Regency getaway drivers to appeal convictions as hearing scheduled for next week

Two men found guilty of acting as getaway drivers in the Regency Hotel shooting are appealing their convictions next week.

The Irish Mirror has learned that taxi driver Paul Murphy (61) and former boxing coach Jason Bonney (52) are set to appear before Dublin’s Court of Appeal for a two-day hearing next week.

The three-judge Court of Appeal will hear their grounds of appeal - as they claim they’re innocent of facilitating the infamous gangland murder of Kinahan cartel associate David Byrne.

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Byrne was shot and killed in the lobby of the Regency Hotel in a gangland killing that shocked the country on February 5, 2016.

Both Bonney and Murphy stood trial before the Special Criminal Court last year in a case that was heard alongside that of Gerry 'The Monk' Hutch.

The pair sat every day of the trial sitting next to Hutch, who was ultimately acquitted of the murder of Byrne.

Gerry 'The Monk' Hutch walks free through the doors of the CCJ after being acquitted of the murder of David Byrne at the Special Criminal Court
(Image: Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin)

However unlike Hutch, Bonney and Murphy were convicted of facilitating that murder - by providing vehicles which they used to help the hit team escape.

Bonney was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison after he was convicted of being the getaway driver that helped hitman Kevin '‘Flat Cap' Murray escape following the horrific gangland murder. Murphy meanwhile was sentenced to nine years in prison for using his taxi to transport one of the hit team.

Both men are currently imprisoned in Dublin’s Wheatfield Prison - and will need to be escorted to the Criminal Courts of Justice for the two-day hearing next Tuesday and Wednesday.

In her judgement before the court on April 17, Ms Justice Tara Burns sitting with Judge Sarah Berkeley found beyond reasonable doubt that Murphy’s silver Toyota Avensis taxi and Bonney's black BMW X5 jeep were part of a convoy of six cars that parked up at St Vincent's GAA club grounds in Marino in north Dublin before the Regency shooting on the afternoon of February 5, 2016 and had then each transported one of the hit men from St Vincent's GAA car park.

It was the prosecution’s case that an integral part of the operation which led to Mr Byrne's death was the means by which the tactical team escaped, which was central to the case of Bonney and Murphy.

Ms Justice Burns said the court was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt of the existence of the Hutch Criminal Organisation and that the defendants Murphy and Bonney knew of its existence when they provided access to their individual cars at St Vincent's GAA club intending to facilitate the commission of a serious offence by the Hutches.

She also said that the court was satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the Regency attack, during which David Byrne was shot dead, was orchestrated by the Hutch criminal organisation.

In pleading their innocence at the time, Murphy claimed the Toyota Avensis taxi seen in CCTV footage heading to St Vincent’s GAA and waiting for the hit team, was not his.

Bonney, meanwhile, brought forward two witnesses to try and help corroborate his sensational claim that his vehicle was being used that day by his now-deceased father.

In scathing remarks in her judgment, Ms Justice Tara Burns said the court had been lied to in the "most malevolent manner" by Jason Bonney, who had wrongly tried to implicate his father.

"A dead father has been implicated in the Regency by his son’s witnesses.

"That anybody thought that these lies would be accepted by the Court is quite frankly amazing," she further added.

In her judgment Ms Tara Burns said the evidence of one of Bonney’s witnesses - Peter Tyrell - had to be treated with "scepticism".

Mr Tyrell had told the trial that he saw Willie Bonney driving up behind him at speed on the Artane roundabout mere minutes after the Regency shooting.

But Ms Justice Burns said that it seemed "bizzare" that Mr Tyrell would go to Jason Bonney’s solicitor rather than ask gardai to see the footage.

The judge also said Mr Tyrell is in conflict with other evidence presented in the trial and he seems to be "quite incorrect that he regularly saw William Bonney driving this BMW jeep" in light of the fact that Jason Bonney himself said that he was the only person driving it from 2009 onwards.

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