THE businessman, Owen Oyston, was jailed for a total of six years yesterday after a jury found him guilty of raping a terrified 16 year old model and of indecently assaulting her.
The chairman of Blackpool Football Club stood frowning in the dock at Liverpool Crown Court as Mr Justice McCullough told him he was guilty of "horrendous offences", for which he had to serve a jail term. Oyston's lawyers said they would be investigating the appeal process.
The jury of eight women and four men took eight hours 21 minutes to unanimously find Oyston guilty of raping the teenager in a three in a bed sex session at his isolated country home in 1992. Half an hour earlier he had forced the girl to perform oral sex on him as they were driven to his house.
The jury cleared the multi millionaire media magnate of the rape of a second model, then aged 18, three years earlier.
Oyston's wife Vicki (56) a former beauty queen whom he remarried in 1988 six years after divorcing her, showed little emotion as the two sets of verdicts were returned. She leaned across to her husband in the dock to try to catch his eye before listening intently as the judge sentenced Oyston, a former estate agent.
As Oyston was being led from the dock, he mouthed the words "I love you" to his daughter Heidi, who was in the public gallery.
Oyston denied all three charges during the four week trial. He claimed he was the victim of a long running "dirty tricks" campaign being waged by two former Tory government ministers. He claimed Lord Blaker, a former defence minister, and ex sports minister, Mr Robert Atkins, conspired with Mr Bill Harrison, an influential Blackpool millionaire, Ito try to destroy his business empire. The men deny the claims.
Unknown to the jury at Liverpool Crown Court, Oyston had first appeared in court facing sex charges involving six young women. A stipendiary magistrate in Manchester last year ruled that he had no case to answer on charges that he raped one girl and indecently assaulted two others.
Then in February he entered the dock at Manchester Crown Court for two trials. The judge ordered that neither case should be reported until verdicts were delivered on all the charges against him.
In the first trial, the jury could not decide on the allegation that Oyston raped Miss A, although it cleared him of indecently assaulting her in a separate alleged incident. The rape charge was ordered to be re tried before the jury at Liverpool.
Three weeks later another jury cleared him of raping a 20 year old model who claimed he had sex with her as she slept in his suite at the Hilton Hotel in London.