Johnny Adair
| Johnny Adair | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Jonathan Adair |
| Born | 27 October 1963 Belfast, Northern Ireland |
| Allegiance | Ulster Freedom Fighters |
| Rank | Brigadier |
| Unit | C Company, 2nd Battalion Shankill Road, West Belfast Brigade |
| Conflict | The Troubles |
Jonathan Adair, better known as Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair (born 27 October 1963 in Belfast, Northern Ireland) is the former leader of the "C Company", 2nd Battalion Shankill Road, West Belfast Brigade of the "Ulster Freedom Fighters" (UFF). This was a cover name used by the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), an Ulster loyalist paramilitary organisation. Adair was expelled from the organisation in 2002 following a violent internal power struggle. Since 2003, he, his family and a number of supporters have been forced to leave Northern Ireland by other loyalists.
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[edit] Early life
Adair was born into a Protestant loyalist background and raised in Belfast. He grew up in the lower Oldpark area, a site of many sectarian clashes and riots during the Troubles. He had little parental supervision, and did not attend school regularly.[1] He took to the streets, forming a skinhead street gang with a group of young loyalist friends, who "got involved initially in petty then increasingly violent crime".[1] Eventually, Adair started a rock band called Offensive Weapon which openly espoused support for the National Front.[1] As a 17 year old Adair began dating Gina Crossan, three years his junior and herself a skinhead girl who at the time had shaved her head to leave only a tuft of hair at the front.[2]
While still in his teens, he was threatened with knee-capping by the UDA after assaulting an old age pensioner but was given the option of joining the UDA's young wing, the Ulster Young Militants, instead.[1] He joined the Ulster Young Militants, and later the UDA – a legal loyalist paramilitary organisation which killed people using the name "Ulster Freedom Fighters".[1]
[edit] Paramilitary activities
By the early 1990s, a new leadership had emerged on the Shankill Road following the killing of powerful South Belfast Brigadier and the UDA's Deputy Commander John McMichael in 1987 by a booby-trap car bomb planted by the IRA; less than three months later, the Supreme Commander Andy Tyrie resigned after an attempt was made on his life. He was not replaced; instead the organisation was run by its Inner Council. With the West Belfast UDA brigadier and spokesman Tommy Lyttle in prison and gradually eased out of the leadership, Adair, as the most ambitious of the "Young Turks", established himself as head of the UDA/UFF's "C Company", 2nd Battalion based on the Shankill.[3] He succeeded Jim Spence as brigadier in 1993.[4] When Adair was charged with terrorist offences 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 and random murders of Catholic civilians, mostly carried out by a special killings unit led by Stevie "Top Gun" McKeag.[5] 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".[6] Royal Ulster Constabulary detectives believe his unit killed up to 40 people in this period.[7] Adair once remarked to a Catholic journalist from the Republic of Ireland upon the discovery of her being Catholic, that normally Catholics travelled in the boot of his car.[8] 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.[9] In his autobiography, he claimed he was frequently passed information by sympathetic British army members, and that his own whereabouts were passed to republican paramilitaries by the RUC Special Branch, who, he claimed, hated him.[10] As brigadier of the West Belfast UDA Adair was entitled to one of the six seats on the organisation's Inner Council and in this role Adair, who wanted to continue on the path of violence, clashed frequently with East Antrim brigadier Joe English, who advocated seeking a peace settlement.[11]
The Provisional Irish Republican Army's Shankill Road Bombing of a fish shop in October 1993 was an attempt to assassinate Adair and the rest of the UDA's Belfast leadership in reprisal for attacks on Catholics. The IRA claimed that the office above the shop was regularly used by the UDA for meetings and one was due to take place shortly after the bomb exploded. The bomb went off early, killing one of the IRA men, Thomas Begley, and nine Protestant civilians. The UFF retaliated by carrying out the Greysteel massacre, a random attack on the Rising Sun bar in Greysteel, County Londonderry, in which eight civilians, two of whom were Protestants, were killed. Adair has survived 13 assassination bids, most of which were carried out by the IRA and Irish National Liberation Army.[12]
During this time, undercover officers from the Royal Ulster Constabulary 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 and sentenced to 16 years in the The Maze prison.
