Ruling due on Alistair Carmichael election legal challenge

The result of legal action challenging the election of Orkney and Shetland MP Alistair Carmichael is due on Wednesday.

Four constituents raised the action against the Lib Dem MP under the Representation of the People Act 1983.

They claimed Mr Carmichael misled voters over a memo which was leaked before May's general election.

The result of the special election court hearing will be announced on Wednesday morning.

The election court in Edinburgh heard evidence from six witnesses over three days in November, in what was believed to be the first case of its kind in Scotland for 50 years.

The contents of the memo, published in the Daily Telegraph at the start of the election campaign in April, claimed that SNP leader and Scotland's First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, would secretly prefer Tory leader David Cameron as prime minister rather than his Labour opponent Ed Miliband.

Mr Carmichael claimed in a TV interview at the time that the first he had heard of it was when he received a phone call from a reporter.

The newspaper said the first minister's comments, reportedly made to the French ambassador, undermined claims that she wanted to build a "progressive alliance" with other left-wing parties.

Mr Carmichael - who was Scottish secretary in the Tory-Lib Dem coalition before the election and is now his party's only MP in Scotland - authorised the leaking of a civil service memo by his special adviser.

Both the ambassador and the first minister later denied the accuracy of the civil service memo.

The court heard how a Cabinet Office inquiry into the leak was launched shortly after the newspaper article was printed on 3 April.

Mr Carmichael told the court he was initially "less than fully truthful" with the inquiry.

His lawyers argued his actions were political, and did not affect his re-election.