All ten hours of a secretly recorded conversation between Gerry Hutch and Jonathan Dowdall will form part of the deliberations in the Regency Hotel murder trial.
It’s after the judges of the non-jury court decided to allow it into evidence, despite eight of those hours being recorded across the border in Northern Ireland.
Gerry Hutch denies murdering David Byrne at the Regency Hotel in Dublin in 2016.
Over the past few weeks, his trial has been concerned with the surveillance of Jonathan Dowdall’s jeep as they travelled to Northern Ireland and back from Dublin.
This journey took place one month after the shooting and ten hours of recordings were played for the judges.
The admissibility of that evidence was called into question by the defence, who argued that the approval to plant the bug in the first place was unlawful.
They also claimed the eight hours recorded in Northern Ireland should be thrown out because the Gardai aren’t allowed to gather evidence in other jurisdictions.
However, in a lengthy ruling today, the judges decided there was no issue with the granting of the warrant to deploy the bugging device.
And while they accepted the audio recorded north of the border was “unlawfully obtained,” they decided to allow it because it had been gathered in “good faith”
