Nat Fraser today lost his appeal against his conviction for murdering his wife Arlene.

Fraser, 49, was jailed for a minimum of 25 years in 2003 for the killing Arlene, who vanished from the family home in Elgin in 1998. Her body has never been found.

The Elgin fruit and vegetable wholesaler had taken his case to the appeal court at the end of last year to have the conviction overturned, claiming his murder trial had been unfair and that he had suffered a miscarriage of justice.

Today at a court hearing in Edinburgh, Fraser's appeal against the conviction was unanimously rejected by three judges.

The Lord Justice Clerk Lord Gill said: "The circumstantial evidence alone constituted a compelling case against the appellant.

"In my opinion the circumstantial evidence alone was not only sufficient in law to entitle the jury to convict, but was powerful in its effect.

"I propose to your Lordships that we should refuse the appeal against conviction and continue the appeal for consideration of the sentence," he added.

The Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh heard four weeks of legal arguments last year and the appeal judges delivered their written judgment today.

Arlene Fraser

The appeal centred on evidence about rings which Fraser gave to Arlene to celebrate their engagement and wedding. The Crown's submission at the original trial was that the rings were not in the house when a police video was shot early in the investigation and that, when they reappeared on a soap dish in the bathroom nine days later, they had been put there by Fraser.

The prosecution put forward that it was Fraser's intention to create the impression that Mrs Fraser had run off to start a new life. However, the defence claimed that crucial evidence relating to the rings was not made available to the defence in court.

In the judgment, Lord Gill rejected this, saying that there was a much wider case against Fraser, including evidence from witness Hector Dick.

Lord Gill said: "There was evidence that Fraser had motives for the crime. There was evidence of his previous malice and ill-will towards the deceased. There was evidence of preparatory acts by him in setting up an alibi and in his involvement with Hector Dick on the previous night in the urgent purchase of a car with a boot when the witness Kevin Ritchie, who obtained the car, was given £50 by Dick to keep quiet.

"There was incriminating evidence in the events and circumstances, and in the demeanour and the statements of the appellant, immediately after the disappearance.

"But when Dick gave evidence for the Crown, the prosecution case was transformed. He gave evidence of premeditation; of the return of the car after the disappearance with inside it a coat similar to the deceased's and a bundle of clothing that he thought was the clothing of one of the children; and of several detailed confessions made to him by the appellant in which he described his part in the murder and in the destruction of the body.

"I therefore conclude that it was not essential to a conviction that the jury should accept that the appellant left the rings in the bathroom on 7 May; but that, if they concluded that he did, his furtiveness in doing so was a further incriminating circumstance."

Fraser was freed in May 2006, pending the outcome of the appeal, but then returned to jail 18 months later. He will now continue his life sentence.