Johnny Adair
Johnny Adair | |
---|---|
Born | John Adair 27 October 1963 Belfast, Northern Ireland |
Spouse | Gina Crossan (1997–2003; divorced) |
John Adair (born 27 October 1963),[
Early life
Adair was born into an
Adair's father, Jimmy, had no involvement in
As he grew older Adair took to the streets, forming a
The gang regularly congregated outside the
At 17, Adair began a relationship with Gina Crossan, three years his junior and also a skinhead, who at the time had shaved her head to leave only a tuft of hair at the front.[8] The notoriety of the gang, which was part of a wider group in loyalist north and west Belfast known as the "NF Skinz" because of their support for the ideas of the National Front, gained widespread notoriety on 14 January 1981 when "Sieg Heiling" members launched a brutal attack on anti-racist fans of The Specials and The Beat when the two bands played a concert at the Ulster Hall.[9] Adair would later be assaulted by Irish republicans while attending a UB40 concert.[10]
This was followed in August 1983 by the so-called "Gluesniffers March", when 200 skinheads descended on
Paramilitary activity
Upon joining the UDA in 1984, Adair and his friends were assigned to C8, an active unit that formed part of the West Belfast Brigade's C Company, which covered the lower Shankill. The young members' early duties mostly consisted of rioting, along with occasional gun attacks on heavily armoured police vehicles[
By the early 1990s, a new leadership had emerged on the Shankill Road following the killing of powerful South Belfast Brigadier and UDA Deputy Commander John McMichael in 1987 by a booby-trap car bomb planted by the
Brigadier
Adair succeeded Jim Spence as brigadier in 1993 after Spence was imprisoned for extortion.[16] When Adair became the first person in Northern Ireland charged with directing terrorism in 1995, he admitted that he had been a UDA leader for three years up to 1994. During this time, Adair and his colleagues were involved in multiple random murders of Catholic civilians, mostly carried out by a special killing unit led by Stevie "Top Gun" McKeag.[17] At Adair's trial in 1995, the prosecuting lawyer said he was dedicated to his cause against those whom he "regarded as militant republicans – among whom he had lumped almost the entire Roman Catholic population".[18]
Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) detectives believe his unit killed up to 40 people in this period.[19] Adair once remarked to a Catholic journalist from the Republic of Ireland that normally Catholics traveled in the boot of his car.[20] According to a press report in 2003, Adair was handed details of republican suspects by the Intelligence Corps, and was even invited for dinner with them in the early 1990s.[21]
In his autobiography, he alleged he was frequently passed information on republican paramilitaries by sympathetic
The BBC described Adair as "the most controversial, high-profile and ubiquitous" of all the paramilitaries operating in Northern Ireland during this period.
First conviction
During this time, undercover officers from the RUC had recorded months of discussions with Adair in which he boasted of his activities, producing enough evidence to charge him with directing terrorism. He was convicted on 6 September 1995 and sentenced to 16 years in the
Adair was held with other loyalist prisoners in their "block" of the prison. In prison, according to some reports, Adair sold drugs such as cannabis, ecstasy tablets and amphetamines to other loyalist prisoners, earning him an income of £5,000 a week.[30]
In January 1998, Adair was one of five loyalist prisoners visited in the prison by British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Mo Mowlam. She persuaded them to drop their objection to their political representatives continuing the talks that led to the Good Friday Agreement in April that year. Following the killing of Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) leader Billy Wright inside the Maze prison by the INLA the previous December, the UDA prisoners had voted two to one to withdraw from the peace process.[31] Adair's co-operation was essential as he was regarded as the key figure in securing the support of the other loyalist prisoners.[24]
At the end of April 1999, while he was on home leave from prison, Adair was shot at and grazed by a bullet in the head at a UB40 concert in Belfast which he had attended with his wife.
Loyalist feuds
2000
After his release, much of Adair's activities was bound up with violent internecine feuds within the UDA and between the UDA and other loyalist paramilitary groups. The motivation for such violence is sometimes difficult to piece together; it usually involves a combination of political differences over the ceasefires, rivalry over control of territory, and competition over the proceeds of organised crime.[citation needed]
In August 2000 Adair claimed he had been attacked with a pipe bomb by the IRA.[35][36] That same month, on 19 August, he organised a "loyalist day of culture" on the lower Shankill Road. He invited the five other brigadiers from the Inner Council to attend, along with loyalist[37][38] Michael Stone and politicians John White and Frank McCoubrey.
