BBC comedian and former The One Show star, Hardeep Singh Kohli has appeared in court, charged with three indecent assaults and one sex attack.
Father-of-two Kohli, 55, is accused of three charges of indecent assault. He is further claimed to have committed a sexual assault, and two charges of breach of the peace.
Kohli is a former Celebrity Big Brother and Celebrity MasterChef contestant and has presented several programmes for the BBC. Kohli has not worked for the BBC since 2020.
In 2020, more than 16 individuals came forward to accuse Kohli of harassment and unwanted advances and physical contact as part of an investigation by The Times.
Kohli was runner-up in the 2006 series of Celebrity MasterChef, as well as being a housemate in 2018’s Celebrity Big Brother alongside former Arsenal midfielder Jermaine Pennant, Coronation Street actor Ryan Thomas, and former Cheers actress Kirstie Alley.
Before entering the house, Kohli said: ‘It’s better to have loved and lost than to have never gone into the Celebrity Big Brother house at all.’
The comedian’s parents came to the UK from India in 1966 and settled in London, where Mr Kohli was born in 1969.
His younger brother Sanjeev is a successful writer and actor who played shopkeeper Navid in BBC Scotland’s Still Game, while his older brother Raj was a high-ranking Sikh officer in the Metropolitan Police.
Mr Kohli studied law at the University of Glasgow. After university, he joined BBC Scotland on its graduate production trainee scheme for two years.
The award-winning comedian went on to produce children’s television for the corporation.
He went on to work in Youth and Entertainment Features as a series director in Manchester on Janet Street-Porter’s Reportage and as a roving reporter for the BBC’s The One Show.
