Groundhog day for Jonathan Dowdall as Gerry Hutch counsel repeats grilling
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It was Groundhog Day down at the Special Criminal Court. A sense of déjà vu in the air. The court was hearing the tapes again. Gerry Hutch was laughing at his description of a man nicknamed “Fish” being after a “Blue Peter badge” again.
And Jonathan Dowdall was expressing his displeasure at Brendan Grehan SC’s line of questioning again.
“Mr Grehan, we’re talking about this since 10.30 this morning about stuff that didn’t happen,” he said. “It’s now 12.35 and we’re talking about something that has no relevance to the Regency. How many more days will I be here?”
Just a few sentences later when Mr Grehan, who represents The Monk, asked Mr Dowdall to “bear with him”, the former Sinn Féin councillor replied: “I’m sick of bearing with you at this stage. We’re going through the same thing over and over again.”
Having been through a taxing, demanding five days of questioning last week, this was Mr Dowdall’s sixth day on the stand. And it appeared his patience was wearing thin.
“You’re putting me on trial for something that’s never happened,” he said, when questioned about comments he made about explosives on those infamous tapes – the secret bugged recordings of his 10-hour trip up North with Gerry Hutch a month after the Regency hotel shooting in March 2016.
Mr Grehan told him he wasn’t, and Mr Dowdall referenced a number of matters that have been put to him throughout his cross-examination that he said had nothing do with the Regency Hotel. Hutch’s defence counsel then said: “I’m putting you on trial for lies.”
On Monday, the court was brought through those tapes again at great length. Mr Grehan would ask for a number of minutes to be played, then stop, and then ask Mr Dowdall about his comments on these tapes.
As he has maintained throughout, Mr Dowdall very rarely faces the barrister questioning him or Mr Hutch on the opposite side to the court. He frequently looks down, or to the presiding judges in the case.
When the audio is being played and the accompanying transcript is playing on the big screen, he continued to look downwards. Gerard Hutch, on the other hand, follows the transcript closely as he listens with the aid of headphones.
Last week, prosecuting counsel, Sean Gillane SC, wanted to draw the court’s attention to a number of segments of the tapes with Dowdall on the stand. To the prosecution’s case, the references to the “three yokes” - the AK-47s used in the Regency – were among the topics of chief interest.
Mr Grehan wanted to delve deeper. We started right at the beginning, as Mr Dowdall drove to collect Mr Hutch at a pub car park just by Dublin Airport on March 7, 2016. Having expressed his frustration on a number of occasions during the morning, it began to boil over further in the afternoon as the audio was gone through bit by bit.
“Who’s Trevor Byrne?” Mr Grehan asked him. “Why did you want to blow him up?” On the tape, Mr Dowdall references a place in Wexford where this man is supposed to have lived, and appears to suggest putting a bomb under his mobile home.
“It’s rubbish talk to try and impress somebody,” Mr Dowdall said, adding that Mr Grehan was “making [him] guilty of something that never happened”.
Mr Grehan said he was simply putting Mr Dowdall’s own words to him, to which Mr Dowdall then replied he was doing it on behalf of Mr Hutch. Mr Dowdall added: “I know he’s a hard task master.”
Reference is also made to Alan Ryan, the Real IRA chief who was shot dead in 2012, and what Mr Dowdall says on the tapes about having spoken to him about separate issues.
Mr Grehan said: “Another episode with the Ryans.” Mr Dowdall replies: “This is exaggerated. Locker room talk. I don’t know.
He went further, and said that to sort out problems in “working class areas, people have to talk to somebody they know to try and sort out things”.
And again, he was pressed on comments he made that Mr Grehan said were suggesting what seemed like he was proposing kidnapping the “bird” of Bomber Kavanagh, who happened to be the sister of Regency victim David Byrne.
“Mr Grehan, there was nothing to it,” he said. “You’re opening wounds. You’re bringing more heartache to everyone involved in this. I’m sorry for anything that offended that family in that transcripts.”
And so, it continued. There are seven more hours of audio to go.
Mr Dowdall’s time in the witness box won’t be drawing to a close just yet.