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.[12]
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. In 1999, Adair was released as part of early-release scheme for paramilitary prisoners under the Agreement.
[edit] Loyalist feuds
Since his release, much of Adair's activities have been bound up with violent internecine feuds within the UDA and between the UDA and other loyalist paramilitary groupings. The motivation for such violence is sometimes difficult to piece together. It involves a combination of political differences over the loyalist ceasefires, rivalry between loyalists over control of territory and competition over the proceeds of organised crime.
In 1999, Adair was shot at and grazed by a bullet in the head at a UB40 concert in Belfast.[13] He blamed the shooting on republicans.[14] In August 2000, Adair was again injured by a pipe bomb he was transporting in a car.
A feud had broken out at that time between the UDA and the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), leaving several loyalists dead. As a result of Adair's involvement in the violence, the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Peter Mandelson revoked Adair's early release and returned him to prison.
In May 2002, Adair was released from prison again. Once free, he was a key part of an effort to forge stronger ties between the UDA/UFF and the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF), a small breakaway faction of the UVF. The most open declaration of this was a joint mural depicting Adair's UDA "C company" and the LVF. Other elements in the UDA/UFF 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] A loyalist feud began, and ended with several men dead and scores evicted from their homes.
On 25 September 2002, Adair was expelled from the UDA/UFF along with close associate John White, and the organisation almost split as Adair tried to woo influential leaders such as Andre Shoukri, who were initially sympathetic to him. 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.[15] On 1 February 2003, UDA divisional leader John Gregg was shot dead along with another UDA member, Rob 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. Five days later, on 6 February, about twenty Adair supporters, including White, fled their homes for Scotland, widely seen as a response to severe intimidation.
[edit] Exile from Northern Ireland and personal life
Following the ousting of C Company from the Shankill Road Adair's family and supporters went to Bolton where they garnered the nickname 'Bolton Wanderers' after the football club of the same name.[16] Following the killing of LVF leader Billy Wright by the Irish National Liberation Army in 1997 Adair became the new contact men for a group of Bolton-based members of the neo-Nazi organisation Combat 18 (C18) who up to that point had been close to the LVF. Adair built up a close relationship with these far right activists, even wearing an England shirt during UEFA Euro 2000 that one of the members had given him. Furthermore when the feud with the UVF was launched in 2000 through C Company members attacking the UVF's Rex Bar stronghold a few C18 members fought alongside the UDA men. As a result it was to the homes of these far rightists, in particular a Bolton-based tattoo artist and C18 member, that Adair's supporters fled to in 2003.[17] Adair was released from prison on 10 January 2005 and immediately headed to Bolton after being taken by helicopter to nearby Manchester.[18] The police in Bolton have questioned his wife, Gina about her involvement in the drugs trade, and his son (nicknamed both 'Mad Pup' and 'Daft Dog'[19]) has been charged with selling crack cocaine and heroin.[20] 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 have four children: Jonathan, Natalie, Chloe and Jay.
Several claims have been made about Adair's sexuality by his ex-lover Jackie "Legs" Robinson, and another loyalist Michael Stone. Stone claimed in his autobiography that Adair had sex with other male inmates while in prison.[21] Jackie Robinson backed up this claim in an interview with The Mirror, in which she also claimed that Adair has been having sex with long-term friend and fellow loyalist Sam McCrory since they were teenagers[22] Adair staunchly denies these claims. Robinson maintained that after a UDA/UFF killing had been set up and carried out, he would become highly aroused and afterwards be "particularly wild in bed".[23][24] It was also alleged that the mere discussion of an operation's details gave him a "sexually charged excitement"; even when the actual killings had been done by others he had personally chosen as hitmen.[25]
In 2003 he became a grandfather for the first time.[26]
After being released, he was almost immediately arrested again for violently assaulting Gina, who suffers from ovarian cancer.[27] Since this episode Johnny Adair is reported as having moved to Scotland, living in Troon in Ayrshire.[28] The Adair family moved to Horwich, Lancashire in early 2003.[29]
In May 2006, it was reported that Adair had received £100,000 from John Blake Publishing for a ghost-written autobiography.[7]
In November 2006, the UK's Five television channel transmitted an observational documentary on Adair made by Donal MacIntyre. The focus of the film centred around Adair and another supposedly reformed character, a former neo-Nazi from Germany called Nick Greger, and their trip to Uganda to build an orphanage. Adair was seen to fire rifles, stating it was the first time he had done so without wearing gloves.
