Oyston rape appeal dismissed

The tycoon Owen Oyston yesterday failed in his bid to have convictions for rape and indecent assault overturned by the Court of Appeal.

Oyston, 64, slumped in the dock as Lord Justice Phillips, Mr Justice Jowitt and Mr Justice Moses in London also dismissed an appeal against his six-year sentence.

The businessman and former chairman of Blackpool Football Club was found guilty at Liverpool Crown court last year of raping and indecently assaulting a 16-year-old girl.

At an appeal hearing last month, Anthony Scrivener QC for Oyston, claimed the jury would have reached a different conclusion if they had seen material he then placed before the court. The new evidence was "sexually explicit" letters which showed she was not as vulnerable and naive as she had been presented to the jury.

But Lord Justice Phillips said the court had "no doubt" that the trial judge would have refused permission to introduce the evidence. The letters were "of no relevance to the question of whether she was raped and indecently assaulted by a man nearly four times her age".