Soho King Pimp faces jail

A businessman once dubbed "Britain's biggest pimp" today admitted running four companies illegally.

Oscar Owide, 72, a former business partner of Marco Pierre White, pleaded guilty to four charges of acting as a director of the companies while disqualified.

He had run the Stork Club in Swallow Street, Soho with the celebrity chef and club owner Piers Adam for six months up to May, 2002.

Both had been expected to give evidence in the trial of Owide which had been due to start today.

But this afternoon he changed his plea at Blackfriars Crown Court to guilty and was due to be sentenced later by Judge John Samuels.

He faces up to two years' jail or an unlimited fine or both.

The four companies involved are: Pearl Dan Ltd, Lincity Ltd, Perfect Burger Company Ltd and Fordingstone Ltd. He had originally faced an indictment naming eight companies in charges under the Company Directors' Disciplinary Act and the court was told today that the guilty pleas had been tendered subject to written conditions handed to the Judge.

Owide, of St John's Wood, was described as "Britain's biggest pimp" after running hostess bars, lap dancing clubs and restaurants for three lucrative decades.

The former East End hairdresser's favourite boast was that the moment he met a prospective hostess he could tell just how far she'd be prepared to go in order to secure a job at one of his clubs.

He earned a fortune through pimping, routine flouting of company law and putting his companies into liquidation owing tens of thousands of pounds to creditors and reopening them within the hour. In the 1960s, Hollywood stars, politicians and aristocrats were lured into his West End nightclubs by the mix of easy sex and underworld tinged with glamour. One foreign royal playboy paid £8,000 to a prostitute, and another sent a servant, known as "the doctor", to ferry up to eight girls at a time to his suite at the Dorchester.

But in 2002 he attempted to turn his businesses into upmarket and respectable nightclubs. He went into business with Pierre White and Adam. Owide was preparedto turn the Stork Club and the Crazy Horse in Swallow Street into a club called the Stork Rooms.

The publicity was his undoing. Enemies began to talk and his murky past, which included an 18 month prison term for VAT fraud in 1989 and being struck off as a director in 2000.

The Department of Trade and Industry stepped in to investigate whether Owide was running his old firms despite being struck off.

Sensibly, White and Adam retreated from the Stork deal.