Former victims' commissioner Vera Baird has described David Sullivan's Sport newspapers as having used sexualised images of underage girls as 'bait for predatory men.' This spicy observation comes amid scrutiny of the papers' 'Countdown to 16' feature, which, during Sullivan's ownership, paraded models in lingerie and bikinis just before their 16th birthdays - because apparently the law only cares about toplessness, not about being creepy about it.

Sullivan, 77, announced his resignation as a director and co-chair of West Ham on Saturday, just before a joint BBC and Times investigation dropped allegations from seven women accusing him of sexual misconduct. Three women claim the former pornography baron abused his power as owner of the Daily and Sunday Sport to prey on them for sex when they were seeking work, while four others accuse him of exploitative and predatory behaviour, including trying to pressure them into sex during business meetings.

Through his lawyers, Sullivan 'categorically' denied the allegations, which the BBC and Times say span decades, starting in the 1980s and involving women in their late teens and early 20s. He added, with a straight face: 'After a lifetime spent building businesses in the adult industry, in which I have met thousands of women, it is sadly inevitable that a small number of improper conduct claims are being made against me.'

Sullivan founded the Sunday Sport in 1986 and the Daily Sport in 1991. For over 15 years, the titles celebrated models' 16th birthdays by showing them semi-naked, with some appearing in sexualised shoots weeks before the big day. One 15-year-old model appeared in the Sunday Sport photographed with just her hands covering her chest. The newspaper also printed drawings of how its readers imagined another 15-year-old girl would look topless - because nothing says 'classy journalism' like crowd-sourced pedophilia.

'The age rules are there to protect vulnerable children from exploitation, but this inverts that protection by using under aged girls in sexualised images, as bait for predatory men,' Baird said. 'It is deliberately coming as close as possible to breaking the law to show it is naughty but nice to like children. [Sullivan is] not a man who should have any safeguarding responsibilities and hard to see how he ought ever to have had control of a newspaper.'

At the time, the Sport maintained it acted legally by not showing girls fully topless until they turned 16. The law changed in 2004, making it illegal to show indecent images of anyone under 18 - so they had to find a new loophole.

Sullivan remains West Ham's largest shareholder despite his resignation as co-chair and director. The new football regulator could force him to sell his 38.8% stake in the east London club. The Independent Football Regulator (IFR), introduced under last year's Football Governance Act, is the game's independent watchdog with the power to expel any figures it considers unsuitable.

An IFR spokesperson said: 'These are extremely serious allegations. We are in contact with West Ham on this matter and will use our statutory powers to seek urgent information from David Sullivan relating to his suitability under our owners, directors and senior executives regime. We are unable to comment further at this stage.'

Former Home Office minister Alex Davies-Jones questioned whether Sullivan should have been allowed a powerful role in football given his previous business practices. Sullivan has been a prominent figure in English football for over 30 years, co-owning Birmingham City before West Ham.

Davies-Jones acknowledged Sullivan hadn't broken the law via his ownership of the Sport but said he failed to show any insight into the wider societal impact of its content. Some models who appeared at 16 said their glamour modelling careers affected their education or mental health.

Davies-Jones added: 'Times change and public cultures and attitudes move on but he himself has not seemed to have any contrition for his behaviour. That speaks to more of his character. He hasn't acknowledged how deeply troubling that behaviour, that culture [was to] us all as a society. There is no atonement, no contrition, no recognition of [how] that business model fuels a culture of violence against women and girls.'

Lawyers for Sullivan did not respond to a request for comment.