Tommy Sheridan has been urged to "be a real man" and admit his past failings by a former tabloid newspaper editor.

The call came from one-time Scottish News of the World chief Bob Bird after the Crown Office dropped charges that he had attempted to pervert the course of justice.

Mr Bird told the Sunday Herald: "I've made mistakes in my professional life, got things wrong, and made mistakes in my personal life too.

"But every time I've made a mistake at work or at home I think I've put my hands up, admitted it, apologised and tried to do better in future.

"I think that's what real men do. Come on Tommy, it's time to finally own up, apologise and then shut up. Be a real man."

The comments come after the latest twist in a long-running saga involving the two men.

In 2006, in the case of Sheridan v News International, the former Scottish Socialist Party MSP won an action for defamation against the News of the World and was awarded £200,000 damages.

However, the following year he was charged with perjury for having told lies to the court in his defamation case and in December 2010 Sheridan was convicted of perjury and sentenced to three years imprisonment.

In the light of the News of the World phone hacking affair, the Crown Office was ordered to

reassess the case, but has now decided not to pursue charges against Mr Bird.

The 59-year-old said his daughter broke the news to him last week: "She saw something on Twitter, rang me up about 10 o'clock and said 'Dad, I think the charges have been dropped against you'."

Mr Bird, who edited the now-defunct tabloid for 11 years, said he was relieved by the Crown's decision: "I hope we have drawn a line under the whole thing now and I can move on with my life. I feel like it's been on hold since I lost my job."

He said the last three years had been "hell" and his immediate priority was to pay his legal bills.

Unlike Andy Coulson - who was also declared a free man after his perjury trial in Edinburgh collapsed - Mr Bird's costs are not being borne by his old employer.

Although he was not charged with phone hacking, Mr is adamant that intercepting communications did not take place at the Scottish edition he edited.

He said "Just to be clear, whatever went wrong in London regarding this didn't extend to Scotland. We never hacked phones in Scotland." Given the amount of money the UK tabloid would pay for stories, he says there was an obsession with internal leaks and the Scottish edition was not in the loop about news-gathering south of the border.

"They were scared to share with anyone down there, let alone someone 500 miles away. We would find out on Saturday, sometimes Saturday night, what the splash was going to be in London.

"My point is that if we didn't know what stories were going to go on the front page, we are not going to know how they got those stories."

Last night Mr Sheridan poured scorn on Mr Bird and challenged him to sue, saying: "Show how confident you are in your innocence."