30 September 2001: A long article in Scotland's Sunday Herald on the case and the publication of Campbell's book Indictment: Trial by Fire

3 October 2001: A book is to be published on the case and Glasgow's so-called 'ice-cream wars'. Indictment: Trial by Fire has been written by Thomas 'TC' Campbell and Scottish crime journalist Reg McKay.

1 December 2001: Case referred back to court of appeal.
11 December 2001: Both men released pending the appeal.

This long-running case is also dealt with in some depth at the Scandals in Justice Web site - SIJ Glasgow Two.

Two men convicted of murdering a family of six during Glasgow's so-called Ice Cream Wars have had their appeal bid rejected, but supporters say the decision is "not the end".

Scottish Secretary Donald Dewar has refused to return the case of Thomas "TC" Campbell and Joseph Steele to the Court of Appeal.

A statement from the Scottish Office said: "The Secretary of State has responded to a petition submitted on behalf of Thomas Campbell and Joseph Steele following the rejection of their latest appeal earlier this year.

"After considering the petitions carefully the Secretary of State does not believe that they present grounds for a referral of the case to the appeal court."

Solicitor for the two men, John Carroll, said they would take the case to the Criminal Cases Review Commission.

"I am disappointed about the decision. Not surprised, but disappointed. It was a waste of nine months.

"The commission will have the authority to recommend that the case will go back to the Appeal Court."

The Glasgow Two Campaign, a group supporting the two men, reacted angrily to the decision.

Campaign coordinator Tommy Sheridan said the decision was "a very, very sad day for justice in Scotland".

"In broad terms, the reason why Donald Dewar didn't back it was he didn't want to go against what the Law Lords, Lord Cullen and Lord Sutherland decided last February," he said.

"Over the last 14 years we have had lots of ups and downs. This is a down but there will be another up. The two men are innocent and we are determined to prove that they are innocent."

Campbell's sister, Agnes Lafferty, maintained her brother's innocence.

"It is an absolute scandal that this has not been allowed and it seems Scottish judges are allowed to do what they want and get away with it.

"This is the 15th year of the campaign and it is exhausting and very wearing.

"Every time we think we are getting somewhere we get a setback like this, but this is all it is, a setback."

Steele's brother Jim Steele said supporters would direct the campaign at Mr Dewar personally.

"As far as we are concerned Donald Dewar has acted in a very cowardly fashion," he said.

"We are determined to intensify this campaign and direct it towards Donald Dewar. We will be talking to Joe and Tommy and meeting next week to discuss the continuation of the campaign. This is not the end."

Campbell and Steele were convicted of murdering six members of the Doyle family, including an 18-month-old child, by starting a fire in a tenement flat in Ruchazie, Glasgow, in April 1984.

After a 27-day trial at the High Court in Glasgow, the two men were jailed for life.

The killings were part of a violent war between ice cream van businesses in the east end of Glasgow.

The ice cream routes reportedly formed a network for distributing illegal drugs throughout the city's housing schemes.

It was Campbell and Steele's third attempt at an appeal. They were temporarily released from jail in 1997 pending the result of a second appeal.

It failed in February 1998 and they were immediately reimprisoned.

A justice review body has gone to court to get access to all Crown papers relating to two men it believes were wrongly convicted of murder in Glasgow's "ice cream wars".

Thomas "TC" Campbell, 47, and Joe Steele, 38, were jailed for life for the murder of six members of the Doyle family in a fire attack in the Ruchazie area of Glasgow. The murders followed a feud over ice-cream routes connected with the distribution of drugs. Both men have protested their innocence for the 16 years since their trial. In 1998 a bid to hear fresh evidence was rejected in a split decision by three Court of Appeal judges.

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission has gone to the High Court for access to all documents relating to the case, including Government correspondence. It has already received some papers from the Crown, which is opposing the court action. The commission was set up last year and can refer a case back to the Court of Appeal.

