The Case of the "Glasgow Two"
Thomas
“TC” Campbell & Joseph Steele
Stop Press (2004) - On 17 March 2004 Lord Gill announced to Campbell & Steele in a packed court room, "Your convictions are quashed and you are free to go." See my brief response.
Stop Press (2001) - the Glasgow Two were released from prison in December 2001 pending review of their case. Achieving this required the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission to take the Crown Office to court to force it to release the full case documentation. What can they have been afraid of?
For more information see: http://www.innocent.org.uk/cases/glasgow2/
Also, for Tommy Campbell's first of two books, published October 2001, see www.canongate.net [Indictment: Trial by Fire, Canongate Books, Edinburgh, £14.99, ISBN 1 84195 191 9]. Tommy writes in this: "With gratitude to Alastair McIntosh's Soil and Soul for helping me see that I may speak freely and that justice is in the making. To get up and get it done, not merely waiting in vain for it to come."
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Around
1995 I read a report in Scotland on Sunday about the case of the
“Glasgow Two” and was shocked to learn that this had still not been
adequately reviewed by our judicial authorities. This led me into communication,
by letter and prison visits, with Tommy Campbell. My position all along is that
I am not the court, and so I cannot determine whether the two are innocent or
guilty. I only ask why, if justice is being done in Scotland, it is not being
done openly. This page comprises my most recent letter on the matter to be
published by The Herald (Glasgow)
(12-7-00, p. 18, under heading, “Does
Crown Office not want justice to be seen?”), and a summary of the case from the
Campaign Committee. The latter document is ocr scanned-in and uncorrected, and I
cannot vouch for its accuracy. It is presented here for information. Following
from the Herald
letter, I have been contacted by a leading SNP MSP requesting to see my file on
the case.
Herald
Letter Published 12-7-00
Dear
Sir
What
is going on in Scottish justice? You report that the Scottish Criminal Cases
Review Commission uniquely has to take the Crown Office to the High Court in an
effort to force release of documents relevant to the “Glasgow Two” (Plea to
release Ice Cream Wars files, July11)?
Does
the Crown Office not want justice to be seen to be done?
What interests can be served by concealing possibly vital information
while two men, who have protested their innocence for 16 years, fester in jail?
So
far the only senior politician to have advanced their case was a former Scottish
Secretary who entertained sufficient doubt as to let them out in 1997 on remand
for a year. Do we need to bring back Michael Forsyth for justice in Scotland?
Silence
is the voice of complicity. It should have no place except in the explicit
public interest in an open society. The longer that gatekeepers to the corridors
of power furtively block access to the full facts, the more the evidence stacks
in favour of Tommy “TC” Campbell’s chilling assertion: namely, that
“This is not a miscarriage of justice, but a conspiracy to pervert the course
of justice.”
Yours
faithfully
Alastair
McIntosh
Campaign Committee Release March 2000
On
October 1984 Thomas Campbell and Joseph Steele were wrongfully convicted for the
Doyle family fire murders upon the evidence of a thrice convicted perverter of
justice who has now admitted, by recorded interviews and sworn statements, on-
TV, and under caution to the police, •to having perverted justice once again
in his evidence at the trial of the Glasgow two as part of a deal, with the
police and his prosecutor, in exchange for bail and immunity from prosecution on
his own unrelated of fences of armed robbery, attempt to pervert justice and
attempted murder respectively.
On
August 1996, the then Scots Secretary, Michiel Forsyth MP, referred the case to
the court of appeal. This reference was based upon the witness Love confessions
to perjury at the trial and, which evidence to an eavesdropped conversation in a
public house was fundamentally crucial to their wrongful convictions for murder.
Lord Kincraig, trial judge, noted •...
Now
there is no evidence to say that these accused were near or at the scene of the
crime at the time the crime was committed and so the evidence is that of
inference from the evidence which is before you.. .which is that of the witness
Love’s evidence regarding the conversation in a public house... there is
insufficiency of evidence in law to entitle you to convict without his
evidence... The crown case stands or falls uppon his evidence, it is theref or
crucial to the crown case that you believe him.. .“
...
It should be noted that the witness Love’s evidence to eavesdropped
conversation in a pub was not corroborated by any evidence, nor supported by any
witness in that respect. Further, it was infact refutted by three accused and
two prosecution witnesses. Now countless more witnesses, TV viewers, sworn and
recorded confessions etc, speak clearly to having over heard HIM
confessing that he lied. His first confessions were from 1986...
“..There
never was any conversation about that fire in that pub nor anywhere else mate.
That was just something that was put into my head by the police for me to say
that as part of the deal.. It was all just one big fit-up of a case... It was me
who fired that gun at that van, I was the one (Not Gray) I took a double barrel
sawn off shotgun and fired it at that icecream van...
His
sister, Mrs Agnes Love or Carlton, is further independent evidence in cross
check to his confessions to perjury. For not only did she witness his attack on
the icecreain van, but she had also provided the police with a full detailed
statement of her brothers part in that attack, at the time of the attack (1984)
but which crucial police statement remained secret and undisclosed to the
defence all those years until 1996 when the case was referred to the court. As
result of non disclosure, Thomas Gray was wrongfully convicted ~upon the basis
of Love’s false evidence against.1~Am at the trial in 1984... Mrs.WA~1ton
states...
“.
.It was my brother Billy. I seen him from my window. He’d come to my
house with a double barrel sawn off shotgun, about ‘that’ size and said he
was going to shoot up Jimmy Mitchell’s van to give him a fright. I seen him do
it from my window, but it was the wrong van...
The
Scots Secretary’s reference to the court regarded (1) Love’s confession to
perjury and, in particular, the significance of his admissions to disch
-arging
the firearm at the icecream van. That taken together with (2) his sister’s
witness and statement to the police to that effect, were suffice to raise
concerns on issues of which it would be more appropriate for the appeal court to
reach a final decision.
