JAILED millionaire Owen Oyston will never be allowed to move to an open prison - because he will not admit he is guilty of rape.

It's a classic "Catch 22" situation which rules that prisoners who claim they are innocent must serve longer sentences than those who admit their guilt.

"The rule is nonsensical and the decision is quite unfair", said MP Dale Campbell-Savours yesterday.

Oyston, owner of Blackpool Football Club and glossy county magazines, is serving six years for raping a young fashion model from East Lancashire, at his manor house, Claughton Hall, near Lancaster. He could have been released on parole in May if he had attended a sexual offender's treatment programme in prison at Wealstun, near Wetherby in Yorkshire.

But the tycoon, now 65, is trapped in jail by a rule that bars him from the training programme because of the millions of pounds he has spent trying to clear his name in three jury trials, two appeals and an application to the European Court.

A senior prison officer told the Parole Board in April, three years after Oyston was jailed, that Prisoner KE2535 Oyston should be released at once "regardless of any timing or politics" because of "exemplary prison behaviour".

Probation officers said even though Oyston was not allowed to take part in sex offender programmes, he is so well known around his home at Claughton Hall, Lancaster, that the likelihood of him committing any sex crimes on parole "is very low".

However, parole was refused and now the Home Office has turned down Oyston's application to be classed as a Category D Prisoner, which would have allowed him to serve the last year of his sentence in an open prison.

The Parole Board ruled Oyston "has shown no remorse for these offences" and "there is no evidence to show that he has gained insight or understanding about these offences, and there is little in consequence to indicate that he has modified his behaviour and attitudes, shown the victim empathy and developed strategies to avoid reoffending."

Lawyers are now applying for a judicial review of the Parole Board's refusal, citing a letter written by Home Secretary Jack Straw's to the prison magazine Inside Time in which he wrote: "I must stress that the fact that a prisoner maintains his or her innocence is not an automatic bar to early release...

"It is, therefore, unlawful for the Board to decline to make a recommendation for parole only on the ground that the prisoner continues to deny his or her guilt."

Mr Campbell-Savours, MP for Workington, has been following the Oyston case closely and is understood to have discussed the case at length with many involved with it.

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