Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch pleads not guilty at start of hotel murder trial

The 59-year-old is accused of killing David Byrne at a boxing weigh-in at Dublin’s Regency Hotel in 2016.

(Niall Carson/PA) (PA Wire)

Gerry “The Monk” Hutch has pleaded not guilty to the murder of David Byrne at a hotel in Dublin.

Hutch, 59, was arraigned before the city’s Special Criminal Court on Tuesday where the murder trial was opened.

Mr Byrne, 34, was killed in 2016 during a crowded boxing weigh-in at the Regency Hotel in one of the early attacks of the Hutch-Kinahan gangland feud.

Hutch, wearing a navy blazer and purple shirt, listened to proceedings on headphones as the trial commenced.

Two other men are also on trial on charges related to the murder.

Paul Murphy, 59, of Cabra Road, Swords, and Jason Bonney, 50, of Drumnigh Wood in Portmarnock, also pleaded not guilty.

They are charged with providing a motor vehicle to a criminal organisation with knowledge or having been reckless to whether those actions could facilitate a serious offence by the organisation.

The charges relate to two vehicles.

The three defendants sat side by side in the dock as a prosecution barrister outlined events on the day Mr Byrne was killed.

A killing like this cannot be carried out without planning and assistance

Sean Gillane

Opening the case, state barrister Sean Gillane said: “It’s the prosecution case that this deliberate killing was carried out without restraint by a group of people, of which Hutch was one.

“And, just as the textbook says, there can be no fences without thieves.

“A killing like this cannot be carried out without planning and assistance.”

Members of the victim’s family watched from the public gallery of the court.

The non-jury trial is being heard by three judges – Tara Burns, Sarah Berkeley and Grainne Malone.

There was a high security presence inside and outside the Special Criminal Court as the first day of the trial began.

Proceedings got under way a day after a former Sinn Fein councillor was sentenced to four years in prison for facilitating the murder of Mr Byrne.

Jonathan Dowdall, 44, and his 65-year-old father Patrick, with the same address in Navan Road, Dublin, admitted assisting a criminal gang to commit the murder.

Patrick Dowdall was jailed for two years for his role in the killing.

Jonathan Dowdall has said he is willing to give evidence in the trial of Hutch.

Dowdall had been due to stand trial for the murder, but he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of facilitating the offence by booking a room at the hotel.