Adair’s taunts
Adair taunts ex-comrades
Gray’s downfall is ‘long overdue’.
By David Gordon
dgordon@belfasttelegraph.co.uk
31 March 2005
Johnny Adair has taunted his UDA foes from across the Irish Sea, claiming the ousting of leading figure Jim Gray showed the organisation was “crumbling”.
Adair’s enmity with the east Belfast “brigadier” was one of the factors that led to the vicious UDA power struggle of recent years.
He told the Belfast Telegraph that the fall of Gray was “long overdue”.
“It’s no big surprise to me. It was just a matter of time before it happened to that man. It should have happened a long time ago.
“He’s nothing but a Scarlet Pimpernel who shed bad light on the UDA for many years,” he said.
Adair, the former head of the UDA in west Belfast, was freed from Maghaberry Prison in January.
He was flown by military helicopter to England to team up with his family and closest allies in their Bolton bolthole.
Adair’s C Company faction was forced out of its Shankill heartland after it murdered the UDA’s south east Antrim chief John Gregg in 2003.
He recently made a brief visit to Northern Ireland, defying a UDA death threat.
Adair has continued to lambast his former UDA “comrades”.
He said: “It’s a crumbling organisation that’s riddled with police informers, drug dealers, rapists and pimps.
“It’s in crisis. It’s just a criminal gang masquerading as loyalists.”
The exiled loyalist also claimed he was back in the province again just last weekend.
“I’ll continue to go home on a regular basis. It’s my intention to go home and live there for good, but Rome was not built in a week,” he said.
Adair’s C Company faction was also accused of extensive involvement in drugs and other crimes.
But he said: “I was never sent to prison for extortion or drugs. Look at my secret file and look at their secret files. That’s all I have to say.”
Adair’s teenage son Jonathan and other Shankill exiles were netted in an anti-drugs operation by Bolton police last year.
The ousting of Gray has led to fresh calls for the entire UDA to stand down.
East Belfast Alliance Assembly member Naomi Long said: “Like the IRA, the UDA serves no purpose other than to terrorise communities and engage in criminal activity.
“East Belfast has had enough of paramilitarism. It’s not just Gray - the UDA must go away.”
SDLP Assemblyman Alex Attwood said: “As recent events around the IRA prove, actions taken against one or a handful of members don’t add up to much.
“The UDA, the IRA and the others need to do what the community really wants.”
