A Dark City
Delve into the dark heart of Glasgow, a city with history steeped in mystery and violence. A Dark City takes you behind the headlines to explore the city's most notorious murders - stories that shocked the nation, shattered communities and left scars that still linger. From cold blooded killers to infamous gangland slayings, we uncover the chilling details, the victims stories and the impact on Glasgow's streets.
A Dark City
The Ice Cream Wars
What if a city's beloved ice cream vans were at the heart of a deadly turf war? Journey with us to 1980s Glasgow, where the seemingly innocent world of ice cream sales was a front for a far more sinister operation. You'll hear from witnesses Brian Anderson and Stella Maguire as they recount the night an arson attack shattered their community and stole six members of the Doyle family, altering the fabric of their neighborhood forever. This episode uncovers the chaos and fear that erupted when rival gangs turned the city streets into battlegrounds, leaving a lasting scar on Glasgow's history.
As we unravel this gripping tale, we pull back the curtain on the 20-year legal battle of Thomas "TC" Campbell and Joe Steele, whose convictions for the murders would later be overturned, raising piercing questions about justice and accountability. The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission's role in this saga underscores the complexities of truth and innocence, while the real masterminds behind the crime remain elusive. With each twist and turn, we explore the broader implications of this dark chapter and challenge you to ponder the unresolved mysteries that continue to haunt Glasgow decades later.
Welcome to A Dark City, the podcast that delves into the shadowy underbelly of Glasgow, a city with a storied past and a reputation for resilience. Here we uncover the chilling true stories of serious crimes that have left their mark on the city's history, from notorious gangland wars to unsolved mysteries. Join us as we explore the darker side of Glasgow and the people whose lives were forever changed by its crimes. Glasgow is full of character, charisma and colour. Cobbled roads meander through Victorian-era buildings and sleek glass office towers that stand together at odds under one grey sky. The city itself is as unique, diverse and distinctively Glaswegian as the people who walk its streets. Scotland's most populous city has changed tremendously over the years, but its image has been plagued by a history of violence murkier and muddier than the river that runs through it, from the razor gangs of the 1920s and 1930s to the young teams of more recent times. Glasgow is no stranger to gang violence. In the 1980s, heavy industries were collapsing in Glasgow, resulting in mass unemployment and unrest. Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister and Scots were struggling and suffering under Westminster's governance. Amidst all of this, something else was going in the city. A turf war was being waged, a turf war that involved drugs, arson, murder and ice cream. In an effort to improve Glasgow's crumbling housing situation, the city began restoring previously neglected tenements and building housing schemes on its outskirts. Many of the housing schemes, which were often home to lower income families, didn't offer easy access to shops or supermarkets. Ice cream vans in these areas saw an opportunity to fill a niche and started selling household items such as toilet roll and pantry staples. Soon, certain van companies were peddling cigarettes, drugs and stolen property too. Certain van companies were peddling cigarettes, drugs and stolen property too. A lucrative business, should they be able to operate unrivaled. But where there's turf to be claimed, there's turf to be defended. As the illegal activities escalated and the stakes rose, gang members began using rocks, baseball bats, knives, axes and guns to defend their territory from rival van companies encroaching upon it. Threats turned into broken windshields. Broken windshields turned into violent street fights and in 1984 it all culminated in an act of arson that would end the lives of six people. Andrew Doyle was an 18-year-old ice cream van driver who allegedly worked for the Marchetti firm. He'd previously refused to be intimidated into selling drugs on his route, which, in February 1984, resulted in his van being shot at in what was known as a frightener or scare tactic. Andrew didn't back down and another frightener was plotted against him. Andrew didn't back down and another frightener was plotted against him. In the early hours of 16th April 1984, someone drenched the landing of Andrew's family's top-floor flat with petrol and set it on fire. There were nine people in the Ruchazi flat that evening. As the family had visitors, only three made it out alive Andrew, three of his siblings, his father and his 18-month-old nephew all perished in the blaze. A witness to the notorious ice cream wars has told how he is still haunted by the screams of the victims.
Speaker 1:Brian Anderson was just 14 when six members of the Doyle family perished in their home as the result of an arson attack. He said Our family stayed in Bank End Street in Rukhazi. It was a close-knit community and we knew different members of the Doyle family. They lived a stone's throw from us. I was pals with Anthony Doyle. As youngsters we would hang about with each other and play football in the street.
Speaker 1:On that terrible night I woke up to the sound of smashing glass, the commotion of voices and the howling screams, which were really haunting. I'll never forget those screams. I still get flashbacks. Brian added. At first I thought I was dreaming. Then I woke up and I thought it was a party, a drunken affair, because it was common to hear trouble at parties in the East End. I fell back to sleep and woke up moments later as the screams grew louder. As the blaze took hold, brian ran into the street only to discover his pal Anthony. Also fourteen could not escape the inferno. I went out to the veranda, as did all the neighbours, and then I ran out onto the street and police and ambulances arrived. He said it was a shocking event, but we didn't realise quite what had happened until it made the press days later. Another witness, stella Maguire, recounts she can still see the bloodstains on the windowsill of the top floor flat where the arson attack claimed the lives of six members of the Doyle family.
