Torture victim Jonathan Dowdall’s disgust at three-year prison sentence for Regency hit

A man who was tortured by Jonathan Dowdall has expressed his disgust that the former Sinn Fein councilor will spend just three years in prison for helping a criminal gang to kill David Byrne.

The victim, who was doused with water by Dowdall and his father and threatened to “cut him up and feed him to the dogs”, criticized the sentence, saying he believed the 44-year-old’s previous criminal record had not been given enough weight.

Dowdall was jailed for four years on Monday for helping a gang kill David Byrne in a shooting at Dublin’s Regency Hotel.

However, because the 25 percent remission applies to all prison sentences handed down in the state, Dowdall will only serve three years behind bars.

“If it was a first offense, it would have been mild,” said Dowdal’s torture victim.

“I don’t think the seriousness of his previous convictions has been underplayed.

“Honestly, it disgusts me.

“ Again, this is just my opinion, but I feel like he’s getting rewarded for doing the wrong thing.”

At Monday’s hearing, Dowdall’s father, Patrick Dowdall (65), was also jailed for two years.

Both men pleaded guilty to facilitating gangland shootings by providing a hotel room to a criminal organization.

A three-judge court took into account “extraordinary additional mitigation” for Jonathan Dowdall’s assistance to the prosecution in the trial of Gerard “Monk” Hutch and others in the Regency shootings.

However, Mr Justice Tony Hunt said the court refused to suspend the sentence “given the gravity of the offense and the consequences” and that Dowdall was assisting a “serious criminal organisation”.

The start of the sentences was postponed for two weeks so that the defendants could speak to “professionals”.

Byrne (34) was a father of two and a member of the Kinahan gang.

He was shot dead when five armed raiders, including three masked men disguised as Garda Emergency Response Unit (ERU) officers, stormed the hotel during the boxing weigh-ins on February 5, 2016.

Patrick Dowdall had booked a hotel room for the gang to use and both men traveled to hand over the keys to the criminals the day before the deadly attack.

Jonathan Dowdall was initially charged with murder, but prosecutors dropped that charge after he pleaded guilty to a lesser charge.

The Dowdalls are the first people to be convicted of shootings in the Regency.

Jonathan Dowdall has since appeared as a prosecution witness in the trial of Gerard Hutch “Monk”, who is accused of Mr Byrne’s murder.

Dealing first with Jonathan Dowdall, Judge Hunt said the defendant had aided a “serious criminal organization” by receiving and following instructions to obtain a hotel room with the help of his father.

Jonathan Dowdall continued to communicate with a member of the organization after the key was handed over and traveled with him to Northern Ireland.

They were monitored electronically
were on that trip, although no details were provided to the court.

A year before the crime, Jonathan Dowdall had committed a serious violent crime unrelated to the Hutch family, the judge said.

According to him, “the most charitable opinion” in this case was eight years of imprisonment.

Although the accused had no previous good character, there is evidence of “positive activity” prior to his involvement in the serious crime.

The judge said the immediate and lasting effect of Jonathan Dowdall’s assistance to the authorities was to put him and his family in “significant danger”.

Their lives will be “turned upside down and become more difficult and dangerous,” he said

Patrick Dowdall made no attempt to hide or disguise his actions and was very cooperative with the investigation.

The court took the unusual step of finding that it was a “low level crime, albeit at a higher level”.

Serving the sentence and life in prison would be “severe” and the court further reduced the sentence to two years.