WORLD's End killer Angus Sinclair has launched a bid to overturn his double murder conviction.

The 69-year-old was last year found guilty of raping and murdering Christine Eadie and Helen Scott after abducting them from Edinburgh's World's End pub in 1977.

Sinclair, who had previously been cleared of the crimes, was the first person to be re-tried under new double jeopardy laws and was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a minimum period in jail of 37 years.

He has now been granted permission to appeal the guilty verdict and challenge the sentence in an appeal case expected to cost the taxpayer more than £1 million.

A senior police source is reported as saying: "He's not going anywhere, he doesn't have to do anything, and he's not paying a penny piece towards it, so why not?

"He has nothing to lose by lodging fresh appeals and, I suppose, from a legal point of view the defence will want to rigorously test the conviction and try to test the double jeopardy legislation at the same time.

"The strength of the justice system is that someone like Sinclair, who obviously has no money to support him, can take up a case like this, but the downside is that it's at the public's expense."

It is understood Sinclair's legal team will argue that he did not have a fair trial due to the unique nature of the case.

The Glasgow-born killer was jailed for six years for culpable homicide as a teenager after sexually assaulting and strangling seven-year-old Catherine Greenhill in 1961.

Between 1978 and 1982 he raped and indecently assaulted 11 other young girls, some as young as six, and was eventually handed a life sentence for his crimes.

In 2001 he was also found guilty of raping, strangling and stabbing to death 17-year-old Mary Gallacher in a vicious attack in 1978, and was ordered to serve a second life sentence.

The World's End case saw him handed his third life sentence.

A spokesman for the High Court of Justiciary confirmed Sinclair's appeal had been considered by a judge and a hearing had been allowed.

A date will be set for the case later this year.