The Case of Thomas Campbell and Joseph Steele
On Tuesday, 10th February 1998 at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh, Thomas Campbell and Joseph Steele were refused permission to submit evidence intended to finally clear them of crimes they have consistently denied throughout their years of wrongful imprisonment.
The refusal came even though the two men had been allowed out on bail for the last 13 months, pending the appeal.
Lord McCluskey felt that such evidence should be heard but Lords Cullen and Sutherland felt that new information contained in the sworn affidavits of two key witnesses should be refused.
During their imprisonment both men have not only consistently maintained innocence but taken dramatic and consistent steps to prove it. Joseph Steele has made several high-profile escapes from jail and Thomas Campbell has been close to death on a number of occasions having undertaken prolonged hunger strikes in order to sustain media and public attention to the case.
Since being returned to jail both men have stated that they intend to continue to take drastic measures in order to finally have the case brought to its proper conclusion - freedom for wrongful imprisonment and a recognition that the Scottish judicial system has allowed a gross Miscarriage of Justice to have been committed.
This case will not go away - as Joseph Steele shouted as he was led from the dock "I will be back to defend my innocence - even if it takes another 12 years"
Since returning to jail, Thomas Campbell has been put in solitary confinement.
Write your protest to this gross Miscarriage of Justice to Donald Dewar, the Scottish Secretary of State, The Sottish Office, Calton House, Redheughs Rigg, Edinburgh. Write your support to Thomas Campbell in Shotts prison, Lanarkshire, and Joseph Steele in Perth prison.
By Anita Wilson A.Wilson2@lancaster.ac.uk
History
'Ice cream wars' murder man is freed for appeal
Electronic Telegraph - UK News - Friday 13 December, 1996
By Auslan Cramb, Scottish Correspondent
A PRISONER who has served 12 years of a life sentence for his part in Glasgow's "ice cream war" murders was freed on bail yesterday pending an appeal.
Thomas "TC" Campbell, 44, was jailed in 1984 for the murder of six members of the same family, who died when their flat was fire-bombed. Last week the other man convicted of the killings, Joseph Steele, 34, was freed on bail by the same court
The judge had recommended that Campbell serve at least 20 years. But he was granted "interim liberation" at the High Court in Edinburgh after new evidence suggested a Crown witness lied at their trial. Both always protested their innocence. Campbell has held hunger strikes and Steele twice escaped from jail to make his case. In 1993, he handcuffed and glued himself to the railings of Buckingham Palace.
There was loud applause from Campbell's friends and family as three judges said he could go home pending the appeal. Outside the court, he said he had endured "12 years of pain". He added: "I have always had faith and throughout it all I had to keep fighting. At last, justice is finally starting. It's a great feeling to be out and I have never doubted this day would come."
Steele said: "It's brilliant things are finally moving. We'll have a hell of a party." Campbell was later driven to his home in Glasgow to be re-united with his wife Liz, and their three children, including 12-year-old Brian, who was celebrating his birthday yesterday.
Twelve years ago, Campbell and Steele were found guilty of murdering six members of the Doyle family, who died when their top floor flat in Ruchazie, Glasgow, was set on fire. The murders were the culmination a feud between rival firms operating ice cream vans in the city's East End housing estates.
The "war" began in 1992 when a van driver claimed he had been threatened by Campbell, who was said to be trying to take over the lucrative ice cream trade, in which a single van could make £2,000 a week. Ice cream was said to be a front for drug dealing.
Glasgow High Court was told that Campbell had forced his rivals, the Marchetti brothers, to give up their trade and was trying to take control of another area, where they employed Andrew "Fat Boy" Doyle.
Doyle, 18, was shot at before the dispute entered criminal lore on April 16, when bed linen in a laundry outside the family's top-floor flat was soaked with petrol and set on fire. There were nine members of the family asleep at the time and only three survived.
Steele and Campbell stood trial with four other men, who received sentences ranging from three years to 14 years for their roles. Campbell was also jailed for 10 years for assaulting two people in a shotgun attack on an ice cream van.
At home yesterday, Campbell said he was confident of being acquitted. But he added that it was a "sad day" for the Doyle family to realise that justice had never been done in their case.
The appeals were made possible by an order in August from Michael Forsyth, the Scottish Secretary, that the convictions of both men should be re-examined.
Ice-cream war man freed for murder appeal
Electronic Telegraph UK News - Saturday 7 December, 1996
By Auslan Cramb, Scotland Correspondent
A MAN who has served 12 years of a life sentence for Glasgow's "ice-cream war" murders was freed yesterday pending appeal against conviction.
Joseph Steele, 35, who was jailed in 1984 for his part in the murder of six members of the same family, has always maintained his innocence. At the High Court in Edinburgh, three judges agreed that he was no longer a threat to the public, and granted him "interim liberation" until the appeal hearing next year.
Steele was jailed with Thomas Campbell - whose case will also be re-considered - after six people died when a flat in Ruchazie, Glasgow, was fire-bombed in 1984 after a feud between ice- cream firms.
'Ice-cream killings' reviewed
Electronic Telegraph - UK News - Friday August 2, 1996
TWO men serving life sentences for six murders in the so-called Glasgow ice-cream wars yesterday had their cases referred to the High Court.
