A MAN who claimed he was wrongly jailed for the nightclub murder of a teenage girl 11 years ago, has failed in a last-ditch Appeal Court bid to clear his name.

Stephen Craven, 31, was jailed for life in 1990 after a jury convicted him of murdering 19-year-old Penny Laing at Newcastle's Studio nightclub on Christmas Eve in 1989.

Craven, then a 21-year-old unemployed glazier, was one of 1,500 revellers in the packed nightclub when a scuffle broke out near Miss Laing, described as a "happy, friendly, effervescent girl".

The prosecution at Craven's trial at Newcastle Crown Court claimed Miss Laing was fatally glassed by Craven after she slapped his face following an altercation on the dance floor.

The glass shattered on impact with her neck, severing her jugular artery and leaving Miss Laing "grievously wounded", before her attacker slipped away.

Craven's first appeal against conviction was dismissed in 1995, but his case was referred back to the Appeal Court by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, a body set up to investigate potential miscarriages of justice.

His counsel, Mr Patrick O'Connor QC, argued Craven's defence had been undermined by a failure to hold a proper identity parade and to disclose potentially vital fingerprint evidence.

In particular, he pointed to the Crown's failure to disclose to the defence team before trial forensic evidence that the sole fingerprint found on what was probable the lethal glass did not belong to Craven.

He told the Appeal Court there was a real possibility that the mystery print was that of Miss Laing's true killer and, had defence lawyers known of it, they would have "exploited it for all it was worth" during Craven's trial. He argued Craven's conviction was "unsafe and unsatisfactory".

But Crown counsel, Mr John Milford, QC, told judges there was also new forensic evidence linking Craven to a shirt worn by Miss Laing's boyfriend, David Storey, on the night of the killing.

Mr Storey had tackled his girlfriend's attacker, and sweat and blood stains found on his shirt, when compared with DNA samples from Craven, meant there was only a one in a billion chance he was not the man concerned, he said.

After a two-day hearing, Lord Justice Latham, Mrs Justice Ebsworth and Mr Justice Sullivan dismissed Craven's appeal and upheld his conviction.

Craven, who has always protested his innocence has now been released on life licence. He was not in court to hear the judges' ruling.