Glasgow Ice Cream Wars - Court Case

Court Case

The ensuing public outrage in Glasgow at the deaths was considerable. The Strathclyde Police arrested several people over the following months, eventually charging six of them. Four were tried and convicted of offences relating to the vendettas. The remaining two, Thomas "T C" Campbell and Joe Steele, were tried for the murders, convicted unanimously (unanimity is not required in Scotland) and sentenced to life imprisonment, of which they were to serve not less than 20 years according to the judge's recommendation. Campbell was also separately convicted (again with the jury returning a unanimous verdict) of involvement in the earlier shotgun attack, and sentenced to serve 10 years in prison for that.

What ensued was a 20 year court battle by the two men, one of the most contentious in Scottish legal history, and, in the later words of Campbell's solicitor, Aamer Anwar, speaking in 2004, "20 years of hunger strikes, prison breakouts, demonstrations, political pressure, solitary isolation, prison beatings, legal fight after legal fight".

The Crown's case against Campbell and Steele rested on three pieces of evidence:

• A witness, William Love, stated that he had overheard, in a bar, Campbell, Steele, and others discussing how they would teach "Fat Boy" Doyle a lesson by setting fire to his house.
• The police stated that Campbell had made a statement, recorded by four officers, that "I only wanted the van windaes shot up. The fire at Fat Boy's was only meant to be a frightener which went too far."
• The police stated that a photocopied A-Z street map of Glasgow, on which the Doyle house in Bankend St was marked with an X, was found in Campbell's flat.

According to the Crown, Campbell was a man with a record of violence (he had already served several years in prison in the 1970s, and had been back in prison from 1982 to 1983) who had entered the ice cream van business in 1983, and who had been keen to protect his "patch" against the rival Marchetti family; and Steele was Campbell's henchman, a sidekick recruited to help with the dirty work in Campbell's planned campaign of violence against Marchetti drivers and vans.

The defence rejected the Crown's evidence during the 27-day trial, and afterwards Campbell continued to assert that he had been "fitted up" by both Love and the police. Campbell described Love during the trial as "a desperado" who had been willing to be a witness, pointing the finger at (in Campbell's words) "any one of us", in order to avoid going to prison himself, having been granted bail in exchange for testimony. Campbell denied that he had made any such statement to the police as was claimed, asserted that the police had planted the map in his house, and claimed that when he had been arrested and taken to Baird Street police station, a senior police officer had told him "This is where we do the fitting up. I am going to nail you to the wall.". He stated that at the time of the fire he had been at home with his wife. Steele also stated an alibi for the time of the fire.

After conviction, Campbell and Steele tried to have their conviction overturned in 1989, but failed.

Several years later, in 1992, two journalists, Douglas Skelton and Lisa Brownlie, wrote a book, Frightener, about the conflicts and the trial. They interviewed Love for the book, who stated, and later signed affidavits attesting, that he had lied under oath. In Love's own words "I did so because it suited my own selfish purposes. The explanation as to why I gave evidence is this: The police pressurised me to give evidence against Campbell, who they clearly believed was guilty of arranging to set fire to Doyle's house.".

As a result, both Campbell and Steele engaged in campaigns of protest to attempt to publicize their cases. Steele escaped from prison several times, in order to make high profile demonstrations, including a rooftop protest and supergluing himself to the railings at Buckingham Palace. Campbell protested whilst remaining in Barlinnie prison, going on hunger strike, refusing to cut his hair, and making a documentary. After a lengthy legal argument, the Secretary of State for Scotland referred the case to the appeal court, granting Campbell and Steele interim freedom pending its outcome.

The appeal failed. The three appeal judges reached a split decision on whether the fresh evidence relating to Love's testimony (and relating to a potentially exculpatory statement made to the police by Love's sister, which had not been disclosed to the Defence at the trial) would have significantly affected the outcome of the original trial, and thus should be heard. Lord Cullen and Lord Sutherland both opined that it would have not, with Lord McCluskey dissenting. Campbell and Steele were returned to prison.

The legal fight continued. A further petition was presented to the Scottish Secretary asking for the case to be referred back to the Court of Appeal. Donald Dewar refused to refer the case, because he did not "believe that they present grounds for a referral of the case to the appeal court". Solicitors for Campbell and Steele then took the case to the then newly created Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, which then took up the case.

The Commission first requested and received material from the Crown Office. It then went to court to obtain further Crown paperwork relating to the case, including government correspondence. The Crown fought against the release of the paperwork, on the grounds that the Commission had not justified it gaining access to the paperwork and that the papers were in the same category as paperwork that the Commission had already been denied access to by Scottish Executive's Justice Department. Lord Clarke ruled in favour of the Commission being granted access to the paperwork, stating that "The commission a statutory obligation to carry out a full, independent and impartial investigation into alleged miscarriages of justice." and that "Legislation under which was clearly designed to give the widest powers to perform that duty.".