Johnny Adair "Any Taig Will Do"

Suzanne Breen profiles the violent career of Johnny Adair and discovers
his love of gold jewellery and Tina Turner

Even in the weird and wacky world of loyalist paramilitaries, Johnny Adair stands out. Other commanders had a penchant for gold jewellery, shades, and the odd loud shirt.

But Adair took bawdiness to new levels. His Shankill Road 'C' Company would perform shows of strength to Tina Turner hits, and both the UDA brigadier and his dog would strut the streets in t-shirts emblazoned "Simply the Best".

He became the king of crude, in-yer-face loyalism and it struck a chord with many militant supporters on the Shankill. They sneered at the pretensions of UDA Milltown assassin Michael Stone, who passed himself as an abstract artist on release from jail and gave philosophical interviews.

"Johnny was much more basic. He was built like a brick shithouse, he hated Taigs, he had plenty of women and he always had a good time. All the kids round here wanted to be him," says a Shankill community worker.

Adair revels in his "man of the street" image. Holidays have varied from Jamaica and Lapland to a caravan in Millisle, Co Down.

At 5 foot 3 inches, a trademark baseball cap and jeans, he sports a Mickey Mouse tattoo and pierced nipples. It mightn't fit his macho image, but, before prison, his tan was due to hours under a sun-bed.

He likes to attribute his muscular physique to training and a protein diet but, it has been aided by injecting horse steroids. Adair can be cunning but he lacks the intelligence of murdered LVF leader Billy Wright. He isn't one for reasoned argument. His sentences are rarely more than a few words long.

"I prefer action to talking," he says, but at one stage he considered standing for the North's Assembly: "Working-class Protestants need someone who will put their views across strongly and I might be that man.

"If I do decide to do it, I'll speak my mind. I'll make Ian Paisley look like a cup of tea." "Johnny saw Stormont as a great chance to be constantly on TV wearing Hugo Boss suits," says a former friend.

Adair has publicly criticised the media for his nickname: "I'm not an animal. I'm a human being. I'm not a Mad Dog. I don't foam at the mouth."

In reality, he loves it. He has never much bothered to hide his monstrous ruthlessness.

"Kill 'em all. Let God sort 'em out," declared a skull and dagger flag on his cell wall.

He joined the UDA in 1984 but it was from 1990-94 as 'C' Company commander that he became notorious. Up to 40 Catholics were killed and up to 20 deaths were attributed to him. When asked how many murders he'd personally carried out, he'd grin and tell reporters: "You'll have to ask the police."

But loyalist sources say he pulled the trigger only once – in 1993 on Protestant, Noel Cardwell (26), who had learning difficulties and who Adair wrongly claimed was an informer.

However, the Shankill commander was involved in the planning of dozens of Catholic murders and in motivating gunmen. He has boasted that his 'C' Company "took the war to the IRA". They were "the dream team . . . the cream of the fucking crop". But the vast majority of victims were Catholic civilians in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Even if they had a specific "hit" planned from their often erroneous intelligence, if the target couldn't be located it was a case of ATWD – "Any Taig Will Do". Adair ridiculed the UDA's five other brigades for lacking the "cutting edge" of west Belfast.

He has bragged that 'C' company's campaign wore down the IRA and led to its 1994 ceasefire. Although this is untrue, Adair certainly was feared by many ordinary Catholics in the 90s. The image of the Shankill commander, touring nationalist areas with a cardboard cut-out Celtic player swinging from his windscreen, terrified many.

"I lead from the front. I'm not scared to die," he claims, but 'C' company operations were hardly sophisticated or courageous.

Often, after a few hours drinking, the 'dream team' would decide to "bang a Taig".

Fifteen minutes later, they'd be back in a Shankill shebeen continuing the party. Their drug-taking and sexual exploits were renowned. They would think nothing of spiking women's drink with acid for the craic.

As a teenager, Adair was photographed glue-sniffing at a National Front rally. He played in a skinhead band, Offensive Weapon, yet he loves Bob Marley and UB40.

He's an impatient man, always brimming with nervous energy. Reporters had to queue for interviews, each one allocated five or 10 minutes. "Time is money," he would quip, eyes darting around.

He isn't religious but claims, following several murder attempts, to believe in God - "well he saved me". Until the peace process, the Shankill commander also proved remarkably fortunate at avoiding the courts.

Finally, in May 1994, he was charged with directing terrorism. He was convicted and sentenced to 16 years imprisonment, although, he was granted early release in 1999, under the Belfast Agreement.

For years, he had been openly boasting to police about his paramilitary involvement. Eventually, this was used against him. Former Detective Seargant Jonty Browne, whose evidence was vital, says Adair could have been "caged" at any time from 1990: "I was surprised at the four year wait."

Others believe the political will to take Adair off the streets was absent until he became a liability, with an approaching IRA ceasefire which mightn't hold if Catholics were being butchered.

A republican source says: "The authorities have consistently taken action against Adair, not when he was a danger to human life alone, but when he was a threat to political stability."