FORMER politician Tommy Sheridan has succeeded in a legal bid to secure an extra £176,000 payment from the publishers of the now defunct News of the World.

The ex-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.

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

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

Lord Turnbull - who criticised the "utterly reprehensible" conduct of the News of the World - refused to grant the extra payment to Sheridan.

However, civil appeal judges have overturned Lord Turnbull's decision.

This followed an appeal to the Inner House of the Court of Session by Mr Sheridan's lawyers.

In a written judgement issued at the Court of Session on Tuesday, judges Lord Carloway, Lord Menzies and Lord Brodie, concluded their colleague misinterpreted the law surrounding payments.