A former Dragons' Den star who acted as an adviser to Prime Minister David Cameron will go on trial in the new year on child sex charges.
Doug Richard is accused of three counts of sexual activity with a child and one of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity.
The charges relate to a single complainant, a girl aged 13 at the time they are alleged to have taken place in January.
Richard, 57, appeared before Judge Mark Lucraft QC at the Old Bailey for his first Crown Court hearing.
Wearing a dark grey suit and white shirt with no tie, he spoke only to confirm his name.
Judge Lucraft set a timetable for the case with a plea and case management hearing on November 27 at the Old Bailey.
The trial was provisionally fixed for five days from January 25 2016 at the same court.
Richard, of Islington, north London, was remanded on unconditional bail.
After he was charged last month, Richard issued a statement denying the allegations.
The US-born businessman said at the time: "I absolutely deny the charges against me and will contest this matter in court."
The millionaire, who appeared on the BBC's Dragons' Den in the first two series, reportedly travelled with the Prime Minister on an official government trip to Africa and advised on policy.
His association with Mr Cameron goes back to at least 2008, when the then opposition leader invited the technology entrepreneur to write a report about small business in Britain.
He founded a business loans initiative called School For Startups, alongside the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article