Say what you like about sporadic Sunday Worst columnist Hugh Jordan, but he's not short of a brass neck.
Most people who published a book accusing a slain colleague of the brutal murder of a police officer would have given the appearance in court of two men accused of the killing a wide berth. But not our Hugh.Hugh and Worst Northern Editor Jim McDowell were prominent in the press gallery at Lisburn Courthouse last month when two Lurgan men, Neil Hyde, 28, and Nigel Leckey, 43, were charged with the murder of Sunday Worst reporter Martin O'Hagan.
Hugh, of course, waited until after O'Hagan's murder in 2001 to publish his book Milestones in Murder (universally known as 'Milestones in Mistakes' because of the number of factual howlers it contains).
In it, he repeated O'Hagan's well-known conviction for Official IRA weapons offences in the 1970s for which he was jailed for seven years, but then added the (unproven) allegation that he murdered RUC constable George Chambers, a father-of-six, in December 1972 as he delivered Christamas presents to an eight-year-old Lurgan girl, Linda Hughes, who was recovering from a car accident.
Hugh - an ex-Stickie errand-boy himself - had earlier supplied information about the incident in Lurgan's Kilwilkee estate, in which three other RUC constables were injured, to former Sunday Express 'Investigations Editor' Barrie Penrose - O'Hagan's nemesis for much of the previous decade.
Hugh encouraged Penrose to use the information as the basis of a November 2002 article in the right-wing Spectator magazine on condition that he conceal his grubby role in the affair (Penrose's article said Hugh was "reluctant" to elaborate on the allegations in his forthcoming book: "'I stand by what the book states,' says the author, tartly.'").Hugh, who sat opposite O'Hagan in the Worst's Belfast office, had, in fact, been spying for Penrose since filmmaker Sean McPhilemy took almost £500,000 in damages and costs off the Sunday Express for a 1992 article which accused McPhilemy of duping Channel 4 over his controversial documentary The Committee about RUC-loyalist collusion. (O'Hagan had been an adviser on the programme.)Hugh would regularly wait for O'Hagan to leave his desk unattended to trawl his computer files in the hope of uncovering O'Hagan's sources (sadly, for Hugh and the hapless Penrose, without success).
Fine reward, you might think, for O'Hagan taking pity on a shoe-less Hugh when he mysteriously arrived in Belfast from Donegal at the end of the 1980s.
None of which seems to have dented Hugh's (largely invented) reputation - judging by McDowell's forthcoming book, The Mummy's Boys (Gill & Macmillan, €12.99, hurry, hurry), which was the subject of a slavish plug by Des Ekin in the Worst last week.
Though nominally dedicated to "the staff of the Sunday World, who are also my friends", McDowell's book - the sequel to 2001's Godfathers - makes only passing reference to senior staffers such as Northern News Editor Richard O'Sullivan and long-serving reporters Steven Moore and John Cassidy.
Hugh, though, is variously "Hugh Jordan, a friend and Sunday World colleague of mine." (p133), "Hugh Jordan, my colleague in the Sunday World." (p150), "Hugh, originally from Glasgow, spent his childhood holidays in the Gaeltacht. He loves the place. Has written songs about it." (p183), "Hugh filed his report, job well done." (p184), "Hugh had been the first journalist to find, and interview, [IRA double-agent Denis] Donaldson at his Donegal cottage bolthole." (p186), et cetera ad nauseam.
Quite which sector of the Christmas market Fergal Tobin expects to attract with this guff is a mystery; though one passage of eye-watering dishonesty about how nude pictures of the DUP's Sammy Wilson came into the Worst's possession would surely see the author spending the festive season in Crumlin Road were it to be repeated under oath.
McDowell is unapologetic, however; even to the extent of claiming Wilson has the Worst to thank for his promotion to ministerial office in the North's power-sharing Executive. Would that Biffo could count on the same selfless PR assistance in Leinster House!
Hugh's latest errand, meanwhile, lacks the excitement of setting up middle-ranking Shinners for assassination.
The Worst's Belfast solictors, Mills Selig, has a list of impending court cases the length of your arm arising from Hugh's so-called 'exclusives' - starting next month with Daz-clean developer Peter Curistan - which should keep him out of mischief!
