The Anchoress granted stalking protection order against Mansun’s Paul Draper

The Anchoress has been granted a stalking protection order against ex-Mansun singer and guitarist Paul Draper.

The singer, real name Catherine Anne Davies, has allegedly been sent “abusive and sexually orientated” messages by Draper whom she helped get back into songwriting a few years ago. According to the Daily Mail, a Guildford court has imposed an interim stalking protection order at the request of Surrey Police.

Barrister Kris Berlevy, speaking for the police, told the court that it was believed that Draper had “carried out acts associated with stalking, and poses a risk,” and that there were 116 pages of evidence. Draper is also accused of targeting Davies’ boyfriend.

Draper, who now performs as a solo artist, had denied launching a campaign of harassment against Davies, saying that he was not responsible for “the vast majority” of allegedly “aggressive and derogatory” messages and there was a “significant background” to any contact he had made himself.

Draper returned to the stage in recent years after working with Davies, which led to her helping him to write his first solo album, 2017’s ‘Spooky Action’. His last album with Mansun was 2004’s ‘Kleptomania’, released a year after the band’s split in 2003.

Mansun had a number of Top 40 UK songs including ‘Wide Open Space’, ‘She Makes My Nose Bleed’, ‘I Can Only Disappoint U’ ‘Six’ and ‘Closed For Business’. In 1997 the Chester-formed band’s debut album ‘Attack Of The Grey Lantern’ knocked Blur‘s self-titled album off the top spot to claim UK Number One.

Magistrates in Guildford were told in November that Davies and Draper had formerly been in a relationship and wrote songs together.

Berlevy said: “Mr Draper and Miss Davies are professional songwriters and were once in a relationship which was rekindled in 2017, before coming to an end in 2018. Since then there has been a sustained campaign by Mr Draper of emails, social media messages, and the like, against her and her partner.

“The messages take the form of abusive and sexually orientated messages, which are extensive and regular.”

Draper is prohibited from contacting Davies or her boyfriend or any of her family members, by any means, from “inciting another person to do so” or publishing any material which refers to them.

He is also expressly forbidden from signing up to any websites or subscriptions in Davies’ name or from visiting her family home or her own home. Breaking the rules could mean instant imprisonment.

The full allegations against Draper are to be heard in May. The singer-songwriter has a tour booked for March and April 2023.

Davies’ critically acclaimed and most recent album, 2021’s ‘The Art Of Losing‘, landed in the UK Top 40. It’s the follow-up to her 2016 debut as The Anchoress, ‘Confessions Of A Romance Novelist’.

She has made music with the Manic Street Preachers’ James Dean Bradfield after lending vocals to the band’s single ‘Dylan & Caitlin’ from their 2018 album ‘Resistance Is Futile’. She also played in Simple Minds between 2014 and 2018.

Earlier this year The Anchoress teamed up with Band Spectra for a new collaborative song and video, ‘Human Reciprocator’.

Last year, she shared the powerful new video for her single ‘5am’, which hears her tackle past experiences of trauma. Davies posted the official visuals amid the #ReclaimTheseStreets movement in London and across the UK at the time, following the abduction and murder of Sarah Everard by a serving police officer.

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