IT WAS a vicious gang war and it resulted in the deaths of six members of the same, completely innocent, family.
The Ice Cream Wars is one of Glasgow’s most notorious crimes, which led to an infamous miscarriage of justice and a case which remains unsolved to this day.
Now a new documentary, from Two Rivers Media commissioned by BBC Scotland, will reveal for the first time the untold story behind the headlines.
READ MORE: Glasgow Ice Cream Wars: The firebomb attack on the Doyle family
The two-part series, The Ice Cream Wars, will use archive footage, first-hand testimony and high-end dramatic reconstruction to tell the story of a gangland battle which tore through some of the city’s toughest estates, over the most unlikely of things.
The Doyle family were innocent victims of a violent turf war involving organised crime figures seeking to control the lucrative ice cream van trade operating in Glasgow's sprawling housing estates.
Their home in Bankend Street in Ruchazie was set on fire with petrol in the early hours of April 16, 1984, as they slept inside.
James Doyle, aged 53; his daughter Christina Halleron, aged 25; her 18-month-old son Mark; and three of Mr Doyle's sons, James, 23, Andrew, 18 and Tony, aged 14, were all killed.
Our newspaper followed the events of April, 1984, and the subsequent funerals and court case.
Hundreds of people waited outside St Philips Church after the funerals.
Later that year at the High Court in Glasgow, Thomas Campbell, 31, and Joseph Steele, 22, were sentenced to life for the murders.
However both men protested their innocence and claimed they were victims of a miscarriage of justice. After a 20-year campaign Campbell and Steele had their convictions overturned and they were set free. The police enquiry into the tragedy remains open.
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David Harron, Commissioning Editor at BBC Scotland explains: “The Ice Cream Wars is a powerful two-part series which, as well as telling the story of a brutal feud, also explores the nature of life in some of Scotland’s most deprived communities during that period.
“It also looks at how the construction of new estates, with no infrastructure, on the edge of the city created the conditions that made these routes so lucrative and the impact of the case on the justice system with the two men convicted of the murders eventually walking free after 20 years.”
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