Today Barlinnie is said to be Western Europe’s biggest single dispenser of methadone, handing out over 8700 litres every year. But he remembers an Alcoholics ­Anonymous request for prisoner support groups being met by stony silence. He told the court in December: “I don’t remember it. All I know is that a man has possibly died at my hands.”

In what he says is his last interview before he reclaims the life he was denied when he battled for 20 years to clear his name, Joe Steele reveals how the brutal regime of prison life and being fitted up for the murders of six members of the Doyle family did not break him. Some, including notorious multiple murderer Peter Manuel, never left Barlinnie’s grounds. The graves now raise the uncomfortable issue of exhuming their remains and finding a new location for burial. While most prisoners languished in miserable conditions, Barlinnie’s Special Unit took some of the most notorious and introduced them to an experimental regime of art, poetry and literature. I loved my wife, Dolly, and my two boys so much, being taken from them after tasting what it was like to be a proper family, was the start of the darkest period in my life.

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PJ’s mum Maureen, 53, claims the conclusion is clear. The knife was not her son’s, it belonged to Steele, and Steele brought it to the scene. People coming in were used to having a shower every day, but in Barlinnie they could only shower once a week. There were pots of poo in their cells. These were young people from a different world, prison needed to go along with that.” Steele, 57, said: “The brutality of life in Scotland’s hardest prisons, even years of solitary as punishment for repeatedly breaking out in protest at the wrongful conviction, wasn’t enough to break me. When I walked out into the sunshine and into the arms of the people I loved on the day I was finally cleared in 2004, the relief was on their faces and they were smiling. MacAskill spent 30 minutes talking to Maureen and her supporters. She said afterwards: “Apparently, the Solicitor General called Kenny MacAskill this morning to see if his office had received the letter I sent them.

There were men with severe mental health problems. The medical centre seemed to hand out two paracetamols for a headache and eight for a broken leg,” adds Willy, who writes about Barlinnie in his book, Life is Not a Long Quiet River. It offered Victorian-age work ethics with access to education and books. The new A Hall prisoners were put to work baking and building, making shoes and mattresses, outside the quarry gave others the harsher task of breaking stone to help build B, C and D Halls.Speaking exclusively to the Daily Record, Maureen said: “My son was murdered in cold blood and justice hasn’t been done. It was this weapon that would later be used to kill PJ. Steele again holds the fighting knife in his right hand. For Johnny, whose escape bids contributed to him being dubbed ‘one of the most punished prisoners in the history of the British penal system’, 1980s Barlinnie was a powder-keg just waiting to blow.

Johnnyboy Steele is the most punished prisoner in Scottish Penal History. He was sentenced originally to 12 years for two counts of assault and robbery. PJ, a promising chef chosen to cook for JK Rowling when he was 16, was killed after a fight outside a flat in East Kilbride on the day of Prince William’s wedding, April 29 last year.

You should never stop analysing how you have ended up where you are. Give yourself credit for what you do right. Some people end up in this life through circumstances usually beyond their control. I was born into this life, but it wasn’t me, I never liked it and, really, I wasn’t able for it. Always be true to yourself. Today Barlinnie handles 20 per cent of Scotland’s prisoners. Even visiting time is a logistical nightmare of around 7300 visitors every month, including around 1100 children. The man wrongly convicted of the Ice Cream War murders has revealed how he won his life-or-death battle with drugs. Inside Time reserve the right to republish comments in its newspaper or in any of its other publications, however, in these cases, comments will be anonymised. Johnnyboy is also the brother of Joseph Steele who along with one Thomas 'TC' Campbell was wrongly convicted of the murders of 6 of the Doyle family in the so called Glasgow ice cream wars.

A GRIEVING mother claims this picture is proof that the thug cleared of murdering her son is a liar – and must be put on trial again. But like an old lag counting down the days to release, Barlinnie has now entered its final stretch.What do I remember from that first time? Dirt,” he says. “I came from a post in Bangladesh, but Barlinnie was worse for your health than Bangladesh. At least there you could do your best to survive, in Barlinnie you were subjected to the regime. Today, Barlinnie handles 20 per cent of Scotland’s prisoners. Even visiting time is a logistical nightmare of around 7300 visitors every month, including around 1100 children. John Steele was acquitted of murdering Paul “PJ” Douglass, 20, after claiming self-defence. He said PJ had a knife which he had never seen before. With the end in sight, it’s been suggested Barlinnie could be reborn as social housing or upmarket flats; a world away from rows of 6ft by 11ft cells and slopping out.