Britain-based Indian-origin comedian Hardeep Singh Kohli has been charged with 20 charges, including multiple counts of rape and sexual offenses involving five women, and will face trial after pleading not guilty. Kohli, 57, recorded his arguments through his legal team during the hearing at the High Court in Glasgow. The trial is scheduled to begin on October 1, 2027, the BBC reports.Prosecutors allege the crimes occurred between January 2006 and June 2021. The most serious allegations involve a woman accused of repeatedly raping Kohli on multiple occasions near Glasgow and in the city’s east end between June 2020 and June 2021.The indictment alleges that the last rape occurred on June 20, 2021, when the woman was intoxicated, unconscious and incapable of giving consent.Kohli also faces four sexual assault allegations involving the same woman. Prosecutors allege he blindfolded her during one incident, spit on her during another incident and treated her with controlling and abusive behavior over a two-year period.According to court documents cited by the BBC, he is accused of demanding intimate photographs, monitoring the woman’s movements, repeatedly contacting her via phone and text, forcing her to pay him money, kicking her out of his home, arriving at her home uninvited and sending obscene photographs.Separate charges relate to four other women. Prosecutors allege Kohli sexually assaulted a woman at a BBC Scotland studio and a Glasgow hotel between 2006 and 2008. He is also accused of disturbing the peace at a restaurant during the same period.Another charge alleges he sodomized and performed sexual acts on a third woman at the Cross Keys Hotel in Canonby, Dumfries and Galloway in June 2008.Kohli is also accused of repeatedly sexually assaulting a fourth woman at the University of Edinburgh in August 2011.The final complainant alleges Kohli sexually assaulted her by holding and kissing her without consent in December 2016 at the Yes Bar in Glasgow’s East. He is also accused of repeatedly approaching her and making sexual comments.Defense counsel Sarah Livingstone pleaded not guilty on Kohli’s behalf and lodged a special defense of consent in relation to a number of charges.Kohli, a former BBC The One Show reporter and The Right Stuff panelist who has also appeared on celebrity editions of Big Brother and MasterChef, was excused from attending the hearing.