This event featured loyalist marching bands and a militant show of strength by the West Belfast Brigade. It also marked the start of a violent feud between the UDA and its main rival, the
Adair's men also sacked the homes of Gusty Spence and Winston Churchill Rea as part of a move to drive the UVF off the Shankill.[39][41] The UVF struck back on 21 August, killing two of Adair's allies, Jackie Coulter and Bobby Mahood, on the Crumlin Road. In response, C Company members burned down the headquarters of the UVF-linked Progressive Unionist Party (PUP).[42] Adair was arrested on 22 August 2000 whilst he and Dodds were driving down the Shankill Road. As a result of his involvement in the violence, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Peter Mandelson revoked Adair's early release and returned him to prison. This time he was sent to Maghaberry instead of the Maze.[24] With command reverting to Dodds, UVF member Samuel Rockett was killed by C Company the following night. The UVF struck back and 4 more people on both sides were killed before the feud then petered out.
2002
On 15 May 2002, Adair was released from prison again. Outside the prison he was greeted by up to 300 of his supporters.[43] Once free, he was a key part of an effort to forge stronger ties between the UDA and the LVF, a small breakaway faction of the UVF founded in 1996 by Billy Wright and following his killing, commanded by Mark "Swinger" Fulton, with whom Adair was on good terms. Fulton had been in Maghaberry since December 2001. The most open declaration of this alliance was a joint mural depicting Adair's UDA "C company" and the LVF. Other elements in the UDA strongly resisted these movements, which they saw as an attempt by Adair to win external support in a bid to take over the leadership of the UDA. Some UDA members disliked his overt association with the drugs trade, which the LVF were even more heavily involved with.[citation needed] For his part Adair controlled a block of flats in his Lower Shankill stronghold from which he and his allies dealt drugs.[44]
Adair also sought to work closely with Belfast-based dissidents such as
On 13 September 2002, Jim Gray – the head of the UDA in East Belfast and an archrival of Adair – was shot in the face by Adair's supporters.[47] The shooting was described by the police as "loosely related" to the death of Stephen Warnock, an LVF leader, as part of a loyalist feud.[48]
Adair had been spreading rumours that Gray and
Expulsion from the UDA
On 20 September 2002, Adair was summoned to an Inner Council meeting held in Sandy Row where there was a showdown between him and the other brigadiers, including Gray. Fearing an ambush, Adair had his allies "Fat" Jackie Thompson and James "Sham" Millar smuggle a pistol for him to the meeting. Five days later, Adair was expelled from the UDA for treason along with close associate John White. Adair's response to the expulsion was "Fuck them uns" and declared the West Belfast Brigade a separate organisation from the mainstream UDA.[51] He even erected "West Belfast UDA – Business as Usual" banners on the Shankill Road.[52] By this point Adair had even lost the support of the Shoukri brothers, his proteges in north Belfast who had been amongst his closest allies outside of his own area but who decided to side with the mainstream UDA in this dispute.[51] There were attempts on Adair's and White's lives.
Adair returned to prison in January 2003, when his early release licence was revoked by Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Paul Murphy on grounds of engaging in unlawful activity. He appointed "Fat" Jackie Thompson as his replacement as Brigadier.[53] On 1 February 2003, UDA divisional leader John Gregg was shot dead along with another UDA member, Robert "Rab" Carson, on returning from a Rangers FC match in Glasgow. The killing was widely blamed on Adair's C Company – Gregg was one of those who had organised the expulsion of Adair from the UDA. Among the mainstream UDA, a powerful faction of Adair opponents quickly formed under the leadership of South Belfast brigadier Jackie McDonald. In the early hours of 6 February (five days after Gregg's shooting and just hours before his funeral was due to take place), about twenty Adair supporters, including White and Adair's wife, fled their homes for Scotland after 100 heavily armed men from the mainstream UDA invaded Adair's stronghold, forcing them to quit Northern Ireland.[54]
Exile from Northern Ireland and personal life
Following the ousting of C Company from the Shankill Road, Adair's family and supporters went to
Adair was released from prison on 10 January 2005 and immediately headed to Bolton after being taken by helicopter to nearby Manchester.[57] The police in Bolton questioned his wife, Gina about her involvement in the drugs trade, and his son, Jonathan Jr (nicknamed both 'Mad Pup' and 'Daft Dog'[58]) has been charged with selling crack cocaine and heroin.[59] Adair himself was arrested and fined for assault and threatening behaviour in September 2005. He had married Gina Crossan, his partner for many years, at the Maze prison on 21 February 1997. Together they had three children.[46]
