Jonathan Dowdall has told the Hutch trial that he now believes the Kinahans didn’t start the feud.
During the second day of his bombshell evidence before the Special Criminal Court, Dowdall claimed he would never have gotten involved in trying to help the Hutches, if he’d known what he “the real story” that he only found out in prison years later.
He also claimed before the court on Tuesday that Gerry Hutch was "lying" on the tapes when he said the six individuals involved in the Regency didn't even know one another.
FOLLOW LIVE : Jonathan Dowdall resumes evidence against Gerry Hutch after bombshell day
Dowdall was being played several clips from the 10 hour tapes of him and Hutch talking while on a trip up north, and was then asked to give context to them in front of the packed non-jury court today.
And when asked about a portion of the tape where he talks about helping the Hutches, Dowdall stunned the courtroom by expressing his regret at ever getting involved.
“At that time when I first agreed to help…I believed what I was told that the Kinahans wrongly believed that Gary (Hutch) was an informant and I was told they were blaming Gary and Patrick for trying to kill Daniel Kinahan,” Dowdall said.
But he said he later found out in Wheatfield Prison “the real story around how the feud started.”
Dowdall said he had agreed to help the Hutches in trying to end the feud because “I thought they were trying to kill Patsy and that innocent people were going to be killed.”
But he said “If I knew what I knew later on I wouldn’t have got involved.”
He then went on to say: Gerard didn’t start it. That was Patsy’s sons that started the feud.
“It wasn’t the Kinahans.”
Dowdall, wearing a blazer and sitting in a section normally reserved for a jury, kept his head down at all times while the recordings of his bugged conversation with Gerry Hutch were being played.
Gerry Hutch meanwhile had moved to the opposite side of the dock where he has been sitting throughout the trial - to get a clearer view of Dowdall, the court heard.
And in being played the clips Dowdall said he was “ashamed” of what he was saying on them - describing many of the things he said as “in the moment” and stemming from things he was “finding out” from people and being told at the time.
Various clips were also played to Dowdall where he and Hutch discuss the “three yokes.”
Dowdall is asked what he was referring to on each occasion, and he said it was the “three AK47s.”
“That was the three guns,” he said.
The former Sinn Fein councillor was also asked about the references to “the village” in the tapes, and he confirmed it was Buckingham Village - which the prosecution alleges is where the hit team involved in the Regency met up.
Dowdall told the court he was told the van used was parked in the village and that CCTV had been gotten rid of in the area for that reason.
He said he was told this by Patsy Hutch, a brother of the accused, who told him the footage was deleted because “he drove the van.”
Further clips were played in which Dowdall and Hutch spoke about newspaper coverage of the feud at the time and where the accused said the papers “weren’t far wrong.”
In those clips Hutch discussed “half a dozen hitmen” and about individuals that were “going to do away” with them.
Dowdall was asked to explain this section and said there was “never anything spoke about or agreed to,” and that they weren’t going to “do anything like that.”
He described it as “loose talk” and said he didn’t think there was “any substance” in it and that the persons talked about would “never agree to anything like that.
“All they were going to do was to try and stop the feud,” Dowdall told the court.
Asked by the prosecution who the six hitmen were that were being referred to in the tape, Dowdall said they were the men they believed had murdered Eddie Hutch - a brother of the accused, three days after the Regency attack in February 2016.
He said the six hitmen were “the people that killed Neddie” and the “people that tried to kill Gerard” and were threatening people and “stuff like that.”
Dowdall was also asked by Mr Gillane about the six persons involved in the Regency Hotel attack.
Dowdall said “Gerard I knew was involved because he told me.”
He then said that he knew from photographs “about Patrick,” and said that he also knew that “Patsy was involved.”
And he said “I knew about Kevin Murray because I was told who he was.”
In the tapes Gerry Hutch says that none of the individuals involved in the incident even knew one another.
But when asked about that today, Dowdall claimed that the accused man Gerry Hutch is “lying” on the tape - and he knew who was involved.
“He’s lying to me when he’s saying that they didn't know each other.
“They’re all family members and friends. It’s clear he does know them but he’s telling me (in the tape) they don’t know each other.
“They all know each other,” he said.
In relation to the van Dowdall said that Patsy Hutch had told him that he “parked the van at Buckingham Village and he was afraid to drive it.
“He asked me to say I had the van,” he added.
He also spoke about references to the search on Patsy Hutch’s home during which gardai discovered a Ford key, but didn’t seize it, and later went back looking for it.
Dowdall said that Patsy “Never said it was the key. I’m not sure if it was the key or it wasn’t.”
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