Former Sinn Féin councillor Jonathan Dowdall has told the Special Criminal Court that his 62-year-old mother and his children have received death threats since he decided to turn State's witness and give evidence against his former co-accused Gerard 'The Monk' Hutch.
"This is why nobody comes in and gives evidence," Dowdall told the Regency Hotel murder trial on Friday.
Under cross-examination for a fourth day, Dowdall told Brendan Grehan SC, defending Mr Hutch, that "in all the time" since he was accused of Kinahan Cartel member David Byrne's murder "nobody" had "interfered" with his wife and children but "as soon as I decided to come out and give evidence the level of intimidation has increased".
The ex-politician went on to say: "My mother is being rang by people who she was kind to when kids, telling a 62-year-old woman she's dead, that my children are dead. This is a whole different level and this is why nobody comes in and gives evidence".
Garda interviews
Mr Grehan is playing extracts of interviews which Dowdall gave gardai on May 18th, 2016 and asked the witness today if he now accepted that he had told lies in those interviews. "I didn't tell lies to gardai. I couldn't speak in the interviews. I'm speaking now," he said.
Key witness Dowdall, who has pleaded guilty to facilitating Mr Byrne's murder, went on to say: "Children as young as ten their lives are under serious threat, they haven't been in school since September and death threats are issued on their Twitter pages. The schools won't take them back. My daughter had to leave her job as the company said it's too dangerous to have her coming in and out of work."
The former electrician also told Mr Grehan: "Everything I feared happen has happened and worse. They had people lined up to come in and lie. The level of pressure people get put under".
Dowdall told the trial on Thursday he couldn't say in the interview following his arrest in May 2016 that he knew who was involved in the Regency attack. "It was a lie out of necessity. My family would have been killed if I said who was involved in the Regency," he added.
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.
Questions
Dowdall told Mr Grehan today that he was "here five days and this is his fifth day" and "all that is happening is you are attacking me and attacking me. I've explained why I couldn't speak in the police station".
In reply, the barrister said: "I'm going to keep asking the questions even if you don't care about answering them and want to go off on another monologue. I've a job to do and I'm not going to be put off doing it by you throwing other stuff up in the air".
Dowdall replied: "Everything is in my statement and you haven't even bothered with them". Mr Grehan said he would come on to that.
When counsel put it to Dowdall that he didn't have to say anything to gardai when he was arrested for the murder of Mr Byrne in 2016, the witness said "a lot of stuff I didn't know" then. "No decent man threatens a ten-year-old kid and a 14-year-old kid or gets someone to ring my mother".
The barrister also put it to Dowdall that he had blamed "a large part on gardaí, media and some kind of Twitter account that was saying things about you" in those interviews.
"I wasn't blaming the media for what was going on, when in the police station stuff leaked on media sources that would have put my family under threat," he replied.
Mr Grehan asked Dowdall had the threat intensified and Dowdall replied: "It's a whole different level".
Hotel
Counsel put it to Dowdall that he was asked by gardaí if he had been at the Regency Hotel on February 4th and had deliberately lied saying he had not been there for years. The witness agreed with this, as he had been in the car park of the hotel on the evening of February 4th.
The trial has heard that Jonathan Dowdall drove his father to the Regency hotel on the evening before the attack on February 4 and remained there until Patrick Dowdall paid for the room and obtained the room's key cards from reception.
Mr Grehan told Dowdall that gardaí had given him "ample opportunity" in his interviews to say that he had unintentionally or unknowingly booked a room at the Regency Hotel. "At that time I wasn't told about any hotel room Mr Grehan," he said.
The lawyer asked Dowdall if it was a lie when gardai asked if he could remember where he was on February 4 and he said he couldn't.
"I knew where I was on the 4th," replied Dowdall.
"That was a lie?" asked counsel.
Dowdall said: "I couldn't say where I was on the 4th".
In his direct evidence on Monday, 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 ex-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".
Mr Grehan, representing Mr Hutch, opened his cross-examination on 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 him and his father on Richmond Road on February 4th, 2016 and that Gerard Hutch had "confessed" to him in a park several days later.
Dowdall (44) was charged on April 27th, 2021 with the murder of Mr Byrne at the Regency Hotel 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.
He was jailed by the Special Criminal Court for four years for the facilitation offence. Following Dowdall's sentence on October 3, a nolle prosequi - a decision not to proceed - was entered on the murder charge against the former Dublin city councillor.
The trial continues before presiding judge Ms Justice Tara Burns sitting with Judge Sarah Berkeley and Judge Grainne Malone.
Both Jonathan and his father Patrick Dowdall have pleaded guilty to participating in or contributing to activity intending to or being reckless as to whether such participation or contribution could facilitate the commission of a serious offence by a criminal organisation or any of its members, to wit the murder of David Byrne, by making a room available at the Regency Hotel, Drumcondra, Dublin 9 for that criminal organisation or its members, within the State on February 4th, 2016.
The prosecution case is that the late dissident republican Kevin Murray used the hotel room that was booked at the Regency on the night of February 4, that he was the man seen wearing a flat cap when Mr Byrne was killed and that he cooperated with the "tactical team" that raided the Regency Hotel on February 5. Mr Murray died from motor neurone disease in 2017 before he could be brought to trial.
Dowdall has previous convictions for false imprisonment, threatening to kill and causing serious harm from January 2015.
Dowdall's father Patrick Dowdall (65) was jailed for two years before the Regency trial started after he also admitted his part in booking the hotel room for the raiders.
Mr Byrne, from Crumlin, was shot dead at the hotel in Whitehall, Dublin 9 after five men, three disguised as armed gardaí in tactical clothing and carrying AK-47 assault rifles, stormed the building during the attack, which was hosting a boxing weigh-in at the time. The victim was shot by two of the tactical assailants and further rounds were delivered to his head and body.
Mr Byrne died after suffering catastrophic injuries from six gunshots fired from a high-velocity weapon to the head, face, stomach, hand and legs.
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 5, 2016.
