'They got away with it' Gardai accept Regency hit team may never be convicted

The Hutch gang hit team directly involved in the murder of David Byrne will likely never be brought to justice, gardai concede.

“It is very unlikely those directly involved in the attack will be convicted, we have to accept that,” a senior source told us in the run up to Thursday’s tenth anniversary of the attack that stunned gangland Ireland.

And officers now accept that, barring a miracle, not a single member of the hit team will be brought to account for the murder of Byrne, a key ally of mob boss Daniel Kinahan, 48.

“The only way you will see a conviction now is if someone talks or there is a dramatic piece of evidence that emerges,” one source said. “Neither is likely, if we are being honest.”

And another source told us: “They have gotten away with it. There is not enough evidence.”

Investigators believe as many as 13 people were part of the plan to attack the Regency Airport Hotel in north Dublin on February 5, 2016 – but only six men made up the actual hit team.

That was made up of three gunmen dressed in fake Garda ERU uniforms, the infamous Flat Cap and man dressed up as a woman as well as the person who drove the van to and from the scene, but so far nobody has been convicted of the brazen daylight attack.

State witness Jonathan Dowdall and his father Patrick both admitted facilitating the murder – and Paul Murphy (64), of Cherry Avenue, Swords, Co Dublin and Jason Bonney (55), of Drumnigh Wood, Portmarnock, Dublin 1 were convicted of the same offence and all were locked up, but none was accused of being in the hit team.

Sources tell us that gardai are satisfied that they know the identities of the hit team – but there is no prospect of securing convictions against them.

The closest gardai got was when they tried to extradite Co Tyrone republican Kevin Murray – who they believed was the pistol-toting gunman nicknamed Flat Cap.

Murray, who was 46, was to be tried for the murder of Byrne, shot dead during a Clash of the Clans weigh-in at the hotel at 2.32pm on February 5.

The Hutch gang was trying to kill top target Daniel Kinahan – but he narrowly escaped.

Murray quickly emerged as a suspect as he did not wear a disguise in the attack and was identified by Garda and PSNI detectives. Officers also had evidence that he stayed in the hotel the night before the attack.

The Regency investigation team, based at Ballymun Garda Station in north Dublin, secured permission from the Director of Public Prosecutions to charge Murray and was confident of a conviction.

But he died from an aggressive illness in August 2017 – before he could be brought to trial.

The State also prosecuted Gerry “The Monk” Hutch, 62, and his nephew Patrick Hutch, 34, for the murder of Byrne, 34.

Both men repeatedly denied murder.

The case against Patrick Hutch collapsed in 2019 after the death by suicide of lead investigator Detective Superintendent Colm Fox the previous year.

And Gerry Hutch was acquitted by the Special Criminal Court in April 2023 – after a sensational trial that began in late 2022.

Then in late 2024, the DPP declined to prosecute Patsy Hutch, a brother of the Monk.

Ms Justice Tara Burns told the Special Criminal Court in her judgement that acquitted the Monk that “a reasonable possibility arises on the evidence that the Regency was planned by Patsy Hutch and that Gerard Hutch stepped in, as head of the family, to attempt to sort out the aftermath.”

Ms Justice Burns also went further in her scathing judgement, saying that the court was satisfied that Patsy “was centrally involved” in the movement of the three AK 47 rifles that were used in the Regency, when they were given to IRA man Shane Rowan on March 9, 2016 – a month after the attack.

Although the Regency investigation is still technically open, sources have told us that gardai now accept it is almost impossible that any of the killer gang will be brought to justice.

The Regency was a tipping point in the already simmering deud between the Hutch crime gang and the Kinahan cartel.

The cartel was enraged by the murder of Byrne and and attempted killing of Kinahan.

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It sent foot soldiers out to engage in a brutal campaign of murder – and some 18 people were eventually killed in the feud.

There has not been a murder attributed to the feud since January 2018 and dozens of Kinahan gangsters have been locked and its presence in Ireland degraded massively.

Gardai are expected to make a statement about the Regency investigation in the coming days ahead of Thursday’s anniversary.

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