Gerard Moynihan, QC, for the commission, said it already had unrestricted access to police papers. He said the commission was entitled to an order from the High Court for the release of documents it believes may help its investigations. He added that the Lord Advocate's opposition failed to take into account the public interest in a thorough review of the case.

Duncan Menzies QC, for the Crown, said it was not trying to obstruct the commission but the documents were in the same category as papers that the Scottish Executive's Justice Department had already declined to release.

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission has gone to court in an attempt to gain unprecedented access to all documents relating to the ice cream wars murder case.

It has applied for access to all Crown paperwork including government correspondence relating to the case.

The commission has been considering allegations by Thomas TC Campbell, 47, and Joe Steele, 38, that they were wrongfully convicted.

The men were convicted of murdering six members of the Doyle family, including an 18-month-old child, by starting a fire in a tenement flat in Ruchazie, Glasgow, in April 1984.

After a 27-day trial at the High Court in Glasgow, the two men were jailed for life.

The killings were part of a violent war between ice cream van businesses in the east end of Glasgow.

Ever since their trial 16 years ago, both men have protested their innocence.

The men lost an appeal and then saw a bid to have fresh evidence heard in their case rejected on a split decision of three judges in 1998 after the then Scottish Secretary, Donald Dewar, referred the case to the appeal court.

Their case has been under consideration by the review commission, which was set up to adjudicate on whether alleged miscarriages of justice should be referred back to appeal court judges.

The High Court in Edinburgh heard that after Campbell and Steele lost their last appeal their solicitors raised a new challenge with the Scottish secretary, which was handed over to the commission when it was set up.

The commission has already received some material from the Crown Office, but has now gone to court seeking access to all documents relating to the case in a move opposed by the Crown.

It has argued that police papers suggested new lines of inquiry.

"This is why they wish to see all the papers," Gerald Moynihan, QC for the commission, told the court.

Advocate depute Duncan Menzies, QC, said the Crown was not intending to obstruct the commission, but argued that the onus was on it to justify why it should get access to the papers.

He also argued that the documents requested were in the same category as papers which the Scottish Executive's Justice Department has already refused to hand over.

The judge, Lord Clarke, said he would rule at a later date.

The release of all prosecution papers in the Glasgow ice cream wars murder case has moved a step closer after a court ruling.

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission went to court in an attempt to gain unprecedented access to all documents relating to the case.

It has been considering allegations by Thomas TC Campbell, 47, and Joe Steele, 38, that they were wrongfully convicted. The men were found guilty of murdering six members of the Doyle family, including an 18-month-old child, by starting a fire in a tenement flat in Ruchazie, Glasgow, in April 1984.

They have always protested their innocence and, after several failed appeals, their case is now being examined by the commission.

Numerous requests have been made to the Crown Office for access to papers since May last year.

Scotland's senior law officer, the lord advocate, opposed the documents being handed over.

But on Tuesday Lord Clarke ruled in favour of the commission, saying that there was nothing in principle which prevented it from seeking the papers.

He said: "The commission have a statutory obligation to carry out a full, independent and impartial investigation into alleged miscarriages of justice. Legislation under which they act was clearly designed to give the widest powers to perform that duty."

In his judgement he was critical of the handling of the case by the Crown Office, but said a further hearing would be necessary before he granted the order.

The commission could refer the case back to the appeal court if it believes a miscarriage of justice took place.

Campbell and Steele were jailed for life after being convicted of murder 16 years ago after a 27-day trial at the High Court in Glasgow. The killings were part of a violent war between ice cream van businesses in the east end of Glasgow.

The men lost an appeal, then an attempt to have fresh evidence heard was rejected on a split decision of three judges in 1998 after the then Scottish Secretary, Donald Dewar, referred the case to the appeal court.

Their case has been under consideration by the review commission, which was set up to adjudicate on whether alleged miscarriages of justice should be referred back to appeal court judges.

The High Court in Edinburgh had earlier heard that after Campbell and Steele lost their last appeal their solicitors raised a new challenge with the Scottish secretary, which was handed over to the commission when it was set up.

The commission received some material from the Crown Office, but went to court seeking access to all documents relating to the case.