Speaker 1:The deaths of the Doyle family in Glasgow's infamous ice cream wars and the sights and sounds of that night left an indelible mark on the then 12-year-old Stella, who lived in a flat that faced the Doyles' home, was woken from her sleep by the frantic shouts for help of the trapped family and she dialed 999. Now, over 40 years on, stella is speaking publicly for the first time about what happened. She gives her harrowing recollection of events in a new two-part BBC Scotland documentary, the Ice Cream Wars, which tells the story of the vicious gang war which tore through Glasgow's tough housing estates in the early 80s an infamous miscarriage of justice and a crime which remains unsolved. Stella, who is still traumatised by the deaths in April 1984, said I awakened to shouts of help. I initially didn't take much notice because it was quite common for families to argue. But the help came a lot stronger, a lot louder, more frantic than it was more than one person. I opened the window and I shouted what's wrong? And they shouted fire, fire.
Speaker 1:Stella grew up in a third floor flat on Milncroft Road, ruchazi, which looked directly into the bedrooms of the Doyle family's third-floor flat on Back End Street. After calling 999, she woke her younger sister, choking back tears at the memory. She said Probably now I regret waking her up to see what she saw, but I didn't know. I think I felt afraid at the time. Both me and my sister were kind of shell-shocked and helpless. I saw the window of the Doyle home get thrown open and I saw a man climbing up and jump out. There was a lot more commotion, more voices, more screams, more shouting. I did notice that other neighbours were waking up, starting to gather. I was relieved because I felt maybe grown-ups then could take charge, stella said.
Speaker 1:As morning broke over Rushase, in the hours after the fire, the horror of what had happened became all too clear. She said Most of the windows were smashed. There was evidence of blood running down the windows and down the wall. That was always there until we left that house. A constant reminder, that image never left me, even to this day. I can still see that Initially Stella didn't know nine members of the Doyle family had been trapped when the door to their home was doused in petrol and set alight, causing fire to engulf their home.
Speaker 1:She would later learn James Doyle, sr, 53, died as a result of the blaze, along with his sons James Jr, 23, andrew, 18, anthony, 14, and his married daughter Christine Halloran, 25, and her baby son Mark. Mother Lillian Doyle and her sons Daniel and Stephen, who had jumped from the window of the flat, were all injured but survived. Police would quickly link the fire to organised criminal gangs trying to muscle in on the city's ice cream trade. The ensuing public outrage at the deaths was considerable. Strathclyde police arrested several people over the following months, eventually charging six, four were tried and convicted of offences relating to the vendettas. The remaining two, thomas TC 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 no fewer 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 crime. What ensued was a 20-year court battle by Campbell and Steele one of the more contentious in Scottish legal history, and in the later words of Campbell's solicitor, amr Anwar 20 years of hunger, strikes, prison breakouts, demonstrations, political pressure, solitary isolation, prison beatings and legal fight after legal fight.
Speaker 1:The Crown's case against Campbell and Steele rested on three pieces of evidence. A witness, william Love, stated that he had overheard Campbell, steele and others in a bar 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 Windys shot up. The fire at Fat Boy's was only meant to be a, which went too far. The police stated that a photocopied AZ street map of Glasgow, on which the Doyle House in Bank End Saint was marked with an X was found in Campbell's flat. According to the Crown, campbell was a man with a record of violence, having already served separate prison sentences in the 1970s and early 1980s, who had entered the ice cream van business in 1983 and had been keen to protect his patch against the rival Marchetti firm. 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.
Speaker 1: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 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 gave an alibi for the time of the fire After conviction.
Speaker 1:Campbell and Steele tried to have their conviction overturned in 1989, but failed. Several years later, in 1992, journalists Douglas Skelton and Lisa Brownlee wrote a book Frightener about the conflicts in 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 publicise their cases. Steele escaped from prison several times to make high-profile demonstrations, including a rooftop protest and supergluing himself to the railings at Buckingham Palace. Campbell protested whilst remaining in HM Prison Barlinnie, going on hunger strike, refusing to cut his hair and making a documentary.
Speaker 1: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 when the three 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.
Speaker 1: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 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 Executives' Justice Department. Lord Clerk ruled in favour of the Commission being granted access to the paperwork, stating that the Commission has a statutory obligation to carry out a full, independent and impartial investigation into alleged miscarriages of justice and that legislation under which it acts was clearly designed to give the widest powers to perform that duty. The Commission decided that the case should be referred back to the Appeal Court, pending the outcome of the appeal. Lord Justice Clark, lord Gill granted Campbell and Steele interim freedom a second time.
