Johnny Adair
Encyclopedia
Jonathan Adair, better known as Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair (born 27 October 1963 in Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...

, Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...

) is the former leader of the "C Company", 2nd Battalion Shankill Road, West Belfast Brigade
UDA West Belfast Brigade
The UDA West Belfast Brigade is the section of the Northern Irish loyalist paramilitary group the Ulster Defence Association based in the western quarter of Belfast in the Greater Shankill area...

 of the "Ulster Freedom Fighters" (UFF). This was a cover name used by the Ulster Defence Association
Ulster Defence Association
The Ulster Defence Association is the largest although not the deadliest loyalist paramilitary and vigilante group in Northern Ireland. It was formed in September 1971 and undertook a campaign of almost twenty-four years during "The Troubles"...

 (UDA), an Ulster loyalist
Ulster loyalism
Ulster loyalism is an ideology that is opposed to a united Ireland. It can mean either support for upholding Northern Ireland's status as a constituent part of the United Kingdom , support for Northern Ireland independence, or support for loyalist paramilitaries...

 paramilitary
Paramilitary
A paramilitary is a force whose function and organization are similar to those of a professional military, but which is not considered part of a state's formal armed forces....

 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.

Early life

Adair was born into a Protestant loyalist
Ulster loyalism
Ulster loyalism is an ideology that is opposed to a united Ireland. It can mean either support for upholding Northern Ireland's status as a constituent part of the United Kingdom , support for Northern Ireland independence, or support for loyalist paramilitaries...

 background and raised in Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...

. He grew up in the lower Oldpark
Belfast Oldpark (Northern Ireland Parliament constituency)
Belfast Oldpark was a constituency of the Parliament of Northern Ireland.-Boundaries:Belfast Oldpark was a borough constituency comprising part of northern Belfast...

 area, a site of many sectarian clashes and riots during the Troubles
The Troubles
The Troubles was a period of ethno-political conflict in Northern Ireland which spilled over at various times into England, the Republic of Ireland, and mainland Europe. The duration of the Troubles is conventionally dated from the late 1960s and considered by many to have ended with the Belfast...

. He had little parental supervision, and did not attend school regularly. He took to the streets, forming a skinhead
Skinhead
A skinhead is a member of a subculture that originated among working class youths in the United Kingdom in the 1960s, and then spread to other parts of the world. Named for their close-cropped or shaven heads, the first skinheads were greatly influenced by West Indian rude boys and British mods,...

 street gang
Gang
A gang is a group of people who, through the organization, formation, and establishment of an assemblage, share a common identity. In current usage it typically denotes a criminal organization or else a criminal affiliation. In early usage, the word gang referred to a group of workmen...

 with a group of young loyalist friends, who "got involved initially in petty then increasingly violent crime". Eventually, Adair started a rock band called Offensive Weapon which openly espoused support for the National Front
British National Front
The National Front is a far right, white-only political party whose major political activities took place during the 1970s and 1980s. Its popularity peaked in the 1979 general election, when it received 191,719 votes ....

. 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.

While still in his teens, he was threatened with knee-capping
Knee-capping
Kneecapping is a form of malicious wounding, often as criminal punishment or torture, in which the victim is injured in the knee, often using a firearm or power drill to damage the knee joint and kneecap.- Use :...

 by the UDA
Uda
Uda can refer to:*Emperor Uda, Emperor of Japan*Uda, Nara, a city in Japan*Uda, a Japanese name*Shintaro Uda, inventor of the Yagi-Uda antenna*Uda , a breed of domestic sheep*Uda, a commune in Argeş County, Romania...

 after assaulting an old age pensioner but was given the option of joining the UDA's young wing, the Ulster Young Militants
Ulster Young Militants
The Ulster Young Militants are considered to be the youth wing of the Ulster Defence Association, a loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland. Commonly known as the Young Militants or UYM, the group formed in 1974 when the Troubles were at their height...

, instead. He joined the Ulster Young Militants, and later the UDA – a legal loyalist paramilitary organisation which killed people using the name "Ulster Freedom Fighters".

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
John McMichael
John "Big John" McMichael was a leading Northern Irish loyalist who rose to become the most prominent figure within the Ulster Defence Association as the Deputy Commander and leader of its South Belfast Brigade. He was also commander of the organisation's cover name, the "Ulster Freedom Fighters"...

 in 1987 by a booby-trap car bomb planted by the IRA; less than three months later, the Supreme Commander Andy Tyrie
Andy Tyrie
Andrew "Andy" Tyrie is an Ulster loyalist and served as commander of the Ulster Defence Association during much of its early history...

