OWEN Oyston yesterday (July 28) took a step nearer to freedom when a High Court judge in London gave him leave for a judicial review to challenge the Parole Board's refusal to set him free after he had served half his six-year sentence.

Mr Justice Maurice Kay said he felt the matter was "urgent." It is likely to be heard in September.

His wife Vicki said: "We are delighted. There hasn't been much good news in the past few years for our family but this has brightened everyone up." Dale Campbell-Savours, the Labour MP for Workington who has told the House of Commons he believes Oyston to be innocent, also welcomed the move. He had referred the case to the Criminal Cases Review Commission but it is likely to take months before they even look at it. In April, however, Oyston and his family were quietly confident that he would be released after three years of his sentence for raping a teenage East Lancashire fashion model at his home, Claughton Hall near Lancaster.

But the Parole Board felt he was unsuitable for early release on parole because he wouldn't admit his guilt.

Oyston, owner of Blackpool Football Club and believed to be worth more than £100 million, has always maintained his innocence and has therefore not been allowed to join a rehabilitation programme which would almost certainly have paved the way to freedom.

However, the High Court heard that a letter from the Parole Board indicated that they were prepared to look again at their decision.

Oyston, 65, maintains that the Parole Board's position contradicts assurances given this year by Home Secretary Jack Straw to prisoners protesting their innocence to the CCRC.

Straw wrote in the prisoners' journal Inside Times: "I must stress that the fact that a prisoner maintains his or her innocence is not an automatic bar to early release."

He said it was unlawful for the board "to decline to make a recommendation for parole on the ground that the prisoner continues to deny his or her guilt."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.