KEY POINTS:
The lawyer for Feilding's Hato Paora College principal Elvis Dobson Shepherd today indicated he would plead not guilty to nine sex charges against him.
In Feilding District Court, Shepherd, also known as Tihirau Shepherd, was committed on bail for trial in the High Court at Palmerston North following a depositions hearing.
The nine charges relate to alleged offences at Hato Paora, a Catholic Maori boarding school and in Auckland.
They date back to 1990.
Part of his bail conditions were that he make no contact -- either directly or indirectly - with anyone under the age of 17.
Police said there had been allegations that Shepherd, 46, had been trying to contact potential witnesses.
Judge Gregory Ross refused news media applications to see the written depositions, saying he did not want to see any wallowing in "salacious" detail.
Shepherd had about two dozen supporters in the small courtroom.
Wearing a dark suit, he stood impassively in the dock staring at a wall.
At an earlier appearance his lawyer Fergus Steedman told Judge Alistair Garland that Shepherd was "innocent of any wrong-doing".
- NZPA
