'He doesn't deserve this': Ex-Olympic equestrian and friend of Zara Phillips hits out over 'gang rape' slur against her son after top agricultural college launches inquiry despite court case collapsing

Much of Melanie Duff’s life has exemplified a kind of elevated Cotswolds respectability.

She is a former Olympic equestrian rider who is on personal terms with Princess Anne’s daughter Zara Phillips. Together they co-owned Zara’s favourite horse.

At the same time Mrs Duff immersed herself in local politics and was elected Tory mayor of Highworth, once riding into the Wiltshire market town on horseback to open a fair.

Now she runs a livery next to her handsome farmhouse. So far, so picture-perfect.

But it was as a mother that Mrs Duff, 54, faced her greatest test.

A mother's love: Thady at home with his mother Melanie. He describes her as being 'rock solid' 

Sporting past: Melanie Duff pictured competing in equestrianism at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics

For her assured existence was fractured two years ago when her polo-playing son Thady was wrongly accused of a vile crime: the gang rape of a woman during the May Ball at the Royal Agricultural University where he was studying.

‘It was horrendous,’ she says. ‘But everyone has dealt with it in their own way. Thady was remarkable in that, when he wasn’t having to deal with it, he had the ability to put it in a box.

‘I just kept going, you just carry on with everyday life – you don’t have a choice really.’

In truth, Thady and fellow students Leo Mahon and Patrick Foster, all 22, along with their friend, James Martin, endured a two-year nightmare which only came to an end when the case against them collapsed – after the exposure of a scandalously flawed police inquiry.

Five weeks went by after they walked free, but they heard nothing from the university.

‘Personally, I think that, because it has been two years, they thought they would hear nothing more from us and it would just quietly slip away. It hasn’t,’ says Mrs Duff.

Civic duties: Mrs Duff immersed herself in local politics and was elected Tory mayor of Highworth, once riding into the Wiltshire market town on horseback to open a fair in 2010

She and the other parents wrote a joint letter to the chair of governors asking for ‘the opportunity to come in and chat about the boys’ education’.

It was only then that the university made contact. Mrs Duff received a terse reply saying this was not possible. ‘They said the boys were adults and if they wanted to speak to the college, they had to write,’ she says.

Then, after the students’ ordeal was highlighted by The Mail on Sunday last week, each received a letter warning that they remain suspended. And, in what they perceive as a final insult, must now face an ‘internal investigation’ by the university.

Thady, who was in his first year when the rape allegation surfaced, is unable to complete his studies and Leo and Patrick are unable to collect their degrees, still unaware even of the results of the final exams they sat two years ago.

They remain, then, in a form of quasi-legal purgatory, still shackled by a crime they did not commit.

How the case was reported before the case collapsed – after the exposure of a scandalously flawed police inquiry

The Mail on Sunday report last week: The four remain in a form of quasi-legal purgatory, still shackled by a crime they did not commit

Perhaps, on reflection, it was too much for Melanie Duff and the other boys’ parents to expect the university to welcome their sons back with open arms. But neither did they expect the elite institution to deliver such an ‘extraordinary’ blow.

‘It seems so unfair,’ says Mrs Duff, who observed at close hand how the saga blighted – quite possibly irreparably – the lives of the three students.

Because Leo and Patrick lived further afield they used the Duffs’ farmhouse as a base when facing court appearances and other significant moments during the case.

‘They were amazingly strong together and it is testament to their friendship that they never once fell out,’ says Mrs Duff.

Last week, Thady, Leo and Patrick spoke of how their lives and reputations had been ruptured by the false claims.

DAMNING POSTER MADE BY COLLEGE 

The poster with shots of Thady, left, Leo and Patrick

It might just as well be a ‘Wanted’ poster from the Wild West.

That at least was what Thady Duff, Leo Mahon and Patrick Foster thought when they saw that the Royal Agricultural University had made a poster featuring their mugshots.

It was accompanied by the words: ‘Banned list for 2014.’

Mr Duff said: ‘The college was preparing to put up posters, which carried our names and faces, telling everyone we were banned from the campus.’

However, the RAU insisted it was never meant to be publicly displayed or circulated. It said: ‘A document featuring the small number of students who are excluded from campus is circulated to security personnel only.’

