LIMBS in the Loch murderer William Beggs has lost a legal challenge against a decision not to release him from prison on parole.
Beggs was jailed for life in 2001 after murdering Barry Wallace, 18, and dismembering his body at a house in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, in 1999.
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The 60-year-old disposed of body parts of the teenager in Loch Lomond and in the sea.
He completed the 20-year minimum term of his sentence in December 2019 and the Parole Board for Scotland refused his application for release the following month.
Beggs, who has so far cost the taxpayer more than £1 million in legal challenges, launched a petition for judicial review against the decision at the Court of Session in Edinburgh.
In their decision, the parole board said Beggs presented a “high risk of sexual reoffending” and had refused to undertake “offence-focused work” while in prison.
Beggs’s legal team argued that too much weight had been placed on a psychological risk assessment carried out on him in 2015.
Judge Lord Richardson refused the petition and said he was “entirely satisfied” that the decision met the legal test.
In his ruling, he said: “The three principal reasons for the Tribunal’s decision were: first, the horrific nature of the offence, second, that, as a result of his refusal to undertake the ‘Moving Forward: Making Changes’ course, the petitioner had unaddressed needs; and, third, that the petitioner not been tested in less secure conditions.
“By contrast, the 2015 Assessment is simply referred to in the decision as being one of the factors which the Tribunal ‘took into account’.
“The petitioner’s argument fails properly to take account of the nature of the task which the Parole Board requires to carry out.
“Ultimately, the critical question to be asked in assessing the reasoning of the Tribunal’s decision is that the well informed reader should be in no real and substantial doubt as to the reasons for the decision and the material considerations that were taken into account in making it.
“I am entirely satisfied that the Tribunal’s decision meets this test.”
A claim by Beggs that the decision was unlawful and breached human rights laws because the tribunal had not acted as an independent and impartial court was also rejected.
Beggs – who is serving a life sentence at HMP Edinburgh – has always maintained his innocence but the Court of Criminal Appeal has previously ruled that there had been no miscarriage of justice.
He believes there is evidence that may assist his claim and has made repeated legal challenges to recover CCTV footage from cameras located in Kilmarnock town centre on the night of his victim’s disappearance and information about a potential witness.
Supermarket worker Mr Wallace vanished on 5 December 1999, after a Christmas night out with colleagues in his home town of Kilmarnock. He was last seen in the town centre.
A jury found Beggs took the teenager to his flat and subjected him to a serious sexual assault. He then murdered him and cut up his body.
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Shortly after the crime, Beggs fled to the Netherlands. After lengthy extradition proceedings, in January 2001 he was ordered to be returned to Scotland to face trial.
He has become a serial litigant while behind bars and has lodged a string of appeals and complaints over his treatment in prison.