Media tycoon Eddy Shah held over sex allegations

Eddy Shah, the newspaper owner who first took on the might of the British print unions in the early 1980s and arguably blazed the trail that allowed Rupert Murdoch to sack his print workers and decamp his newspapers to Wapping, has been arrested at his Wiltshire home on charges of having sex with an underage girl.

Metropolitan Police officers picked up the 67-year-old Shah, three other men and a woman who is believed to be the girl's mother. The charges relate to alleged offences that took place before 2003, when the girl, who is now in her 20s, was aged between 13 and 15.

A police spokesman said: "On 20 September officers from the Metropolitan Police Service arrested five people in connection with historical allegations of offences under the Sexual Offences Act 1956. All are being interviewed at local police stations. All of the alleged offences occurred before 2003."

Shah became a national figure in 1983 when he stood up to union pressure at his Warrington newspaper group. A major stand-off ensued which saw Shah face personal harassment at his home – he claimed on one occasion that the unions had sent two large and three small coffins round to his house for his family.

After seven months he eventually won the stand-off by using anti-union laws enacted by the Thatcher government – the same laws which would later be used by Murdoch to get rid of his union printers and move his various newspapers to Wapping.

Shah then set out to launch a national newspaper. Today hit the newsagents in 1986 as the country's first full-colour tabloid and featured Alastair Campbell as its political editor, his partner Fiona Millar as news editor and Brian McArthur as its first editor.

Technical difficulties plagued its early months, but it forced other newspapers to make more use of colour and computer photo-setting. It limped on under various owners until it was finally closed by News International in 1995.

Shah wrote a series of novels before getting involved in owning and running golf courses. ·