OLDEST IRISH AMERICAN NEWSPAPER IN USA, ESTABLISHED IN 1928
Category: Archive

Adair’s wife and son facing drug charges

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

Gina and Jonathan Adair were arrested and appeared before Bolton magistrates’ court, charged with conspiracy to supply heroin, cocaine and crack cocaine. Jonathan Adair was also charged with selling the drugs.
Four others, including a 13-year-old boy, were arrested with them and faced similar charges. Gina Adair and her family fled to Bolton in February to escape a deadly loyalist feud.
Johnny Adair remains in prison in Northern Ireland on charges of directing terrorism. He was commander of the UDA’s deadly C Company on the Shankill Road in west Belfast.
Commenting on the charges, a Sinn Fein source said the UDA had been involved in the mass importation of drugs for many years. At a time when some in the leadership of C Company were paid agents of the RUC Special Branch, said the party, their behavior was tolerated.
“Yet within months of the remnants of the Lower Shankill UDA arriving in Bolton,” said Sinn Fein. “The authorities there have taken action against their criminal activity.
“This contrasts sharply with the attitude of the police to Johnny Adair and his gang when they operated in Belfast. It seems that the authorities in Britain were not similarly prepared to tolerate criminal activity.”
Johnny Adair himself says he intends to return to live in Belfast when he’s released from jail, which is expected in 2005. There had been speculation that he would leave Northern Ireland forever in fear of being killed by rivals.
Insisting he will not move to England, Adair said that he wants nothing more than to go home, regardless of the risks. “This is my country, my home, and this is where I belong,” he said in a reported interview given by phone from Maghaberry jail.
Meanwhile, 12 houses associated with either republicans or Sinn Fein personnel have recently been attacked by loyalists. The victims say the attacks are linked and that loyalists are getting information from within the police.
The most recent attacks occurred in the St. James area and involved ball bearings fired into the houses. In at least one of the cases a ball bearing passed through a window and entered the living room, which was occupied at the time.
“It was only through good fortune that nobody was seriously injured or even killed as a result of these attacks,” said Sinn Fein Assembly member Fra McCann. “Let us make no mistake about this, these ball bearings are being fired from handgun-type weapons and are lethal.”
Loyalists have also been blamed for a murder bid in North Belfast on Sunday night. A young man who was leaving a bar was attacked by four loyalists wielding hammers. He suffered serious head injuries and he is considered lucky to be alive.
Sinn Fein’s Gerry Kelly said it was not a random assault but a sectarian attack. “I am calling on unionist politicians to speak out against this sort of random sectarian attack and work with the nationalist community,” he said.
Meanwhile, a judge has released a North Belfast loyalist who claimed that a handgun found in his bedroom had been dragged in by his dog. The pistol was found under the bed of James Haddock at the height of the UDA feud last year.
Sentencing Haddock to 200 hours of community service, the judge said she was unconvinced by the story but was prepared to accept he had made a mistake that he now regretted.
Haddock’s community service order for possession of a handgun comes just weeks after North Belfast loyalist Andre Shoukri had a six-year jail sentence quashed despite being caught with a pistol last September.
Belfast Mayor Martin Morgan of the SDLP claimed there was a growing belief that loyalists were escaping justice. “Rightly or wrongly, there is a strong perception that these UDA godfathers are above the law,” he said.
“Time after time the police are catching these thugs with guns, but when they appear in court they are allowed to walk away scot free. It almost seems as if the courts are apologetic in having to pursue convictions against these people.”

Other Articles You Might Like

Sign up to our Daily Newsletter

Click to access the login or register cheese