"I'm Not a Big Player in Anything"

The infamous Alan “Fat Puss” Bradley – once described in the Dáil by ex-Taoiseach Bertie Ahern as a high-profile criminal – has been making headlines recently. However, his latest appearance on the front pages of the tabloids had nothing to do with crime. Instead it emerged that he had entered the Mr Ireland bodybuilding competition...

The 33-year-old – who’s now been re-dubbed “Fit Puss” by the tabloids – is infuriated with the media coverage. Bradley feels he was taunted for not making the cut at the Mr. Ireland competition.
“It was on the front of the paper as if I went in to win the fucking Mr. Ireland competition. I knew I wasn’t a winner,” insists Bradley, as he sits down with a cup of black coffee. “It was an achievement to get my body looking like that and just doing the show. People wouldn’t believe half the shit you go through to get into this condition.
“I went to a show last year in the Olympia and I said to myself, ‘I’ll do that next year’ – and I done it. It was an achievement. It was a great feeling to have my kids at the front of the crowd – I have a two-year-old and a 12-year-old – and to have them screaming for me, ‘Go, Daddy! Go, Daddy!’ That was good enough for me. It was a great day out for all my family.”
Leaving the competition venue on Dublin’s Abbey Street, Bradley was ambushed by the media. He declined to comment and says he can’t understand why some tabloids decided to turn the fact that he didn’t win into a front-page story.
“They should have had a spread about the winners,” he says. “Instead they put, ‘Fit Puss Flops!’ That was a disgrace. I didn’t flop anything. I wouldn’t give them the time of day. I wouldn’t even acknowledge them. They just write bad things about you when they feel like it. They’ve turned my life upside down with their lies. The crap that they write is unbelievable.
“I do something decent and they blackened me in the paper. ‘Fit Puss Flops!’ Who gives a shit? And then it has down at the end of the article about the conspiracy to robbery. What was the story about? Are they trying to make me look bad? Like, they’ve nothing better to do. Did I deserve the front-page of the paper? No, I didn’t. The people that won it – that put their heart and soul into it – did.”
Bradley feels he himself has become a victim of the apparently insatiable thirst in the media for crime stories.
“They’ve me put up there as being this major gangster. It’s a load of bollix. I know a fella that was offered money for a story on me. They were giving him four grand! They thought he was a soft touch. The papers blow me out of proportion. People that know me know that I haven’t got a reputation for most of the stuff. I’m not a big player in anything.”

