Ex-UDA ‘C-Company’ member found dead: WATCH as Danny Dyer calls Sam ‘Skelly’ McCrory one of the most ‘dedicated soldiers of his generation’

The show, fronted by the cockney presenter-cum-actor, was made in 2008 and broadcast on Bravo and Sky.

The language used in the show to describe McCrory included calling him “the most ruthless and dedicated soldier of his generation... Terrorist? Or freedom fighter? I’m going to meet the man and make up my own mind”.

McCrory also uses the opportunity to justify his crimes and speak of his own “sacrifice”.

The show also mentions the UDA committing “over 100” murders.

But the true number is far higher.

The book Lost Lives gives a figure of 401 between 1970 and 1999 (though obviously the UDA killed many others since then).

McCrory was a member of Johnny Adair’s so-called ‘C-Company’ – an especially vicious UDA unit based on the Shankill Road which included multiple murderer Stevie ‘Top Gun’ McKeag.

The unit killed an unknown number of random Catholics, was allied to the LVF in Portadown, and was deeply involved in racketeering and drugs.

McCrory was the best man at Adair’s wedding, and in his autobiography Adair called him his “best friend”; he also played in a right-wing punk band with Adair called ‘Offensive Weapon’.

In his book ‘The Maze Prison: A Hidden Story of Chaos, Anarchy and Politics’, Tom Murtagh OBE says McCrory was sentenced to 16 years in jail for conspiracy to murder.

He describes McCrory as being “the UDA’s prison leader”, and quotes prison staff describing him as “loud and intellectually challenged”.

More from this reporter:

Click here: Number of murals on public property growing – and loyalist ones far outnumber republican ones

Click here: ‘UDA could not have picked worse target’: remembering the murder of primary school teacher Cyril Murray in east Belfast exactly three decades ago