Nauseatingly smug and cocky. And for a ‘man of peace’, Gerry Adams is keen on the corporate of hardened terrorists…

On June 30, 2020, the great and the good of the Republican movement lined the streets of west Belfast to pay tribute to a fallen comrade.

Despite coronavirus social-distancing rules being in place at the time, around 2,000 people were out in force to watch the funeral cortege of Bobby Storey – his coffin draped in the Irish tricolour – make its way to Milltown Cemetery, where IRA heroes such as hunger striker Bobby Sands are buried.

The destination was fitting (although Storey was ultimately cremated elsewhere) as the 64-year-old was a committed life-long Republican, a chairman of Sinn Fein and, perhaps most importantly, a former head of intelligence for the Provisional IRA, known in Belfast as ‘the Provos’.

Among his pallbearers was a who’s who of the once-feared paramilitary force – the Provisionals terrorised Britain and were responsible for more than 1,700 deaths during the 30-year conflict known as the Troubles.

At the front was Sean ‘The Surgeon’ Hughes, once named under parliamentary privilege in the Commons as a member of the IRA’s ruling Army Council, which gave the go-ahead for any major terror operations.

Alongside him was Sean ‘Spike’ Murray, jailed for 12 years for explosives offences in 1982 and later quizzed about the importation of weapons to Northern Ireland from the US. He denied the allegations and was not charged.

They were joined by Sinn Fein politician Gerry Kelly, who was jailed for his role in the bombing of the Old Bailey in London in 1973 and was involved in an escape from the Maze prison ten years later during which a prison officer was shot in the head.

Incredibly, Kelly now sits on the policing board in Northern Ireland.

Martin ‘Duckser’ Lynch was also a pallbearer. He was convicted of IRA weapons offences in the early 1980s and later became a senior IRA figure, sources suggest.

And carrying Storey’s coffin alongside these men with decidedly chequered pasts was one who has spent the past 50 years carefully cultivating a reputation as a political dignitary and man of peace: Gerry Adams.

For the past two weeks, Adams’ alleged role in the IRA has come under scrutiny at the High Court in London, where he was being sued by three survivors of IRA bomb attacks in England.

On Friday, the case against him sensationally ended when lawyers for the three claimants announced that proceedings would be ‘discontinued’.

John Clark, a victim of the IRA’s Old Bailey attack in 1973 – in which pallbearer Kelly was involved – Jonathan Ganesh, who was injured in the 1996 attack at London’s Docklands, and Barry Laycock, who was injured in the attack at Manchester’s Arndale shopping centre, were seeking ‘vindicatory damages’ of just £1.

They claimed that, owing to his leading role in the IRA, Adams was ‘directly responsible’ for the attacks. However when informed that they could be liable to pay Adams’ six-figure legal costs if the judge found in the former Sinn Fein president’s favour, the case was withdrawn after they were left fearing ‘life-changing financial consequences’.

Adams, 77, has always denied membership of the IRA and spent ten hours in the witness box at the Royal Courts of Justice claiming that IRA volunteers who have named him as one of their leaders were mistaken, harboured vendettas or were ‘fantasists’.

Any involvement he had with senior IRA figures was simply owing to contacts he had cultivated in his long-time role as president of Sinn Fein, the party long seen as the political wing of the IRA.

Adams took yesterday’s announcement as a victory, saying the case should never have reached court and chastising the claimants’ legal team.

In what could be taken as a brazen dig, he even delivered a press conference in front of a mural of IRA prisoner Sands, who was elected as an MP while on hunger strike and ultimately died alongside ten others.

But, as the civil trial heard, Gerry Adams certainly keeps some interesting company.

Take Storey, for instance. As the funeral procession arrived at Milltown Cemetery six years ago, Adams delivered a speech in memory of ‘Big Bob’.

In his address, he said: ‘I don’t know anyone who knew him who didn’t like him – except for MI5, MI6, the old RUC [Royal Ulster Constabulary], the British Army, and prison governors.’

Storey was indeed a thorn in the side of the authorities. In 1981, he was jailed for 18 years for possession of a rifle following an attack on the Army.

In 2014 he was questioned over the notorious murder of mother-of-ten Jean McConville in 1972.

A suspected informer, she was kidnapped from her Belfast home and became one of the ‘disappeared’ – people abducted, murdered and secretly buried during the Troubles, leaving their devastated families scrabbling for answers. Then again, Adams was also questioned over her disappearance, as his civil trial heard. Neither of the men was charged.

McConville’s abduction was recently the subject of the book and subsequent TV series, Say Nothing.

Storey was also suspected of organising the 2004 Northern Bank robbery in Belfast – at the time the largest bank robbery in Britain – where £26.5million was stolen.

The Provisional IRA was long suspected of involvement but no one has ever been held responsible for the robbery itself.

The families of two bank workers were held hostage while a masked gang forced them to assist with the heist.

As we shall see, Storey’s alleged involvement – the British government believed he was responsible, according to official documents – is not Adams’ only connection to the robbery. The former Sinn Fein politician arrived at the High Court each day like a visiting celebrity. His first day in the witness box of Court 16 on Tuesday fell on St Patrick’s Day, of all days.

As well as his supporters flying the Irish tricolour outside the Royal Courts of Justice, the capital was fizzing with green, white and orange for the festivities celebrating the Irish patron saint.

Adams sauntered up the court steps as if the celebrations had been laid on solely for him.

