A Welsh international rugby star has been charged with assaulting the glamour model fiancée of Dane Bowers at the pop star's South Croydon home.

Ian Gough, 37, allegedly attacked Sophia Cahill - the former Miss Wales and the mother of his son - at a house in Kingswood Way in January.

Gough, who made 64 appearances for the Wales rugby union team and currently playing for London Irish, appeared at Croydon Magistrates' Court this morning charged with assault by beating.

A prosecutor described the alleged assault, said to have happened on January 4, as a "domestic-style incident".

Gough denies the charge and will stand trial before magistrates on July 29, when Miss Cahill, 30, and Mr Bowers, 34, will be summoned to give evidence.

Mum-of-two Cahill, who built a successful modelling career after being crowned Miss Wales in 2000, has one child with Gough, who retired from the sport in September but was coaxed back into playing by London Irish.

The couple split up in 2011 when the model was pregnant with their son.

Cahill, who has modelled for Playboy and starred in a N-Dubz video, made headline around the world when she posed naked at London Fashion Week while eight-months pregnant in 2012.

Former BRIT School pupil Bowers, who rose to fame in boy band Another Level, announced his engagement to Cahill in December last year.

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Bowers and Cahill announced their engagement in December

In March this year, Cahill criticised Gough on Facebook for allegedly reclaiming from child support payments the £364 cost of petrol used to travel to pick up their son.

She wrote: "Lovely to find out the fantastic CSA [Child Support Agency] are deducting £364 for the lovely Mr Ian Gough's petrol money to pick Gabriel up, disgusted he has even asked for that to be taken from Gabe to be honest.. Keep your money, your a joke, its the principle."

Gough lived in Kingston at the time of the alleged assault but has since moved to Swansea.

Bowers was given a conditional discharge after admitting shouting and swearing at door staff when his brother, also of Kingswood Way, was refused re-entry to a nightclub at a Butlins holiday camp where he had been performing last year.

He pleaded guilty to using threatening or abusive behaviour which was likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress at Chichester Magistrates' Court in February.

Gough will rejoin former team Newport Gwent Dragons in the summer.