Several claims have been made about Adair's sexuality by his former girlfriend, Jackie "Legs" Robinson, and UDA hitman Michael Stone. Stone claimed in his autobiography that Adair had sex with other male inmates while in prison.[60] Jackie Robinson, who beginning in 1991 sustained a nine-year off-and-on relationship with Adair, backed up this claim in an interview with The Mirror, in which she alleged that Adair has been having sex with long-term friend and fellow loyalist Skelly McCrory since they were teenagers.[61]
Robinson told The Mirror journalist that she and Adair had sexual encounters during her visits to him in prison and that he received visits from prostitutes as well.[61] In her book, In Love With a Mad Dog, Robinson stated that after a UDA killing had been carried out, he would become highly aroused and afterwards be "particularly wild in bed".[62] It was also alleged that the mere discussion of the details of operations he had helped plan gave him a "sexually charged excitement", even when the killings had been done by others.[63]
After his release, he was almost immediately re-arrested for violently assaulting his wife Gina, who had been diagnosed with and treated for ovarian cancer.[64] After this episode Adair reportedly moved to Scotland[65] but later relocated to Horwich, near Bolton in early 2003.[66] In 2003 he became a grandfather for the first time.[67]
In May 2006, it was reported that Adair had received £100,000 from
On 20 July 2015 three Irish republicans (Antoin Duffy, Martin Hughes and Paul Sands) were found guilty of planning to murder Adair and Sam McCrory.[68] Charges against one of the accused in the trial were dropped on 1 July.[69]
On 10 September 2016, Johnny and Gina Adair's son, Jonathan Jr, was found dead in Troon, aged 32.[70][71] Adair Jr died from an accidental overdose while celebrating the day after his release from prison for motoring offences. Adair Jr had been in and out of prison since the family fled Northern Ireland. He served a five-year sentence for dealing heroin and crack cocaine. The year before Jonathan had been cleared of a gun raid at a party and in 2012 was the target of a failed bomb plot. He was also facing trial later that year on drugs charges.
Bibliography
- Lister, David and Jordan, Hugh. (2005). Mad Dog: The Rise and Fall of Johnny Adair and 'C Company'. Mainstream Publishing; ISBN 978-1-84018-890-5
- McDonald, Henry & Cusack, Jim (2004). UDA – Inside the Heart of Loyalist Terror. Dublin: Penguin Ireland.
References
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- ^ a b Lister & Jordan, p. 27
- ^ ISBN 978-0-7486-2427-0. Archivedfrom the original on 11 October 2013. Retrieved 10 August 2011.
- ^ Lister & Jordan, p. 26
- ^ a b Wood, pp. 155–56
- ^ Lister & Jordan, p. 28
- ^ Lister & Jordan, p. 30
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- ^ "Republicans behind Adair shooting". BBC News. 3 May 1999. Archived from the original on 5 January 2009. Retrieved 16 December 2016.
- ^ McDonald & Cusack, p. 169
- ^ Lister & Jordan, pp. 51–52
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- ^ Lister & Jordan, p. 149
- ^ McDonald & Cusack, p. 3
- ^ Profile of the notorious loyalist leader Johnny 'Mad Dog' Adair, The Guardian, 15 May 2002.
- ^ "'Mad Dog' Adair sparks fury over £100,000 book", The Guardian, 21 May 2006.
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- ^ Top Army officer 'handed over IRA files to Adair', The Guardian, 27 April 2003.
- ^ Troops 'colluded with Mad Dog', guardian.co.uk; retrieved 10 August 2011.
- ^ Lister & Jordan, pp. 209–11.
- ^ a b c d "Johnny Adair: Notorious loyalist" Archived 12 September 2012 at the Wayback Machine, BBC News. 10 January 2003; retrieved 21 September 2012.
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- ^ "RUC investigate Johnny Adair shooting claim" Archived 15 February 2005 at the Wayback Machine, RTÉ News, 2 May 1999.
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- ^ Monika Unsworth (16 August 2000). "Leading loyalist Adair says IRA tried to kill him in bomb attack". The Irish Times. Archived from the original on 24 August 2017. Retrieved 16 December 2016.
- ^ "2000: Loyalist killer Michael Stone freed from Maze". BBC News. 24 July 2000. Archived from the original on 7 November 2018. Retrieved 4 August 2015.
- ^ Craig, Olga (3 June 2003). "Inside the heart of Stone". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 24 August 2017. Retrieved 4 April 2018.
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- ^ a b Suzanne Breen. "At home with Johnny Adair". Sunday Tribune, 1 April 2007.
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External links
- BBC News: Johnny Adair: feared Loyalist leader
- BBC News: Johnny Adair: Notorious Loyalist
- For Johnny Adair, the writing is on the wall – Sydney Morning Herald
- Mad Dog and Irish men – Donal MacIntyre article on the making of his documentary about Adair.