Most people who published a book accusing a slain colleague of the brutal murder of a police officer would have given the appearance in court of two men accused of the killing a wide berth. But not our Hugh.Hugh and Worst Northern Editor Jim McDowell were prominent in the press gallery at Lisburn Courthouse last month when two Lurgan men, Neil Hyde, 28, and Nigel Leckey, 43, were charged with the murder of Sunday Worst reporter Martin O'Hagan.
Hugh, of course, waited until after O'Hagan's murder in 2001 to publish his book Milestones in Murder (universally known as 'Milestones in Mistakes' because of the number of factual howlers it contains).
In it, he repeated O'Hagan's well-known conviction for Official IRA weapons offences in the 1970s for which he was jailed for seven years, but then added the (unproven) allegation that he murdered RUC constable George Chambers, a father-of-six, in December 1972 as he delivered Christamas presents to an eight-year-old Lurgan girl, Linda Hughes, who was recovering from a car accident.
Hugh - an ex-Stickie errand-boy himself - had earlier supplied information about the incident in Lurgan's Kilwilkee estate, in which three other RUC constables were injured, to former Sunday Express 'Investigations Editor' Barrie Penrose - O'Hagan's nemesis for much of the previous decade.
Hugh encouraged Penrose to use the information as the basis of a November 2002 article in the right-wing Spectator magazine on condition that he conceal his grubby role in the affair (Penrose's article said Hugh was "reluctant" to elaborate on the allegations in his forthcoming book: "'I stand by what the book states,' says the author, tartly.'").Hugh, who sat opposite O'Hagan in the Worst's Belfast office, had, in fact, been spying for Penrose since filmmaker Sean McPhilemy took almost £500,000 in damages and costs off the Sunday Express for a 1992 article which accused McPhilemy of duping Channel 4 over his controversial documentary The Committee about RUC-loyalist collusion. (O'Hagan had been an adviser on the programme.)Hugh would regularly wait for O'Hagan to leave his desk unattended to trawl his computer files in the hope of uncovering O'Hagan's sources (sadly, for Hugh and the hapless Penrose, without success).
Fine reward, you might think, for O'Hagan taking pity on a shoe-less Hugh when he mysteriously arrived in Belfast from Donegal at the end of the 1980s.
None of which seems to have dented Hugh's (largely invented) reputation - judging by McDowell's forthcoming book, The Mummy's Boys (Gill & Macmillan, €12.99, hurry, hurry), which was the subject of a slavish plug by Des Ekin in the Worst last week.
Though nominally dedicated to "the staff of the Sunday World, who are also my friends", McDowell's book - the sequel to 2001's Godfathers - makes only passing reference to senior staffers such as Northern News Editor Richard O'Sullivan and long-serving reporters Steven Moore and John Cassidy.
Hugh, though, is variously "Hugh Jordan, a friend and Sunday World colleague of mine." (p133), "Hugh Jordan, my colleague in the Sunday World." (p150), "Hugh, originally from Glasgow, spent his childhood holidays in the Gaeltacht. He loves the place. Has written songs about it." (p183), "Hugh filed his report, job well done." (p184), "Hugh had been the first journalist to find, and interview, [IRA double-agent Denis] Donaldson at his Donegal cottage bolthole." (p186), et cetera ad nauseam.
Quite which sector of the Christmas market Fergal Tobin expects to attract with this guff is a mystery; though one passage of eye-watering dishonesty about how nude pictures of the DUP's Sammy Wilson came into the Worst's possession would surely see the author spending the festive season in Crumlin Road were it to be repeated under oath.
McDowell is unapologetic, however; even to the extent of claiming Wilson has the Worst to thank for his promotion to ministerial office in the North's power-sharing Executive. Would that Biffo could count on the same selfless PR assistance in Leinster House!
Hugh's latest errand, meanwhile, lacks the excitement of setting up middle-ranking Shinners for assassination.
The Worst's Belfast solictors, Mills Selig, has a list of impending court cases the length of your arm arising from Hugh's so-called 'exclusives' - starting next month with Daz-clean developer Peter Curistan - which should keep him out of mischief!
