The State should never have tried to prove that Gerry Hutch was one of the gunmen involved in Regency Hotel Attack, a criminal law expert said.  

The 60-year-old was yesterday acquitted of the murder of David Byrne at the Dublin hotel in 2016.

The Special Criminal Court judges were not satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the man known as ‘The Monk’ was one of the hitmen involved in the attack.

Criminal law consultant Dara Robinson told Newstalk Breakfast that the biggest mistake the prosecution made was trying to “fix” Hutch as one of the gunmen at the scene. 

Murder conviction 

He said: “Once they hung their hat on the fact that he was one of the gunmen, they were going to have to set out to prove it - that's really where the case fell down.” 

“They were never going to prove [that], and it seems to me, they failed. They failed abysmally.” 

Mr Robinson said the prosecution could have tried to argue that Gerry Hutch was involved in the murder without proving he was one of the hitmen. 

“You can be convicted of murder without actually pulling the trigger," he said.

Evidence 

Mr Robinson said the evidence presented in court did not give the prosecution a strong case.  

“If you're going to rely on the evidence of the likes of Jonathan Dowdell, you need to be sure that you're going to get witnesses [who are] credible and plausible, neither of which he turned out to be,” he said.  

Mr Robinson said the prosecution also submitted evidence that would not “pass the test” according to most cases. 

He said a recording submitted to the court was “extremely questionable”.

“[There were] surreptitiously recorded interviews, most of which took place outside of the jurisdiction.” 

Before the Gerry Hutch verdict was read out yesterday, two other men were found guilty of facilitating the murder of David Byrne through the provision of getaway vehicles.

Paul Murphy, of Cherry Avenue in Swords and Jason Bonney, of Drumnigh Wood in Portmarnock, were found guilty of assisting with the getaway and were remanded in custody ahead of their sentence hearing in May.