Mad Dog - They Shot Me in the Head, They Gave Me Cyanide and They Stabbed Me, But I'm Still Standing. Johnny Adair
Mad Dog - They Shot Me in the Head, They Gave Me Cyanide and They Stabbed Me, But I'm Still Standing
I thought was good money. But then I started getting involved in criminal activity with the UDA and this brought in a lot more cash. The lure of easy money carrying out armed robberies meant that I couldn’t see the point in going back to the grind of manual labour. I was working 50 hours a week for a wage that was nothing compared with what I could make with the UDA. Three or four of us were going out on a job and ending up with £1,000 each. I realised very quickly that crime paid, and paid well. The UDA got their slice, although not always, and even if they did there was still plenty to go around.
It was like a job: we would get up in the morning, jump into a car, drive about and target a place to rob. It was simple work and I enjoyed it. I was making a lot of money without hurting anybody. By comparison, being trapped in a big shed all day making roof trusses had felt like a prison sentence.
One job we pulled was nearly ruined by one of my Alsatians. The gang turned up at my house to pick me up to carry out a robbery, and as we pulled away the dog chased us down the road. The rest of the guys were panicking, but I told them that there was nothing to worry about as it would give up after a couple of hundred yards and go back home.
We got to the place we were going to turn over, which wasn’t far from where I lived. Everything went without a hitch. But, as I came back out to get into the getaway vehicle, the daft dog appeared, jumped up on top of me and put its paws on my shoulders.
That dog was crazy. If you left him on his own for too long, he would go for you, even if he knew you. I decided to use this to my advantage. Everywhere I went I would get stopped by the police and searched. At one stage I was getting hauled over to the side of the road almost 20 times a day, and I’d had enough.
One day I deliberately stopped at a roadblock to let the cops have a look about the car. They took my licence and then asked me to open the boot. I let the catch off, which opened it slightly, and as one officer went to lift the boot the dog sprang out. Thinking it was a gunman, the copper just about managed to cock his rifle, but the shock nearly gave him a heart attack.
By now the security services were getting wind of the fact that C Company was on the rise and began keeping close tabs on us. The first time I was pulled in for a murder was after the killing of Patrick Hamill. He was an English Catholic, originally from Leicester, who was gunned down by two Loyalist hitmen in September 1987. He had lived just off Springfield Road for five years after marrying a local woman. An inquest heard that the killers entered Hamill’s house dressed in boiler suits and shot him in the head and chest. He died the next day in hospital.
The cops came and arrested me because the commander of B Company fingered me for it. He was a tout for Special Branch and needed to keep his handlers happy. He was more than happy to sacrifice any of us to keep the pressure off himself. When they got me to Castlereagh, the detectives told me they had a witness who could put me at the scene, but they were just trying to pile the pressure on me.
Brian Nelson had supplied the intelligence for the hit, but Hamill was a mistake. During questioning, the police told me that a top Provo had lived in the house before him. I was held for two days and then released.
The same gun that had been used to kill Hamill was also used in the shooting of Francisco Notarantonio in west Belfast in October 1987. I wasn’t pulled in for it but it was a very significant and controversial hit by Loyalist gunmen.
As with most of the operations carried out by C Company at this stage, the intelligence was supplied by the FRU’s agent Brian Nelson. It emerged later on that on this occasion, Nelson slipped up and handed over the details of the security services’ best Republican mole, codenamed Stakeknife, who lived a few doors from Notarantonio in Ballymurphy.
At the last minute, the target was changed from Stakeknife to the 66-year-old retired taxi driver and former IRA man. Gunmen broke into Notarantonio’s home early in the morning and shot him dead in his bed. It’s said that Stakeknife was later spotted at his funeral. Gerry Adams complained that he was amazed that a Loyalist hit squad was able to get in and out of the area without being picked up, despite the fact that the area was crawling with army personnel.
Successes like this were down to Nelson and his handlers. Whenever he was involved, C Company gunmen got a clear run in and out of Republican areas. His handlers knew that Loyalist gunmen had balls, but not the information that they needed. The Provisionals were causing mayhem but there was little that the people at the top were able to do, so they looked elsewhere. The FRU probably knew who Nelson was giving the intelligence to, but they had no intention of stopping it.
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