OTIS Ferry will appear at Gloucester Crown Court this month after a judge refused to delay the rock star’s son’s robbery and assault trial.

Gloucester Crown Court was told police witnesses who may be vital would not be available on September 15 – and one of Ferry's alleged victims would also have difficulty attending.

But Judge Martin Picton said the problems were not significant enough to delay the trial, which has been set since May.

Ferry, son of the musician Bryan, denies robbing Susan Grima of a video camera and car keys on November 21.

He has also pleaded not guilty to common assault, on Helen Ghalmi, on the same date.

The allegations against Ferry, of Cross Hands, Easton Mascott, near Shrewsbury, arise from an incident when two women were monitoring the activities of the Heythrop Hunt in the North Cotswolds last November.

The two women were filming the Hunt at Lower Swell, near Stow-on-the-Wold, to ensure foxes were not being pursued.

The application to delay the trial came from prosecution barrister Martin Lanchester.

He told the court that neither the officer in the case, nor another officer with knowledge of it, would be available on the scheduled trial date.

“I have had an email from the officer in the case which says there is nobody else who can deal with this because he is the only officer dealing with investigation of illegal hunts in the office,” he said.

But Judge Picton said the case was not about hunting – it was about whether Ferry had been correctly identified or not.

Mr Lanchester said there was also a problem with alleged victim Ms Ghalmi attending to give evidence at the scheduled time.

“She is moving home and has made contact with Witness Care about attending on that date as she is running an animal rescue centre. It will take two weeks to transfer animals from one address to another,” he said.

But Judge Picton said he was not persuaded that the difficulties would prevent the trial going ahead, as Ms Ghalmi had said only that it would be difficult, rather than impossible, for her to attend.