By Russell Findlay

Thomas 'TC' Campbell's former lawyer has told how the 20-year fight for justice took a huge toll on him - and warned that such miscarriages of justice are still possible.

Solicitor John Carroll worked tirelessly to quash the convictions of Ice Cream Wars pair Campbell and Joe Steele.

They were jailed for the 1984 murder of six members of the Doyle family in a fire at their home in Ruchazie, Glasgow but their convictions were quashed in 2004.

Carroll does not seek the limelight but spoke to STV News following the death of Mr Campbell, 66.

The retired lawyer described his former client as "quite wilful, quite strong willed" and told how he used this determination to go on prison hunger strikes while protesting his innocence.

He said: "He got down I think to something like six-and-a-half stone in weight and the man was six foot one I think, six foot one-and-a-half. He wasn't very well for a good number of years while he was in jail."

Asked if Campbell remained bitter at spending years behind bars, he said: "Oh yes, it would beggar belief to suggest otherwise. He can't get that time back.

"You get money, sure he got compensation and Joseph Steele got compensation for time spent in prison, but there isn't any way that you can adequately compensate for that kind of damage to the body."

Carroll described the long fight for justice as "like pushing string up a hill", adding: "You're trying to persuade an established mindset that they should actually look at this instead of simply looking at excuses for not looking at it, which is essentially what quite a lot of the legal system is all about.

"There's a certain mindset and a desire for stability within the legal system, for certainty within the legal system and [for it] not it just go jumping around."

Central to the convictions were police claims that the pair had confessed. But a breakthrough came when new academic research proved that the officers' exact recollections had been impossible.

Carroll added: "What it [research] showed was that four policemen could not possibly remember exactly what a person said.

"It just wasn't possible especially when the sentences extended to maybe 15, 20, 27 words which was the position at the trial. It showed that was just not possible and the end result was it could only be false evidence.

"It was a miscarriage of justice, a blinding miscarriage of justice. They were convicted on the back of alleged confessions which the police have a word for which is 'verballing'. It's alleged they said certain things but nine times out of ten people don't say things to the police that they claim they said."

Carroll was sacked by Campbell just weeks before the final, successful, appeal hearing, which was argued by Maggie Scott QC, now a judge.

He said: "We parted company just before the appeal for whatever was going on in his mind."

Asked if Campbell had been grateful, he said: "He never got a chance to say and I really don't know. I got the impression that he felt a lot of the success was down to his work in jail.

"The counsel who was with him for a lot of the time, Ms Scott was the one who did an incredible amount of work but I'm not entirely convinced that Mr Campbell would have recognised that. He was just that sort of person. He had his own way of wanting things done."

Six members of the Doyle family were murdered - the youngest being 18 months old. It was later alleged that the fire attack was ordered as 'frightener' over ice cream van routes by organised crime boss Tam 'The Licensee' McGraw, who died in 2007.

And while many people may look back at the black and white images and think such miscarriages of justice are a thing of the past, the veteran lawyer is unconvinced.

Asked if they could still happen, he warned: "Yes, I would think so. It's probably happening right now, somewhere, whether in Scotland, England, Wales or Northern Ireland."