A Glasgow woman has failed to have herself declared legally married to her former lover in an attempt to claim a share of his will.

Laura Ackerman had petitioned the Court of Session in Edinburgh to be declared the wife of former Glasgow councillor Robert Logan by "cohabitation and repute".

Lord Nimmo Smith rejected the claim after ruling that Mr Logan and probably Mrs Ackerman did not at any time regard themselves as being married to each other.

Mr Logan, a former session clerk of Glasgow Cathedral, died at the age of 57 in accident while out hill-walking in May 1998.

Mrs Ackerman, a divorcee, had lived with Mr Logan but had moved out about a month before his death.

The judge was told by the minister at Glasgow Cathedral, the Reverend Dr William Morris, that shortly before his death Mr Logan spoke to him in "pastoral confidence" and revealed he wanted to end the relationship.

The judge said it was not disputed that in February 1996 Mr Logan asked her to marry him and bought a ring.

In March that year he put the ring on her finger during a stay at a hotel in Auchterarder.

Mrs Ackerman said she regarded it as a wedding ring and told the court: "We believed we were married, that was the job done."

Lived together

But Lord Nimmo Smith pointed out that after the hotel visit, no witness said they presented themselves as being married to each other and that the ring was a wedding ring.

In rejecting Mrs Ackerman's claim of marriage the judge said it was true that the couple had cohabited for a considerable period.

However, he said: "It is of course commonplace in modern society for couples to choose to live together without being married."

Cohabitation alone was not enough to justify her claim, the judge added.