James Doyle

James Doyle 53, Christina Halleron 25, Mark Halleron 18 months, James Doyle 23, Andrew Doyle 18 and Tony Doyle 14, were killed in an arson attack.

They died in a fire that took place at 29 Bankend Street on the Ruchazie Housing Estate in Glasgow on 16 April 1984.

Two men were convicted of their murders and a number of other people convicted of lesser offences, but the murder convictions were later quashed in 2006 after it was heard that the police had fabricated evidence.

It was said that the arson attack had been part of a war between ice-cream sellers in Glasgow which were mainly fronts for selling drugs and stolen property.

The two rival factions had been one run by the Marchetti Brothers and another newer company operating under the established Fifti Ices trademark, although they were not part of the official Fifti Ices company which was otherwise a well-respected business.

The court heard that someone set fire to a cupboard door at the home at 29 Bankend Street. The cupboard had contained lumber and tyres and had been outside the top flat and was said to have soon spread into the rooms of the flat.

Shortly after the fire, the police said that they were looking for three youths that were seen buying petrol at the Queenslie Filling Station in Edinburgh Road, shortly after 9.30pm, buying about £1.50 worth of petrol in a 5-litre container.

Seven people were charged of various offences after the fire, including the two men on the murder charges. It was claimed that they had been running a rival ice-cream business and had been building their business up through intimidation and threats.

The group were also charged with a number of offences, including:

1. Murder of the family at 29 Bankend Street.
2. Attempted murder of a teenage boy and girl by firing a shotgun at them in an ice-cream van in a city street on 29 February 1984.
3. Various assault charges.

It was heard that the ice-cream war began when an ice-cream van operating under the name of Fifti Ices appeared in September 1983 on the Garthanlock council estate. However, the patch was said to have been run by the Marchetti Brothers who had two vans there, and had run a virtual monopoly there for years. After the appearance of the Fifti Ices van, the Marchetti Brothers brought in a third van run by Andrew Doyle, who although only 18, was described as being 6ft 1in tall and 13 stone, who acted as minder for a teenage girl that worked the sales. It was heard that when the Fifti Ices van turned up on the estate that Andrew Doyle's van would park up next to it to compete for customers.

However, it was heard that in the month that followed that Andrew Doyle was threatened and his van smashed with pickaxe handles and shot at with shotguns. He was later beaten up and it was then heard that the fire had been started at his house as a 'frightener'.

Following the fire, when the police investigated the Marchetti Brothers ice-cream business, it was found that it was merely a front for trade in stolen goods and drugs.

The court heard that the man behind the new ice-cream firm trading under the Fifti Ices brand had made a £250,000 bid to take over Fifti Ices, which was described as a long-established and respectable Glasgow ice cream company.

It was also heard that Andrew Doyle, who was described as a gentle giant by one of his former teachers, was considered a minor obstacle to the criminal's plans to expand their business.

A policeman that saw Andrew Doyle during the height of the campaign against him said that Andrew Doyle said to him:

During the trial, it was heard that the gangs would hold garden parties where drugs were taken and men gathered for all day drinking sessions, and that unemployed teenagers were offered money and drink to vandalise other ice cream vans.

It was also noted that some of the men involved in the ice cream war had been hardened criminals, with one of them, one of the men convicted of murder, known as the General, having been a feared thug with a long criminal record, having once been sentenced to 10 years for mobbing and rioting.

It was reported that the ice cream vans were fronts for drug dealing and selling stolen goods as well as selling all types of other things that people wanted, including cigarettes. In particular, they were noted for selling heroin at £10 a bag along with the ice-cream cones.

The ice cream vans covered the estates in Cartyne, Garthamlock, Ruchazie and Barlanark, which were described as being post war council estates lacking many of the facilities they should have had such as shops and pubs, and which lent themselves to the delivery of such required things as delivered by the gangs that used the ice-cream vans as fronts.

