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Edinburgh Live
Edinburgh Live
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David McLean

The cunning inmates who escaped Edinburgh's Saughton during jail football match

Thirty years ago, a manhunt was underway for five "violent" convicts who escaped Edinburgh's Saughton Prison.

The daring break-out, which occurred at around 8.15pm on May 25, 1993, came about as a football game was being played between inmates and a visiting local pub team on a pitch near the jail's steel mesh perimeter fence.

During the match, five prisoners managed to slip through a hole they made in the security fence, without any of the half a dozen prison officers and security personnel noticing.

READ MORE: The forgotten Edinburgh village that was wiped out for Waverley Station

Among the escapees - all long-term prisoners - was Joe Steele, who had been convicted over Glasgow's so-called Ice Cream Wars double killing in the 1980s. Steele had already managed to escape the jail earlier that month and was developing quite the reputation.

While two of the men were apprehended and recaptured within 24 hours, the other three, including Joe Steele and a man on a seven-year stretch for culpable homicide, remained at large and there was considerable panic.

Police road blocks were set up around Edinburgh and extra officers drafted in to try and locate the inmates in what was being labelled the biggest and most concerning prison break in years.

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Quizzed over whether he was embarrassed at the latest escape, Scottish Prison Service chief Mr Edward Frizzell remained defiant, simply telling reporters that the authorities would apply "the utmost vigour'' in securing a hasty return for the inmates.

Things would progress swiftly, and, by May 29, 1993, four out of the five prisoners had been located by the authorities, with only Joe Steele still at large.

On July 5, 1993, Steele, who had been on the run for six weeks at that point gave himself up at the gates of Glasgow's Barlinnie Prison, where he was protesting his innocence over the 1984 ice cream wars murders. On his previous escape from Saughton, Steele had glued himself to the gates of Buckingham Palace in a similar stunt.

Thomas 'TC' Campbell and Joe Steele had their convictions overturned in 2004. (MirrorPix)

In 2004, the convictions of Joe Steele and Thomas 'TC' Campbell, who had also done jail time for the 80s killings, were finally quashed at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh. Steele, who had spent 18 years of his life in jail and protesting his innocence, received £750,000 in compensation for the wrongful conviction.

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