Alison O'Riordan
Former councillor Jonathan Dowdall, a former co-accused of Gerard 'The Monk' Hutch who has turned State's witness, has denied that he was lying when he said Mr Hutch confessed to him in a park that he had shot Kinahan Cartel member David Byrne.
Under cross-examination for a seventh day, Mr Hutch's defence counsel Brendan Grehan SC put it to Dowdall that he dismissed his conversations with Gerard Hutch in the audio recording as "simply being talk" but yet it wasn't like two people "down the pub of a Friday night".
Dowdall, the key witness in the Regency Hotel murder trial who has pleaded guilty to facilitating Mr Byrne's murder, replied: "It's the same thing over and over again. You not talking about things that did happen, talking about things that never did happen and was never going to happen".
The barrister remarked that they would get "onto something that did happen after lunch".
The defence played the final excerpts on Wednesday morning from secret Garda recordings of conversations between Gerard Hutch and Dowdall while they were allegedly travelling north to a meeting in Strabane in Co Tyrone on Monday, March 7th, 2016.
After certain clips were played, Mr Grehan asked the witness to explain to the court what was said in these recorded conversations.
Republican contacts
The State's case is that Mr Hutch had asked Jonathan Dowdall to arrange a meeting with his provisional republican contacts to mediate or resolve the Hutch-Kinahan feud due to the threats against the accused's family and friends.
The Special Criminal Court has viewed CCTV footage of what the State says is Mr Hutch making two separate journeys to Northern Ireland with Dowdall on February 20th and March 7th, 2016, just weeks after Mr Byrne was murdered.
Gerard Hutch (59), last of The Paddocks, Clontarf, Dublin 3, denies the murder of Mr Byrne (33) during a boxing weigh-in at the Regency Hotel on February 5th, 2016.
In his direct evidence last week, Dowdall testified that Gerard Hutch told him in a park several days after the Regency attack, in or around February 8th 2016, that he and another man had shot Mr Byrne at the hotel.
The former politician testified that the accused said he "wasn't happy about shooting the young lad David Byrne and David Byrne being killed".
Asked by prosecution counsel Sean Gillane SC if Mr Hutch had said who had shot Mr Byrne at the Regency Hotel in 2016, Dowdall replied: "He said it was him and 'Mago' Gately".
'Two big lies'
Mr Grehan, representing Mr Hutch, opened his cross-examination last Tuesday by telling Dowdall that he wanted to be "very clear" that the defence position was that the witness had told "two big lies" to the court, namely that his client had collected keys cards for a room at the Regency Hotel from Dowdall and his father on Richmond Road on February 4th 2016 and that Gerard Hutch had "confessed" to him in a park several days later.
Mr Grehan put it to Dowdall that he was lying about the park. "The park is not a lie," replied Dowdall.
Dowdall will continue his cross-examination before presiding judge Ms Justice Tara Burns sitting with Judge Sarah Berkeley and Judge Grainne Malone.
Dowdall (44) with an address at Navan Road, Cabra, Dublin 7 was due to stand trial for Mr Byrne's murder alongside Gerard Hutch but pleaded guilty in advance of the trial to a lesser charge of facilitating the Hutch gang by making a hotel room available for use by the perpetrators the night before the attack.
Mr Hutch's two co-accused - Paul Murphy (61), of Cherry Avenue, Swords, Co Dublin and Jason Bonney (50), of Drumnigh Wood, Portmarnock, Dublin 13 have pleaded not guilty to participating in or contributing to the murder of David Byrne by providing access to motor vehicles on February 5th, 2016.
