John Gregg (UDA) - Johnny Adair

Johnny Adair

Despite the continuing activity of his brigade, and his own earlier maiming, Gregg shared the reluctance of other brigadiers about what he saw as a coming war between the UVF and West Belfast brigadier Johnny Adair. Nonetheless he was not keen to antagonise Adair and so, along with McFarland, McDonald and Jimbo Simpson, accepted his invitation to attended a "Loyalist Day of Culture" organised by Adair on the Lower Shankill on 19 August 2000. Old tensions resurfaced however and after Adair's men fought with UVF supporters at the Shankill's Rex Bar Adair launched a pogrom of the lower Shankill, forcing out all UVF members and their families and initiating a loyalist feud.

Gregg initially remained aloof from the struggle and instead concentrated on his anti-Catholic campaign. However in the second half of 2002 he was dragged into the conflict after Adair made him a target in his own attempts to take full control of the UDA. A UDA member originally from the Woodvale Road had moved to Rathcoole where he had been beaten up after it emerged that he was a friend of Joe English, the former brigadier who had been exiled from the estate by Gregg for his anti-drugs stance. As a result of the attack three Woodvale UDA members went to Gregg and complained about the attack. Gregg took this as a threat and, after complaining to senior figures in the West Belfast UDA, ordered the three men to be kneecapped. The shootings raised some anger on the Shankill, where the three were well-liked figures, and Adair sought to exploit this as a method of getting rid of Gregg. He sought to portray Gregg as unstable and thuggish and spread a rumour that he was about to be replaced as brigadier. By September Adair had even circulated stories to contacts in the media that Gregg was under death threat from the UDA. Indeed in late August Adair had even managed to have Gregg stood down as Brigadier for "not being militant enough" and replaced by one his own associates. This proved short-lived however and in October 2002 Gregg was one of the brigadiers who passed the resolution expelling Adair from the UDA for his involvement in the non-fatal shooting of Jim Gray.

Adair ignored the expulsion, erecting "West Belfast UDA - Business as Usual" banners on the Shankill Road, whilst continuing his struggles with the remaining brigadiers, Gregg in particular. On 8 December a bomb was found under Gregg's car, apparently placed there by one of Adair's allies from the Loyalist Volunteer Force. Soon after two pipe bombs were thrown at Gregg's house and his friend Tommy Kirkham's house was shot at. In response graffiti appeared around the walls of Rathcoole in December, stating "Daft Dog and White beware. The Reaper is coming for you" as a threat to "Mad Dog" Adair and his ally John White. A bomb attack on Adair's house on 8 January 2003 was blamed on Gregg by White, although Adair himself was returned to prison two days later after a dossier detailing his drug-dealing and racketeering activities was shown to Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Paul Murphy.