(Barry McCaffrey, Irish News)

Johnny Adair's life as leader of the infamous UDA 'C' company ended 10 months ago when he was put back behind bars. Barry McCaffrey meets the man who now spends his days on an isolation wing of Maghaberry Prison/

At 2pm the buzzer sounds and as the steel security gate opens we file into a grey temporary building just inside the fencing. In turn we approach a perspex hatch to be asked the purpose of our visit.

"Johnny Adair," I whisper through the screen, not wanting to draw any unnecessary attention to myself.

"Sorry, I didn't catch the name," comes the reply.

"Johnny Adair," I mumble again.

"Oh you're here to see Johnny Adair. Right, no problem," comes the overly audible response.

As the words drift down the corridor I feel the first of the daggers pierce my back. Where the offending eyes come from is impossible to judge.

It is no secret that Johnny Adair has as many enemies within the loyalist community as he has within nationalism.

As I walk into the visiting area a prison officer guides me to the back of the room and into a small, glass-partitioned annex.

After a few minutes Adair's familiar bald head appears from a doorway. He is carrying a flask, crisps and a bar of chocolate.

"Are we having a picnic?" I ask Adair, trying to break the ice.

"They're not keen on letting me into the garden on my own," he replies.

As ever Adair is full of nervous energy and makes a fuss as he adds milk and tea bags to two cups.

Dressed in blue jeans and a blue sweatshirt, he has the obligatory diamond earrings in both lobes.

As we chat Adair constantly fiddles with the side of his mouth. After a few moments he apologises and removes two front teeth.

"I got these fixed in the Maze but they fell out last week and the dentist hasn't fixed them yet," he says.

It is 10 months since Adair was returned to jail for a second time by Secretary of State Paul Murphy, having been blamed for sparking a feud within the UDA.

If, as is expected, he is not released until January 2005, the 39-year-old will have spent 11 years in jail.

Seen as one of the most ruthless loyalist killers of the Troubles, Adair was blamed for the murder of dozens of nationalists when he was first jailed in 1994.

The charge of directing terrorism was drawn up specifically to put Adair behind bars.

When released in September 1999 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, Adair claimed to support both the loyalist ceasefires and the peace process but less than nine months later his alleged activities on the streets were judged by the RUC to be a risk to that process.

In this period Adair had aligned himself to the LVF, which was already involved in a deadly conflict with the UVF.

He was photographed at Drumcree hill and with LVF gunmen at July 12 bonfires in Portadown. But it was the eruption of the feud with the UVF after a rally on the Shankill in August 2000 which would eventually lead to him being returned to prison.

Adair's Shankill 'C' company entered into a bloody war with the UVF which ended with seven people dead.

The then secretary of state, Peter Mandelson, blamed Adair for the feud and ordered his re-arrest.

Adair found himself in jail again, this time in Maghaberry.

There were concerns within the security services when the Sentence Review Commission, charged with assessing Adair's case, initially suggested that he should be released.

The commission was unconvinced that Adair had broken the terms of his early prison release; unconvinced that he had been involved in drugs, paramilitary activity or weapons procurment.

However, the decision was changed after evidence from the then RUC chief constable, Sir Ronnie Flanagan.

Adair was released again in May 2002. He was greeted outside Maghaberry by the UDA's ruling 'inner council'. But within months he was again involved in another loyalist feud – this time within the UDA itself. The feud erupted when Adair and his associate John White attended the funeral of murdered LVF leader Stephen Warnock.

The fact that the LVF had been blamed for a murder bid on UDA leader Jim Gray just days before did nothing to heal the widening wounds between Adair and the group's other 'brigadiers'.

Within days Adair and White had been expelled from the UDA. A series of tit-for-tat murders followed throughout the winter of 2002.

On January 10 2003 Secretary of State Paul Murphy ordered that Adair again be returned to jail.

Mr Murphy said that during his period of freedom Adair had proved that he was a danger to others and likely to reoffend.

