Two getaway drivers in the 2016 Regency Hotel attack, in which Kinahan cartel member David Byrne was murdered, have failed to have their prison sentences reduced.The Court of Appeal found the roles of Jason Bonney (55) and Paul Murphy (64) in the events at the north Dublin hotel were “far from peripheral”.The pair were tried alongside Gerry “The Monk” Hutch at the non-jury Special Criminal Court in 2022. Hutch was acquitted of Byrne’s murder but Bonney and Murphy were convicted of facilitating the Hutch Criminal Organisation in carrying out the murder.Byrne (33) was shot and killed during a boxing weigh-in at the Regency Hotel, Swords Road, Whitehall on February 5th, 2016. Gunmen, one dressed in drag and others in fake Garda uniforms, stormed the hotel in pursuit of members of the Kinahan cartel. Murphy, of Cherry Avenue, Swords, was jailed for nine years following his conviction for facilitating the shooting by acting as a getaway driver. Bonney, of Drumnigh Wood, Portmarnock, received an 8½ year sentence for the same offence. Both men pleaded not guilty.In dismissing their appeals against their respective sentences on Friday, Judge John Edwards said the assistance provided by Bonney and Murphy in facilitating those “more centrally involved” in the Regency attack was “meaningful” and “far from peripheral”.“The Hutch criminal organisation operates at a high level of criminality, is notoriously involved in a long-running feud with the rival Kinahan criminal organisation, which has claimed many lives, and its activities challenge and represent a very serious threat to the rule of law and rules-based social order in this country,” he said.Bonney and Murphy appealed against their sentences after the Court of Appeal rejected their attempts to have their convictions overturned last November.It was argued that Bonney had a “completely unblemished” criminal record and a strong work history. Murphy’s lawyers said he had only been involved in a “very peripheral way” in Byrne’s murder and had lacked knowledge of the seriousness of what was to transpire on the day.Edwards accepted that Bonney and Murphy may not have known “every detail” of what the Hutch group had planned in terms of the assassination at the Regency Hotel. However, he said the evidence showed that they must have known – from the “meticulousness” with which the getaway was planned – that “serious criminal action was in contemplation”.The judge said the sentencing court had rightly pointed out that the offences were aggravated by the fact a murder occurred, regardless of whether Bonney and Murphy knew that in advance. He said the consequences of the assistance provided were that those involved in murder and aiding and abetting the crime were “facilitated in evading apprehension by gardaí”.He said Bonney and Murphy assisted after “the main criminal conspiracy”, including murder, had been carried out. They also helped the perpetrators and some of their associates to escape, elevating their respective levels of culpability.He also found no error in the level of discount given for mitigation in each case.The prosecution case against Bonney and Murphy was that they travelled in convoy with four other cars to St Vincent’s GAA club on Dublin’s northside and each drove one of the hitmen from there after the Regency attack.The Special Criminal Court found that one of the gunmen, Kevin “Flat Cap” Murray, got into Bonney’s BMW SUV at the St Vincent’s car park after the attack. Murray died from motor neuron disease in 2017 before he could be brought to trial.The court also found that Murphy used his silver Toyota Avensis taxi to pick up one of the gunmen at the car park.Jonathan Dowdall (47) – a married father of four with a last address at Navan Road, Cabra, Dublin 7 – was originally charged with Byrne’s murder. The State dropped that charge after he admitted to the lesser offence of facilitating the Hutch gang in the murder of Byrne by making a room available at the Regency Hotel for use by the perpetrators the night before the attack. He was in 2022 sentenced to four years.