Regency Hotel shooting trial collapses following Detective Superintendent's suicide

Relevant newspaper article:

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/criminal-court/almost-500-garda%C3%AD-did-not-recognise-patrick-hutch-in-photo-trial-hears-1.3360170

The court has previously heard that two detectives, Fergal O’Flaherty and Jonathan Brady, went to Ballymun garda station two days after the shooting, looked at the photo, and “immediately recognised” the man dressed as a woman as Patrick Hutch.
The detectives have told the court that they made their identifications separately.

And

Under cross-examination, Constable Caroline Hill told Mr O’Higgins that she is an identification officer and she described how members of the PSNI conduct identification of suspects from photos and video.
She said that photos are shown to individuals and that no group showings should be made “so that nobody will influence anyone else”.
She said that a viewer must not speak with anyone during the process so that it is an independent viewing.

Given that electronic devices were examined as part of this, my suspicion is that Fox or another member of the force may have texted, emailed or otherwise contacted the two Gardaí who did identify Hutch in the photo, and say "you're coming in to look at this photo today, we know it's this guy Hutch but we can't prove it, could ye just say you recognise him so we can get our warrants? Cheers"

That would tie in with all the various goings on and the timeline of the case. The photo was deemed admissible in court some time ago, but this was before suicide of, and the subsequent GSOC investigation into the death of, Supt. Fox. The photo was deemed admissible, and his death occurred exactly one week later. That to me points to someone overcome with guilt, perhaps in the knowledge that the photo was going to be used in a prosecution and that it absolutely shouldn't have been given the circumstances in which it was deemed to be a photograph of Hutch.

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

We are not even clear whether this recognition was the only reason a warrant was issued.

If it wasn't, then why would the defence hone in on it and mount such a massive case against it in court? The entire validity of the prosecution seemed to hinge upon that photo in all the media reporting before Colm Fox's death.

martingriff wrote: »

Garda were under pressure to get those responsible. Knew who it was took shortcuts that made the case collapse

That's my thinking - in Ireland, with our 1.5 degrees of separation, how often do you hear people saying something like "he was never caught, but everyone around here just knows it was him"? I suspect it was a case like that. They "knew" it was him and decided to build a case on compromised or illegally obtained evidence in the assumption that the defence wouldn't figure out what happened.

They nearly got away with it in fairness - the defence had lost its argument over the photographs literally days before Supt. Fox shot himself. That's why I reckon his suicide was a guilt thing - he realised that a potentially innocent man was going to go to jail because of this dodgy evidence and couldn't live with his involvement in fabricating it.

Of course it's speculation, but based on everything that's in the public domain is there any theory which fits all of the jigsaw pieces better? We're missing a lot of the picture, but what we do have seems, at least to me, to inevitably point in this general direction.

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

All pure speculation. The power of arrest? Surely given the known feud between these two groups warrants, if any, the right to arrest needs would be granted fairly quickly. The idea that the entire case falls down on that is nonsense, and isn't in fact proven at all. We have literally no proof that there was any problem with the warrants, or the arrest or anything else.



If it wasn't for those pesky kids.

Look a suicide is probably not going to happen just because some minor evidence gathering snafus (which nobody has yet proven is in fact), or guilt about the Hutches.

The emails were probably a lot more incriminating.

Of course, you could be right. My theory is solely based on piecing together the timeline of the objections raised by the defence in court, the outcome of those objections, and the fact that Mr. Fox shot himself, leaving prosecution-damaging notes, literally one week after that part of the trial. It could be unrelated, but Occam's Razor would suggest a link between the three occurrences - the defense objecting unsuccessfully to the photo ID process, Fox's suicide, and his suicide notes putting the trial on indefinite hold. All occurring within a few short weeks of eachother.

As I say, they may be unrelated or they may not. We have no way of knowing. I'm simply invoking Occam's Razor, in other words, the most obvious explanation is the one most likely to be correct. In my mind, it's more far fetched to suggest that Fox's suicide and notes thereof were unrelated to the wrangling over the photos in court, than to suggest that they were directly linked to one another, given the timeframe and subsequent events.

EDIT: One man's "minor evidence gathering snafu" could have been another man's "intentional conspiracy to break the law in relation to an investigation". We have no idea whether it was accidental, intentional, or whether there was any problem with it at all. Again, all we can do is guess.

Berserker wrote: »

Hitting the high teens in Damascus later this week. Worth a punt for that reason alone.



Doesn't mean he was the man who shot him. Not going to get a murder conviction on that basis.

Is it? Was told it comes from people who have connections in the underworld but are not in too deep.

They would definitely have their sources, I remember a few years back I was in the city at lunchtime in a bar close to courts, there was Mr Williams eating lunch with a large number of uniformed guards,doesn’t take a genius to know that they would be very familiar with each other. You can also see that in the narrative of their articles. Look at The book The Cartel, an awful lot of that info would have come from the authorities.

The law is an ass full of holes

They cut it short at the end. What was that about ?

Calltocall wrote: »

So will this all just go away I wonder? Outcomes like this are a good barometer for how healthy and honest journalism is in Ireland, will any journalist put their head above the parapet and ask the hard questions here, will they put presure on Drew Harris for answers?

I was dissapointed to read the papers today to find an awful lot of the focus was on either The Byrnes or How Hutch left the courts, the cctv footage etc they are easy topics, but nobody was really daring to question the Guards/The State on what happened here in the background to bring the trial to collapse.

It’s a difficult dilemna for the journalists particularly the ones that cover gangland as a lot of their info is fed to them by the police so what do they do when it’s the guards themselves that are under the microscope, it would take an incredibly brave one to step up as they are burning their relationships but at the end of the day didn’t they go to journalist school to get to the truth no matter the barriers, I’m doubtful though, I think a lot of the journos are too close to the police for the truth to come out.

GSOC have launched an investigation. It seems to have been the outcome of their previous investigation into Fox's death and examination of his electronics which ultimately led to the collapse of the case, so one would assume they'll at least come close to unravelling what went on even if the Gardaí stonewall them as usual.

The real question is, with GSOC doing one independent investigation and Flanagan asking Drew Harris to do an internal one (a sure sign in my view that there's a lot more to this story), will the reports be made public, or will they be handed over privately to the Oireachtas / the minister. In previous high profile cases such as the Kieran Boylan case and the Ian Bailey case, the Ombudsman has generally supplied the minister and the Oireachtas with a copy of the report several days prior to publishing it for the general public and the media - so one would expect the same to happen in this case. If it doesn't, that'll raise massive questions about what it is that's being held back from the public.

I could potentially see the government demanding the report be suppressed on the grounds of not upsetting Supt Fox's grieving family, but in my view that in itself would be evidence of a cover up, as they've never made such demands with previous GSOC investigations involving deceased individuals.

Seeing as this was all investigated last year, I'm assuming this investigation won't take very long as it's essentially re-opening a case which has already been thoroughly investigated to the satisfaction of the court and the lawyers for both sides.

odyssey06 wrote: »

MrFresh wrote: »

Even if all the issues with evidence are true and their was a fatal mistake in the investigation, why do people think this would push a person with his experience and rank to suicide? So he wouldn't have to answer questions? It wouldn't be the first case, murder case even, to collapse because of a technicality and it certainly won't be the last.

Plus, what could be so compromising in the notes and USB stick.
If there was a deliberate attempt to frame a suspect you would hardly put it down in your notes in an incriminating manner and leave a trail of evidence to it.
If the notes incriminated him but he only realised it after the fact it would be a huge mistake but as you say, not the first and note the last.

I got the impression that the notes were effectively suicide notes, found when he killed himself, no?