A former soldier jailed for life for the 1986 murder of teenager Elaine Doyle has lost an appeal against his conviction.

A claim that the 21-year minimum term imposed on John Docherty after he was found guilty of the fatal attack on the teenager 28 years after her body was found was excessive was also rejected.

Docherty, formerly of Dunoon, in Argyll, had denied murdering Elaine during his trial at the High Court in Edinburgh in 2014 after her body was found in a lane near Ardgowan Street, in Greenock, in June 1986.

The strangling victim was found naked with her clothing lying around her after she had left a disco at a Celtic Supporters' Club which Docherty had also been at.

After he was convicted his lawyers brought an appeal arguing that the verdict was one that no reasonable jury, properly directed, could have returned.

His counsel Donald Findlay QC told judges at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh that "beyond a shadow of a doubt" a miscarriage of justice had occurred.

It was claimed that the police inquiry had been inept and corrupt and that measures to prevent contamination of the crime scene had not been put in place.

Advocate depute John Scullion QC argued that there was a compelling amount of circumstantial evidence which supported the finding of guilty against Docherty, including that DNA from the killer was found which likely came from a primary transfer.

Scotland's senior judge, the lord justice general, Lord Carloway, said: "This was a compelling circumstantial case and the appeal against conviction is refused.

"This was a murder of an innocent 16-year-old girl making her way home along the public streets after a night out in central Greenock. It is a crime of rare callousness and brutality.

"As the trial judge records, it caused widespread public revulsion and anxiety and terrible anguish for the deceased's family over many years."

"Although the fact that the appellant was in his early 20s when he committed the crime, and is now 51, is a matter to be taken into account, a significant punishment part was inevitable notwithstanding the appellant's unblemished record since joining the army in the year after the crime."