HUTCH STATES CASE FOR €400K

Gerry in bid to get huge legal bill covered by the taxpayer

- MICHAEL O'TOOLE

GERRY "The Monk" Hutch will today launch a bid to force the State to pay him up to €400,000 that he had agreed to fork out of his own pocket to win his murder case.

Legal sources have told the Irish Mirror that Mr Hutch, who was acquitted last month of the murder of Kinahan associate David Byrne, has a legal bill of hundreds of thousands of euro from his 52-day trial and now wants the taxpayer to foot the bill.

He will today have his claim for costs mentioned by his barrister Brendan Grehan SC at the Special Criminal Court - the same court that acquitted him three weeks ago today of the February 5, 2016 murder.

"It's a huge amount of money but he is entitled to seek his costs because he in effect won his case when the court acquitted him," a source said last night.

"Only his legal team knows the exact figure but a trial at the Special is not cheap.

"A conservative estimate would be around €250,000 but it is more likely to be up to the €400,000 mark."

Murder accused usually have their fees paid by the State but Mr Hutch, 60, never made an application for legal aid.

That means he had to come to his own arrangement when he was extradited from Spain to Ireland in September 2021 and brought to court to be charged with the murder of 34-year-old Byrne at the Regency Airport Hotel.

Nor did Mr Hutch - who consistently denied the murder of Byrne - apply for legal aid at any stage in the almost 13 months between being charged and the trial starting in mid-October last year.