OWEN OYSTON could be back home in time for Christmas - if his appeal against his conviction for the rape and indecent assault of a 16-year-old model is successful.

The former media tycoon and chairman of Blackpool FC was given leave to appeal two months ago. Now he faces another two-month wait until his appearance in the Appeal Court on November 24. By then he will have served 18 months of his six-year sentence

Two days have been set aside for the hearing at which Oyston, 63, will be represented by Anthony Scrivener and Antony Shaw, the team who last June won him the right to the appeal and who represented him early last year through several traumatic court hearings.

At one stage Oyston, now serving his sentence in Wymott Prison near Leyland, faced charges involving six girls. Cases involving three girls were thrown out at the committal stage and he was found not guilty of alleged offences against two more girls.

He was found guilty of the offences against the sixth girl, an East Lancashire former model known as Miss B who is now in her early 20s. They were said to have taken place at his castle, Claughton Hall, on the outskirts of Lancaster.

The appeal will almost certainly hang on new evidence which the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Bingham, agreed could now be presented.

Some of the main points of the appeal, revealed exclusively to the Citizen, are:

Miss B was never able to say when the rape took place. She could not remember the day, the week, the month, the season, nor whether it was 1991 or 1992. On the seventh day of the trial, for the first time, she said that both offences took place between October 4, 1991 and December 31, 1992 - a 15-month period.

The housekeeper at a house in Sale where Miss B and other models lived remembers Miss B being excited about the trip she had made to Claughton Hall. The housekeeper, in her affidavit, says: "(Miss B) had a distinctive accent and I could hear her say in a loud voice 'I've been up t'castle and it was great and I had a look round'."

A decision on the appeal could be made immediately, although judgment could be deferred for a short time. Oyston's wife Vicki said this week: "We believe we have built up a good case for Owen's freedom. We are confident we will be successful."

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