A killer who knifed a teenager is to take his human rights compensation case to the highest court in the land over a claim prison authorities failed to give him enough help to go straight.

Billy John Brown took the Scottish Government to court because he said he had been denied access to rehabilitation courses recommended by the parole board, but his claim was rejected by the Court of Session in 2015. Now the UK Supreme Court is to rule on his case when it sits in Edinburgh next week, with Scotland’s most senior judge Lord Carloway sitting on the panel.

Brown pleaded guilty to culpable homicide in 2006, after stabbing apprentice scaffolder Steven Lennon in the heart with a lock-knife in Sighthill in Edinburgh during a gang-related confrontation. His victim was then, like him, just 17.

Brown served four years of a seven-year sentence, before being released in April 2010. Out on license, he was returned to prison just six months later after stealing a car. He received a 40 day sentence for the theft, but was also recalled to serve the rest of his original sentence.

However he subsequently took the Scottish Government to court when the Parole Board refused to grant his release in December 2010 on the basis that he continued to pose a risk of serious harm to the public. The board's Extended Sentence Prisoner Tribunal continued to refuse his pleas to be released until he completed his sentence in 2015.

He claimed that after being recalled to prison he was not given "a reasonable opportunity for rehabilitation" and a chance to demonstrate he was no longer a danger to the public.

But the claim was turned down by the court of session in Edinburgh and as he continued to pursue it upon his release three judges also rejected it when he appealed the court of session decision two years ago.

At the time Brown's lawyers argued that the European Convention on Human Rights implied a duty to facilitate rehabilitation and release, but that he had been unable to take up courses to show that he was addressing his past actions and taking steps to avoid reoffending, including some recommended by the parole board.

However Lady Clark, who head the appeal with Lord Menzies and Lord McGhie said Brown's attitude to what rehabilitation work had been offered in prison "could be described as unimpressive".

A previous case at the European Court of Human Rights in 2012 saw a reversal for the UK Government saying that a lack of provision of rehabilitation services three prisoners serving indeterminate sentences had resulted in a breach of their rights under Article 5(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the individual from arbitrary detention.

However the Scottish Government has so far successfully argued that this ruling only applied to prisoners serving a life sentence with a minimum tariff.

In a report published by Scotland's prisons inspectorate last month, independent prison monitors (IPMs) said that prisoners regularly raised concerns about sentence progression.

The IPM report confirmed problems with access to rehabilitation schemes. "A national picture has emerged of long waiting times for programmes, particularly for prisoners with limited access to regimes. This suggests that many prisoners could progress more quickly through their sentences but are ‘held up’ by programme availability," it said.

Brown's solicitors McGreavy and co in Glasgow and Drummond Miller in Edinburgh declined to comment.