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A councillor has appeared in court accused of five charges of sexual assault against a woman.

Paul Newcombe attended a hearing at Leicester Crown Court to plead not guilty to the allegations.

Newcombe, of Laundry Lane, Belgrave, is accused of sexually touching the same woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, without her consent between January 2016 and May this year.

He has pleaded not guilty to all five charges of sexual assault.

Newcombe is accused of touching the woman’s thigh with his hand between January and December 2016.

He is charged with touching her underneath her breasts with his hand between February 22 and May 1 2016.

He is accused of pressing his body up against her body on at least ten occasions between January 1 2016 and May 22 this year.

Newcombe is charged with touching her thigh on May 6 this year.

He is accused of grabbing the woman and holding her and demanding she kiss him on May 15 this year.

Newcombe has been released on bail, on the condition that he does not go within 500 metres of the complainant’s home address and he does not contact any prosecution witnesses.

Newcombe had already been suspended from the Labour Party while an internal investigation into an allegation against him was carried out.

The councillor was sent a letter on May 26 from the national Labour party’s head of disputes, in which he was given a notice of administrative suspension.

That means Newcombe, who is chairman of the council’s Adult Social Care Scrutiny Committee, is barred from holding office within the party or attending Labour meetings, although he remains ward councillor for Thurncourt, a post to which he was first elected a decade ago.

The party has stressed Newcombe’s suspension was a neutral action.

The city council confirmed Newcombe remains a member of the authority.

As well as continuing as head the scrutiny committee Newcombe, is still a member of both the Overview Select Committee and the Heritage, Culture, Leisure and Sport Scrutiny Commission.

The court case will go to trial in March next year.