Nevertheless a copy of the poster was then made by students and quickly went around campus. ‘Patrick got one of these himself and this was before anyone had even been charged let alone appeared in court,’ said Thady.

‘So students who didn’t know the true facts – the facts that eventually emerged in court – were obviously going to draw the conclusion that the college thought we were all guilty.

‘At the very least those posters were heavy-handed. At worst they prejudiced people against us.’

The woman, her identity protected by law, had accused them of raping her at the £85-a-head black tie ball at the university in Cirencester, Gloucestershire. They vehemently denied the allegations, but the police believed her – not them.

All four men admitted having ‘consensual sex’ with the woman on the night of the ball. And they conceded that they were in a room with her at the same time – but denied that it constituted ‘group sex’.

Part of the encounter was filmed by Thady on his mobile phone – something that he says regretfully was ‘very disrespectful’.

Then, two long years later, the officer leading the inquiry, Detective Constable Ben Lewis, was found to have ‘broken’ the trial process.

Data on the woman’s phone that shattered her story had been inexplicably withheld from defence lawyers.

Some of it related to a ‘threesome’ she engaged in at an Army barracks five months after the ball and which featured in another rape case. 

And there were other staggering breaches: texts suggesting DC Lewis was chatting up the alleged victim and that he even interviewed her in her bedroom.

Looking back, Mrs Duff says she initially assumed simple hijinks had landed her exuberant son in Gloucester Police Station.

Mildly amused by his call, she thought: ‘Oh what are you doing there? What have you done?’

The young student was struggling to articulate his predicament, and clearly in some distress and his mother gradually realised they were facing something desperate.

Mrs Duff says: ‘You eventually realise, of course, that it is serious, that it is not funny. But rape? My reaction was one of sheer disbelief.’

Loath to talk of any embarrassment she might feel at the rape case, she is also reluctant to censure her son – publicly at least – in any way.

Mrs Duff says only that ‘Thady told us what had happened and you just go with that’.

For his part, Thady is full of praise for the way his mother coped. ‘Of course I deeply regret that she had to deal with something that wasn’t of her making.

‘But her response was always more about giving a hug than a lecture. She has been absolutely great.

‘I don’t know whether mothership is a word but it should be. I feel that’s how she supported and believed in me. There were times when I told her, “Mum, you have no idea how much this is affecting me.”

‘And she would just be rock solid. That’s what mothers do. Mothers are mothers and I’m just thankful for that.’

The university said last night that its ‘regulations allow for internal investigation of any incident which may breach the university rules’.

It added that it will ‘look into the incident at the May Ball and any matters pertaining to it’.

And asked when Leo and Patrick will receive their degrees, a spokeswoman said: ‘The issue of academic progress will follow the outcome of the internal investigation.’ Thady says: ‘How can we move on with our lives when they’re still holding this threat over us?’

‘The college May Ball is next weekend and I’m sure they simply want to make certain we don’t attend. But after the experience we’ve been through none of us would go anyway.’

THE OFFICER WHO QUIZZED GIRL IN HER BEDROOM IS PROBED 

Texts seen by The Mail on Sunday suggest DC Ben Lewis (pictured) ‘chatted up’ the alleged rape victim

Our story about DC Lewis, who faces an inquiry

The police watchdog is to investigate a detective who interviewed the alleged rape victim in her bedroom.

Texts seen by The Mail on Sunday also suggest Detective Constable Ben Lewis ‘chatted up’ the woman and gave her running commentaries on the defendants’ formal interviews.

But it was the way data from her phone was withheld from the defence that caused the case to collapse.

It revealed the scale of her extraordinary sexual appetite and how she gave inconsistent accounts of a ‘threesome’ at an Army barracks five months after the alleged university rape.

Recorder of Gloucester, Judge Jamie Tabor QC, said there had been ‘serious omissions’ by DC Lewis in failing to disclose ‘game-changing’ evidence.

One of the defence lawyers accused the officer of ‘vandalising’ the trial process. 

The Independent Police Complaints Commission has now said it will investigate Gloucestershire Police’s handling of the case.

‘The IPCC will carefully examine the actions of the officers involved during both the investigation and the process,’ said a spokesman.