Settled ... Hutch wanted to stay in Mountjoy Exclusive By OWEN CONLON, NEIL COTTER AND STEPHEN BREEN Published: 3 hrs ago 0 THE family of terrified Derek Hutch begged a TD to call the Irish Prison Service to try to get the killer moved to a safer jail.
TD Joe Costello was named by Hutch’s father Patrick as the man who was asked to make representations on behalf of vicious Del Boy after his transfer to Co Laois.
Hutch — who stabbed a man to death in 2007 — feared he would be targeted by Alan Ryan’s Real IRA mob after he was transferred from Mountjoy to Portlaoise in November 2009.
In a conversation taped by Spanish cops as part of their investigations into Christy Kinahan’s drugs empire, Derek’s father Patrick revealed he had approached the Labour politician who is TD for Dublin Central.
Patrick phoned his Spanish-based son Gary and said that he had approached Costello — the present Minister of State for Trade and Development — about getting Derek out of Portlaoise.
Patrick said Costello made enquiries and rang the Hutch family to say that prison officials had decided that Derek would be kept away from other prisoners in Portlaoise and in the segregation unit.
In an astonishing Spanish police transcript of taped conversations and text messages over three weeks, Gary — the nephew of veteran Dublin gang figure Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch — lifted the lid on his brother’s worries.
On November 17, Gary took a call from his father who said he was worried that Derek was about to be transferred from ‘The Joy’.
Gary was also told how Derek feared being attacked by the “ones from the Fairview Inn” — meaning the associates of RIRA boss Alan Ryan (who was murdered by rival gangsters last September) — if he was sent to the Co Laois slammer.
And he told his father he would sort the problem out but said he was worried his brother would be unable to use his SIM card because he was in the medical wing of Mountjoy where there would be no phone.
In a series of calls over a number of hours, a female pal of Derek’s then told Gary he had borrowed a phone and had been in touch.
The following day, Gary asked Freddie Thompson to ring an inmate in Mountjoy — who cannot be named — and tell him to give his phone to Derek for the night so the brothers could chat.
The following day, Derek’s female pal called to say Derek had been sent to Portlaoise.
His father then told Gary that Patrick had been in segregation on A-Wing.
The following day, the female pal called again to say Derek was complaining about prison. On November 22, Derek, Gary and the female pal had a three-way phone conversation. Fat Freddie then took Gary’s phone and said he might know a prison officer there and would see what he could do for Derek.
Gary told Derek to keep his head down in Portlaoise before Patrick told him he had been on to Costello about getting him a transfer.
The family were advising Derek to go on hunger strike and a dirty protest and accused the Gardai of orchestrating the transfer.
Patrick told Gary he had yet to hand over the Book of Evidence to an inmate, the evil child rapist Rossi Walsh, who had cultivated a reputation as an amateur lawyer. His family were convinced they knew the reason he had been taken out of Mountjoy in the first place.
According to Patrick, it was because Derek was in possession of a phone — contrary to prison rules — and also because a “top cop” in Dublin’s Store Street had heard Derek was planning a prison break.
Derek’s family were still trying to get him moved, but weren’t confident as they believed the same “c*** in Store Street” would ensure Derek “was stuck there”. Last July, Hutch was sentenced to 16 years in jail for co-ordinating a botched cash van raid. He was already serving a ten-year sentence — with four suspended — handed down in 2011 — for the manslaughter of Barry Maguire, 27.
He is also doing a ten-year stretch for handgun possession.
His raid conviction means his previous 2020 release date has been extended by five years. Hutch is now serving his sentence in Dublin’s Wheatfield prison. He is not due to be released until 2025.
We contracted Joe Costello TD several times for comment. He told the Irish Sun he would get back to us but he had not returned our calls last night.
