The Labour Party last night ordered an investigation into why a convicted rapist who is also a millionaire businessman was invited to attend a fundraising evening at Wembley.
In an embarrassment for the new Prime Minister, who promised to impose a new moral compass on Labour, Owen Oyston was invited to pay £10,000 for a table at the event, which was hosted by Gordon Brown and his predecessor, Tony Blair.
The businessman, a former chairman of Blackpool Football Club, was jailed in 1996 for the rape of a 16-year-old girl at his mansion in Lancashire.
The trial judge at the time described the offence as “horrendous” and said that Oyston had not shown a hint of remorse. The court was told that he lured his victim to his home while she was working as a teenage model. Oyston, a prominent Labour-supporting donor prior to his conviction, was released in 1999.
Last night, after Newsnight confronted the Prime Minister with the matter. Mr Brown ordered the Labour Party’s general secretary to launch an investigation.
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A spokesman for the Prime Minister said: “Mr Brown did not meet Mr Oyston, nor was he aware of his presence in advance. Mr Brown has asked the general secretary of the Labour Party to investigate the circumstances, but he has already instructed him that any donation from Mr Oyston should not be accepted.”
The development will cause acute embarrassment for the Prime Minister coming so soon after he took office and with the cash-for-honours investigation, which tainted Tony Blair’s last days in office, still rumbling on.
The Labour MP Stephen Pound, who attended the fundraiser, described the disclosure as “downright embarrassing”. He said: “He shouldn’t have been there and somebody is going to have to explain why he was.”
The Wembley function had been presented as an opportunity to celebrate a decade of sporting achievement, with celebrities such as the Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson and the cricket umpire Dickie Bird in attendance. The cash-strapped Labour Party had hoped to raise at least £500,000 from Thursday’s event to help to put it on an election footing.
Mr Oyston’s office confirmed last night that he had been invited to take a table at the event. A spokesman said that because Mr Oyston had a lot of companies he thought it might be useful to attend.
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The rape of the girl took place at his 50-room mansion in Lancashire in 1992, when he was 58. At the trial, the court was told he lured his victim to his home while she was working as a teenage model at the agency run by Oyston’s friend and one-time business associate, Peter Martin.
Mr Justice McCullough said at the sentencing that Mr Oyston had hoped to use his power and influence to save himself and had forced the girl, who was aged 20 at that time, to go through the ordeal of a trial.
He said: “I am, however, prepared to assume you hoped that your advantages, age, wealth and position would influence her to agree to what you wanted. When it came to it, she didn’t and it must have been obvious she did not. As she so accurately put it, ‘He treated me like an object and I am not.’”
Packages for Thursday’s fundraising event started at £1,000. It also marked a brief return to domestic politics by Tony Blair. A signed copy of the Alastair Campbell diaries, The Blair Years, was snapped up for £60,000 after it was signed by Mr Campbell, Mr Blair, Mr Brown and John Prescott. The day before, a copy signed by just Mr Campbell and Mr Blair went for £8,000.
Speaking before dinner, Mr Blair joked about his difficulty in coming to terms with his life after Downing Street.
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He revealed that after following a decade in office he needed to be taught how to use a mobile phone. When the former Prime Minister finally managed to fire off a text message, he was somewhat bemused to receive one back that said: “Who are you?”
Losing the trappings of power have also affected Mr Blair’s travelling habits. He confessed to becoming confused every time his driver stopped at a red light — because as Prime Minister he used to go straight through them.
Mr Brown also spoke, roving across the stage with a microphone attached to his lapel. The Prime Minister said that he had already experienced his first row with Alistair Darling, but did not say what it was over.
The Oscar-winning film producer Lord (David) Puttnam — of Chariots of Fire fame — made a special film of the event to be distributed on DVD to guests.