Oyston's £100 million

The newspaper that once crossed him and was forced to pay him a million in libel damages and costs still classes him as one of Britain's 500 richest people.

And he is certainly the only member of that exclusive club who sleeps every night in a prison cell.

But the paper that put him 289th richest in 1995, 387th richest in 1996, when he was jailed for the rape and indecent assault of a 16 year old model girl, has now dropped him down to joint 461st in the list.

They reckon his fortune has been static for the last three years, at 40 million pounds.

No doubt Dr Philip Beresford, the scholarly author of the Rich List read about the two million pounds that Oyston spent on his top-drawer defence, during three long Crown Court trials last year.

But Dr Beresford missed the latest news. Thanks to Oyston's present predicament, his wealth has just been recalculated.

And the word in Wymott is that it's jumped, "Up to more than £100 million", shooting him to 152nd in the Rich List, just above Beatle George Harrison.

This snap re-assessment was forced on the jailed tycoon when lawyers for the model girl landed him with her shock £500,000 claim for damages.

Actions by her solicitors forced Oyston accountants and lawyers to organise a new valuation of his shareholdings in magazines, radio stations, stock market companies and his ownership of Blackpool Football Club, the family castle, family farms and their agricultural land.

Much of the farmland has been purchased since he began his six-year jail sentence, but its value is rising.

His eldest son Karl is now one of Lancashire's most progressive big-time, semi-organic farmers.

His father, 61, the oldest prisoner in Wymott and still "F" Wing table tennis champion, has not been granted leave to appeal against his sentence.

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