Killer bids for release

The three men want to be released from Carstairs

A child killer from Northern Ireland has begun legal action in an attempt to secure his release from the high-security state mental hospital in Scotland.

Brian Doherty, 26, from Strabane in County Londonderry was transferred to Carstairs State Hospital in Lanarkshire from prison after killing an 11-year-old boy.

Doherty battered Kieran Hegarty to death then mutilated him before burying him in a shallow grave near his Strabane home five years ago.

He is now seeking to be put back into the mainstream prison population.

Doherty has begun legal action, which invokes the European Human Rights Convention, along with two other killers Alexander Reid and Karl Anderson who want to be freed from Carstairs.

Kieran Hegarty: Murder victim

Their lawyers told three judges at the Court of Session in Edinburgh, that emergency legislation brought in by the Scottish Parliament to close a loophole that led to the release of another killer from Carstairs, was incompatible with the convention.

The Mental Health (Public Safety and Appeals) (Scotland) Act of 1999 was the first piece of legislation brought in by the new Scottish Parliament following an outcry over the release of killer Noel Ruddle.

Ruddle shot a man dead with a Kalashinov rifle.

The action is being brought before Scotland's most senior judge, the Lord President, Lord Rodger, sitting with Lady Cosgrove and Lord Philip.

It could also secure Reid and Anderson an absolute discharge if it proves successful.

The government is opposing the move and maintains that Reid and Anderson, along with Doherty, should be kept in Carstairs and that his continued detention is lawful.

The case is being heard at the Court of Session

The court heard that the three killers accepted that there was serious risk that their appeals for release would fail under the emergency legislation brought in by the parliament.

But they are now seeking to have the legislation declared unlawful by the court because it was outwith its "legislative competence".

Junior counsel for Anderson and Reid, Simon Collins, said that debate on the provisions of the 1999 act had been "restricted" and the new law effectively provided for preventive detention of people who were not treatable.

It was argued that treatability of a mental condition was the essential basis for admission and lawful detention of a person in Carstairs.

The action before the three judges has been set down for three days of legal debate.