COURTS: Socialist ex-MSP Tommy Sheridan launched a fresh legal bid yesterday to clear his name amid claims of an “extensive criminal conspiracy.”

Mr Sheridan was jailed for three years in 2011 after he was found guilty of lying under oath during a successful defamation lawsuit against News of the World hacks, who had alleged the sitting Scottish Socialist MSP had snuck off to an Edinburgh swingers’ club without his wife’s knowledge.

The appeal request is now before the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission.