JOHNNY ADAIR, Northern Ireland’s most infamous loyalist terrorist, was an incompetent gunman who lied about his prowess to terrify and impress his men, a new book says.

Despite taking the credit for more than a dozen murders, Adair killed only one person — Noel Cardwell, a 26-year-old Protestant with a mental age of 12. He was shot by Adair as a suspected informer in December 1993. Adair, who was sentenced to 16 years for directing terrorism in 1995, has not been charged with the murder.

Adair, who revelled in his “Mad Dog” nickname, was so inept that he once nearly shot one of his best friends.

The Adair myth is debunked in Mad Dog: The Rise and Fall of Johnny Adair and ‘C Company’. It paints him as an isolated figure whose memory of his youth has been damaged by glue-sniffing and fighting with Roman Catholic skinheads. Although less than a year ago he harboured plans to become supreme commander of the Ulster Defence Association, Northern Ireland’s largest loyalist terrorist group, these days he spends most of his time mopping the floor on his prison landing.

“He doesn’t get many visits,” an official at Maghaberry Prison said. “All he does is clean the landing. But Johnny gets on with us. You couldn’t ask for a better prisoner.”

The former terror chief has become increasingly paranoid and has experienced depression since he was put back behind bars in January after provoking a feud with rival “brigadiers” inside the UDA.Most of his old allies fled in February and are now living in Bolton and Manchester.

Adair’s life is considered to be in such danger that he is kept in isolation in “D” wing of Mourne House, the women’s accommodation block.

Adair once boasted about having a homosexual affair with one of his UDA colleagues. Until recently his best friend was Sam “Skelly” McCrory, an openly gay bingo addict who now lives in Scotland.

Adair had an unrivalled talent for motivating his men, planning operations and out-thinking the security forces.

Up to 40 suspected republicans and innocent Catholics were killed by C Company in the early 1990s, when Adair turned it into the UDA’s most feared killing machine. Many observers believe that his reign of terror accelerated moves towards the IRA’s 1994 ceasefire.

Despite going out on regular murder attempts in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Adair was such a failure as a gunman that several colleagues refused to go on operations with him.

On June 7, 1990, Adair was part of a C Company hit team that attempted to kill Sean Keenan, a former Sinn Fein councillor, but succeeded only in hitting him in the buttock.

On May 21, 1992, Adair fired six shots from close range at Billy Stobie, the UDA’s West Belfast quartermaster and a suspected Special Branch agent. Although Adair was trying to kill Stobie, he managed only to hit him in his back and legs five times. A sixth bullet narrowly missed Jackie Thompson, one of Adair’s oldest friends and a prolific gunman. Stobie was shot dead by his former UDA colleagues in December 2001.

Adair was so self-obsessed that he used to record his television appearances and watch them repeatedly. He views himself as Northern Ireland’s first “celebrity terrorist”.

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