Thanks for your replies, I have a number of strong links from .edu sites and also a link from dmoz so I doubt thats the problem. I will turn all my links into no follows then will try emailing google nicely and see what happens. Thanks for your help
Okay I have sent Google a request, will update you as things happen. One other strange thing.... I rank well in all google countries, .com, .co.jp, .ru etc. but not .co.uk? which seems a little odd. Even more so when under google webmasters its states the site is aimed at the UK market?
One major point, do you do any paid posts? payperpost, reviewme and other paid post website blogs have got a PR hatred from google recently. that may be one reason.
Nope, never touched that sort of stuff. I think its down to what happened to the site when it wasn't mine. With the links I have I would think the site should get pr4 at least, probably pr5.
Blimey, that was quick. Four days later and I have my pagerank back, and my position penalty on the google.co.uk site has been removed. Thanks for your advice! Rep added where appropriate.