compensation for a boxer who was shot.”
Asked if he learned anything further about Patrick Hutch Jr’s involvement in the dispute, Dowdall said that the Kinahans wanted him to be injured in a “punishment shooting.”
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“Patrick had to hand himself up for a punishment shooting,” he said. Dowdall said he believed this shooting happened and that Patrick Jr was “brought by a family member” to a location and shot, before being brought to the Mater Hospital in Dublin.
And he said he was told that mob boss Daniel Kinahan personally shot Patrick Hutch Jr.
“I was told it was Daniel Kinahan that shot him himself,” Dowdall said.
Dowdall said that following the punishment shooting, “I was told there were more demands placed on the family to pay more money.”
He said that Patsy Hutch - father of Patrick Jr and of slain Gary, told him this.
Dowdall said he was asked if he could try and speak to individuals to try and quell the feud - prior to the Regency incident.
He was asked after he was told “an attempt was made” on Patsy outside a school - and when other family members were being approached.
He said that “it was getting out of hand. I was asked to speak to somebody,” he said to try and stop the feud.
In January and February of 2016 he said he tried to do so - by speaking to “republican people.”
Dowdall said he wanted to “clear up stuff,” saying he didn’t meet with anyone in the Provisional IRA.
“It wasn’t provisional. It was dissident people. It wasn't provisional people in any way,” he said.
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Dowdall said it was Patsy Hutch that asked him to do this, and said that “at the time it could have been fixed, I thought.”
He said he “didn’t really know anybody to kind of contact” and that he “wasn’t gone on the idea.”
But he said “innocent lives were at stake,” and so he did agree to try and help stop the feud.
Dowdall said he went to Strabane with his father in January 2016 to meet a person named Kevin who didn’t show up.
He went again and met “another lad called Shane,” identified as “Shane Rowan,” also known as ‘Fish.’ He said he told them the background of the feud.
“It wasn't a full on feud at that stage,” he said but there were “threats” on the family happening at the time, and “I was asking would they be able to contact people to sit down and come to some sort of agreement.
He said he wanted them to “demand that the threats be stopped” and that the “whole thing be stopped” and that they could come to “some agreement” and “put everything to bed.”
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