Bath players Michael Lipman, Alex Crockett and Andrew Higgins have each been suspended for nine months after being found guilty of missing two drugs tests, the English Rugby Football Union announced tonight.

The RFU’s disciplinary panel, chaired by Judge Jeff Blackett, are understood to have dropped charges of drug-taking at the outset of the four-day hearing in London.

But the three players were ruled to have failed on two separate occasions to provide drug tests after an end-of-season celebration in London because “they believed there was a risk of positive results”.

The suspension — reduced from 15 months because of the players’ good character and the panel’s perception of the legal advice which they took — has been back-dated to start on June 1st, the day all three terminated their contracts with

The judgement concluded: “The RFU disciplinary panel today takes no pleasure in imposing its sanction as the players involved are decent young men.

“There are good policy reasons why those who fail to take tests and those who give positive tests should receive the same sanction. There is also a need for a strong deterrent in this sanction.

“The starting point is therefore a 15-month suspension and this has been reduced because of good character and concerns about the advice they received.

“Therefore, the sanction is a nine-month suspension from playing, effective June 1, the date they resigned from Bath Rugby.”

The players have 14 days to appeal.

The RFU’s judgement takes to five the number of players from Bath to have been suspended for drug-related offences this year.

Matt Stevens was banned for two years in March for testing positive for cocaine and last month former Ulster captain Justin Harrison admitted three charges, including taking the Class A drug.

Lipman, Crockett and Higgins have vehemently denied taking cocaine from the outset and argued to the panel they had “good grounds” for not taking the tests.

But the RFU’s panel rejected the arguments and, in their verdict, questioned why the players would have avoided taking tests if they had nothing to fear.

The panel’s summing up read: “If the players had nothing to fear from taking a drugs test then they would have taken them.

“The reality of the case was that at the time when asked to take a drugs test, the players believed there was a risk of positive results.

“This was either because they knew they had ingested drugs or they had drunk so much alcohol that they could not remember whether or not they had ingested drugs.

“Each of the players therefore decided to play for time, keep out of contact and then hide behind legal defence.”

Solicitor Richard Mallett, acting on behalf of Lipman, Crockett and Higgins, said: “All three players are absolutely devastated by today’s result and that they have now been suspended from playing the game they love.

“We would like to emphasis that the charges against the players that they had actually taken cocaine were dismissed at the beginning of the proceedings.

“They are of course considering their position and feel that it would be wholly inappropriate to comment further at this stage.”