THE MURDER OF JOHN DALY
Alan Bradley first came to the wider public’s attention back in 2006 when he and his brother took a libel case against The Star On Sunday for alleging – back in June 2004, under the headline ‘Inside Gangland: Brothers In Arms’ – that they were the leaders of one of the most dangerous criminal gangs in the country. The feature also claimed that their gang had made a staggering €4m from armed robberies. Despite not having any serious criminal convictions, the Bradley brothers lost their libel action.
Does he regret taking the case?
“Yeah, I do,” he shrugs. “They made my life even worse. They turned it upside down and ever since that they’ve wrote more crap than anything else. Half of the time I don’t know what they’re even on about. My 12-year-old daughter came in after seeing The Star, she said that all her friends said it was on the front of the paper. I’m trying to hide papers from her, but she’s 12 years old and you can’t. She was in a state over it. I’m used to it at this stage, but I feel for her.”
The following year, the Finglas-born criminal made the headlines once again when he appeared on RTE’s Liveline radio show, in a debate with Paul Williams. The armed robber John Daly, who was serving a sentence in Portlaoise at the time, joined in from his prison cell. After his release, Daly was gunned down in cold blood.
At one stage, it was reported that Bradley was involved in Daly’s killing. He vehemently denies the allegations.
“I was actually going to go to the funeral until people started throwing my name in, as having been involved in his murder, which is shite. It’s complete shite,” he declares.
“Why would I want him killed? I sent him a postcard when I was in Tenerife. And we’re meant to be enemies? I often had a drink with him before he got locked up and the odd time I’d be on the phone to him when he was in the prison; like anyone, you’d send him a bit of phone credit or send him down a tracksuit or a pair of runners. I have a lot of friends in prison.
“John’s death was nothing to do with the radio. But that call he made did mess up the prisons a good bit. I don’t know actually why he was killed. I think he had a few problems with a few people but still, it should have been sorted out through talking. He was only a young fella. He was locked up for the best part of his adult life. I don’t think anyone deserves to be shot like that. There’s somebody getting killed down there every two weeks. It’s bleedin’ stupid. It’s gone past a bleedin’ joke. They’re killing each other for nothing.”
Apparently, the first time Bradley was made aware of the rumours of a dispute between himself and Daly was when it was claimed by Sunday World crime reporter Paul Williams.
“Paul Williams was saying that we were fighting and John Daly was going to get out and there was going to be war between us. And that made Paul Williams look like a complete fucking arsehole when John rang the show. There was never any trouble between me and John Daly. Never any trouble. I don’t know where he even came up with this. He was on about carving up Finglas for the drugs,” Bradley states.
Has he ever dealt in drugs?
“I never sold drugs,” he insists. “I’ve nothing to do with drugs. That’s one of the main reasons why I moved out of Finglas. I wasn’t going to rear my kids around that kip. There’s too many drugs in it. You get 13-year-olds down there smoking hash and by the time they’re 15, they’ve probably tried everything.”
Bradley claims that sensationalism in media coverage of crime has caused at least one death in recent times.
“The media coverage actually caused the murder of a fella and I know that for a fact. I don’t want to go into names, but there was a story about someone being involved in something that he wasn’t involved in – and that fella actually ended up dead.
“That could have happened to me when they said that I was involved in John Daly’s murder. What if his family got it into their heads and came looking for me?! I was actually talking to his brother, Anthony, a while ago and he said, ‘Lookit, we know who killed him. We know it was nothing got to do with you. We know you had no hand or part in this. Don’t mind what the papers are saying’. This is coming from his brother.”
Has he ever been threatened?
“The guards only came to me there a month ago and told me there was a threat on my life. I asked them who it was from and they said, ‘Well, we can’t tell you that!’ I said, ‘What are you telling me this for?’ I’m not worried anyway. I don’t think there’s any threat. I don’t have any problems with anybody.”
Has he ever shot anybody?
“No, I have not. I’ve never shot at anybody. I’m not involved in anything like that,” Bradley maintains. “I was never involved in murders. I was never involved in shootings. That’s how I’ve kept me head above water, so far.”
Bradley has been linked with the notorious criminal Martin “Marlo” Hyland – considered to have been the country’s biggest drug dealer until he was shot five times as he lay in bed back in 2006. Tragically, a 20-year-old apprentice plumber named Anthony Campbell, who was working in the house at the time, was also callously murdered by the hit man. The papers reported that Bradley attended Hyland’s funeral along with his friend Paddy “Dutchy” Holland, who prior to his recent incarceration, used to babysit Bradley’s children.
However, Bradley denies any business connection with Hyland.
“I wasn’t a part of his gang. I don’t think he even had a gang himself. I don’t think he had a penny. His family is down there and I don’t think they have nothing. If he had all these millions, his family would be looked after. I don’t know what he was involved in. But he was obviously killed for some reason. I don’t think they have a clue who killed him. They’re blaming two of his mates and I wouldn’t say it has anything to do with them at all.”
GETTING A FAIR TRIAL
Bradley himself is currently out on €50,000 bail as he awaits trial on charges relating to the botched robbery of a jeep delivering cash to an ATM machine at Tesco in Celbridge, County Kildare. If found guilty, he faces up to 10 years in prison, which would be his longest stretch behind bars.
However, Bradley is maintaining his innocence.
“I was arrested in a legit car, with tax and insurance on it. I was in a car driving by Tesco’s. I wasn’t arrested with guns. I wasn’t arrested with balaclavas. I wasn’t arrested with gloves even in the car. I was arrested with nothing whatsoever. Nothing at all. I actually wasn’t involved. I didn’t touch any van.”
The amount of money that was in the jeep varies depending on which newspaper you read.
“I’m not charged with conspiracy to rob €950,000, which is what they’re saying in the papers. That’s not true. I’m charged with conspiracy to commit theft. I don’t know where they got that figure of €950,000 – there’s no amount on it. There’s one paper saying €1.3 million and another paper saying a million and another said €2 million; now there’s €950,000, wherever that came from! They’re making the figures up! I’m charged with conspiracy to commit theft – it doesn’t say of what.”
Bradley believes that he’s already been found guilty in a trial by media.
“I’m not going to get a fair trial in this country. If a panel of jurors is brought in, you can guarantee that probably half or more of them would have read about me or heard about me before. So, already I’m in their minds as being guilty. They’re going to think, ‘Hold on a minute! There’s no smoke without fire’. I’ll be found guilty for something I didn’t do. I’ll be fighting it tooth and nail. I’ll use everything that I have at my disposal to try and beat it. But it’s going to be hard convincing a jury that I wasn’t involved,” he argues.
“They said in the papers that I was involved in so many armed robberies that I was after robbing €3 million. I was never arrested and questioned about these robberies. I’ve been accused of nearly everything. Security van robberies. Bank robberies. Factory robberies. Breaking into places. I keep on getting brought into the limelight. Those papers shouldn’t be writing about me at all because the judge banned it. A judge banned papers from writing about me.”
The majority of Bradley’s previous convictions have been for petty crime and motoring offences.
“I’ve been locked up maybe eight times. All sentences ranging from between six months to two years, mostly for motoring offences. I was disqualified from a very early age. Any time I was caught I was getting extra bans and extra sentences. I was in and out, you know?” he explains.

