Exiled Adair goes under TV spotlight

8:50am Wednesday 29th November 2006

TERROR leader Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair's life in exile came under the spotlight in a controversial television documentary last night.

Film maker Donal MacIntyre made the hour-long MacIntyre's Underworld programme for channel Five, entitled Mad Dog, about the former Ulster Defence Association godfather settling in to life in Scotland.

He set up home in Troon after leaving Bolton last year following a troubled stay which saw him convicted of harassment and assaulting his wife near their Horwich home.

In the film he talks about his son, Jonathan Adair, who was released from a young offenders institution in June last year after he served 13 months of a three years and nine months sentence.

He was jailed in March, 2004 for his part in a "dial-a-drug" operation selling heroin and crack cocaine to addicts on the streets of Horwich.

Johnny Adair said: "Jonathan, quite foolishly got involved in drugs in Bolton.

"He is out now, he is clear of drugs and he won't be going down that road again."

MacIntyre also meets German neo-Nazi Nick Gregor, who was banned from the UK after serving as Adair's bodyguard in Bolton.

The programme included footage of Adair returning to his old stomping ground in the Shankill area of Belfast.

Adair was also filmed in Manchester during a face-to-face meeting with a former CID officer who helped send him to prison for 16 years in 1995.

Adair moved to Bolton following his release from prison in January, 2005, where he had served two thirds of a 16-year sentence for directing terrorism.