Niall Donald

It starts at that moment where he's waiting, is it five minutes before the verdict is due to come in?

Right on, yeah.

Yeah.

So you've set it in that moment, which is really, you know, if Gerard Hutch had been found guilty, he effectively would have spent the rest of his life in prison.

And of course, we know that he didn't.

He walks out the front door a couple of hours later.

But it's really a moment where everything is at stake.

I mean, obviously, I was there that day.

And, you know, I've been at some of these cases, for example, Joe Riley being found guilty.

And, you know, it might look, in retrospect, you might look at that moment and think, oh, there was a good chance he was going to be found not guilty.

But when you're sitting there,

you know, you can't know.

And particularly if people might not remember, the other two guys were found, Paul Murphy and Jason Bonney, had been found guilty of offences earlier that morning.

So it was very, very hard to know, even as the verdict is being read, which is a long verdict.

Why did you choose that moment?

Well, if you... I have a history of getting things wrong, by the way.

But if you look back, you know, in the run-up, I said, I think he's going to be found not guilty.

Right.

And we were able to say that because it was a special criminal court.

If it was a jury verdict, we wouldn't be able to discuss it.