DOING A DEAL WITH CAB
Bradley grew up with six brothers and two sisters in a tough Corporation housing estate in Finglas, Dublin North. His parents, who he says both drank, separated when he was young.
“My mother and father split up years and years ago. It had a big effect on me,” he reveals. “It was hard. We got help from the St. Vincent de Paul and help from other charities in the area. We never had anything. There was no money around. We were by no means wealthy and I’m by no means wealthy now – we’re just trying to live, pay my mortgage and get by. But people won’t let that happen. They won’t let you move on.”
Bradley left school at 16 and did a FÁS course in woodwork; he did another two-year course in metal fabrication and worked at making gates and window grills for houses and flats in the surrounding areas.
“I stuck at that for a while. Then I got involved in horses and just everything else,” he says, his voice trailing off.
It’s the “everything else” part that has landed Bradley in trouble.
“I was breaking into cars. Anyone living in an area like that with nothing to do got involved in just petty things, you know? I never broke into shops or anything. I’d go into shops and put on a tracksuit and just run out the door. You’d only be robbing sweets and stuff. Stupid things. You’d get security giving you a kicking and fucking you out. That would be it,” he insists.
What was the biggest job he did as a teenager?
“Probably joyriding. Driving around the fields – that would be the biggest thing. About 15 years ago I got a criminal charge for a screwdriver and for robbing a tracksuit. I think they’re me only two criminal charges. I used to bring a screwdriver to school and when I was let out I’d go up to the village and break into cars. Robbing radios. It was the car park at the back of Iceland in the village. One guard walked around that way and the other guard walked around this way to corner me – I threw the screwdriver and I went to jump over the barrier and the barrier was too high. So, they had me and they punched the head off me.
“I got a criminal charge for a tracksuit in Roche’s. I put a tracksuit on me and made it as far as the door and I got lifted. I remember being with a young one and she actually gave a fella’s name when she was caught. She gave a fella’s name and I got a hiding over it. They were coming into me, asking what her name was. And here I was saying, ‘Suzanne’, and she was after saying her name was Paul Lawlor! She did look like a fella,” he laughs.
Bradley is coy when it comes to discussing any current criminal activities. He can hardly confess: as he repeatedly points out, he has never been convicted of any serious crime and argues that he would be a fool to admit to anything. However, Bradley was recently handed a hefty tax bill, plus penalties, for €385,000 by the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB). What was that all about?
“It’s over car dealing and keeping the horses. I don’t put bets on. I never put a bet on in my life in a bookies. I always kept good horses for studding other horses. They raided my accountant. My accountant’s report didn’t add up to my bank account. I got a CAB bill of €180,000 and they put interest and penalties on it for an extra €205,000. That means I owe them €385,000. I’m trying to sort out something with them,” he says.
Would you have that type of money?
“I’d get it for them,” he says.
Once again, Bradley reiterates that all he now wants is to be left alone by the media.
“I’m trying to stay out of trouble and raise my family as best I can. That was one of the main reasons for getting out of Dublin in the first place. I want to be left alone. There’s a strain on my marriage all the time over newspaper reports. It’s not fair on me wife. She’s after being through the mill. I feel sorry for her. To have your wife in tears on your wedding day, which is meant to be the happiest day of her life. We got married in Finglas and there was something like 20 photographers there, all just acting the bollix. As a surprise for me wife, we went down to get a helicopter at Dublin Airport to the reception in Portmarnock. And when we were landing, there were photographers in the field, running out to take photographs. She was in tears. She was in bits having all these fuckers running across fields taking photographs.”

NOT LEAVING FOR ANYONE
Alan Bradley also says that his media reputation has a negative impact on his everyday life. “Some people would rather not be seen with me at all in case they’re dragged into something, which is understandable from their point of view. There are normal people who wouldn’t even have my number in their phone because they’d be terrified in case their phone calls are being listened to.
“I often find myself a little bit on edge meeting people. You’re wondering if this fella is talking about you or are they saying anything bad about you. It just fucks your head up. I was often at weddings and you’d see people looking at you and then when you look at them they’d turn their head away. I know they’re saying, ‘That’s your man out of the paper!’ Or, ‘That’s your man – this big bad cunt!’ People don’t know what to think of you, but I’d actually talk to anybody. People who know me know I’m a softy. A softy to a certain point. But I’m not aggressive, I’m not violent. I have no convictions for being aggressive, for violence or anything like that.”
Despite the recent negative media coverage from his participation in the body building event, Alan Bradley is adamant that he’ll continue entering competitions.
“I’m going to stick at it. I have every intention of going back and doing the novice show the next time. I know what I’m up against now. It was an achievement alone to get into that condition to get up onto the stage. It actually takes balls to get up in front of 900 people.
“Body building is very hard. You’re getting up every morning at 6.30am and you’re walking for 45 minutes up hills on an empty stomach, then you have to go training, and then after that you do another 45 minute walk. After your walk you’d have a few scoops of porridge, a few scoops of pineapple. You have to eat seven meals a day. You have to weigh your food and eat every two-and-half-hours. You’re actually bollixed and then when you go to bed you can’t sleep because your system is working overtime. People wouldn’t believe half the shit you go through to get into this condition. There’s some great people – Derek McLoughlin, Jason Reid, Philip Hyland, Mark Wall, Eammon Manning of Nutrition X, Stephen O’Shaughnessy – they all helped get me into shape. And my wife had to put up with me during all this!”
Would you consider leaving the country to get away from the media?
“I’m not leaving this country for anybody,” he concludes. “I shouldn’t have to leave it. I was born and reared here. I’m not leaving it for no one.”