The publisher of the now-defunct Sunday tabloid News Of The World has made a fresh legal bid appealing against Tommy Sheridan’s defamation victory 10 years ago.
News Group Newspapers took the case to the Court of Session in Edinburgh to attempt to get the 2006 verdict set aside.
Mr Sheridan – then a Glasgow Scottish Socialist Party MSP – won a high-profile defamation case over the paper after it printed allegations about his sex life and the paper was ordered to pay him £200,000.
But a police investigation into allegations of perjury during the trial was launched weeks later.
Mr Sheridan, 52, was charged and after a trial lasting 12 weeks at the High Court in Glasgow in 2010, he was found guilty of lying under oath during the successful defamation action.
He was jailed for three years but was freed from prison after serving just over a year of his sentence.
A hearing in front of judges Lady Paton, Lord Drummond Young and Lord McGhie got under way on Tuesday.
In submissions made by Alastair Duncan QC, representing the newspaper group, it was argued the 2006 verdict was “unsafe because of the conviction”.
Mr Duncan said it was “essential to justice” that it be set aside, adding that it was his submission it could not stand because it was “contrary to the evidence”.
Mr Sheridan, who is representing himself, is also expected to address the court during the hearing, which is expected to last three days.
