True Crime/Paranormal/Conspiracy Theories Part VII

Glasgow Ice Cream Wars

The ice cream wars were turf wars in the East End of Glasgow, Scotland, in the 1980s between rival criminal organisations selling drugs and stolen goods from ice cream vans. Van operators were involved in frequent violence and intimidation tactics, the most notable example of which involved a driver and his family who were killed in an arson attack that resulted in a twenty-year court battle. The conflicts generated widespread public outrage, and earned the Strathclyde Police the nickname of "Serious Chimes Squad" (a pun on Serious Crime Squad) for its perceived failure to address them.

Conflicts

In 1980s Glasgow, several ice cream vendors also sold drugs and stolen goods along their routes, using the ice cream sales as fronts. A turf war erupted between these vendors related to competition over the lucrative illegal activity, including intimidation of rival ice cream van operators. During the conflict, rival vendors raided each other's ice cream vans and used shotguns to fire into the windscreens of the vehicles.

The peak of the violence came on 16 April 1984 with the murder by arson of six members of the Doyle family, in the Ruchazie housing estate. 18-year-old Andrew Doyle, nicknamed "Fat Boy", a driver for the Marchetti firm, had resisted being intimidated into distributing drugs on his run and attempts to take over his run – resistance that had already led to him being shot by an unidentified assailant through the windscreen of his van.

A further so-called 'frightener' was planned against Doyle. At 02:00, the door on the landing outside the top-floor flat in Ruchazie where Doyle lived with his family was doused with petrol and set alight. The members of the Doyle family, and three additional guests who were staying in the flat that night, were asleep at the time. The resulting blaze killed five people, with a sixth dying later in hospital: James Doyle, aged 53; his daughter Christina Halleron, aged 25; her 18-month-old son Mark; and three of Mr Doyle's sons, James, Andrew (the target of the intimidation), and Tony, aged 23, 18, and 14 respectively.

Court case

Chronology of the court case

1984: Campbell and Steele convicted.

1989: The first appeal fails.

1992: Love states that he lied under oath.

1993: Steele escapes from prison and stages a protest by supergluing himself to the railings outside of Buckingham Palace.

1993: Steele stages a rooftop protest at his mother's house whilst on leave from prison.

1997: Secretary of State for Scotland Michael Forsyth grants interim freedom to Campbell and Steele, pending a second appeal.

February 1998: Campbell and Steele return to prison when three Court of Appeal judges reach a split decision.

December 1998: Scottish Secretary Donald Dewar rejects a petition to refer the case to the appeal court again.

July 2000: The new Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission goes to court to request all Crown documents.

November 2001: The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission refers the case to the appeal court for the third time.

December 2001: Campbell and Steele are again freed by Lord Justice Clerk, Lord Gill, pending the outcome of the appeal.

March 2004: Campbell's and Steele's convictions are quashed by the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh.

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 offenses 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 no fewer than twenty 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 ten years in prison for that crime.