Glasgow's 'Ice-cream wars' explored in BBC documentary

War was being waged on the streets of north east Glasgow in the early 1980s, when owners of rival ice-cream vans were battling over control the most profitable areas, and supplementing their income by selling stolen goods alongside the 99 cones and chocolate wafers. 

It turned into a murder investigation after six members of the same family were slain in a blaze that ripped through their tenement flat in Ruchazie as they slept.

Newsquest (Image: Newsquest)

Thomas ‘TC’ Campbell, 66, and his co-accused Joe Steele were convicted in 1984 for the murders the Doyle family, including a baby of 18 months, before being cleared in 2004.

However, as shocking as the deaths were, the trial involving seven men did not attract the same level of interest from Glasgow readers, said Ken Smith, who covered the case for the Evening Times.

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“Every one of the accused had their own QC and junior counsel,” he says “and every witness had to be cross-examined by six QCs.

“There was a lot of pressure on the police to find out who did it but no one was telling them anything so the evidence was poor - it was all circumstantial. The case never really took off.

“It was just like a fishing expedition, round up anyone who had anything to do with ice-cream vans,” added Mr Smith, who shared his recollections of the case for a new BBC Scotland documentary on so-called ‘Ice-Cream wars’ that will be screened tonight.

BBC Scotland (Image: BBC Scotland)

“There was supposed to have been a map found with the house circled round it and the other main bit of evidence is that Campbell was supposed to have said in the back of a police car that ‘it was only meant to be a fright, no one was supposed to die’.

The former reporter, who later wrote forThe Herald, says there wasn’t much interest from the media in the tit-for-tat street battles until the fire happened.

At around 2am on April 16, 1984 an unknown person crept into the family’s close in Ruchazie and torched the flat killing, dad James, 53, sons James jnr, 23, Andrew, 18, Anthony, 14 and daughter Christina Halleran, 25 and her son Mark, just 18 months old.

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“We didn’t really cover a lot of what happened in the housing schemes," said Mr Smith. “There was this idea that it as just ned on ned. People didn’t really care.

"What surprised the police, he says, is that none of the family who died had a criminal record.

“It was just a genuine working class family bringing up their sons."

He describes the “inequity” of housing schemes built to reduce over-crowding without any facilities, shops or pubs added.

“Alcohol was pretty bad in those days so the council leaders felt that if they didn’t build pubs the won’t go drinking and it was just the terrible inequity of it,” he said.

“There were no 24-hour shops and there was also very little car ownership.

"The only way to get anything in the evening was from the ice-cream van.

“Rarely did you get ice-cream from it. You would send the kids down to get fags or toilet rolls or nappies. It was more like a mobile shop.

John McCarroll (Image: John McCarroll)

“The routes were very profitable. People would try to take over routes but it was all minor stuff and then some gangsters tried to move in.”

With more people smoking at home at that time he says reporters were covering at least one house fire a week in Glasgow.

This one, he says, was even more tragic and shocking for a number of reasons. 

“By the time I went out there were already two people dead but what was even more appalling was that the sons who worked the ice-cream vans had been rescued.

"They had smoke inhalation so there were front page pictures of him and his brothers looking dazed in the back of an ambulance.

Newsquest (Image: Newsquest)

“They died later in hospital. To walk away from a fire and then die later, it was just awful.”

“What was also unusual is that police said straight away that it looked like arson because the fire started at the front door.”

In 1996, William Love, a police informer who claimed he overheard the pair admitting responsibility for the fire, admitted he lied under oath, and the two men were released on bail, pending an appeal.

After the death of ‘TC’ Campbell in 2019, Mr Steele claimed that Glasgow crime lord Tam McGraw, also known as The Licensee, was responsible for ordering the hit on the family.

Crime writer Denise Mina, who was living in Barlanark at the time, also contributed to the documentary.

Of the city's gangsters she says, "They were not heroes to us".

The case remains relevant today, says Ms Mina. "We're still living with the consequences of this case, suspicion of the police, the beleaguered feeling of people on these estates.

"How did these things happen? Cases like these are very important, it's important we keep talking about them."