American business magnate Martha Stewart has been denied entry to the U.K. due to her criminal record. She planned to make a visit to the Royal Academy of Arts in London and carry out several other engagements in Britain. However, her past, tainted by a 2004 conviction for lying to prosecutors about a stock sale, has led to the UK Border Agency refusing her visa.

A UK Border Agency spokesman told BBC that the government continues to deny entry in the United Kingdom to individuals who have been found guilty of serious criminal offences abroad. Stewart served five months in prison.

Martha Stewart was recently in Poland, where she recently expanded her business empire. She attended the launch of her Martha Stewart Living magazine, now published locally in Polish. She is of Polish ancestry and she was born Martha Helen Kostyra. Her parents were middle-class Polish Americans.

Martha Stewart is dating billionaire Charles Simonyi. The two have been together for more than a decade. Her criminal conviction stems from a sale of all her 3,928 shares of ImClone in late 2001, just a day before the stock value fell 16 percent. She was tipped off by Peter Bacanovic, Stewart's broker at Merrill Lynch, that the company's CEO was also selling his shares because the FDA was expected to issue a ruling against ImClone.

Apart from serving five months in jail and five months of home confinement, Stewart paid a fine of $30,000 and was further banned, following a 2006 settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, to serve as a director, or as the CEO, CFO and all similar jobs at any public company. The ban is in effect for five years.