It was heard that the General, after finishing his 10 year jail sentence had come out to find that many of his friends had gone straight and were running their own businesses, such as mobile video libraries and ice-cream vans and that he had seen an opportunity to use ice-cream vans to launder stolen goods and run a drugs empire. It was said then that he bought his first van which he ran around the Castlemilk area and soon after found the cash to buy three more vans. After that he bought a fifth van for his sister, and then hired drivers and heavies, including the other man that was convicted of murder, who was described as a well-known Glasgow criminal with links to the Kray Twins, to protect the vans.

Although the General was operating under the sign of Fifti Ices, he did not own that company, only being allowed to carry that trademark on his van. However, it was heard that the General later made a bid to buy the Fifti Ices company for £250,000, which was described as an offer they couldn't refuse. However, the owner of Fifti Ices did say no to the offer.

It was said then that they started to wage a war on other traders, offering people £50 to put other traders out of business for the night, including the Marchetti Brothers, who operated 37 vans.

The ice-cream war, also referred to as the Cold War, was said to have started in 1982.

It was heard that soon after, one of the Marchetti Brothers van drivers quit, citing VAT and tax problems, but it was heard that the Fifti Ices gang had spoken to him.

Another driver was said to have found a blaze at his front door and sold his van to Fifti Ices for £1,000, said to have been a fifth of its value.

Soon after, two more Marchetti Brothers vans were wrecked, with the cost of the attacks over two years coming to about £15,000.

Then a supervisor with Marchetti Brothers was threatened and their premises on the Balmore Industrial Estate were attacked.

The Marchetti Brothers later complained to the police, but they said they could not prove anything and even tried to get them to compromise over the territories.

When the Marchetti Brothers later brought Andrew Doyle into the operation the general was said to have arranged for his van to be targeted and later threatened and it was after that that the fire took place at Andrew Doyle's flat, killing him and other members of his family and friends.

Seven people were tried at the Glasgow High Court, in a trial that was said to have blended horror with black humour, at the end of which the two men were convicted of the murder of the arson victims.

However, they continued to deny their guilt and eventually their convictions were overturned. It was heard that the convictions had centred around three pieces of evidence:

1. A witness that had heard the men in a bar discussing how they would teach Andrew Doyle, also known as Fat Boy, a lesson by setting fire to his house.
2. A statement that the General was said to have made, which was recorded by four police officers, all of whom wrote it down as: 'I only wanted the van windaes shot up. The fire at Fat Boy's was only meant to be a frightener which went too far'.
3. A photocopied A–Z street map of Glasgow that had Andrew Doyle's flat marked on it with an X.

Regarding the second item, it was later heard at the appeal that it would have been impossible for four police officers to have all written down the same sentence in their notes during the interview, that being:

It was argued that they would not have all written down what they heard in the same way and that the fact that they did indicated that they must have all agreed on that statement.

At the appeal in 2004, evidence was heard from a professor of cognitive psychology at the University of East London who said that the four police accounts were too exact. He said that he had performed studies in which people were asked to recall a 24-word statement that they had just heard, and found that most people could only recall 30% to 40% of what they had heard, with the highest score being 17 words out of the 24 words used. As such, he found that the fact that the four policemen had all recorded the confession exactly as it was recorded with no variance between them strongly suggested that they had compared or collaborated on their accounts.

Further, the man that said it, the General, denied having said that.

It was also heard that the other man had also denied having said:

As such, at the appeal, the judges concluded that any jury, at the time, upon hearing the professor's evidence would have assessed the evidence of the police officers in an entirely different light and that it was of such significance that the verdicts returned in 1984 must be regarded as miscarriages of justice and their convictions were quashed and they were released.

However, the judge that had sat at the 1984 trial, who had been retired for 18 years, spoke out against the appeal ruling, stating that he could not accept there was a conspiracy among the police. He said that to accept the finding of the appeal court that one had to accept that:

The judge also criticised the appeal court for undermining the function of the jury, stating that it was their function to decide questions of fact, and not of law, and that the appeal court had decided what evidence was believable, which was the jury's province, adding:

Following the appeal, the General, alleged that another Glasgow gangster had been behind the murders.

However, the police said that they had no plans to reopen the investigation.

It was noted that the two detectives that headed up the case died shortly after the first trial, with one being found in a fume filled car in 1988 and another dying in 1991 aged 57.