The father of former Premier League and England footballers Gary and Phil Neville has appeared in court charged with a sex assault.
Neville Neville, 63, did not enter the dock but instead stood behind his solicitor advocate, Simon McKay, for the brief, two-minute hearing at Bury Magistrates' Court.
Neville, looking tanned and wearing a dark suit, white shirt and blue tie, stood and spoke only to confirm his name, address and date of birth.
The subject of the sexual assault is believed to be a 46-year-old woman.
No plea was entered by the defendant, of Bury, who was told the alleged offence could only be heard before a jury and must be sent to Crown Court.
District Judge James Prowse asked Neville to stand and granted him bail on condition that he does not enter the Bulls Head pub in Bury and told him he must appear for a preliminary hearing at Bolton Crown Court on July 1.
Neville left court without comment but his solicitor advocate Mr McKay said: "Mr Neville is accused of sexual assault and appeared before Bury Magistrates' Court this morning for the purpose of the case being transferred to the Crown Court.
"He denies the allegation fully. Beyond this, because the matter is proceeding to trial, there can be no further comment."
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