In a sharp dark blue suit and tie, with a badge of the flag of Palestine pinned to his lapel and a sprig of shamrock in his jacket pocket, he paused momentarily to give a thumbs-up to waiting ‘fans’.

But by his side each day were also a number of burly minders, dressed in black with ear-pieces wired down their backs.

They were a reminder of the dangerous circles in which Adams has operated over the years.

Indeed, on the first day of the trial, he was photographed wearing what appeared to be a bulletproof vest.

Chief among Adams’ team was his ‘head of security’, John Trainor, or ‘Big John’, as Adams referred to him in court. Former Director of Public Prosecutions Sir Max Hill KC, for the claimants, asked Adams whether he was aware Trainor had previously been convicted of IRA-related explosives offences, to which Adams replied: ‘Yes.’

The Daily Mail can reveal Trainor was just 23 when he was convicted in 1993 of attending what was described as an ‘IRA bomb school’ uncovered when police raided a residential house.

Martin McCartney, the ringleader giving the bomb lectures, threatened the judge when he was sentenced to ten years in prison, warning him: ‘Your day will come, boy.’ Trainor and three co-accused, who were all jailed, are said to have shouted Republican slogans and given clenched-fist salutes’ as they were sent down, according to newspaper reports from the time.

It can also be disclosed that Trainor’s house was raided in connection with the Northern Bank robbery when he allegedly held a senior role in the IRA’s Belfast Brigade. He was not charged in connection with the robbery. Trainor now runs successful restaurants in Northern Ireland as well as a security business.

Also part of Adams’ court entourage was his assistant and confidant Richard McAuley, who was sentenced to ten years in prison in 1974 when he was found guilty of possessing an M1 carbine rifle, pistols and bullets, causing a bomb explosion and being a member of the IRA.

The former Sinn Fein leader claimed that McAuley, under the pen name ‘Brownie’, had written articles for the Republican News newspaper – also known as An Phoblacht – although the name ‘Brownie’ had long been solely linked to Adams himself.

The matter was raised in court because, in 1976, one of these articles included an admission that the author was an ‘IRA volunteer’.

Adams was asked why he hadn’t called McAuley to give evidence to corroborate his claims. When asked in addition whether McAuley, his friend for decades, was alive, he said: ‘To the best of my knowledge.’

Had he been present in court for each day of the proceedings? Adams replied: ‘Indeed he has.’

Similarly, another friend, Martin Ferris, an Irish former Sinn Fein politician, served a ten-year prison sentence for the attempted importation of a large consignment of guns from the United States in the 1980s.

Adams told the High Court he had ‘great admiration’ for Ferris, and that his party is ‘replete with histories of IRA people who then went on to embrace politics’.

It was typical of Adams’ relaxed and, at times, nonchalant behaviour throughout the proceedings, despite being painted as the mastermind of three allegations of serious terrorism.

Asked why he had worn a black beret at the funeral of an IRA volunteer in 1971 – said to be ‘part of the uniform’ of the terror group – Adams said it was ‘no big deal.’

‘Benny Hill wore one, too,’ he added, prompting Sir Max to shoot back: ‘Under very different circumstances.’ On another occasion, when Sir Max agreed there was a mistake on a date in a BBC article he was referencing, Adams said, to laughter: ‘Well, that’s the BBC for you.’

It was a joke with an undercurrent of hostility. Last year he won a libel case against the BBC and was awarded £84,000 when a programme contained an allegation that he had sanctioned the 2006 murder of an informer within the IRA.

In court, Adams disavowed the testimony of those he had known for decades. In interviews to be released after his death, Brendan Hughes, an IRA commander and former close friend of Adams, named him as a leading figure in the paramilitary group.

However, Adams, who was with Hughes when he died in 2008, told the court his old friend was mistaken and was making the allegations because he disagreed with the peace process.

But writing online after Adams’ evidence had concluded, Hughes’ daughter, Josephine, said: ‘I hope my father’s face haunts you the rest of your days, to stand in a British court and basically call my father a liar… I hope everyone sees through you like my daddy did.’

Similarly, Dolours Price, who, with her sister Marian, was also convicted of the 1973 Old Bailey bombing, claimed before her death in 2013 that Adams had said the attack was a ‘hanging job’ and picked the team to go to London. She was previously married to actor Stephen Rea.

Asked about this at trial, Adams again blamed the claims on her opposition to the peace process and her later dependence on alcohol.

In a valedictory address outside that Sands memorial yesterday, Adams said the civil case against him amounted to a ‘show trial’.

Indeed, the mountain of evidence referenced in the court certainly verged on the blockbuster: Extracts from books, documentaries and interviews. Diplomatic cables. Previously top-secret Army intelligence documents.

It was claimed that they all alluded to the same conclusion: Adams was a senior member of the IRA or even its leader.

But with the case ending in dramatic fashion yesterday after two weeks of evidence, the judge was not required to come to a conclusion. Adams’ denial of ever being a member of the IRA remains his position.

Now it is likely that the pensioner, who hosts a cosy podcast and regularly posts on social media – ‘Comhghairdeas Jessica Buckley’, the Irish for ‘congratulations’, he wrote following the star’s Oscars win – will never face a courtroom again.

As far as he is concerned, his legacy will be his central contribution to the peace process in Northern Ireland.

As for his terrorist friends, history may not record them so kindly.