YOKO ONO has vetoed a film writer’s request to use the songs of her late husband JOHN LENNON in a new film about the couple’s 1969 trip to Scotland because the holiday evokes "bad memories" for the widow.

Derek Yeaman, a film location manager and screenwriter, had applied for the rights to use the Beatle’s music in the movie Mhari And The Lennons, a fictional story about the rocker’s impact on the local community. Yeaman wrote the script after discovering Lennon had become friends with a minister from the Free Church of Scotland.

But his request was turned down by Ono - who owns the rights to all of Lennon’s songs - because the couple’s trip to the nation resulted in Lennon spending five days in hospital following a car crash in the small village of Golspie. He was treated for facial injuries and received 17 stitches, while Ono had 14 for cuts to her forehead.

Explaining her refusal, Ono’s lawyer Peter Shukat said it was "not the most pleasant event" in the couple’s lives, adding: "She felt that the story would not reflect greatly on anybody and she just wasn’t happy for it. We wouldn’t authorize the licence of John’s music - and she controls John’s music. And I don’t believe without Yoko’s approval Sony/ATV would licence The Beatles’ music." Lennon was assassinated in New York in 1980, aged 40.