Pauline Love Thomson has shared her account of the 1991 murder of her best friend, Diane Watson, who was stabbed to death in the playground of a Glasgow school. Ms Thomson, who was 16 at the time, was standing next to Diane when 15-year-old Barbara Glover attacked her with a large kitchen knife.
Ms Thomson helped her bleeding friend towards her home across the road, but Diane collapsed before reaching the entrance to her flat. Diane was later pronounced dead at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, and Barbara Glover handed herself in to the police.
Three months after the murder, Ms Thomson was the first to give evidence at Glover's trial. She told the court that Glover had been hassling Diane in the days leading up to the stabbing, reportedly over an ex-boyfriend. Glover was found guilty and detained without limit of time, a sentence that sparked controversy and led to campaigning articles by journalists Jack McLean and Meg Henderson.
These articles, which suggested Diane was a bully, compounded the Watson family's grief. Diane's brother, Alan, took his own life less than two years after her death, with newspaper and magazine cuttings about Diane found in his hand. Their mother, Margaret Watson, then began a decades-long campaign challenging media ethics, giving testimony at the Leveson Inquiry in 2011. Both The Herald and Marie Claire later apologised. Barbara Glover was released in 2000 after serving eight and a half years.