Author Janice Galloway ‘was harassed by former lover for 16 years’

A BEST-SELLING Scottish author is set to give evidence against her former partner amid claims that he conducted a 16-year campaign of harassment against her.

Janice Galloway, 56, was allegedly subjected to threats and abuse by Graeme McNaught.

Classical pianist McNaught, 52, is accused of leaving letters and parcels at the home she shares with husband Jonathan May and friend Alison Cameron in Uddingston, Lanarkshire.

McNaught, a world-renowned concert pianist and recording artist, will appear at Hamilton Sheriff Court in November where he will face a total of ten charges. He could face trial later in the month.

Miss Galloway and McNaught, of Mount Vernon, Glasgow, met 22 years ago as her career began to take off. They have a 19-year-old son together.

Her debut novel, The Trick Is To Keep Breathing, was followed by top sellers such as Foreign Parts, which won the £10,000 McVittie Prize for fiction in 1994.

McNaught was arrested in February following an alleged incident at Miss Galloway’s home, but he was later released as he had a recital to perform.

Now court papers have revealed that Miss Galloway could be called to testify against her former partner.

McNaught is charged with repeatedly turning up at the author’s home in Uddingston and banging on the door 
demanding to be let in.

Another incident said to have occurred in Glasgow in 1997 alleges he claimed to be the “King of Scotland” before he threatened to “walk into water” with the couple’s son.

He is also accused of following Galloway around Edinburgh’s Charlotte Square while screaming and swearing at her in August, 1997.

Other charges facing McNaught include bombarding Miss Galloway and Mr May with phone calls demanding that his son be sent to him.

Miss Galloway was the first Scottish Arts Council writer-in-residence to Barlinnie, Cornton Vale, Dungavel and Polmont prisons, and she has written and presented series for BBC Radio Scotland.

Last year she published the second volume in her acclaimed memoirs All Made Up, describing her time at Glasgow University.

The first, This Is Not About Me, concerning her childhood in Saltcoats, Ayrshire, won the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Non-Fiction Book of the Year award in 2009. The memoirs, which have been acclaimed by critics and fans alike, are now being made into a film.

Talented musician McNaught teaches piano at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow, formerly known as the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.