Page "Johnny Adair" Paragraph 19

On 15 May 2002, Adair was released from prison again.

Outside the prison he was greeted by up to 300 of his supporters.

Once free, he was a key part of an effort to forge stronger ties between the UDA / UFF and the LVF, a small breakaway faction of the UVF founded in 1996 by the charismatic Billy Wright and following his killing, commanded by Mark " Swinger " Fulton, with whom Adair was on good terms.

Fulton had been in Maghaberry since December 2001.

The most open declaration of this alliance 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.

For his part Adair controlled a block of flats in his lower Shankill stronghold from which he and his allies dealt drugs.

Adair also sought to work closely with Belfast-based dissidents such as Frankie Curry and Jackie Mahood, provoking further anger from the UVF.

Another loyalist feud erupted, and ended with several men dead and scores evicted from their homes.

The Rathcoole home of long-standing UDA member Sammy Duddy was raked by gunfire ; although Duddy was not injured in the shooting attack, his pet chihuahua dog, " Bambi " was fatally wounded by shots fired through the front door by masked gunmen from Adair's C Company.

Adair later admitted in an interview he gave for journalist Suzanne Breen that Duddy never got over the loss of " Bambi ".