Former loyalist paramilitary boss Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair has revealed how gangland enforcer turned author Paul Ferris gave him a dagger as a token of their friendship. Adair was speaking after he was spotted at Ferris's funeral last week at Daldowie Crematorium in Uddingston on the outskirts of Glasgow.
Ferris's Gift and Their Meeting
Ferris, who claimed to have given up crime and gone straight, passed away in a hospital in Ayr in early October from multiple organ failure and alcohol-related cirrhosis of the liver. Adair has now revealed how Ferris presented him with the small dagger as a token of "friendship and respect."
The gift also crossed the sectarian divide as Ferris was a Catholic from Glasgow and Adair a Protestant from Belfast. Adair told the Sunday World he was moved by Ferris's gift but declined to confirm rumours that the dagger was jewel encrusted.
He also revealed that he met Ferris through his best friend and once feared loyalist Sam "Skelly" McCrory and that McCrory once worked for Ferris as a debt collector. Adair said: "I was having a drink with Paul one night, when he handed me a box with a small knife in it. He said it was a special present. Paul also said it was a mark of friendship and respect. I later learned, Paul Ferris only gave these to people he held in high esteem."
Shared History and the Funeral
Eyebrows were raised when feared former UDA commander Adair, dressed in a smart suit and wearing sunglasses, turned up at Ferris's funeral on October 19. He appeared to be warmly welcomed by family and friends of Ferris and could be seen mingling with the other mourners.
Adair and Ferris were both the same age and both had been sentenced to lengthy terms for violence and guns. It's believed that the pair met after a loyalist feud forced Adair to leave Belfast in 2005 and move to Troon in Ayrshire. He is said to have been inspired by a book Ferris had written about his own life of crime and attempts to go straight. The pair met up at a pub in Ayr, having both brought minders, but the two hit it off.
The meeting was detailed in Ferris's book Villains: It Takes One To Know One. Ferris said: "I felt uneasy… acid turned in my stomach. I was watching him, looking right into his eyes. He was as wary as Bambi in hunting season. I could see his eye flit from side to side, trying to spot the trap. Mad Dog Adair was relieved he was still alive, and so was I."
Ferris's Criminal Past and Later Life
Ferris was brought up in Glasgow's tough Blackhill district, in the north east of the city. As a teenager he began working for the notorious Glasgow crime boss Arthur Thompson Snr and developed a reputation as a ruthless and violent enforcer. Ferris first achieved notoriety in 1992 when he was cleared at the High Court in Glasgow of murdering Arthur Thompson's son.
Arthur Jnr was shot dead in 1991, outside his home in the Provanmill area of Glasgow while on weekend leave from prison where he was serving time for drug dealing. On the day of his funeral the bodies of two of Ferris's closest associates - Bobby Glover and Joe 'Bananas' Hanlon - were found dumped in a car outside The Cottage Bar in Shettleston, Glasgow. Both men had been shot dead and the pub was one they and Ferris had used as a meeting place. At the time, Paul Ferris was in Barlinnie Prison on remand, having already been charged in connection with the Thompson murder, while the other two were still suspects.
Costing £4 million and with over 300 witnesses, Ferris's three month trial became the longest-running in Scottish criminal history. However he walked free on all the charges including young Arthur's murder. Ferris was however convicted of gun running at the Old Bailey in London in 1998 and jailed for seven years. After his release from prison in 2001 he moved into the security and construction industry and became a successful author writing about his life of crime and attempts to go straight.
Adair's Background and the Aftermath
A film based on Ferris's life - The Wee Man - starring Line of Duty star Martin Compston, was released in 2013. In July in an interview in the Daily Record Ferris revealed plans for a sequel and a third movie.
Adair was once one of Northern Ireland's most feared loyalist figures as the leader of the Ulster Defence Association's C company reaching the rank of Brigadier. In 1993, he narrowly escaped death in an IRA assassination attempt that left nine people dead in a chippy in Belfast. Two years later he was jailed for 16 years at the Maze Prison for directing terrorism. It was while on home leave in 1999, he was hit by a bullet to the head while attending a UB40 concert and was later released under the Good Friday Agreement. In 2013, police foiled a plot to assassinate Adair and McCrory. Three men were later jailed for the conspiracy.
McCrory had been jailed over a 1992 plot to kill two IRA leaders and also later released under the Good Friday Agreement. He died after an accidental fall on concrete steps near his home in Ayr in 2022, at the age of 57.
