JAILED tycoon Owen Oyston has launched a last ditch attempt to be freed from prison.

The flamboyant millionaire's legal team has launched a High Court challenge to a parole board decision not to release him.

The businessman, 65, of Claughton Hall near Lancaster, was jailed for six years in 1996 for the indecent assault and rape of a 16-year-old model.

The tycoon has always protested his innocence and maintained that it was a political conspiracy to discredit him.

Prisoners are only given parole if they confess their guilt and express remorse for their action's and Oyston's team claim he is caught in a Catch 22 situation.

In July, Oyston's lawyers successfully won leave to challenge this criteria in the High Court.

His counsel, Beverley Lang, said that the Parole Board failed to take into account Oyston's exemplary conduct in prison, his age and ill health. She said at the preliminary hearing that Oyston had never been in trouble with the Courts before his conviction for rape.

While in prison, Oyston had proved to be a co-operative prisoner holding classes for fellow inmates in business skills. He is also the current table tennis champion at Wealstun Prison.

They hope to get the parole board decision quashed to secure an early release for the millionaire.

Oyston said: "I am quite convinced that the powers that be won't let me out until I have served the maximum time. I am a problem to many politicians of both parties because I was a victim of a political conspiracy."

If he stays behind bars until May next year then he will have served four years for the rape, which is alleged to have taken place at Oyston's luxury home at Claughton Hall near Lancaster in 1992.

At the High Court Mr Stephen Kovatz for the Parole Board said Oyston had "shown no remorse for the offences."

Said Mr Kovatz: "He is saying I've not done anything to apologise for or be remorseful."

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