BRITAIN's top court is to decide whether it was wrong to lock up a Scottish racist killer in solitary confinement.

The UK Supreme Court will next month hear an appeal from Imran Shahid who argues his human rights were breached when he was held in segregation for more than four and a half years.

Shahid - still widely known by his gangland nickname Baldy - is serving a 25-year life sentence for the racially motivated murder of 15-year-old Kriss Donald in 2006.

The 38-year-old is claiming £6,000 in compensation, saying his treatment was inhuman and degrading but his case could change the way Scottish jails deal with vulnerable prisoners like paedophiles and serial killers at risk from the general population.

Insiders admit Shahid's detention in solitary - of four years and eight months - was unusually long.

Scottish ministers have successfully argued that he was locked up separately for his own protection. Successive Scottish judges have dismissed Shahid's case, first launched in 2011, as it progressed through the Court of Session.

His final Scottish appeal was rejected a year ago.

Lord Drummond Young, who heard the appeal with Lord Menzies and Lord Wheatley, then said: "The simple fact is that continuing threats to his personal safety were made. In those circumstances there was no alternative to segregation."

He said it was clear from evidence available to the prison authorities that "serious threats of harm" to Shahid had been made by other prisoners at various jails where he was held.

One report from 2006 said prisoners at Glenochil jail in Clackmannanshire had warned that if any of the schoolboy's murderers were housed there they would be killed, and "there would be a queue of prisoners wanting to do it".

Lord Drummond Young said the appeal judges were "quite satisfied that adequate grounds existed for the continued segregation".

Prison governors have to periodically renew any authorisation for a prisoner to be held in segregation in Scotland.

However, Shahid and his lawyers argue that the time - from his remand custody until 2010 - was unlawfully long and failed to adhere to 2006 rules on solitary.

After Shahid was allowed to join the general prison population he was battered and left for dead in a prison gym, in Kilmarnock.

Another murderer, William ­Crawford, then 25, admitted hitting Shahid on the head with a 15 kilo weight as the racist was working out on a rowing machine. Other prisoners then started beating Shahid with metal poles.

Shahid suffered a ­fractured jaw and cheekbone, shattered teeth and cuts, bruises and swelling to his face and head.

The former gang leader is not the first Scottish prisoner to sue over segregation.

His solicitors, Taylor and Kelly, have previously championed successful bids from others, including murderers Andrew Somerville and Ricardo Blanco, who won out-of-court settlements in 2009.

However, the human rights biggest case on solitary confinement was from France, where terrorist Ilich Ramírez Sánchez - better known as "Carlos the Jackal" after a spate of murders - spent eight years on his own in seven-square-meter cell.

Despite having little or no contact with anyone, the Marxist hitman failed to get his case through the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Scottish judges, citing the landmark case, said they felt Shahid's conditions were far better than the Jackal's.

The UK Supreme Court has replaced the House of Lords as the court of final instance for Scottish human rights cases.

Shahid was jailed with others after Kriss Donald was abducted in Glasgow in March 2004 and subjected to a terrifying journey before being stabbed and set on fire.