Former socialist politician Tommy Sheridan has failed in a legal bid to secure a further £200,000 payment from the publishers of the now-defunct News of the World.

The former Scottish Socialist Party leader won a £200,000 defamation action against the newspaper in August 2006 after it published false allegations about his love life.

He instructed lawyer Gordon Dangerfield to go to the Court of Session in Edinburgh last year to argue that he was entitled to another £200,000 payment from News Group Newspapers.

Mr Dangerfield wanted judge Lord Turnbull to award the sum be paid because journalists at the publication broke the law by hacking his mobile phone.

The solicitor advocate argued that the publishers of the paper should be punished for allowing its employees to use illegal methods to acquire information about Mr Sheridan.

He said his client, who was jailed in 2011 for committing perjury during the defamation action, had also committed wrongdoing - but it was at "many levels below" the conduct of the News of the World.

But on Thursday, in a judgment issued at the Court of Session, Lord Turnbull refused to grant the extra payment to be paid to Sheridan.

Lord Turnbull, who also criticised the "utterly reprehensible" conduct of the News of the World in the judgment, wrote: "There can be few other civil cases heard in modern times which has attracted such notoriety.

"I know of no other civil case in which a litigant, who sought to vindicate his reputation through an action for defamation, emerged as a criminal convicted of perjury and at the same time secured an award of very substantial sum of money.

"To include within the award of damages in the verdict a further £200,632 would be a step which many would find difficult to comprehend not least those who suffered injury to their standing and feelings as a consequence of the pursuer's conduct towards them in court and went uncompensated."