 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
Tommy Lyttle
Tommy "Tucker" Lyttle , was a high-ranking Northern Irish loyalist who was a member of the Ulster Defence Association . He served as the UDA's spokesman as well as the leader of the organisation's West Belfast Brigade from 1975 until his arrest and imprisonment in 1990...

 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. He succeeded Jim Spence
Jim Spence (loyalist)
Jim Spence is a Northern Irish former loyalist activist. Spence became notorious for his time in the Ulster Defence Association , serving two spells as Brigadier in West Belfast...

 as brigadier in 1993. 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
Stephen McKeag
Stephen McKeag , known as Topgun or Top Gun, was a Northern Irish loyalist who became one of the most notorious figures within the Ulster Defence Association's 'C' Company in the 1990s...

. 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". Royal Ulster Constabulary
Royal Ulster Constabulary
The Royal Ulster Constabulary was the name of the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2000. Following the awarding of the George Cross in 2000, it was subsequently known as the Royal Ulster Constabulary GC. It was founded on 1 June 1922 out of the Royal Irish Constabulary...

 detectives believe his unit killed up to 40 people in this period. 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. 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. 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. 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
Joe English (loyalist)
Joe English is a former Ulster loyalist activist. English was a leading figure in both the Ulster Defence Association and the Ulster Democratic Party and was instrumental in the early stages of the Northern Ireland peace process. He is a native of the Rathcoole area of Newtownabbey, Northern...

, who advocated seeking a peace settlement.

The Provisional Irish Republican Army
Provisional Irish Republican Army
The Provisional Irish Republican Army is an Irish republican paramilitary organisation whose aim was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and bring about a socialist republic within a united Ireland by force of arms and political persuasion...

's Shankill Road Bombing
Shankill Road bombing
The Shankill Road bombing was carried out by the Provisional Irish Republican Army on 23 October 1993 and is one of the most notorious incidents of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The Provisional IRA's intended target was a meeting of loyalist paramilitary leaders, which was to take place above...

 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
Greysteel massacre
The Greysteel massacre took place on the evening of 30 October 1993 in Greysteel, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. Three members of the Ulster Defence Association , a loyalist paramilitary group, attacked a crowded pub with firearms, killing eight civilians and wounding thirteen...

, 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
Irish National Liberation Army
The Irish National Liberation Army or INLA is an Irish republican socialist paramilitary group that was formed on 8 December 1974. Its goal is to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and create a socialist united Ireland....

.

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
Maze (HM Prison)
Her Majesty's Prison Maze was a prison in Northern Ireland that was used to house paramilitary prisoners during the Troubles from mid-1971 to mid-2000....

 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.

In January 1998, Adair was one of five loyalist prisoners visited in the prison by British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Mo Mowlam
Mo Mowlam
Marjorie "Mo" Mowlam was a British Labour Party politician. She was the Member of Parliament for Redcar from 1987 to 2001 and served in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Minister for the Cabinet Office and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.Mowlam's time as Northern...

. 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.

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
UB40
UB40 are a British reggae/pop band formed in 1978 in Birmingham. The band has placed more than 50 singles in the UK Singles Chart, and has also achieved considerable international success. One of the world's best-selling music artists, UB40 have sold over 70 million records.Their hit singles...

 concert in Belfast. He blamed the shooting on republicans. In August 2000, Adair was again injured by a pipe bomb
Pipe bomb
A pipe bomb is an improvised explosive device, a tightly sealed section of pipe filled with an explosive material. The containment provided by the pipe means that simple low explosives can be used to produce a relatively large explosion, and the fragmentation of the pipe itself creates potentially...

 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
Peter Mandelson
Peter Benjamin Mandelson, Baron Mandelson, PC is a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament for Hartlepool from 1992 to 2004, served in a number of Cabinet positions under both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and was a European Commissioner...

 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
Loyalist Volunteer Force
The Loyalist Volunteer Force is a loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland. It was formed by Billy Wright in 1996 when he and the Portadown unit of the Ulster Volunteer Force's Mid-Ulster Brigade was stood down by the UVF leadership. He had been the commander of the Mid-Ulster Brigade. The...

 (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. 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
John White (loyalist)
John White is a former leading loyalist in Northern Ireland. He was sometimes known by the nickname 'Coco'. White was a leading figure in the loyalist paramilitary Ulster Defence Association and, following a prison sentence for murder, entered politics as a central figure in the Ulster Democratic...

, 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. On 1 February 2003, UDA divisional leader John Gregg
John Gregg (UDA)
John Gregg was a senior member of the UDA/UFF loyalist organisation in Northern Ireland. From the 1990s until his shooting death by rival associates, he served as brigadier of its South East Antrim Brigade...

 was shot dead along with another UDA member, Rob Carson, on returning from a Rangers FC
Rangers F.C.
Rangers Football Club are an association football club based in Glasgow, Scotland, who play in the Scottish Premier League. The club are nicknamed the Gers, Teddy Bears and the Light Blues, and the fans are known to each other as bluenoses...

 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.

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
Bolton
Bolton is a town in Greater Manchester, in the North West of England. Close to the West Pennine Moors, it is north west of the city of Manchester. Bolton is surrounded by several smaller towns and villages which together form the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, of which Bolton is the...

 where they garnered the nickname 'Bolton Wanderers' after the football club of the same name
Bolton Wanderers F.C.
Bolton Wanderers Football Club is an English professional association football club based in the area of Horwich in the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, Greater Manchester. They began their current spell in the Premier League in 2001....

. Following the killing of LVF leader Billy Wright
Billy Wright (loyalist)
William Stephen "Billy" Wright was a prominent Ulster loyalist during the period of violent religious/political conflict known as "The Troubles". He joined the Ulster Volunteer Force in 1975 and became commander of its Mid-Ulster Brigade in the early 1990s...

 by the Irish National Liberation Army
Irish National Liberation Army
The Irish National Liberation Army or INLA is an Irish republican socialist paramilitary group that was formed on 8 December 1974. Its goal is to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and create a socialist united Ireland....

 in 1997 Adair became the new contact men for a group of Bolton-based members of the neo-Nazi organisation Combat 18
Combat 18
Combat 18 is a violent neo-Nazi organisation associated with Blood and Honour. It originated in the United Kingdom, but has since spread to other countries. Members of Combat 18 have been suspected in numerous deaths of immigrants, non-whites, and other C18 members...

 (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
England national football team
The England national football team represents England in association football and is controlled by the Football Association, the governing body for football in England. England is the joint oldest national football team in the world, alongside Scotland, whom they played in the world's first...

 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. Adair was released from prison on 10 January 2005 and immediately headed to Bolton after being taken by helicopter to nearby Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

. 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') has been charged with selling crack cocaine and heroin. 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. 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 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". 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.

In 2003 he became a grandfather for the first time.

After being released, he was almost immediately arrested again for violently assaulting Gina, who suffers from ovarian cancer. Since this episode Johnny Adair is reported as having moved to Scotland, living in Troon
Troon
Troon is a town in South Ayrshire. It is situated on the west coast of Scotland, about eight miles north of Ayr and three miles northwest of Glasgow Prestwick International Airport. Lying across the Firth of Clyde, the Isle of Arran can be seen. Troon is also a port with freight and ferry services...

 in Ayrshire
Ayrshire
Ayrshire is a registration county, and former administrative county in south-west Scotland, United Kingdom, located on the shores of the Firth of Clyde. Its principal towns include Ayr, Kilmarnock and Irvine. The town of Troon on the coast has hosted the British Open Golf Championship twice in the...

. The Adair family moved to Horwich
Horwich
Horwich is a town and civil parish within the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, in Greater Manchester, England. It is southeast of Chorley, northwest of Bolton and northwest from the city of Manchester. It lies at the southern edge of the West Pennine Moors with the M61 motorway close to the...

, Lancashire in early 2003.

In May 2006, it was reported that Adair had received £100,000 from John Blake Publishing for a ghost-written autobiography.

In November 2006, the UK's Five television channel transmitted an observational documentary on Adair made by Donal MacIntyre
Donal MacIntyre
Donal MacIntyre is an Irish investigative journalist, specialising in investigations, undercover operations and television exposés. His work is in the area of care homes for the elderly and the learning disabled...

.
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
Danny Dyer
Danny Dyer is an English actor, media personality, and chairman of Greenwich Borough, a non-League football team.-Biography:Daniel John Dyer was born in Custom House, an area of East London, to Antony and Christine 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.

External links

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