Rathcoole flute band issues statement over terror chief Johnny Adair gatecrashing video
A NEWTOWNABBEY loyalist flute band has issued a statement after former UDA leader Johnny Adair apparently gatecrashed an event they were attending in Scotland.
Sons of Kai Flute Band, based in Rathcoole, hit out over last weekend’s incident in a statement issued on social media. The statement came after a video emerged online of Adair among a crowd of revellers.
The band said a “junior member” of the band got “caught up with this incident” and posed for a photo with Adair. Adair was a leading figure in the UFF, a cover name used by the UDA when it carried out paramilitary attacks, during the Troubles.
Nicknamed ‘Mad Dog’, Adair was convicted of directing terrorism in 1995 and sentenced to 16 years in prison, but released early under the Good Friday Agreement in 1999.
He was later involved in a violent loyalist feud and eventually ousted from power. He was expelled from the UDA in 2002.
Adair subsequently fled to England and initially settled in Bolton, before moving to the west coast of Scotland, where he lives to this day. He remains under threat from the UDA if he ever returns to Northern Ireland.
In recent days a video began circulating on social media showing a number of people drinking and dancing. Adair, donning black sunglasses and a black polo shirt, then enters the frame and begins dancing.
On Tuesday, the Sons of Kai Flute Band issued a statement regarding the video.
It said that the band had travelled to Scotland last Saturday to attend the 40th anniversary parade of another band, Newtown
Defenders. “After the parade ended the band was invited into Newtown Defenders culture day to play a few tunes before leaving to attend our own event,” the statement read.
“While the band was on stage a certain RAT (Johnny Adair) entered the hall to the older members of the band’s bemusement, he then sat down unchallenged and started to pose for photographs with people in the room.
“A junior member of our band got caught up with this incident and posed for a photo with this RAT. When older members of our band witnessed this incident we
immediately acted and had the SCUMBAG RAT removed from the hall.
“The officers and members of the sons of Kai Flute Band would like to give our sincere apologies for any hurt caused to the family’s [sic], friends and the wider community of the Rathcool estate.”
While Adair was forced to leave Northern Ireland by the UDA back in 2003, he has returned briefly on a few occasions, including in 2018 when he made a secret visit to briefly attend his mother’s wake.
As well as facing danger if he returns to Northern Ireland, Adair has also been targeted while in his Scottish bolthole.
Back in 2015, three men were jailed for planning to murder Adair and his close associate, the late Sam ‘Skelly’ Mccrory, in Scotland.
Antoin Duffy (39), his cousin Martin Hughes (36) and Paul Sands (32) denied plotting to kill the former UDA figures, but were found guilty following a nine-week trial.
Duffy was sentenced to 17 years, while Hughes was jailed for 11 years and Sands for 10 years.