That move was opposed by the Crown.

Thomas "TC" Campbell and Joe Steele have spent 17 years in prison for an horrific crime - an arson attack on a Glasgow tenement which killed a family of six, including an 18-month-old boy. But a new book claims the "Glasgow Two" were framed and their families are confident they will soon be free. BBC News Online's Chris Summers investigates.

Many people remember the night of Saturday 15 April 1984 as the night comedian Tommy Cooper collapsed on stage, live on television, and later died.

But for many in Glasgow's East End it will be indelibly seared in their memory because of a different tragic event.

At about 1.45am on 16 April someone set light to a storehouse door at 29 Bankend Street in Ruchazie, the tenement home of the Doyle family.

Within seconds the flames burned through the roof and into the flat.

The Doyles were woken by acrid black smoke and, with their escape blocked by the flames, they huddled at the fourth floor window desperate for fresh air and rescue.

By the time firefighters had arrived and got a ladder up to the window, Christine and Anthony Doyle were dead.

Mrs Doyle was found trying to shield her baby son, Mark, who died later in hospital.

Three other members of the family - James Doyle junior, Andrew Doyle and James Doyle senior - died in hospital over the next eight days.

Within days several Scottish newspapers were linking the deaths to so-called "ice cream wars" in the East End of the city.

Andrew "Fat Boy" Doyle drove an ice cream van and mobile grocery shop for the Marchetti brothers and there were rumours of feuding with other operators over lucrative runs on the Garthamlock estate.

One of the operators was Agnes Lafferty, whose brother Thomas "TC" Campbell was soon brought in for questioning.

Eventually Campbell and Steele were charged and convicted of the murders.

Campbell, who has now written a book on the case with Scottish crime journalist Reg McKay, claims he was "fitted up" by Detective Chief Superintendent Norrie Walker.

There was no forensic evidence linking them, no eyewitnesses and no confessions.

The key evidence was the word of William Love, who said that in March 1984 he had heard Campbell, Steele and two other men - both of whom were later acquitted - discussing setting fire to the Doyles' home.

This was supposedly corroborated by a comment which police said Campbell made when he was arrested: "The fire at Fat Boy's was only meant to be a frightener which went too far."

Campbell has always denied he made such a comment.

Police also said they found a map in his cellar with Bankend Street circled in blue ink. Campbell says it was planted.

In the book - entitled Indictment: Trial By Fire - Campbell says: "The Crown case is nothing but a web of illusions created by deceptions, innuendo, inference and downright lies."

But he says: "It is more difficult to defend yourself against a fit-up than it is against a crime you have committed."

In the book Campbell and McKay point to an infamous Glaswegian criminal - Thomas McGraw - as being the real perpetrator.

But they claim the police chose to pursue Campbell and Steele rather than McGraw, because he was too valuable as a police informer.

Strathclyde Police has always denied McGraw was a registered police informer.

Campbell, now 48, has embarked on numerous hunger strikes to highlight his plight and Steele, 39, has escaped three times, on one occasion Supergluing himself to the gates of Buckingham Palace.

They are now awaiting an imminent decision from the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCRCC) on whether their case should be referred back to the Court of Appeal.

Tommy Sheridan MSP, who has campaigned on behalf of the Glasgow Two, said he was confident the case would be referred back to the Court of Appeal before the end of this year.

He told BBC News Online: "This case is a double insult. Not only have two guys had their lives ruined for a crime they did not commit, but the killers of the Doyle family have escaped justice."

He said the evidence against both men was "incredibly flimsy", but the police had been under enormous pressure to catch someone.

Campbell's sister, Agnes Lafferty, told BBC News Online: "This is one of Scotland's worst miscarriages of justice."

She said her brother had changed entirely during his time in jail, which included four years in solitary confinement.

He had missed out on seeing three children, Brian, Stephen and Cheree, growing up and no amount of compensation would ever make up for that.

A spokeswoman for Strathclyde Police said the force would not comment on a matter which was in the hands of the SCRCC.

