A MAN HAS been given a mandatory life sentence in prison after he was convicted of the murder of Gareth Hutch in the Special Criminal Court.

Thomas ‘Nicky’ McConnell is the fourth person to be convicted of Hutch’s murder in May 2016. His sentence has been backdated to 20 July 2020, when he was first taken into custody by Turkish authorities before being then extradited to Ireland.

McConnell (39) of Sillogue Gardens, Ballymun, Dublin 11 had pleaded not guilty to the murder of Gareth Hutch (36) on 24 May 2016 at Avondale House, North Cumberland Street, Dublin 1. 

Hutch, the nephew of Gerard ‘The Monk’ Hutch, was followed home and shot dead. McConnell was convicted of the ambush by the Special Criminal Court last month.

Mr Justice Alexander Owens said that the evidence showed, beyond reasonable doubt, that McConnell was the second assassin along Jonathan Keogh, who followed Hutch home and shot him dead.

Mr Justice Owens sentenced him to the mandatory term of life imprisonment in Dublin this morning.

When passing judgement the court found that Keogh’s gun discharged a number of bullets at close range that caused the injuries which killed Hutch. McConnell’s gun was later found to have the safety catch on and did not fire any rounds during the murder.

The court found that even if McConnell deliberately left the safety catch on, his other actions in preparation for the shooting showed that he was part of a common design with Keogh and others to commit murder and his actions were intended to result in Hutch’s death.

The mother of Gareth Hutch told the Special Criminal Court that her son’s murder in an ambush outside his home over eight years ago was “a violent and callous crime with no value or thought given for a life”.

Vera Hutch’s victim impact statement was read out at the sentencing hearing this morning. She said her son was “senselessly and cruelly taken” from her and her family, tearing her life apart and changing their world “forever”.

The statement was read to the court by Detective Garda Raymond Lee. She said she had the “privilege and honour of being Gareth’s mother for over 35 years”.

“Standing here in front of you today with my life torn apart, our world changed forever. Losing Gareth has caused my heart and all our families hearts to be broken, nothing can ever repair the emptiness that his death has caused,” she said.

At today’s sitting of the non-jury court, Lee told prosecution counsel Fiona Murphy SC that McConnell has 105 previous convictions including those for assault, threatening to kill and causing serious harm as well as possession of knives.

In November 2018 the Special Criminal Court found Regina Keogh (47) of Cumberland St North, Dublin 1, Jonathan Keogh (39) with an address at Gloucester Place, Dublin 1 and Thomas Fox (32) with an address at Rutland Court, Dublin 1 guilty of the murder of Hutch.

McConnell’s trial began in 2023 but was postponed for 16 months, firstly when one of the judges was unable to continue and then as the court awaited a Supreme Court ruling in a separate case.

McConnell’s trial continued after the Supreme Court found in that case that traffic and location data relating to mobile phones could be used as evidence, even though the data was harvested using a now-invalidated law.

The trial heard that McConnell and Jonathan Keogh used an apartment opposite Gareth Hutch’s home as a lookout spot and when he emerged from his front door, they followed him and shot him dead.

Mary McDonnell, who lived at the lookout apartment, told the trial in June 2023 that she could identify Jonathan Keogh because she had known him for many years but she did not know the second man.

When asked to identify the second man from CCTV footage showing McConnell in a shop later the same day, she said she was “not really 100%” and that she was “half and half”.

Mr Justice Owens said last month that her evidence could not be used to prove McConnell was the second gunman.

The court instead relied on mobile phone data linking McConnell to the other murder plotters, CCTV footage connecting McConnell to various vehicles used in the plot and lies told by the accused to gardaí that were indicative of guilt.

In particular, the court was satisfied that McConnell parked a black BMW in front of Avondale House with the intention of using it as the getaway car.

Following the shooting, Keogh and McConnell got into the BMW but could not get it started. They then ran to a Skoda Octavia, which the court said had also been parked nearby by McConnell that morning. They left the scene in the Octavia.

When gardaí searched the BMW, they found McConnell’s DNA, a can of petrol and two changes of clothes that prosecution counsel Fiona Murphy SC said marked it out as a getaway car.

McConnell would later lie to gardaí that he had sold the BMW to a man who was similar looking to himself. Mr Justice Owens said this “yarn” was told to hide McConnell’s guilty role in the murder plot.

In reaching its verdict, the court relied on further lies told by the accused and emails on a phone linked to McConnell which showed he had an “intimate knowledge of the murder”.