ALEX Salmond has appeared in court in relation to a series of alleged sex crimes against ten women while First Minister.
The former first minister appeared before Lady Stacey at the High Court in Glasgow for a preliminary hearing.
The proceedings cannot be reported for legal reasons.
Mr Salmond previously appeared at preliminary hearings before Lady Dorrian in January and in November.
Mr Salmond, 65, has entered a not guilty plea to all 14 of the charges he faces and has said he will “vigorously” defend his position.
A four-week criminal trial is scheduled to start on March 9.
The former First Minister is accused of one count of attempted rape, one of sexual assault with intent to rape, ten other counts of sexual assault, and two counts of indecent assault.
The alleged incidents date from June 2008 to November 2014, and nine of the charges relate to alleged incidents at Bute House, his former official residence in Edinburgh.
The indictment alleges Mr Salmond attempted to rape a woman at Bute House in Edinburgh in June 2014.
The former MP and MSP is also accused of sexually assaulting a woman with intent to rape in December 2013.
Mr Salmond was First Minister from 2007 to 2014, resigning after the independence vote.
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