Former Sinn Féin councillor Jonathan Dowdall has been sentenced to four years in prison for facilitating the murder of David Byrne at the Regency Hotel in Dublin.

Dowdall was originally due to stand trial for murder alongside him; however, the DPP accepted the lesser charge of facilitating the murder by making a room at the hotel available to one of the suspected gunmen.

At his sentence hearing earlier this month, Dowdall’s barrister revealed that he is in protective custody having given a statement to Gardaí – apparently implicating others in what happened at the Regency Hotel.

59-year-old Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch is due to stand trial for his murder alongside two other men tomorrow.

Jonathan Dowdall was given a substantial reduction in his headline sentence on the back of his decision to give evidence at the upcoming Regency Hotel murder trial. By doing so, the judges accepted he had put himself and his immediate family “in peril”.

— Frank Greaney (@FrankGreaney) October 17, 2022

Dowdall was handed his four-year sentence at the Special Criminal Court this morning.

He was given a substantial reduction in his headline sentence on the back of his decision to give evidence at the upcoming murder trial.

By doing so, the judges accepted he had put himself and his immediate family “in peril”.

His father, 65-year-old Patrick Dowdall, was handed a two-year sentence for the same offence as his son.

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