A newspaper group's latest efforts to appeal Tommy Sheridan's £200,000 defamation case win against it has been rejected.

News Group Newspapers (NGN) requested to approach the Supreme Court in London with a view to appealing a 2006 verdict which found the News of the World guilty of defamation after it printed allegations about Mr Sheridan's sex life.

The former Socialist MSP was awarded £200,000 damages but was subsequently found guilty of committing perjury in his evidence at the 2006 trial.

He served one year of his three-year jail sentence and has never received the £200,000.

In August, the Court of Session rejected an appeal by News Group to set aside a 2006 civil jury verdict.

On Thursday, appeal court judges in Edinburgh denied the publisher's request to take the appeal to the Supreme Court in London.

The case was heard on Thursday by Lady Paton, Lord Drummond Young and Lord McGhie in Edinburgh.

For News Group, Roddy Dunlop QC said the application for an appeal to Supreme Court was "a matter of extreme public importance".

In May, an appeal for the defamation verdict to be overturned was refused.

Mr Dunlop said: "The court in its judgment of these matters had taken the wrong turn."

If the 2006 jury had known that Sheridan was an adulterer, hypocrite and perjurer, he said, they might not have found in his favour.

"The verdict complained of could have been reversed by a jury which knew the truth," he said.

Mr Dunlop added: "No court can close its eyes. This case simply warrants the attention of the Supreme Court".

Appearing for Mr Sheridan, Donald Findlay QC said the 2006 jury was entitled to do what it did.

He described the attempt by News Group to appeal to the Supreme Court as "the last gasp of a dying man".

After retiring to consider their decision, Lady Paton said the Inner House could only grant permission for a case to go to the Supreme Court if the appeal raised a point of law of public importance and they were not of that opinion.

She said: "As a result we refuse the application, but of course, it is always open to the applicants to go to London and plead directly to the Supreme Court."

After the hearing, Mr Sheridan said: "Yet again News Group had been in court attempting to pervert the course of justice. They are still and always will be this criminal enterprise."