JAILED tycoon and Lancastrian Owen Oyston will be driven out of the gates of Wymott Prison tomorrow morning (Friday) . . . hoping never to return.

He will be taken to Brixton Prison in south London where he will spend the weekend before his appearance at the Royal Courts of Justice next Monday morning for a two-day hearing at the Appeal Court.

Defence barrister, Tony Scrivener QC, will argue that Oyston was wrongly convicted of rape and sexual assault on a 16-year-old East Lancashire model at his home, Claughton Castle, near Lancaster .

This week, 63-year-old Oyston, at 103 million pounds Britain's richest prisoner, and his legal team have been putting the finishing touches to the appeal.

A visitor told the Citizen: "Owen is looking very well. He's very buoyant and looking forward to the appeal. He's lost a bit of weight and he's very fit because he exercises every afternoon. His hair is whiter and shorter but his goatee beard is quite pronounced. He looks fine."

Oyston's family, wife Vicki, sons Adam and Carl and daughters Heidi, Karen and Dawn will all meet up with him on Monday although Vicki is expecting to visit him in Brixton over the weekend.

It will be the first time Oyston has been outside prison walls since his transfer from Liverpool's Walton Jail to Wymott, near Leyland, in the summer of 1996 - a few weeks after he was sentenced at Liverpool Crown Court.

Several defence witnesses will be at the hearing although it is not certain that they will all be called to give evidence.

Hearing of the new evidence was allowed by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Bingham, sitting with Mr Justice Rougier and Mr Justice Kay a few weeks ago when Oyston was granted leave to appeal.

Mr Scrivener reminded them that when the trial judge, Mr Justice McCullough, was jailing Oyston for six years he described the girl, known as Miss B, as having been "young dependent and vulnerable" and that when Miss B had given evidence in 1996 about being raped in 1992 she said she had had sex only once before, with a boy at school.

In evidence she said that after the rape she spent a year trying to forget what had happened. She "hated everybody" and "hated sex." The QC said she had been "such a pathetic witness" that "several members of the jury had been crying."

The fresh evidence includes a letter, apparently written in 1992, by Miss B to a boy from Leeds whom she met on holiday in Crete. "My lord, it's a very frank and explicit letter about sexual matters," said Mr Scrivener.

Other evidence includes a statement from a housekeeper said to have worked at Miss B's Manchester model agency at the time of the alleged rape. She recalls hearing Miss B saying: "I've been to a castle and it was great. I've had a look around and I'm going there again."

The Appeal judges could announce their decision on Tuesday. They could allow the appeal, reject it or possibly order a retrial. They may defer judgment, although this is unlikely.

Britain's richest inmate could be celebrating with his family in London on Tuesday night - a free man after 18 months behind bars. Prisoner KE2535 simply refuses to consider the alternative...

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