Eddy Shah is charged with child sex offences

Former newspaper proprietor Eddy Shah has been charged with raping and abusing a young girl, police said last night.

The 68-year-old was charged alongside another man and a woman, both 52, at Hammersmith police station, Scotland Yard said.

All three are accused of sex offences, said to have happened in the 1990s, against the same alleged victim, then aged between 12 and 15. They will appear at Westminster magistrates' court next week.

Mr Shah, whose real name is Selim Shah, founded the now-defunct Today newspaper in 1986.

According to his website, he has now moved in to the property and leisure building business with his wife, Jennifer, and runs the Wiltshire Golf Country Club and Hotel in Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire. Mr Shah was arrested last September with four other people in relation to allegations of sex with an underage girl. Last night, he was charged with seven counts of rape of a female under the age of 16, and two counts of gross indecency with a girl under 14, Scotland Yard said. The charges – faced jointly with the woman – are alleged to have happened between 1993 and 1995. He denies the allegations.