A COURT heard that 'witness nobbling' charges brought against rock star Bryan Ferry's son - in connection with an alleged robbery at a Stow fox hunt - will be dropped.

Prosecutor, Stephen Dent, told Gloucester Crown Court that Otis Ferry, 26, of Eaton Mascott, Shropshire, would no longer be charged with perverting the course of justice by telling his former groom, David Hodgkiss, not to give evidence against him in a robbery and assault trial.

Ferry and John Deutsch, 55, of Ebrington Farm, Chipping Campden, are jointly charged with robbing hunt monitor Helen Ghalmi of a camera and assaulting her during a Heythrop Hunt meeting near Stow in November 2007.

Ferry was to have been tried last September but his trial was aborted when the ‘witness nobbling’ allegation arose He subsequently spent four months in prison before being bailed to await trial.

Police also arrested Ferry's girlfriend, Francesca Nimmo, 22, along with Adrian Simpson, 53 - the Countryside Alliance’s Welsh director - and a third person on suspicion of perverting justice.

They have been on police bail waiting to discover if they will be charged.

But Mr Dent said: "There has been a lot of painstaking police work carried out as far as the perverting the course of justice charges are concerned and it has been looked at very carefully.

"Those enquiries reveal a number of inconsistencies which mean that the Crown, at the moment, offers no evidence on that count.

"Essentially, we want to put that indictment on ice and I make a commitment in court today that if there are no changes in the material circumstances we shall not proceed as far as that matter is concerned.”

Bailing Ferry and Deutsch to a date to be fixed, Judge Martin Picton described the situation as “farcical”.

He ordered the lawyer in charge of the case, Kerry Barker, who was not in court, to attend a future hearing to explain the prosecution’s decision.