John Gregg (UDA) - Shooting Death and Aftermath

Shooting Death and Aftermath

On 1 February 2003, along with another UDA member, Robert "Rab" Carson (33), Gregg was shot dead on Nelson Street, in the old Sailortown district near Belfast docks, while travelling in a red Toyota taxi after returning from Glasgow where he regularly went to watch Rangers F.C. Gregg had been a regular visitor to Ibrox Park for a number of years, often in the company of Michael Stone, and had even picked up a conviction for violence at an Old Firm match. Gregg's movements were known to C Company member Alan McCullough who, receiving instruction from Adair who was at the time in HMP Maghaberry, arranged for a hit team to kill Gregg and his associate as a taxi took them from the port of Belfast. When the taxi stopped at traffic lights close to the motorway, it was rammed by another taxi which had been hijacked earlier on the Shankill Road. Masked gunmen immediately opened fire on the occupants with automatic weapons. Gregg, seated in the backseat, was hit at close range and died instantly. A mortally-wounded Carson died later in hospital, and taxi driver William McKnight was seriously hurt. Gregg's 18 year old son Stuart and another man were also in the vehicle but neither sustained injuries in the shooting attack.Carson was described by UDA sources as a "dear friend" of Gregg's, but also as a junior member of the South-East Antrim Brigade.

Gregg's death proved to be the undoing of Adair. Gregg was the most senior UDA member killed since South Belfast brigadier John McMichael was blown up by the IRA in 1987. Despite his reputation for gangsterism Gregg's attack on Gerry Adams had afforded him legendary status and, under the direction of Jackie McDonald, the remaining UDA brigadiers concluded that Adair had to be removed. Gregg was given a paramilitary funeral which was attended by thousands of mourners including senior UDA members Jackie McDonald, Jim Gray, Sammy Duddy and Michael Stone. A volley of shots was fired over his coffin by UDA gunmen outside his Rathcoole home.The coffin was draped in the Ulster flag and the flag of the UFF.Members of the Cloughfern Young Conquerors dressed in uniform accompained the coffin. Afterwards a lone piper led the cortege to Carnmoney Cemetery where he was buried. At the service on 6 February, UVF representatives joined the UDA leadership in a show of anti-Adair solidarity. That same night Jackie McDonald's forces invaded the lower Shankill and ran those members of C Company that had remained loyal to Adair, who was still in prison, out of the city. In May of that same year, Alan McCullough was himself killed by the UDA.

Following the conclusion of the feud with Adair the UDA reconstituted its ceasefire in what they christened the "Gregg initiative". The juxtaposition of this initiative with the name of Gregg was condemned by the mother of a Catholic who had been killed by members of the South-East Antrim Brigade in 2000 as she argued "it's sickening to call it the Gregg initiative when he was a ruthless terrorist....Everyone goes on about Johnny Adair but they're all as bad as each other".

In November 2011 Stuart Gregg received £400,000 compensation for pyschological trauma due to having witnessed his father's murder.