TWO killers who claimed the lives of a father and his two children in a fire attack have lost their appeals against their murder convictions.

Scott Snowden, 39, and Robert Jennings, 51, received sentences that were among the longest ever passed in Scotland after they were found guilty of the murders of Thomas Sharkey Snr, 55, his son Thomas Jnr, 21, and eight-year-old daughter Bridget, who died after a fire at their home in Helensburgh in July 2011.

Snowden was ordered to serve at least 33 years before he is eligible to seek release on parole and Jennings had a minimum term of 29 years imposed.

The pair maintained that the trial judge, Lord Matthews, did not give fair balance to defence and Crown when he came to address the jury at the end of the trial. But judges at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh unanimously rejected the claims of a miscarriage of justice.

The Lord Justice Clerk, Lord Carloway, said: "The whole tenor of this charge [address to the jurors by the trial judge] was one of balance."

Lord Carloway, who heard the appeal with Lady Smith and Lord Brodie, said a "very experienced trial judge" had been communicating with the jury.

"He was speaking to them in plain language; yet not patronising them with repetition of what they would already have well understood to be the issues in the trial," he said.

Lord Carloway said: "The court is entirely satisfied that the judge achieved the appropriate balance."