A former Sinn Féin councillor handed over hotel room key cards to a criminal who went on to take part in the gangland murder of David Byrne, a court heard.
onathan Dowdall (44) was involved in delivering the keys after his father Patrick Dowdall (65) booked a room at Dublin’s Regency Hotel the day before Mr Byrne was shot dead by armed raiders.
Their lawyers told a sentence hearing today the pair had not been aware how the room was to be used, Patrick Dowdall made a “catastrophic error of judgement” and his son was the “author of his own misfortune.”
The father and son were brought before the Special Criminal Court amid heightened security this morning after entering guilty pleas last week to facilitating the 2016 Regency raid.
The court has also heard Jonathan Dowdall will now be available to act as a witness for the prosecution in the forthcoming trial of Gerard “The Monk” Hutch and two other men charged over the Regency shooting.
The Dowdalls’ sentence hearing is continuing before the three-judge court.
The father and son, from Navan Road, Cabra, Dublin both pleaded guilty to facilitating the February 5, 2016 murder of Mr Byrne by making a room at the hotel available for a criminal organisation or its members the day before the attack.
David Byrne (34), was shot dead in the lobby when armed, masked men disguised as garda ERU members stormed the building and opened fire during a boxing weigh-in event.
Mr Byrne, a Crumlin father-of-two and Kinahan gang member, died when he was shot six times.
His murder sparked the ongoing Kinahan-Hutch feud.
Jonathan Dowdall had originally been charged with the murder but pleaded guilty to the lesser charge last week.
Before their guilty pleas, the Dowdalls had been due to stand trial this afternoon alongside three other men.
Gerard “The Monk” Hutch (58) of The Paddocks, Clontarf, Dublin is charged with murdering David Byrne.
Paul Murphy (59) of Cabra Road and Jason Bonney (50) of Drumnigh Wood, Portmarnock, are accused of facilitating the murder by providing access to vehicles to the criminal organisation who carried it out, on February 5, 2016.