In a letter to Adair after his arrest, the Secretary of State said evidence existed that the Shankill loyalist had been involved in directing terrorism, money laundering, drug dealing and extortion.

Three weeks later UDA 'brigadier' John Gregg was shot dead in a taxi in Belfast's docks area by elements associated with Adair. Within days the mainstream UDA moved against the remainder of Adair's 'C' company in its lower Shankill stronghold.

Adair's family and supporters fled to Britain, where they remain today.

Since being returned to jail Adair has been kept away from all other prisoners. He lives on the top landing of Mourne House with only two warders for company.

It is the same set of cells in which LVF leader Mark 'Swinger' Fulton committed suicide last year.

On the wing below him are six asylum seekers, with whom he has no contact. Female inmates are held on another wing.

Adair insists that living alone does not bother him. Unlike during his time in the Maze, he has decided against having a canary in his cell, explaining that the constant chirping annoyed him.

"I have mentally adapted to my situation and am coping well," he says.

"Although it does get a bit boring playing snooker by yourself after a while.

"I have been training since I was put back in here and have lost one and a half stone. I get out for a run into the yard in the mornings. I train three times a day on the punch bag and do light weights.

"It helps to stop the boredom."

Adair says that a request to be allowed to do education classes with other prisoners has been turned down and instead a teacher visits him in Mourne House.

He says he is annoyed that former friend White has made no attempt to contact him since fleeing to Britain in February.

In a sign of an apparent warped machismo that exists within militant loyalism, Adair dismisses the contents of a new book on his life as a loyalist gunman.

He rejects the claims from former UDA colleagues that his exploits as a killer have been exaggerated.

"They know who did what and some day I'll come face to face again with those people – and then they can say these things to my face," he says.

Adair is being held in isolation because of death threats from the mainstream UDA but ironically he has been using the prison's internal mail system to confront his one-time friends.

"I have written to some of these people and questioned why they have said things about me in this book which they know to be untrue. Some have written back, others have not."

Adair's 40th birthday is just a week away but there is unlikely to be any party in prison for him.

He says he receives dozens of cards from supporters every week and twice as many letters.

Ironically Adair says that after his family and supporters were forced to flee the lower Shankill in February he received a number of letters from people concerned about the fate of his three Alsatian dogs, left behind in the early morning exodus.

"Shane and Rebel are with Gina in England. I had to give the other one away," he explains.

"It's a pity I couldn't bring you up to the cell to show you all the cards I have been sent on the walls."

Adair's only regular visitors are his wife Gina and their four children.

"It has been very hard for Gina and the children. They have gone through a nightmare," he says.

Despite Adair's reputation as a notorious killer he is scathing of those responsible for a gun attack on his wife's home in Bolton in March.

"These people fire into the bedroom of a three year-old child and call themselves loyalists. They can attack women and children but if I was there it wouldn't have happened," he says.

When asked what he will do when he is eventually released, Adair unexpectedly reveals that he plans to go to England.

"I want to go and be reunited with my wife and children in England," he says.

And as to whether he will ever return to Northern Ireland, he remains evasive.

"Rome wasn't built in a day. All I am interested in is being reunited with my family," he says.

"The people who betrayed me will have to face me some day.

"It's 'long runs the fox' and they know that every day I'm in here the clock is ticking away."

As the visit comes to an end Adair asks whether I have anything interesting planned for the weekend. I say no and politely return the question.

"Nothing much. There's a new series about a prisoner of war camp starting that I might watch," he replies.

As I make my way back through the visiting area and Adair is led back to his cell a prison officer shouts out: "See you later, Rambo."

I look around to see whether Adair has retained his infamous status, even inside jail. But it is the skinny, middle-aged prison officer escorting Adair who turns around to answer.

Johnny Adair, it seems, is just prisoner A4544.

This article appeared first in the October 15, 2003 edition of the Irish News.

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