Those who admired Brown gave him the moniker "the Professor" because of his skill with Marxist rhetoric while his detractors mocked him by calling him "the Clown", due to his involvement in several high-profile blunders.
In March 1983 McAllister retracted his testimony, but Brown and the rest of the detained INLA members were still held because of the evidence of another informer, Jackie Grimley.
In December 1983 the INLA members were put before the court, but Lord Justice Maurice Gibson deemed Grimley, a petty criminal, unreliable.
[5] As O'Reilly retained the INLA label, the Brown/Steenson faction renamed themselves the 'Irish People's Liberation Organisation', with Brown forming a political wing called the 'Republican Socialist Collective'.
[9] Brown oversaw these operations, using old INLA arms smuggling routes in Western Europe for drug trafficking, particularly MDMA and ecstasy, from locations such as the Netherlands and France to Ireland via the Europort in Rosslare.
[10] When this was put to Brown, he would occasionally justify the IPLO's actions by noting the drug dealing activities of other Marxist paramilitary groups internationally such as FARC.
[11] It was also around this time that the IPLO began an "open door" policy to increase membership, allowing criminals and those rejected by other paramilitary groups into their ranks without barriers.
Brown retorted back by threatening to stand in Gerry Adams' West Belfast constituency as a spoiler candidate, so that the SDLP could take the seat.
[1] Disgusted by the entire matter, the Provisional IRA moved in and attacked both groups in a large-scale operation on Halloween, dubbed the "Night of Long Knives" by Belfast locals.
A devious man who deceived himself, he provided an ideological veneer for sectarian murder and criminality, and expanded paramilitary involvement in drug dealing.