Scots paedo couple who murdered woman over plan to report child abuse lose bid to call one another from jail

dailyrecord.co.uk:

A paedophile couple serving life for murder who want the right to phone each from different jails have lost a bid to have their case heard at the UK's highest court.

Charles O'Neill and William Lauchlan were allowed to call each other after being jailed in 2010 but this was blocked in 2018.

The pair - who murdered a woman who intended to report their child abuse to the authorities - claimed the ban breached their human rights and launched a court bid to overturn it.O'Neill, 59, who is serving at least 30 years, and Lauchlan, 45, who was given a minimum 26-year term after the murder of Allison McGarrigle, wanted the court to declare them as "near relatives", allowing the calls to continue.After the pair exhausted all legal avenues in Scotland, they applied directly to the Supreme Court in London to have a full hearing heard there.

However, three of the country's most senior judges have now refused their permission to appeal application.Supreme Court justices Lord Hodge, Lord Burrows and Lord Richards ruled earlier this month that it did not "raise an arguable point of law".The killers maintained that refusing to allow the calls breached Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the right to private and family life.The pair claimed they had been allowed phone calls to each other because the Scottish Prison Service treated them as "near relatives".But Scottish ministers disputed that and said the earlier calls were to help with legal preparations for another case they were involved in.