Oyston trial adjourned as witness pleads fatigue

The trial of the tycoon Owen Oyston on rape charges was adjourned yesterday after a model he is accused of forcing into sex said she felt unable to continue being questioned.

The girl, who claims she was raped by the multi-millionaire chairman of Blackpool FC on his four-poster bed at his secluded country mansion, was being cross-examined during her fourth day in the witness box when she told the judge she felt too tired to continue.

Mr Justice McCullough adjourned the trial until next week, telling the jury that the girl felt she could not concentrate enough to face further questions. The jury of eight women and four men will travel to view Mr Oyston's home at Claughton Hall, near Lancaster, next Tuesday, before evidence resumes the following day. Mr Oyston denies raping the girl in 1989 and pleads not guilty to the rape and indecent assault of another model, said to have been 19 at the time.

Earlier the girl denied suggestions from the defence counsel, Anthony Scrivener, that she had lost her virginity the year before she claims she was raped. Mr Scrivener named a man from the girl's home town and said: "You were friendly with him and had sexual intercourse with him on two occasions in 1988." She replied: "I didn't because I was a virgin and I was raped in 1989."