An SCRCC spokeswoman said: "It is public knowledge that we are reviewing the case but I cannot give a timescale as to when a decision may be made."

After 17 years in prison, convicted ice-cream wars killer Tommy 'TC' Campbell has one final chance to clear his name. By Alan Taylor

Seventeen long years ago, in 1984, Thomas 'TC' Campbell heard a judge utter a familiar word for the last time. 'Guilty!' pronounced the venerable Lord Kincraig, setting in train a saga which continues to this day.

'It struck me like a physical blow, a bullet to the heart, staggering me back, stunned,' recalls Campbell. 'Did I miss a word there? Like the word 'not', perhaps? People screaming, wailing, crying, fainting in the court all around me. No, then, I hadn't misheard it! This was for real, but how? How was it possible? How could it be? How could they?'

Questions such as these have buzzed in Campbell's head ever since as he has endured the hospitality of Her Majesty in a variety of Scottish prisons including Peterhead and Barlinnie. Now he is in Shotts, a bleak blot on Lanarkshire's dank landscape. Obsessed as ever with thoughts of freedom, he is still insistently, passionately and angrily arguing his innocence in a place where everyone is supposed to be guilty.

Campbell was given a life sentence, with the recommendation that he serve a minimum of 20 years, for his part in the so-called ice-cream killings - one of Scotland's biggest mass murders. In April 1984 in Glasgow's east end, in lawless estates such as Ruchazie and Carntyne, in-fighting between rival operators of ice-cream vans was close to boiling point. Violence and intimidation were almost daily occurrences as the various factions vied for territory. Vans were raided and shotguns were fired. Pokey-hats and ice-lollies, not to mention single cigarettes, it seems, made for a lucrative business. But beneath a farcical veneer - police detailed to follow the ice-cream vans were dubbed the 'serious chimes squad' - criminals were at one another's throats.

Something had to give. In the early hours of April 16 a fire was started in the cellar of a flat in Bankend Street, Ruchazie, which had petrol splashed across its front door. With the help of chemicals and car tyres it spread quickly. In the house were nine members of the Doyle family, one of whom, Andrew 'Fat Boy' Doyle, operated an ice-cream van whose windscreen had recently been shattered by a shotgun blast. The Doyles awoke to a flaming ceiling and dense black smoke on all sides. Six of the family died, including Andrew and his 18-month-old nephew.

Not surprisingly, Campbell concedes, 'Glasgow went ballistic'. As he explains: 'The word on the street was, 'Find the fire-raisers.' Hanging would be too good for them.' Soon, however, he realised he was the prime suspect. 'People started moving away from me, avoiding me.' But he never seriously thought he would be charged.

How wrong he was. Within a month the police had arrested seven people, who were tried in October 1984. Campbell and Joe Steele, the 'myopic mole', got life for the murders while four others were sentenced on lesser charges associated with the ice-cream vendettas. Campbell was given an extra 10 years for blasting a van with a shotgun. To the headline-writers it was an opportunity to vent venom. Campbell and Steele were child-murderers, family-killers, evil incarnate. What a pity hanging had been banned.

In the lounge at Shotts Prison, where he is visited every Thursday evening by his young wife Karen and their boisterous three-year-old daughter Shannon, TC, as he is known to the guards, looks like any other long-term prisoner: whey-faced and deep-eyed. He is 48 and has spent almost half his life in jail. 'I've never said I was a choirboy,' he says.

Campbell was brought up in a cramped flat in Glasgow's Cowcaddens in the 1950s, the youngest of 10 children. His father was a safe-breaker. When the family moved to Carntyne he soon became embroiled in the gang warfare that characterised Glasgow in the 1960s. Like everyone else he carried a knife - and used it. He was first stabbed when he was 15, he says, offering to show me where his guts spilled out. After that he was knifed regularly. In a book he has co-written with Reg McKay, a former social worker, he remembers sitting in a pub when he was 17 and being attacked three times by someone wielding a hammer. 'Everyone who had seen it thought they had witnessed my murder and couldn't believe I hardly felt it,' he recalls.