In November 2008 Adair appeared in an episode of Danny Dyer's Deadliest Men which profiled fellow C Company inmate Sam "Skelly" McCrory.
In August 2011 his Scottish girlfriend gave birth to their first son called Riley and he expressed his desire for his new born son to get a university education.[30]
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e Ian S. Wood (15 June 2006). Crimes of loyalty: a history of the UDA. Edinburgh University Press. pp. 155–156. ISBN 978-0-7486-2427-0. http://books.google.com/books?id=liiq7RU67OoC&pg=PA156. Retrieved 10 August 2011.
- ^ Lister, David and Jordan, Hugh. (2005). Mad Dog: The Rise and Fall of Johnny Adair and 'C Company'. Mainstream Publishing. p. 35 ISBN 978-1-84018-890-5
- ^ Henry McDonald & Jim Cusack (2004). UDA – Inside the Heart of Loyalist Terror. Dublin: Penguin Ireland. p.161
- ^ Lister and Jordan. Mad Dog. p. 149
- ^ Henry McDonald & Jim Cusack, UDA – Inside the Heart of Loyalist Terror, Dublin: Penguin Ireland, 2004, p. 3
- ^ Profile of the notorious loyalist leader Johnny 'Mad Dog' Adair — The Guardian, 15 May 2002.
- ^ a b 'Mad Dog' Adair sparks fury over £100,000 book, The Guardian, 21 May 2006.
- ^ 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
- ^ Top Army officer 'handed over IRA files to Adair', The Guardian, 27 April 2003.
- ^ Troops 'colluded with Mad Dog' | UK news | The Observer. Guardian. Retrieved on 2011-08-10.
- ^ lister & Jordan, Mad Dog, pp. 209–211
- ^ a b Mad Dog finds peace is bad for business, Irish Examiner, 24 August 2000.
- ^ 'Republicans behind Adair shooting' BBC News.
- ^ RUC investigate Johnny Adair shooting claim, RTÉ News, 2 May 1999.
- ^ Lister & Jordan, Mad Dog, p. 327
- ^ Henry McDonald, Why the streets of Bolton echo to the sounds of a loyalist vendetta, The Observer, 13-7-2003
- ^ McDonald & Cusack, UDA, pp. 392-393
- ^ What next for Johnny Adair? from bbc.co.uk>
- ^ Jonathan McCormick A Directory of Murals – Album 51
- ^ Terror follows Loyalist diehards to Bolton outpost, The Independent, 18 December 2003.
- ^ Michael Stone "None Shall Divide Us" Blake Publishing; New edition edition (31 May 2004)
- ^ Mad Dog'S Gay Romps. mirror.co.uk (2006-10-23). Retrieved on 2011-08-10.
- ^ Sex and sectarianism in loyalist paramilitary world". Sunday Tribune. Suzanne Breen. 29 October 2006[dead link]
- ^ Caldwell, June; Robinson, Jackie (2006). In Love With a Mad Dog. UK: Gill & Macmillan Ltd. p.30
- ^ Wood, p.168
- ^ Adair gains a grandson,but his name will be Doherty-The Guardian
- ^ Adair admits park attack on wife, BBC News, 28 September 2005.
- ^ 'I'm no threat to anyone.' Why the war is over for Mad Dog Adair — The Guardian, 19 February 2006.
- ^ Chris Summers Drugs shame of Adair's son BBC. 19 March, 2004
- ^ Mad Dog's New Pup-The Sun
[edit] 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.
| Other offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Jim Spence |
Ulster Defence Association West Belfast Brigadier 1993–1995 |
Succeeded by William "Winkie" Dodds |
| Preceded by William "Winkie" Dodds |
Ulster Defence Association West Belfast Brigadier 1999–2000 |
Succeeded by William "Winkie" Dodds |
| Preceded by William "Winkie" Dodds |
Ulster Defence Association West Belfast Brigadier 2002 |
Succeeded by Mo Courtney |
