The husband of the novelist Janice Galloway has told a court about a doorstep confrontation he had with Graeme McNaught, Ms Galloway’s ex-lover.
Jonathan May, an opera singer, spoke to Mr McNaught, 54, after he arrived unexpectedly at the home Mr May shared with Ms Galloway on New Year’s eve in 2008.
Mr May, 53, said he answered the door to Mr McNaught but refused to allow him into the house.
Mr McNaught, a concert pianist, is alleged to have insisted on talking to his son James, but when told by Mr May that he was not at home he said: “Did that bitch send you out here?”
Mr McNaught is on trial at Hamilton sheriff court where he denies ten charges of placing Miss Galloway in a state of fear and alarm.
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Ms Galloway and Mr McNaught met in 1990 and had a six-year, on-off relationship during which they had a son, James, now aged 22. Ms Galloway is the author of best-sellers such as The Trick is to Keep Breathing and Foreign Parts.
Giving evidence, Mr May, who married Ms Galloway in 2006, said: “On Hogmanay 2008 we had guests staying, John and Phillipa Moore. We don’t have crazy new years and we were watching Jools Holland on the telly.
“James was out with his friends. After the bells we heard banging at the storm door at the front so I went to the door. Graeme was there with a woman. He said he had come to wish James a happy new year. I explained that James was not in and he said he did not believe me. I said you need to go, I think I might have told him to f*** off. He said ‘Did that bitch send you out here?’ He was referring to Janice.”
Mr May added: “We heard a lot of hammering and banging at the windows, stones were being thrown as well at the window. There was a gap in the curtains and I could see faces at the window which was quite scary, I remember seeing Graeme’s face.”
The opera singer told the court that he had received hundreds of messages and phone calls from Mr McNaught since starting his relationship with Ms Galloway. The couple met in 2002 and moved in together in 2003.
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He said: “I could tell you about emails and messages I got off him but I got so many I could not tell you the details.
“Some we kept, some we burned, some we threw away, some we tore up.”
The trial before Sheriff Ray Small continues.