Huntsman Otis Ferry set for Crown Court

Rock star Bryan Ferry's son Otis Ferry, a prominent campaigner against the law that made fox-hunting illegal, has been charged with trying to nobble a prosecution witness due to give evidence against him in a robbery case.

Cheltenham magistrates have sent Ferry to the Crown Court on two charges of intending to pervert the course of justice. He is alleged to have telephoned David Hodgkiss, a groomsman, and "instructed him not to provide the police with certain evidence in relation to an allegation of robbery". On a separate occasion, he is accused of threatening to "discredit Hodgkiss as a disgruntled employee".

Ferry, 25, lives at Eaton Mascot in Shropshire where he is joint master of the local hunt. This is just his latest brush with the law: in 2004, he famously led a group of pro-hunt protestors who burst into the House of Commons while MPs debated whether to ban hunting with dogs. It led to tightened security arrangements in the Palace of Westminster.

The original robbery case against Ferry - in which he is charged with robbing a woman hunt monitor of a camera and assaulting her during a meeting of the Heythrop Hunt in Gloucestershire last November - has been adjourned.