‘At times we had to smile for the cameras but we were never friends’
Three years ago, Joe Steele told The Sunday Post how he ended his 35-year feud with co-accused TC Campbell just weeks before his death.
In an interview with chief reporter Marion Scott, who appears in the new BBC documentary, he told how the two had not spoken for years after Steele accused Campbell of undermining the fight to clear their name.
After they were wrongly convicted of the fire attack, the pair made a pact never to accept parole because that would mean admitting the murders. Steele said: “We’d made a deal with each other that we’d never accept the Special Unit, which was cushier. We’d do hard time.
“But when TC reneged on the deal and went to the Special Unit we fell out badly and that continued for years, even though we were thrown together as we campaigned to be cleared.
“There were times when we had to smile for the cameras but we were never friends. If we were, it was a friendship forged in hell. We hated each other. But I am glad we made up just before he died. I realised the anger was just another part of the burden I was carrying over what happened, so I feel better for pushing it aside.”
Steele revealed he also prayed for the Doyle family every night of the 18 years he spent in jail. He said: “I still pray for them to this day.
“What happened to that innocent family was beyond cruel. I stood watching their funeral procession and the streets were lined with people crying. I remember saying a prayer for them as the hearses passed me in the street, never imagining that days later I’d be arrested for their murder.
“My family knew I was innocent but I’ve spent the rest of my life hoping the Doyle family eventually believed that too. It’s been a huge burden and even after the appeal court proved I was innocent, fitted up by the police, there will be people who still suspect I was involved.
“It was a relief my mum went to her grave after the appeal court cleared my name and she could tell everyone that.”