Body in shallow grave confirmed as missing loyalist

Police confirmed today that they have found the body of an associate of leading loyalist Johnny Adair.

Alan McCullough, 21, went missing after leaving his west Belfast home on May 28 in the company of members of the loyalist Ulster Freedom Fighters.

In a call to a Belfast newsroom yesterday, the UFF claimed it had murdered Mr McCullough.

His murder was part of an ongoing feud between the leadership of the organisation and supporters of Mr Adair who were forced to flee their lower Shankill power base in February. The feud claimed four lives.

The UFF linked Mr McCullough to the murder of Ulster Defence Association South Antrim Brigadier John Gregg and the killing of Protestant man Jonathan Stewart on the Shankill just before Christmas.

Along with Adair’s wife Gina, political frontman John White and others, McCullough fled to Scotland on an overnight ferry after being driven out of the Lower Shankill following Gregg’s murder.

The UDA warned Adair’s faction they would be killed if they returned but McCullough believed he had negotiated a lifting of the death sentence and returned.

Less than two weeks later he disappeared.

Fears had been growing yesterday in the Shankill Road where Mr McCullough hailed from that the body found in Mallusk, Co Antrim was his.

Workmen tipped off police that they had spotted what appeared to be a body in a shallow grave.

Police immediately sealed off the area around the Aughnabrack Road.

They had been searching for the missing man for over a week and at one stage had scoured a reservoir in the Waterworks area of north Belfast and had taken a fishing boat out of Carrickfergus marina for forensic examination.