19 Facts About Jackie Mahood

Jackie Mahood was born on c 1954 and is a Northern Irish former loyalist activist with both the Ulster Volunteer Force and Progressive Unionist Party.

Jackie Mahood has a sister, Sandra and a deceased brother, Bobby.

Jackie Mahood was brought up a Protestant in Ainsworth Avenue, a street that marks the dividing line between two staunchly loyalist areas of the upper Shankill Road and Woodvale Road.

Jackie Mahood is married to Rae, by whom he has three children.

Jackie Mahood was on poor terms with David Ervine, who feared the growth of the hawkish Billy Wright and his allies.

Jackie Mahood eventually left the PUP after becoming disillusioned with the Belfast Agreement.

Ervine went on to claim that Jackie Mahood had provided the gun which was taken from the UVF Shankill Road arms dump that the Mid-Ulster Brigade used to kill Catholic taxi driver Michael McGoldrick in July 1996 at the height of the Drumcree stand-off, an act which led to Wright's expulsion from the UVF as the leadership had not sanctioned the murder.

Jackie Mahood enjoyed a close relationship with UDA leader Jim Spence and encouraged Spence to link up with Wright.

Jackie Mahood was shot by masked men as he sat in his office in Belfast's Crumlin Road on 27 November 1997.

Jackie Mahood was hit three times in the neck and jaw and left for dead, although he survived the attack.

Jackie Mahood claimed that the UVF was behind the attack and claimed to know the identity of the shooter.

Jackie Mahood himself was targeted a number of times in assassination attempts by the UVF and as he grew closer to the UDA on the Shankill, which maintained links with the LVF, his name appeared on one of their leaflets, accusing the UVF of being "Protestant killers" due to the killings of Curry, Andrew Robb and David McIlwaine and attempts on the lives of Jackie Mahood, Clifford Peeples and Kenny McClinton.

In July 2000, Jackie Mahood was shot at for the second time as he dropped an employee off at his home in Lavens Drive in North-West Belfast.

Shots were fired into his car but Jackie Mahood sped away to a nearby Royal Ulster Constabulary station on Tennant Street off the Shankill Road.

Jackie Mahood became close to Johnny Adair and was at the UDA leader's house in 2002 when they learned about the suicide of LVF chief Mark "Swinger" Fulton, who had succeeded Billy Wright as leader following the latter's assassination inside the Maze Prison by Irish National Liberation Army prisoners in December 1997.

Until rival loyalist paramilitaries forced him out of business in the 2000s, Jackie Mahood ran the most successful taxi firm based in North Belfast, operating a fleet of taxis which serviced the greater Belfast area.

Jackie Mahood's drivers received death threats and 24 taxis were subjected to arson and gun attacks.

Jackie Mahood attempted to gain compensation but initially was turned down by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Shaun Woodward.

However, a court subsequently ruled that Jackie Mahood could take his claim to court when it emerged that a clandestine offer had been made to him by the Northern Ireland Office.