The families of two of serial killer Peter Tobin's victims are calling for him to be denied the right to a court appeal.
Tobin, 63, who is serving life for murdering three young women, is challenging his 30-year sentence for killing Falkirk teenager Vicky Hamilton.
He has failed to turn up at the Court of Appeal in Edinburgh twice through illness.
Vicky`s father Michael Hamilton said it was "ridiculous" that taxpayers' money was being spent on the appeal when the killer will spend the rest of his days in jail.
He has written to Scotland`s Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill who has agreed to meet him and listen to his concerns.
Mr Hamilton and Ian McNicol, whose 18-year-old daughter Dinah was murdered by Tobin, have set up an online petition calling for offenders to be denied an appeal if they have committed two or more murders.
Vicky, 15, was abducted in Bathgate in West Lothian in 1991. Her remains were found 17 years later buried in the garden of Tobin's former home in Margate, Kent.
Judge Lord Emslie branded Tobin "unfit to live in a decent society" following his conviction at the High Court in Dundee in December 2008.
Tobin is serving another two life sentences for the murders of Polish student Angelika Kluk and Miss McNicol.
Miss Kluk, 23, was raped and killed by Tobin at a Glasgow church in September 2006, while Miss McNicol vanished in August 1991 while hitch-hiking to her home in Tillingham after leaving a music festival in Liphook, Hampshire.
