A publicly-funded charity has been called on to remove the name of an acclaimed novelist accused of being a serial rapist from its title.

The Koestler Trust, named after the controversial Arthur Koestler, helps prisoners participate in the arts and has received over £68,000 from Creative Scotland in the last three years.

However, Dr Mairead Tagg, Scotland's leading expert in gender-based violence, said the Trust should drop Koestler’s name because he was a “monster” who deserved to “fade into obscurity”.

READ MORE: Bust of 'serial rapist' Arthur Koestler is still on view at Edinburgh University

Born in Budapest in 1905, Koestler was a Hungarian-British author and journalist who wrote some of the most powerful books on totalitarianism in the twentieth century.

In Darkness at Noon, his most celebrated work, Koestler wrote a brutal allegory on Stalinism and the misery of Soviet communism.

Other novels, such as The Gladiators and Arrival and Departure, were not as revered but helped cement Koestler’s reputation as a key voice in 20th century literature. His journalism for the Observer also fuelled the case for the abolition of capital punishment in the UK.

In the 1960s, he set up an annual arts award for prisoners and a steering committee named the scheme after him.

READ MORE: The life and times of Arthur Koestler

The awards were later formalised into a charity - the Koestler Trust - which has lived on ever since and attracts public funding from a range of bodies. Koestler died in 1983.

However, the novelist’s reputation was severely damaged in 1998 following claims in a biography of him by the acclaimed historian David Cesarani.

In The Homeless Mind, Cesarani wrote: “It was on one of these outings that Koestler raped Jill Craigie, the wife of his friend Michael Foot, MP. On 4 May he rang up excitedly announcing that he had decided to settle in England and wanted to go to an ‘English pub’.”

Cesarani gave an account of what happened after Koestler insisted that Craigie, who was half-Scottish, make him lunch at her home: “After the meal Koestler helped to wash up. When the last plate was done and Craigie set down the dish cloth he ‘suddenly grasped my hair, he pulled me down and banged my head on the floor. A lot’.”

He added: “Dick Crossman [another former Labour MP] later told Foot and Craigie that Koestler ‘was a hell of a raper; Zita [Crossman’s wife] had a terrible time with him’. Koestler had beaten and raped women before; over the next few years it would be almost a hallmark of his conduct.”

READ MORE: Bust of 'serial rapist' Arthur Koestler is still on view at Edinburgh University

After the book was published, Craigie told a newspaper: “It was ethically right that the truth should come out. I knew then that it wasn’t only me, because Cesarani had other evidence of violence,” she said.

“I never expected to be believed. But I did expect Arthur Koestler to be had up. I used to look through the Sunday papers, waiting for it. I thought that some woman was bound to report him to the police. I thought that he wouldn’t get away with it, but I was wrong.”

On not revealing the attack sooner, Craigie said: “It would have been the end. I had just made a film and was the first woman film director, Michael was famous, imagine the headlines. No woman could have stood that. I couldn’t have done that to Michael.” Craigie died in 1999. Michael Foot died in 2010.

After the controversy erupted, Edinburgh University removed a bust of Koestler that had been on display in the public area of the psychology department.

It has also been claimed that Koestler may have bullied his third wife into a suicide pact in 1983. He had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease, but his spouse, who was much younger than him, was healthy.

Despite Koestler’s reputation taking a posthumous nosedive, his name lives on in the charity his work inspired.

The Koestler Trust charity, which has a strong reputation in the arts world, recorded income of £789,635 in 2015/16, of which £708,178 was spent. It runs an awards scheme, stages exhibitions and oversees mentoring and outreach work. The Trust website also explains how individuals can become a “Koestler Mentor” or a “Koestler Friend”.

READ MORE: The life and times of Arthur Koestler

Public funders include Arts Council England and the National Offender Management Service, both of which are based south of the border, but also Creative Scotland.

The Scottish arts quango has provided the Trust with £68,162 in recent years for a festival showcasing and celebrating creativity in Scottish criminal justice and secure settings.

However, questions have been raised about the Trust continuing to rely on the name of a man accused of brutal and criminal behaviour towards women.

Tagg, a registered clinical psychologist who is renowned for her expertise in domestic abuse, said of the original allegations: “I am horrified to read this information about Koestler - it makes for very ugly reading. What is most astonishing is the casual acceptance that this man regularly beat and raped women, and that nobody in his circle even thought of the impact on his victims or reporting him to the police.

“I am forced to take the view that his name should be removed from the charity. I'm delighted that it's doing a really good job, however if his name continues to be honoured and his predatory and violent behaviour ignored, it's just another message to women that rape is acceptable, and that the suffering of his victims pales into insignificance against the importance of the perpetrator's status."

She added: “The time for silence about abusive behaviour of talented people is over. Silence is collusion and rape victims still experience significant issues getting justice. Koestler was a monster and he deserves to fade into obscurity - in spite of his prodigious writing ability - as the only mark of respect and justice we can afford his victims at this stage.”

Mhairi McGowan of ASSIST, which is a Domestic Abuse Advocacy Service, said: "There is no doubt that this charity does good work, however using the name Koestler gives a continuing public profile to a serial rapist, something which is unacceptable and ill-judged and contributes to the normalisation of rape in our society."

Sally Taylor, who is the chief executive of the Koestler Trust, said the novelist was a “controversial figure” and said it was “perfectly possible” that some of the allegations were true.

However, she said he was “most known” for his literature and said of the Trust's continued use of Koestler in the title of the charity: “We stand by the name.”

Creative Scotland did not provide a comment.