Beggs to appeal limbs-in-loch verdict

Police preparing to take Beggs away after the verdict

The man found guilty of murdering a teenager and then dismembering his body is set to fight his conviction.

William Beggs was jailed for life last Friday after being found guilty of the 'limbs in the loch' murder.

Trial judge Lord Osborne ruled that he must serve a minimum of 20 years in prison before being considered for release.

William Beggs is challenging his conviction

However, on Wednesday his solicitor, Jim Keegan, lodged the official notice of his client's intention to appeal with the Clerk of the Justiciary.

Under Scots Law he now has six weeks to submit the grounds for the appeal.

Beggs was convicted by a majority verdict at the High Court in Edinburgh of murdering Kilmarnock 18-year-old Barry Wallace after a Christmas night out in 1999.

Beggs, 38 and originally from Northern Ireland, picked up the teenager in Kilmarnock, took him back to his flat in the Ayrshire town and sexually assaulted him.

Man slashed

Mr Wallace, who worked in a supermarket, was then murdered by Beggs who dismembered his body, leaving the parts in Loch Lomond and throwing his head into the sea off Troon.

After the verdict it emerged that Beggs was also jailed for six years in 1991 for slashing the leg of a man who escaped by jumping through a glass window.

It was also revealed that he was jailed in 1987 at Teeside Crown Court for murdering a barman he met in a gay nightclub by slashing his throat.

Barry Wallace was killed in 1999

However, the conviction was overturned when the Court of Appeal ruled that the judge had been wrong to allow the Crown to try him on a number of other wounding charges at the same trial.

Earlier this week police confirmed that further charges are pending concerning the murder.

Reports have been submitted to the procurator fiscal in Kilmarnock concerning two women aged 75 and 65, and a man aged 66.

It is understood that those involved are Beggs' mother and father, and another female relative.

They may be charged with attempting to pervert the court of justice due to their alleged involvement in the redecoration of a room in the flat where Mr Wallace was murdered.