TWO defendants who earlier this month admitted blackmailing two men they met via gay dating app Grindr have asked to change their pleas to not guilty.

Adam Webb and Nathanael Foster, both 25, had pleaded guilty to two charges of blackmail and were due to be sentenced at Gloucester Crown Court on Thursday.

At the hearing, lawyers told Judge William Hart that the men now denied the charges.

They asked for leave to vacate the earlier pleas and to have a jury trial.

Judge Hart said the defendants would have to put their applications in writing and the resident judge Jamie Tabor QC would consider whether to allow the changes on September 4.

Webb, of Kingsway, Qued-geley, and Foster of Wheatstone Road, Gloucester, had been on bail, but Judge Hart remanded them into custody.

It is alleged that the pair posed as underage teenage boys on the Grindr app and lured two men into a blackmail trap.

One of their alleged victims is said to have paid £15,000 to prevent them exposing his interest in underage boys.

But the other man, from whom they allegedly demanded £10,000 to keep quiet, did not pay and went to the police, it is claimed.

The two are charged with demanding £15,000 with menaces from one man and demanding £10,000 with menaces from the other in May.