OWEN Oyston, who has spent three-and-a-half years in jail for rape, could be home by Christmas. But he wouldn't put a fiver from his £100 million fortune on it.

A date has finally been set for a new Parole Board hearing - but he doesn't think the result will be any different from last May when his application for release on licence was turned down.

That refusal was ruled 'unlawful' at a judicial review in the High Court on October 13 and the judge ordered the Parole Board to look again at the case 'as a matter of urgency'.

Now a new hearing has been fixed for December 2.

The first chance he will have for release is next May .

Oyston, 65, told a friend who visited him in Wealstun Prison, Yorkshire that he did not believe he would be released a day earlier than necessary because politicians didn't want him to start stirring up what he calls 'the conspiracy that put me here'.

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