Former Scottish Socialist leader - Tommy 'the Trot' Sheridan found guilty of perjury

Scotlands 'hero of the left' Tommy Sheridan.

The Telegraph reports - The disgraced former MSP was found guilty of lying during his successful defamation case against the News of the World in 2006.

He sued the Sunday tabloid after it claimed two years earlier that Scotland's "hero of the left" was an adulterer who had visited a swingers' club.

He won damages of pounds 200,000, at a civil trial that tore the SSP apart and led to all six of its MSPs losing their seats in the Scottish Parliament in 2007.

Sheridan and his wife Gail, 46, were charged with lying under oath following the case. Mrs Sheridan, a former airhostess, was acquitted of all charges on Friday.

The jury of 12 women and two men yesterday returned a majority verdict on Day 46 of the trial after deliberating for more than six hours.




Over the past three months the High Court in Glasgow has heard a lurid tale of sex, lies and videotape.

Sheridan, 46, forced Andy Coulson, the Prime Minister's director of communications and former editor of the tabloid to give evidence, in an attempt to prove the newspaper had set out to "destroy" him.

He also claimed 16 former friends and colleagues in the SSP were lying when they told the court he had admitted going to Cupids swingers' club in Manchester at an emergency meeting of the party in 2004.

But the jury decided that he did confess at the gathering, and he failed to persuade them of his outlandish theory that he was the victim of a Machiavellian conspiracy stemming his part in defeating the poll tax and Margaret Thatcher. Read more