Four men have been cleared of raping a woman at a college ball at the Royal Agricultural University after their trial collapsed on the day it had been due to open.

Prosecutors at Gloucester crown court offered no evidence against Thady Duff, 22, James Martin, 20, Leo Mahon, 22, and Patrick Foster, 22. Duff, Mahon and Foster were students at the college in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, while Martin, an apprentice farrier and amateur jockey, was visiting them.

All four were accused of raping the woman at an end-of-year ball in May 2014. Their trial had been to begin two weeks ago but was delayed by issues surrounding the late disclosure of evidence to the defence by the prosecution.

Cleared (left to right): Thady Duff, 22, James Martin, 20, Leo Mahon, 22, and Patrick Foster, 22. Photograph: Andrew Matthews/PA

Lawyers for the men expressed concern that the charges had hung over them for so long. In court Edward Henry, for Martin, described the case as “one long exercise in confirmation bias.” He accused officers of “airbrushing” and “cherry-picking” evidence. Henry added: “We need to know the answers to some questions. Why this should have gone on for so long as it has?”

Prosecutor Fiona Elder said: “The decision was made that there was no longer a reasonable prospect of conviction and therefore in the circumstances it was not for the crown to pursue this case to trial.” She said the head of thesouth-west rape and serious sexual offences unit had informed the complainant and her family. The men were formally found not guilty.

Martin said he had been devastated to be arrested when he was 18 and had struggled with the threat of a heavy jail sentence hanging over him for almost two years.

He said: “It’s been so hard. It’s always been there, it’s never gone away. I can breathe a bit now. It’s taken it’s toll at college, I’ve failed exams. I look at people differently now, a bit paranoid. It’s harder to trust anyone.”

The allegations were made after the £85-a-head Mad Hatters’ May Ball at the internationally renowned Royal Agricultural University in 2014.

Police investigated and the four were charged. A jury was sworn in and the trial was about to get under way almost two years after the alleged attacks. The accused denied the offences.

But during legal argument before the prosecution could open its case, lawyers for the men said the proceedings should be halted. The court was told the police had disclosed on the eve of the trial that the woman had appeared as a witness in another case in which a member of the armed services was accused of rape five months after the events of the May ball night. She had allegedly given conflicting accounts of that incident and the defendant was cleared.



The defence barristers also complained that they had not been given access until just before the start of the trial to text messages that seemed to suggest the complainant had consented to sex at the ball.

Eleanor Laws QC, representing Duff, Jane Bickerstaff QC, for Mahon, and Kieran Vaughan QC, representing Foster, said they would be seeking to recover their clients’ legal costs following the collapse of the trial.

Bickerstaff told the court: “We are very grateful that no evidence has been offered. We have had no information as to why that decision was reached or why it took 13 months to decide to charge.”

A hearing will be held at a later date to consider defence legal costs.

A police spokesperson said: “We are waiting to hear the specific detail of the defence’s criticisms of the police so it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time.

“This was a complex investigation involving many different parties and one that we worked on in cooperation with the Crown Prosecution Service. I‘m sure the public understand that gathering all the information possible when serious allegations are made is vital but inevitably takes time.”

The Crown Prosecution Service said: “The CPS has a duty under the code for crown prosecutors to keep cases under continuous review. During the course of legal argument at the beginning of this trial, information came to light which meant that we were no longer satisfied that there was sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction.”



The complainant was not available for comment.

The university was known until 2013 as the Royal Agricultural College. Founded in 1845, it was the first agricultural college in the English-speaking world.

