On the morning of December 16, 2003, John 'Fat Jackie' Thompson got into his red Ford Escort and set off for work. A few minutes later, after driving over a speed bump near his home in Halliwell in Bolton, he heard a rattle then a loud bang.
A block of explosives fell to the floor together with the magnets that had been used to attach it. The detonator had exploded, but not with enough force to set off the bomb that had been planted directly under the driver's seat.
It was the surest sign yet that a feud which had torn apart the largest loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland had landed in the the quiet suburbs of Greater Manchester. Thompson was a close associate of Johnny 'Mad Dog' Adair, leader of the Ulster Defence Association's notorious C company.
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Adair had risen through the ranks of the Ulster Freedom Fighters in the 1990s establishing a power base on Belfast's Lower Shankill estate to become one of its most feared gang leaders. In 1993 he escaped an IRA assassination bid which resulted in the death of nine people in a fish and chip shop.
A few months later he was jailed for 16 years after becoming the first person in Northern Ireland to be convicted of directing terrorism. But, after just three years he was back on the streets, having been released under the Good Friday agreement.
He used his freedom to launch a bid to seize total control of the UDA. It failed spectacularly and saw him expelled from the cause, kickstarting a bitter and bloody feud.
The mainstream UDA launched a ruthless vendetta against Adair. A pipe bomb was thrown at his house, there was an assassination attempt as he dropped his kids off at school.
In total 15 attempts were made on Adair's life. It was suspected the man behind them was fellow loyalist commander John 'Grug' Gregg.
After just eight months of freedom, Adair return to prison was ordered after Special Branch intelligence files were reviewed by the then-Secretary of State Peter Paul Murphy. Security forces hoped his incarceration in Mughaberry prison would quieten the streets.
They were wrong. On Saturday February 1, 2003, Gregg was gunned down as he sat in a red Toyota taxi, minutes after disembarking from a cross channel ferry.
He was returning from Scotland, having been to see his beloved Glasgow Rangers play at Ibrox. His UDA associate and friend Robert 'Rab' Carson died alongside him.
Retribution was swift. Around 30 C Company die-hards were forced to flee the Shankill at gunpoint.
With safe havens few and far between they sought refuge with neo-Nazis they had forged links with in Bolton. Those who fled included Adair's wife, Gina, his oldest son, Jonathan, known as 'Mad Pup', and several trusted lieutenants.
And the group, dubbed the 'Bolton Wanderers' brought trouble from the start. In April 2003, while Adair was still locked up, a plot was hatched to target his family.
In the early hours five shots were fired through a window at the back of their new home on Chorley New Road in Horwich. "Luckily the intended targets were all in another room," Adair later wrote in his autobiography, Mad Dog. "The word was the gunman was from the north Belfast UDA and used a 9mm that belonged to C Company."
The next day the UDA issued a statement claiming responsibility for the attack. "Action will be taken against anyone providing guns or safe haven for these outcasts," it said.
The following month C Company foot soldier and fellow exile Alan McCullough was murdered in Belfast. Homesick, he had been lured back to Shankill by UDA members who didn't like Adair, and had forged an alliance with a rival loyalist faction.
His body was found dumped in a shallow grave on the outskirts of Glengormley. The 21-year-old had been shot in the head twice.
His killing put paid to any hopes the 'Bolton Wanderers' may have had about making deals to return home. And from there Adair's woes only deepened.
His son Jonathan, then just 19, was caught selling heroin, crack and cocaine to undercover cops at a hotel on the M61. He was later jailed for five years alongside two accomplices.
His wife Gina was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Adair's request to be allowed to visit her in England was 'point blank refused'. Depressed, he was put on suicide watch.
But, after two years in isolation Adair, then 39, was eventually released from prison. He was flown to Manchester by military helicopter, then travelled to Bolton, accompanied by police, to be reunited with his wife.
He was free man, but remained a prisoner to his bloody past. "Greater Manchester Police were waiting for me when we touched down, with blacked-out cars and a hood to conceal my identity," he wrote.
"I was taken to Horwich where the cops took a mugshot of me and made it plain they weren't happy with me being there. If I stepped over the line, they were going to be waiting to stamp down on me as hard as they could."
Under close surveillance, with his every move monitored by police, Adair soon realised life in his new home was going to be no cake walk. "It didn't take me long to realise I'd swapped HMP Maghaberry for HMP Bolton," he later wrote. "It was a nightmare."
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Adair was already well-aware his life was under near constant threat. But the court case into the attempted bombing of John Thompson's car showed just how close the Troubles had come to being visited on the streets of Bolton.
Train driver Stanley Curry, then 47, of Birmingham, was jailed for 20 years for his part in the plot. A court heard he blamed 'Adair's lot' for the killings of John Gregg and Robert Carson.
"It was only technical failure, clearly we suggest wholly unintended by those intending to blow him up, that enabled him to walk away from what would have been very serious injuries or death," prosecutor Mark Ellison told the trial.
But if Adair was worried, he did his best not to show it. One night armed police in bulletproof vests turned up at his door telling him the house had to be evacuated immediately. The authorities had received intelligence an attempt on his life was imminent.
"I sent them away," Adair wrote. "I had more experience of threats than they did and, more importantly, I knew what the UDA were capable of.
"The only way they were going to get anyone near enough to kill me was if I was betrayed by someone close to me and I was sure that hadn't happened."
But, with his power base crumbling, Adair's marriage to Gina, whom he married at the Maze prison, also hit the rocks. He attacked her as they walked home from a pub in Bolton.
He later admitted assault and was fined. "I don't pretend I feel anything other than shame about what happened," he wrote. "Drunk or not my behaviour was unacceptable."
With his marriage over, Adair's time in Bolton was also coming to an end. He left town and moved to Scotland, where he reportedly remains to this day, living on the Ayrshire coast.
Police, neighbours and pub landlords could breathe a sigh of relief. Bolton's brief brush with Ulster's paramilitary underworld was over.