He was the archetypal hard man, the Big Yin - the prototype, say some, for Billy Connolly's act. Back then TC stood for 'Top Cat' but these days Campbell says: 'I'm the original TC not because I'm a Tough C***, nor the Top Cat, nor Tommy f***in' Cooper for that matter. I'm TC because that's my name, my initials. But these bastards [the police] took it to mean that I was the prime Target Criminal because every time they punched in for data on the usual suspects my name popped up. Ping!'

At the age of 18, in the early 1970s, Campbell was given 10 years for his part in a pitched battle. He was released in 1979. He was back in prison in 1982 and at the beginning of 1983 but when he came out he got into the ice-cream business and was determined to go straight. 'Well, straightish,' he admits. If someone offered him stolen goods such as sweets or cigarettes he wouldn't say no. He could make up to £350 a week on the van, he says: 'Good money in those days'.

That is why he and others were so keen to protect their patches. Among those involved in what became the ice-cream wars were the Marchetti family, who owned hundreds of vans throughout the west of Scotland, and Thomas McGraw, known as the Licensee, a reputed millionaire who has been implicated in Glasgow gangland activity but never tried or convicted.

This, then, is the background to the events of April 16, 1984, when the Doyle family was struck by tragedy. That night, says Campbell, he was asleep, at home in bed with his first wife Liz. It is a point which was not seriously disputed in court. Instead it was suggested that he was the brains behind the attack - which he vehemently denies.

He was convicted on three pieces of evidence. First, a witness, William Love - a known criminal who was facing a sentence of 10 years for armed robbery and who had three times previously perverted the course of justice - said he had overheard Campbell, Steele and others talking in a bar about how they planned to teach 'Fat Boy' Doyle a lesson by setting fire to his house. The second piece of evidence was a statement Campbell allegedly made to the police saying: 'The fire at the Fat Boy's was only meant to be a frightener which went too far.' Third was a map of Ruchazie, on which the Doyle house was marked with an X, allegedly found in Campbell's flat.

'We were left with the impression that the Almighty himself could not have walked out that door with an acquittal, the prejudice against the accused was so great,' said lawyer, Donald Findlay QC, after the verdict was announced. Campbell maintains he was the victim of a set-up and over the years he has sought to dismantle it, poring over law books to which he has had to fight to get access.

While Joe Steele chained himself to the railings at Buckingham Palace to protest his innocence, Campbell nearly starved himself to death, refused to cut his hair, wrote hundred of letters, made a documentary while in Barlinnie and talked to anyone who would listen. The breakthrough came when William Love admitted he had lied on oath. 'I did so,' he said, '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.'

This admission led in 1997 to Campbell and Steele being granted interim freedom by the then Secretary of State of Scotland, Michael Forsyth, pending an appeal. But after a year they were back in jail again after three judges could not reach a unanimous conclusion. For Campbell and Steele it was a cruel blow. Now, however, after three further years behind bars, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission is about to pronounce on the men's future, apparently on the basis of new documentation. 'I would hope there would be a decision in the near future,' a spokeswoman told the Sunday Herald. 'I couldn't put a timescale on it.'

If this is music to Campbell's ears, he disguises it well. In the normal course of events he could expect to be out in 2004 - earlier if he 'confessed', which he refuses to do. But he has made the mistake of allowing hope to seep into his psyche too many times. He is, he insists, laid-back, as sane as he could be in such a situation, though he suffers from stress and blinding migraines. He gets letters, he says, from William Love asking for help : 'He's tried to commit suicide 11 times.'

Joe Steele was moved to Shotts two years ago. He is at the other side of the lounge, a wee man with a wisp of hair, hugging a visitor. 'I wouldn't like anyone to think we were mates,' says Campbell, 'because we weren't.' Before they became the Glasgow Two, he says, Joe was a petty thief, high on drugs, a nuisance - not in his league. 'Joe's a character. He's had to grow up in prison,' says Campbell, his gaze wandering to his daughter playing with other children who have come to see their fathers.

