A Britpop star has been {accused} of stalking the song-writing companion who had revived his profession.
Paul Draper, 52, allegedly despatched a barrage of ‘abusive and sexually oriented’ messages to Catherine Anne Davies and her boyfriend.
The veteran rocker’s band Mansun knocked Blur off the highest of the UK album chart 25 years in the past. However after a collection of hits, the band broke up and he stopped performing.
Draper solely returned to the stage after working with rising star Miss Davies, 37, which led to her serving to him to put in writing his first solo album.
Paul Draper (left), 52, allegedly despatched a barrage of ‘abusive and sexually oriented’ messages to Catherine Anne Davies (proper) and her boyfriend
Multi-talented Miss Davies performs as The Anchoress and has performed in Easy Minds and duetted with the Manic Avenue Preachers.
She additionally has a PhD and lectures college college students in addition to being a social media guide to the celebrities.
Draper denies launching a marketing campaign of harassment towards her.
Magistrates in Guildford, Surrey, had been informed final month the musicians had as soon as been in a relationship and wrote songs collectively, work which led to him getting again behind the microphone seven years in the past. However their partnership has fallen aside, it was claimed.
Barrister Kris Berlevy, talking for Surrey Police, mentioned: ‘Mr Draper and Miss Davies are skilled songwriters and had been as soon as in a relationship which was rekindled in 2017, earlier than coming to an finish in 2018. Since then there was a sustained marketing campaign by Mr Draper of emails, social media messages, and the like, towards her and her companion.
‘The messages take the orm of abusive and sexually oriented messages, that are in depth and common.’
Draper, sitting within the dock sporting Chelsea boots, black denims and a black jacket, denied wrongdoing.
The complete allegations towards the rocker, who lives in a £500,000 flat in Weybridge, Surrey, are to be heard subsequent Could to permit him to go on tour from March to April.
However the court docket imposed an interim stalking safety order on the request of the police. Mr Berlevy informed the court docket that it was believed Draper had ‘carried out acts related to stalking, and poses a danger’, and that there have been 116 pages of proof.
The veteran rocker’s band Mansun knocked Blur off the highest of the UK album chart 25 years in the past. However after a collection of hits, the band broke up and he stopped performing. Draper (pictured in 1998) solely returned to the stage after working with rising star Miss Davies
Draper is prohibited from contacting Miss Davies or her boyfriend and supervisor Sean Adams, 41, or any of her members of the family, by any means, from ‘inciting one other particular person to take action’, or publishing any materials which refers to them.
He’s additionally expressly forbidden from signing as much as any web sites or subscriptions in her identify, or from visiting her household residence in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, or the £450,000 home she shares with Mr Adams close by in Stoke Mandeville.
Breaking the foundations might imply immediate jail. Draper denies wrongdoing, saying he was not chargeable for ‘the overwhelming majority’ of allegedly ‘aggressive and derogatory’ messages and there was a ‘vital background’ to any contact he had made himself.
Mansun’s debut 1997 album Assault of the Gray Lantern entered the charts at Quantity One, changing Blur. That they had 5 High 40 singles in a yr, together with Huge Open Area, however break up up in 2003.
Draper, initially from Liverpool, mentioned followers launched a petition calling for him to carry out once more after he produced and sang on Miss Davies’ debut The Anchoress album in 2015 known as Confessions of a Romance Novelist.
The following yr he produced his first solo album, Spooky Motion, written along with her assist, and hit the High 20.
Draper’s solo songs embrace Jealousy is a Highly effective Emotion, of which he has mentioned: ‘Jealousy in the direction of acquaintances can get uncontrolled and turn out to be very harmful.’
Miss Davies’ 2021 album The Artwork of Dropping was acclaimed by some because the file of the yr. Talking earlier than falling out with Draper, she described their writing partnership, saying: ‘I sit on the piano, Paul sits with a guitar, we shout at one another and compete to put in writing higher choruses.
‘After which he tells me that he’s higher at writing melodies, and I say I am higher, then we each write two choruses and it is like Abba went improper.’
She has mentioned she wrote a music known as Present Your Face, about her expertise of the music enterprise, including: ‘Then, the information was filled with Harvey Weinstein and these sorts who see folks as puppets.’
