TWO men jailed for driving getaway cars in the Regency Hotel murder of David Byrne are set to appeal their convictions.
Jason Bonney, 52, was caged for eight-and-a-half years and Paul Murphy, 61, received a nine-year sentence for assisting the Hutch organisation murder the Kinahan cartel thug seven years ago.
Before he was convicted, Bonney insisted to the Irish Sun: “I swear I was not driving that car that afternoon and my mobile phone was never south of Newbrook Avenue that day.”
The trial heard claims that his father William Bonney, who passed away in 2019, was the driver of the black BMW X5 jeep on the afternoon that Byrne was murdered but the three judges rejected this claim and said the Special Criminal Court had been lied to in relation to this.
His son-in-law told the court that he and his family had lunch with Mr Bonney senior and his wife Gretta on the afternoon of the attack at the north Dublin hotel.
And his sisters also rubbished the claims saying Jason Bonney and his father hadn’t spoken since 2013 and he never drove a black BMW X5 jeep.
Bonney and Murphy have 21 days from the date they were sentenced to lodge appeals against their convictions to the Court of Criminal Appeal, which they are expected to do in the coming weeks.
Gerry Hutch, 60, went on trial for Byrne’s murder after State witness Jonathan Dowdall claimed The Monk admitted to him that he was one of the hit team who murdered Byrne.
But with no independent evidence to support the claim, the three judges found him not guilty of murder.
He walked out of the front door of the Criminal Courts of Justice following his acquittal and returned to his home in Clontarf for a few weeks.
He has since returned to Lanzarote, where he has previously lived and is understood to own property.
The gardai and the Spanish authorities are still aware of an active threat to his life.
The case against Bonney and Murphy centred on CCTV of both their vehicles on the day that Byrne was murdered.
The footage showed the cars around Buckingham Village, which the court described as the “centre of operations”, that morning.
It also showed them driving in convoy with four other vehicles to St Vincent’s GAA club, where the hit team was collected after burning out the silver Ford Transit van.
A key card for Buckingham Village was also found in Murphy’s light-coloured Avensis taxi.
‘SCEPTICISM’
CCTV showed one of the gunmen, Kevin ‘Flat Cap’ Murray, get into the black BMW X5 jeep, which Bonney was shown driving from his home in Portmarnock on the morning of February 5.
In his statement, he said he was working on a house at Newbrook Avenue in Donaghmede that day. Two witnesses told the court they saw his father William Bonney drive the jeep that afternoon.
But presiding judge Ms Tara Burns said the court had to treat the evidence of the witnesses, Julie McGlynn and Peter Tyrell, with “scepticism”.
In the judgement, she said: “This Court was lied to in the most malevolent manner. 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. However, to be clear, the Court is not relying on the fact that the Court was lied to in determining the case against Jason Bonney.”
The two men are serving their sentences in Wheatfield Prison after being convicted by the Special Criminal Court.
It’s unlikely that any appeal against their convictions will take place until 2024 at the earliest.
