Ex-Paper Owner Shah Charged With Child Rape

Former newspaper proprietor Eddie Shah has been charged with several sex offences, including rape, against a teenage girl.

The 68-year-old, who founded the now defunct Today newspaper, was charged alongside a man and woman, both 52, at Hammersmith Police Station, Scotland Yard said.

The charges, said to have happened on various dates in the 1990s, all relate to the same alleged victim, who was then aged between 12 and 15 years.

Shah, whose real name is Selim Shah, from Chippenham, Wiltshire, was charged with seven counts of rape of a female under the age of 16, and two counts of gross indecency with a girl under 14, Scotland Yard said.

The charges - faced jointly with the unnamed woman - are alleged to have happened between 1993 and 1995.

Anthony Pallant, of West Malling, Kent, was charged with two counts of rape of a female under the age of 16, and one count of indecent assault on a girl under 14.

He also faces four counts of gross indecency with a girl under 16, jointly charged with the woman.

The alleged offences are said to have happened on various dates between 1991 and 1994.

The accused woman, from Kent, was also charged with aiding and abetting the rape of a female under the age of 16 by Shah.

Shah, Pallant and the woman will appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on June 7. They have all been bailed.

According to his website, Shah has now moved in to the property and leisure building business with wife Jennifer, and runs the Wiltshire Golf Country Club and Hotel in Wootton Bassett, Wilts.