However,
at the appeal court on February 1998 the lord chief justice clerk. Lord Cullen,
appears to have somehow managed to overlook Mr. Love’s confessions in that
respect and, at page 52 of his opinion states
(SLT 940H)
Love
does not admit or suggest that he was the person who fired the gun at the van,
nor admit that he lied about his patt in the shooting..
He
returns to repeat this crucial error of the facts at page 56.(SLT 941K)
“..Since
he does not say that he lied as to the extent of his own involve ment in the
shooting, in these circumstances, I am not satisfied that the evidence
that Mrs Canton would give could support Love’s explanation that he was
induced and put under pressure to present false evidence against the
appellants....”
Thus
on the basis of this error of the facts, Mrs Canton could not ~confirm’
something of which it appeared (to Lord Cullen) that her brother had not
admitted. Theref or her evidence was not allowed to be given as independent
support to her brother’s confessions to the shooting incident and theref or to
perjury at the trial. Further, as the law requires some such independent
support, then there was no point in the court hearing the confessions of the
witness Love with out her evidence in support. Thus the appeal to have their
evidence of perjury heard by the court was refused by Lord Cullen.
Yet
the very next judge to give an opinion was Lord Mc Cluskie. In his
Lordships
most excellent opinion in support of the appeal, he confirms that
Love
had indeed confessed to discharging the gun at the van as his sister
had
witnessed and contrary to his evidence against Gray at the trial. Lord
Mc
Cluskie paraphrases Love’s in depth confessions in that respect...
•
Because it would enable me to avoid being charged myself with attempt murder, of
which I knew I was guilty because I was the one who fired the shotgun, I was
willing to go along with the plan to present false evidence...” (SLT 948K)
On
this basis, he supported the appeal to have the evidence of perjury by the
witness Love and supporting evidence of his sister, heard by the
court
for full examination under oath...
For
should it be confirmed in evidence, then that would entail that a serious
miscarriage of justice had occurred...”
That
the appeal court 2 to 1 not to allow the evidence of perjury at the onigional
trial to be heard, then, in these circumstances, Lord Cullen’s patent error of
the crucial facts became one of the essential points on petition to the new
Scots Secretary of state, Donald Dewar MP, TO HAVE THE matter referred back to
the appeal court to have the case properly and fully dealt with by the court.
Yet
although the Scots Secretary confirmed that Love’s confessions to perjury and,
in particular, his confessions that he was the one who had fired the gun at the
van, contrary to his evidence at the trial. Was infact before him as with
the previous Scots Secretary and was before the court from an early stage
in the proceedings, as was quoted by Lord Mc Cluskie at the same appeal
hearing... Never the less, the Scots Secretary stated that lord Cullen was not
in error of the facts because, due to some clerical oversight or other, that
witnesses confessions in that respect were not seen as included within the list
of documents before Lord Cullen at the time his opinion was formed...??
...
The Scots Secretary went on to impose his own opinion in presupposition of that
of the court, averring that...
‘...Even
if it had been, it is irrelevant and would have had no baring upon his Lordships
rejection of Mrs canton’s evidence as independent support of.her brothers
confessions to perjury in that respect...”
The
Secretary was referred to Lord Cullens opinion as quoted and underlined
and after further deliberations the Secretary could “make no final decision”
and referred the case to the newly formed SCCRC on April 1999 after 14 months
investigation and 16 years of wrongful imprisonment.
Yet
where there is proof and supporting evidence that the Glasgow two are wrongfully
convicted and imprisoned upon the evidence of a serial perverter of justice,
then to further hold these men in prison whilst refusing to allow the fearful
fact to be examined under the scrutiny of an open court in a public trial, is a
scandal of titanic proportions and a gross travesty of justice entailing a crime
against society for the fact that the cover-up is called ‘justice’ in our
names.
Where
the court and the course of justice stumbles upon such errors and, as result,
fails to address those very issues upon which the case was originally referred
in the first place. Is it theref or reasonable, just or fair, to hold these men
in prison rather than publicly admit the gross travesty of justice perpetrated
against them in our names? For, through no fault of their own, but by the
perjured evidence of a serial perverter of justice and by misdirection and error
in the administration of the law, these men have suffered 16 years of living
nightmare, innocent imprisoned in our names and in the name of justice.
It
has been more than two years since the crucial error of the essential facts in
the opinion of the court of appeal. More than two years of further imprisonment
for the Glasgow two while the Scottish office and the Scottish Criminal Case
Review Commission’s ‘intense and urgent’ priority enquiry can come to no
conclusion upon what to do in this case and, whilst the reading of the courts
opinion and the research on the stated errors of the facts would take but an
hour or so of the average man’s time, in betwean time, justice delayed is
justice denied, but justice prevented is justice pervert
-ed
and when this is exasperated by the legal administration, it becomes more than a
miscarriage of justice, it is an outrage & an outright afrount upon the
public. As Thomas campbell Says....
“Where
god hath given man taketh away
In
boundless arrogant vanity
Lords
temporal dare proclaim
God’s
given law as their domain..”
By
any reasonable account, it is neither reasonable, just nor fair to hold these
men in prison without a full and fair hearing for another single day. The SCCRC
have a duty and a responsibility, not only to these men and their familys, but
to the victims and their familys and to the public, to ensure that to ensure
that justice is restored by the referral of this case back to the court of
appeal for a full and proper hearing of all the facts and evidence in this case.
In the name of justice, equality and fairness for all and, for the restoration
of the dignity and confidence in our justice system, this case must be referred
to the court for a public hearing that justice might be seen to be fairly done
and, not brushed under the proverbial carpet after 16 years of travesty.
27/03/04