Speaker 1:Three years later, the appeal was heard by the Appeal Court and it succeeded. Lord Gill, lord MacLean and Lord MacFadyen quashed the convictions as a result of hearing new evidence and because of what they stated to be significant misdirection of the jury by the judge at the original trial. Dr Gary McPherson, a consultant forensic clinical psychologist instructed by the Crown, questioned the ecological validity of the laboratory studies. However, london, who testified that the recollection of Campbell's statement by the four police officers at the time of the original trial was too exact, centering on an identical 24-word phrase which featured in every account I only wanted the van windows shot up. The fire at Fat Boys was only meant to be a frightener which went too far.
Speaker 1:Clifford had performed studies where he tested people in Scotland and England on their ability to recall a statement that they had just heard. His results were that people only recalled between 30% and 40% of the actual words they heard and that the highest score obtained by anyone in the experiment on a 24-word phrase was 17 words out of the 24 used. He stated that these results strongly suggested that it was not at all likely that the officers would be able to record Campbell's statement in such similar terms without having compared or collaborated on their accounts. The appeal judges concluded that any jury hearing Professor Clifford's evidence would have assessed the evidence of the arresting police officers in an entirely different light and that the evidence is of such significance that the verdicts of the jury, having been returned in ignorance of it, must be regarded as miscarriages of justice. Campbell, represented by Amor Anwar, and Maggie Scott, qc. Maggie Scott, lady Scott and Steele were freed.
Speaker 1:The original trial judge, lord Kincraig, who had told Campbell and Steele in court at the original trial that he regarded them as vicious and dangerous men at that point in his 80s and having been retired for 18 years, spoke out against the ruling of the appeal court days afterward, stating that he could not accept there was a conspiracy among the police At the original trial. He had instructed the jury that to believe Campbell and Steele's assertions was to accept that not one or two or four, but a large number of detectives have deliberately come here to perjure themselves, to build up a false case against an accused person and to accept the implication that there had been a conspiracy by police officers of the most sinister and serious kind to saddle the accused wrongly with the crimes of murder and attempted murder and a murder of a horrendous nature. After the convictions were quashed, he criticised the appeal court for usurping the function of the jury, in that the function of the jury is to decide questions of fact, not law, and that the appeal court seems to have said that evidence is not believable, which is the jury's province. That's a decision. In fact, the court of appeal has decided. In fact, the jury was wrong. Campbell called for a fresh investigation of the Court of Appeal has decided. In fact, the jury was wrong.
Speaker 1:Campbell called for a fresh investigation of the murder of the Doyle family, accusing Tam McGraw both of the original murders and of instigating a campaign over 20 years to ensure that Campbell remained in jail and was silenced, including repeated attempts on Campbell's life, but commentators considered it unlikely that a fresh investigation would be launched as a result of the convictions being quashed and the fresh evidence that had been presented since the original trial. This was in part because claims by Campbell against a man whom he is regarded as hating are viewed with scepticism. His stabbing in 2002 was believed at the time to be part of a long-running tit-for-tat feud between the two men, and in part because two police officers who had been heavily involved in the case had since died. The body of Detective Superintendent Norrie Walker was found in a fume-filled car in 1988. Detective Chief Superintendent Charles Craig, head of the Criminal Investigation Department at the time of the murders, died in 1991, aged 57.
Speaker 1:Who really killed the Doyle family In the streets of Glasgow? Rumours swirled and speculation simmered. Some believed the true killers had been freed, while others had different theories. In 2010, reports circulated that a gang member and convicted murderer named Gary Moore had made a deathbed confession to the killings, but in 2012, his widow told the media Gary had been covering for his cousin, gordon Ness, who passed away that year. Gary's widow believes Gordon killed himself because he was living in fear after Gary was no longer around to protect him. Joe Steele said of Gary Gary's no angel, but he never admitted to anyone he'd done the Doyle family. He never admitted to fuck all in his life. Thomas Campbell died of natural causes at his home in June 2019. The author of a book about the Glasgow Ice Cream Wars believes Thomas was innocent, commenting my gut tells me that he had nothing to do with the fire and until someone brings me conclusive evidence that he was, that's the way it'll stay. In an interview after Thomas's death, joe claimed Tam McGraw an infamous crime lord who died in 2007, had ordered the hit on the Doyle family. He also said he knew who'd lit the match that night in 1984, but that he'd never tell.
Speaker 1:The Ice Cream Wars murders refer to a brutal and infamous event in Glasgow, scotland, during the 1980s. The murders were linked to a turf war over control of lucrative ice cream van routes, which were being used as fronts for illegal activities, including the distribution of drugs and stolen goods. The most infamous incident occurred on April 16, 1984, when six members of the Doyle family died in an arson attack on their flat in the Ruchazi neighbourhood. An arson attack on their flat in the Ruchazi neighbourhood. This attack was allegedly part of an escalating dispute among rival operators in the Ice Cream Wars. The Ice Cream Wars exposed the violent underbelly of organised crime in Glasgow during the 1980s. The overturned convictions of Campbell and Steele in 2004, further highlighted flaws in the justice system and led to questions about the real perpetrators of the murders. Despite the legal resolution for Campbell and Steele, the true masterminds behind the Doyle family murders remain unidentified. Thank you.