TOMMY Sheridan has launched another legal bid to have his perjury conviction overturned, the Sunday Herald can reveal.
The former MSP is seeking a judicial review of the decision by the country’s miscarriages of justice quango not to refer his case to the High Court.
However, fellow socialist Colin Fox, a former ally of the disgraced politician, criticised the decision: “I'm lost for words. You would think Tommy Sheridan's relationship with the courts would have reached the end, but it appears he wants it to continue. He is the only person in Scotland who believes he is innocent."
Sheridan was co-convener of the Scottish Socialist Party until 2004, but resigned in order to sue the now-defunct News of the World over claims about his sex life.
In a high-profile defamation trial in 2006 the newspaper’s publisher accused the left-winger of being an adulterer who had attended the Cupid’s swingers’ club in Manchester.
Although Sheridan won the case, he was later charged with perjury in the first trial and was found guilty by a jury in 2010.
He was handed a three-year jail sentence, but released after serving around a year in prison.
An initial appeal attempt, lodged on the basis that he did not receive a fair trial in 2010, was rejected by judges as “unarguable”.
The former Celebrity Big Brother contestant then made an application to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC), which can rule on whether a conviction may be unsafe.
The commission, after a two-year probe, declined to refer Sheridan’s case to the High Court earlier this year.
The rejection closed off the option of Sheridan being able to appeal the verdict.
However, a spokesman for the SCCRC told this newspaper: “Mr Sheridan is seeking a judicial review of our decision.”
A spokeswoman for the Scottish Courts Service said: “A Petition has been lodged for judicial review of a decision of the SCCRC.”
Seeking a judicial review in such circumstances is rare and only four legal challenges have been made against SCCRC’s decisions in the last seven years.
However, Sheridan has so far been unable to get legal aid for the review. A spokesperson for the Scottish Legal Aid Board said: “We received an application for legal aid from solicitors representing Mr Sheridan in relation to a judicial review of a decision by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission.
“We are not in a position to consider it at this time because we do not have all the required information.”
The judicial review comes after the publishers of the News of the World failed to have the original decision in the defamation case overturned.
Lawyers for News Group Newspapers had argued that the civil verdict was unsafe due to Sheridan’s perjury conviction, but judges rejected the argument.
The judgment read: “It was noted that the verdict of a civil jury should be treated with considerable respect. Current social standards were very much a jury question."
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