Model denies affair with Oyston

A model broke down in tears yesterday when she was challenged over her claims that she was raped as a 17-year-old virgin by the media tycoon, Owen Oyston.

The woman, now 25, told a jury at Liverpool Crown Court that she had "detested" Mr Oyston, 62, from the time she first met him in a restaurant.

"He came across as being slimy and creepy," she told the court. Mr Oyston, who has wide media interests and is chairman of Blackpool Football Club, denies raping her and raping and indecently assaulting another teenage model at his mansion near Lancaster.

"He smells of Obsession aftershave by Calvin Klein. The smell now always makes me feel sick," she said.

She said that since she was raped by the millionaire she had done promotional work for Calvin Klein and it had brought back "horrible memories".

She denied she had ever been seen being on affectionate terms with Oyston. And when asked if she had ever said she intended to marry him she replied: "After he had raped me? That would be absurd."

But the woman agreed that since the alleged rape in 1988 she had met Mr Oyston on occasions in London where she had gone to work.

The woman broke down in tears as Anthony Scrivener QC, for the defence, questioned her over her early working life and the date on which she said she joined the Manchester modelling agency, Model Team, whose owner, Peter Martin, introduced her to Mr Oyston.

She said: "They have had private investigators asking my friends when I was 10 years old if I was a virgin. They have gone through my personal life with private investigators and reporters turning up . . . tearing my whole life apart."

In another tearful outburst during several hours of cross-examination, she insisted: "This incident did happen in 1988 when I was 17-years-old. Who is on trial?"

Later, as Mr Scrivener questioned her about working in a fashion shop in her home town during the time she claims the incident took place, she told him angrily: "What a waste of time."

The woman, with close-cropped blonde hair, insisted she had joined the Manchester agency while still working part-time for the fashion shop.

But she admitted that at an earlier magistrates' court committal hearing, she had lied under oath to knock two years off her age.

She told the court: "I have always lied about my age. Ask 100 people and 90 will tell you women always lie about their age.

"I am in the modelling business. Certain clients ask for girls of a certain age. Some girls would lie and make out they are younger or older to get a certain job. Girls in their thirties would say they are 23."

She also admitted to Mr Scrivener that she could not remember the day or month or the season of the year when the rape had taken place, even though she agreed it was "the most traumatic event" of her life.

The jury of eight women and four men was told during Mr Scrivener's questioning that the case was a re-trial of the allegations involving the first woman after a jury at Manchester Crown Court failed to reach a verdict on the rape charge and cleared Oyston of an accusation that he indecently assaulted her.

The case continues.