A 24-year-old Stourport man who denies burgling a school has had his trial put back for the preparation of DNA evidence.

Mark Hewitt, of Manor Lane, pleaded not guilty at Gloucester Crown Court in September to stealing a Panasonic CD stereo and a laptop computer from Tewkesbury School on September 16 last year.

At that hearing a trial date was fixed for October 24 but on October 13 Hewitt's defence barrister, Jonathan Challinor, asked a judge to take the trial out of the list to give the defence time to instruct a DNA expert.

The prosecution case was based on a cigarette butt found by the window of a classroom, said to have his client's DNA on it, Mr Challinor said.

Hewitt's defence would be that he shared the cigarette with another person or that another person touched the cigarette after him, Mr Challinor said.

"It is my submission that we require an independent expert to examine the cigarette butt and express an opinion on the circumstance in which a person's DNA other than the defendant's could come to be in the cigarette," he added.

Mr Justice Steel agreed to take the trial out of the list and re-fix it at a later date.