Michael Forsyth, Scottish Secretary, has granted applications from Thomas Campbell and Joseph Steele to allow judges to review the cases to decide whether there should be an appeal against conviction. Campbell and Steele received life sentences in 1984 for the murders of six members of the Doyle family by setting fire to their home in Ruchazie, Glasgow. An 18-month- old baby was among the dead.
The deaths were thought to be part of a vicious feud between gangs of Glasgow criminals who were battling for control of ice cream van routes, which it was said were being used for selling drugs. Campbell and Steele lost their appeals against conviction in 1985 but have continued to protest their innocence.
Campbell's previous application to appeal was dismissed by the then Scottish Secretary in 1990. Steele kept his case in the public eye when he superglued himself to railings at Buckingham Palace after escaping from jail in 1993.
The Glasgow 2
by Thomas Campbell
Thomas Campbell and Joe Steele are unlawfully convicted upon the evidence of a thrice convicted perverter of the course of justice who has now admitted by recorded interviews and sworn statements on BBC television and under caution to the Police to having perverted the course of justice once again in his evidence at the trial of the Glasgow 2 as part of a deal with the police and his prosecutor in exchange for bail and immunity from prosecution for his own unrelated offences of armed robbery, attempt to pervert justice and attempted murder respectively....
It is noted and accepted that the judge in the case of the Glasgow 2 directed in law that the accused could not be convicted of any charge without the evidence of that witness, William Love, who's evidence and credibility as a witness is crucial to the prosecution case which stands or falls upon his evidence to having overheard a conversation in a public house on the weekend of his arrest on armed robbery charges etc. Three weeks before the fire in which six members of the Doyle family tragically died in Ruchazie Glasgow on 16 April,1984.
In addition to that witness's admission of perjury as part of a conspiracy to fit-up the Glasgow 2 and his previous record of attempting to pervert justice, there is documentary evidence of perjury and conspiracy in that Love's formal plea of alibi and judicial examination on his own offence contradict his evidence in the case of the Glasgow 2. There is sufficient evidence that he could not have been in that public house, as stated at the trial, to have overheard any conversations. Now Love admits it.
It was the same prosecutor who prosecuted Love and took his judicial examination and who was notified of his alibi and who's duty it was to extract the long list of his previous convictions for his attachment to his indictment for armed robbery and attempting to pervert justice, (Love was acquitted when the same prosecutor neglected to ensure certification by signature of vital material production evidence, rendering it inadmissable as incompetent in Law), and who was also pursuing the investigation against the Glasgow 2 and who took further judicial examination from Love against them before he could be released on bail, and who further judicially examined the accused following their arrest on Love's statement, but did not put his allegations to the accused at that or subsequent judicial examination. That prosecutor must have been aware of Love's perjury as it was being committed at the trial, if not at an earlier stage. Love confirms that he did.
From the seven weeks of the witnesses imprisonment on armed robbery charges etc. include four weeks into mass murder investigation, the witness Love informed no-one of any alleged overheard conversations, until freedom was offered to assist his recollection. It is notable that the witness had been refused bail by the high court upon the grounds that he was a menace to society, but was freed by his prosecutor as a part of a deal to agree to co-operate in his prosecutor's unrelated investigation against the Glasgow 2. Love confirms this.
There is further documented proof of THAT alleged conversation, in THAT Public House, by THOSE named accused, were being put to other witnesses, together with pledges of immunity from prosecution on unrelated offence BEFORE the witness Love is alleged to have first said it to the police, and that all the information required was inherent in the questions being put to others before being put to him, that all any potential conspirator to pervert justice was required to do, was say "YES SIR" to the questions to find themselves freed from prison, and regardless of the seriousness of their crimes. The witness Love now confirms this in his confessions; that the police told him what to say.
The documented proof of police putting Love's evidence to other witnesses before he is alleged to have first said it, comes from police statements taken from other witnesses and they cannot be refuted. Such evidence in proof was not readily forthcoming from the prosecuting authorities who lied to deny their existence until legal action was taken to force those authorities to hand over the relevant proof in their possession, which they finally did, but only after the trial of the Glasgow 2.
It should be noted that the witness Love's evidence to eavesdrop conversation was not corroborated by any evidence, nor supported by any witness in that respect. Further, it was in fact refuted by three accused and two prosecution witnesses. Now countless more witnesses, BBC television viewers, sworn and recorded confessions under caution to the police speak clearly to having overheard HIM confessing that he lied. There is now by far more evidence against the witness for perjury and conspiracy, than there ever was against the Glasgow 2 for murder.
These are but a few of the points of fact in the case of the Glasgow 2. There are many other points of law and of fact which arouse great cause for concern, but which have never been allowed to be dealt with by the courts for the Secretary of State for Scotland has expressly refused the case of the Glasgow 2 to have access to the courts for a fair trial.
Thomas Campbell is perusing the rights of an untried prisoner, and as such rights stipulate, he will only eat food as provided by his family. This is forbidden by those authorities who refuse to refer the case to the courts for a public enquiry. As a direct result of such abuse and denials of his fundamental human rights, Thomas Campbell is starving to death.
Edited Transcript of Channel 4's TV program on the Glasgow 2
http://www.scandals.org/glasgow2/index.html
