innocence and show the size of the gigantic chip on his shoulder. Again, like in the Slater case, the outsider thinking of a man wrongly banged up in a tough jail and enduring a tough regime could sympathise. There can be no harder torture to endure than years of imprisonment for a crime you did not commit. Especially as no one inside the prison would listen to you.
Meehan refused to take any part in prison chores or cooperate with the prison authorities – in a reversal of the old prison cliché, he was doing the time but had not done the crime, and it showed in his behaviour. You suspect such a demonstration of his feelings consistently over the years must have aroused some sympathy from some of his jailors but there is not much sign of it. It was those on the outside who listened to his pleas of innocence and decided to do something about it. Those in the prison service can be good judges of character and you wonder how many believed that this small-time Glasgow crook was capable of such a wickedly cruel murder as that of Mrs Ross. But even if some had a sneaking sympathy for him and an unexpressed belief in his claims to be innocent, it made little difference to Paddy’s life in jail. His constant hassle with the prison rulebook and the harder of his tormentors meant there was only one solution to get everyone a little peace – sling him into solitary. The astonishing fact is that this punishment was not for a weekend or two to teach a difficult prisoner a lesson. In his time in Peterhead Paddy Meehan spent seven years in solitary confinement. In the annals of crime this must be among the most draconian punishment handed out to an innocent man. Other than to be left dangling at the end of rope in the Barlinnie hanging shed.
Meehan was eventually pardoned in 1976, but unlike Slater who lived life after Peterhead out of the limelight, Paddy sought out the late-night company of Glasgow’s often drouthy newsmen and was a familiar figure in the city’s pubs. He even used his old skills in burglary as a security advisor. But after he left jail Paddy was most prominent for the years he spent in conflict with the authorities over his compensation and in a feud with legendary lawyer Joe Beltrami. This was a bit unsettling for Joe, who had played a major role in the campaign to free him. Meehan postulated all sorts of wild theories on how he had come to end up in prison, including accusations that the British Secret Service was to blame. He even wrote a book which included this fantasy, and many a Glaswegian remembers seeing him as a tragic figure trying to hawk this slim volume on the streets of the city for ready cash. The city booksellers had refused to handle it, wary of the legal implications of the content. He died of throat cancer in 1994 aged sixty-seven.
Slater and Meehan were only two of the better-known difficult prisoners of Peterhead. Down the years a succession of toerags made life difficult for the men in the north who had joined the prison service, often for job security in an area where that could be hard to find. From day one there were troublemakers, there always are. In any hard prison fighting the regime is fruitless 99.9 per cent of the time, but you will always get those who try. Even those whose chance of getting anyone to listen to their protestations of innocence, never mind getting a celebrity campaign to back their claims, is as likely as a big win on the lottery. But someone like TC Campbell is rather different. No one with the slightest interest in matters criminal in this country is unaware of perhaps the most modern injustice linked with Peterhead – Glasgow’s infamous Ice Cream War murders.
Campbell and another Glasgow hard man, Joe Steele, were wrongly convicted of these dreadful killings. Campbell in particular was aware that his constant wars with the Peterhead rulers made headlines in the Glasgow papers for years and kept the injustice he had suffered in the mind of the general
Meehan refused to take any part in prison chores or cooperate with the prison authorities – in a reversal of the old prison cliché, he was doing the time but had not done the crime, and it showed in his behaviour. You suspect such a demonstration of his feelings consistently over the years must have aroused some sympathy from some of his jailors but there is not much sign of it. It was those on the outside who listened to his pleas of innocence and decided to do something about it. Those in the prison service can be good judges of character and you wonder how many believed that this small-time Glasgow crook was capable of such a wickedly cruel murder as that of Mrs Ross. But even if some had a sneaking sympathy for him and an unexpressed belief in his claims to be innocent, it made little difference to Paddy’s life in jail. His constant hassle with the prison rulebook and the harder of his tormentors meant there was only one solution to get everyone a little peace – sling him into solitary. The astonishing fact is that this punishment was not for a weekend or two to teach a difficult prisoner a lesson. In his time in Peterhead Paddy Meehan spent seven years in solitary confinement. In the annals of crime this must be among the most draconian punishment handed out to an innocent man. Other than to be left dangling at the end of rope in the Barlinnie hanging shed.
Meehan was eventually pardoned in 1976, but unlike Slater who lived life after Peterhead out of the limelight, Paddy sought out the late-night company of Glasgow’s often drouthy newsmen and was a familiar figure in the city’s pubs. He even used his old skills in burglary as a security advisor. But after he left jail Paddy was most prominent for the years he spent in conflict with the authorities over his compensation and in a feud with legendary lawyer Joe Beltrami. This was a bit unsettling for Joe, who had played a major role in the campaign to free him. Meehan postulated all sorts of wild theories on how he had come to end up in prison, including accusations that the British Secret Service was to blame. He even wrote a book which included this fantasy, and many a Glaswegian remembers seeing him as a tragic figure trying to hawk this slim volume on the streets of the city for ready cash. The city booksellers had refused to handle it, wary of the legal implications of the content. He died of throat cancer in 1994 aged sixty-seven.
Slater and Meehan were only two of the better-known difficult prisoners of Peterhead. Down the years a succession of toerags made life difficult for the men in the north who had joined the prison service, often for job security in an area where that could be hard to find. From day one there were troublemakers, there always are. In any hard prison fighting the regime is fruitless 99.9 per cent of the time, but you will always get those who try. Even those whose chance of getting anyone to listen to their protestations of innocence, never mind getting a celebrity campaign to back their claims, is as likely as a big win on the lottery. But someone like TC Campbell is rather different. No one with the slightest interest in matters criminal in this country is unaware of perhaps the most modern injustice linked with Peterhead – Glasgow’s infamous Ice Cream War murders.
Campbell and another Glasgow hard man, Joe Steele, were wrongly convicted of these dreadful killings. Campbell in particular was aware that his constant wars with the Peterhead rulers made headlines in the Glasgow papers for years and kept the injustice he had suffered in the mind of the general
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