Diane Watson’s best friend speaks about 1991 Glasgow school murder

Thirty-five years after 16-year-old Diane Watson was stabbed to death at her Glasgow school, her best friend Pauline Love Thomson has spoken publicly about the attack and its long aftermath in a new BBC Scotland podcast.

Love Thomson, who was also 16, was beside Diane in the playground at Whitehill Secondary School when 15-year-old Barbara Glover attacked her with a kitchen knife. She helped carry Diane across the road to her family’s flat. Diane’s father tried to revive her, but she was later pronounced dead at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, according to the BBC. [1]

Love Thomson said she had not understood how badly Diane was hurt as she helped her. “I just put my arm around her shoulder because I hadn't actually appreciated the damage that the knife would have done,” she recalled. [1]

At Glover’s trial three months later, Love Thomson testified that Glover had been hassling Diane in the days before the stabbing. She said she later learned Glover believed Diane had been seeing her former boyfriend. Glover told the court she had been bullied by Diane for more than a year; Love Thomson and other witnesses disputed that account. The jury found Glover guilty. Because she was under 16, she was detained without a fixed release date. [1]

The sentence prompted campaigning articles by journalists Jack McLean and Meg Henderson, who argued against children being detained indefinitely. The BBC reports that their accounts relied on Glover’s claim that Diane had bullied her, and that McLean also characterised Diane’s family as relatively privileged. Diane’s parents, Margaret and Jim Watson, felt the coverage besmirched their daughter. Both publications later apologised. [1]

Diane’s brother Alan, who was close to her, died by suicide less than two years after her murder. Love Thomson said newspaper and magazine cuttings about Diane were found with a note expressing his wish to be with his sister. Margaret Watson went on to campaign for press accountability and gave evidence to the Leveson Inquiry in 2011. [1]

Love Thomson said she wanted to speak about Diane and Alan as people, rather than “just the names in the newspapers”. She and her husband, Andy Thomson, have been together for 34 years; he was Alan’s best friend.