When visiting time is up she cries. 'She wants to stay in prison. She doesn't want to leave,' says Karen - all too aware that leaving is still not an option open to her husband.

Indictment: Trial By Fire by TC Campbell and Reg McKay is published by Canongate, priced £11.99

The two men convicted of Glasgow's notorious ice cream war murders have been given another chance to clear their names, 17 years after they were first jailed.

Lawyers acting for Thomas Campbell and Joe Steele are demanding they be released after a decision by the criminal cases review commission to refer their convictions to the court of appeal for the second time.

Their solicitor, John Carroll, said a procedural hearing would be held before the end of the year, and he is asking for the pair to be released on bail from Shotts prison, Lanarkshire, pending the full appeal hearing.

In 1984 Campbell and Steele received life sentences for murdering six members of the Doyle family in an arson attack at their home in Glasgow.

The murders were said to have been provoked by turf wars over the ice cream vans which toured Glasgow's housing schemes.

Alongside their legal trade, some vans also sold heroin and other drugs across the city's east end.

Campbell and Steele have always protested their innocence. Campbell has gone on hunger strike on various occasions, while Steele embarked on a series of escapes. On one such break from jail he glued himself to the gates of Buckingham Palace.

In late 1996 Campbell and Steele received their first legal taste of freedom when they were freed on bail pending an appeal. That appeal, however, was turned down by the split decision of three judges and the two returned to jail in 1998.

Their first appeal was based on the admission of a key witness, Billy Love, that he had lied under oath, and allegations that police officers had fabricated evidence and falsified statements.

It is understood the new appeal will use fresh evidence, including the allegation that armed robbery charges against Mr Love were dropped when he agreed to give evidence against Campbell and Steele.

The two men convicted of what became known as the Glasgow Ice Cream Wars murders have been freed pending the outcome of a new appeal.

Thomas 'TC' Campbell and Joseph Steele, who have been in prison for 17 years, were granted interim liberty by three appeal judges.Both men have been serving life sentences for the murder of six members of the Doyle family, including a baby, after a fire attack on their home in Ruchazie, Glasgow, in April 1984.

Their case has been referred back to appeal judges by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, which has been established to deal with alleged miscarriages of justice. The men have consistently denied being responsible for one of the most notorious crimes in recent Scottish history.

During a 27-day trial at the High Court in Glasgow, the jury had heard how the Doyle deaths happened amid a struggle for control of ice cream van businesses in the city's east end.

The men received interim liberation when they had their cases referred to appeal judges five years ago by the then Scottish Secretary Michael Forsyth. That move came after a witness who gave crucial evidence at the trial said he had lied. But by a majority, three judges ruled new evidence should not be heard in February 1998.

The case was referred to the commission and after a legal battle, which saw the commission go to court to force the Crown to hand over papers, it has now been sent to appeal judges again.

On Tuesday, a procedural hearing took place at which judges were deciding how the appeal should continue. The decision to free the men was greeted with joy by their families and supporters, who were in court for the brief hearing.

The Lord Justice Clerk, Lord Gill, sitting with Lord Maclean and Lady Paton has given defence lawyers two months to prepare the grounds of appeal for the two men. Lord Gill said: "I grant interim liberation to Campbell and Steele."

The two men later emerged from the court, smiling and greeting relatives. Campbell said: "It's definitely about time. Everybody knows we are innocent. I think we are going home for a bite to eat and just to say hello to people who we haven't seen for a long time. My daughter will have her daddy home for the first time in nearly five years. Freedom at this time of the year means even more so."

Steele said: "It's the best day of my life." His brother, Jim, 47, said both men were hopeful they would be out of prison for good. He said: "Last time, their hopes were dashed, they were out for 15 months - that doesn't fit the criteria of a guilty man to return himself to custody. This time, I think they will get out."

The two men have staged a high-profile campaign to try to prove their innocence. Campbell has embarked on several hunger strikes while Steele escaped from prison on a number of occasions.