A BLUNSDON student was one of four who denied rape and other sex offences against the same woman on the night of last year’s May Ball at the Royal Agricultural University.

They appeared at Cheltenham Magistrates' Court and were granted conditional bail pending trial at Gloucester Crown Court.

Their first appearance at the crown court will be for a preliminary hearing on August 6.

Thady Duff, 21 of Stubbs Hill Farm, Blunsdon, faces four charges of rape and one of sexual assault by penetration at the university on May 24 last year.

He is also accused of sexual assault of the same woman at the university between October 1 and 31, 2013.

He is also charged with possession of extreme pornographic films showing a person having intercourse with a woman between May 18 and 25 last year.

Leo Mahon, 21, of Lawrence Road, Cirencester, is charged with four offences of rape and one of assault by penetration when he was in a room in a student accommodation block on the campus on May 24 last year.

Patrick Foster, also 21 and of Lawrence Road, Cirencester, whose family home is in Maldon Road, Kelvedon, Essex, has been charged with two offences of rape and one of assault by penetration in the same residential room.

James Martin, 19, of Yew Tree Barn, Hook Norton Road, Swerford, Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, faces two charges of rape and one of assaulting the woman by penetration, in the same room on May 24, 2014.

Paul Morris, representing Duff, Mahon and Foster, said they all denied the charges. Laura Porteous, for Martin, said he did too.

They did not object to bail conditions being set.