THE boyfriend of a Glasgow teenager found dead in her room has appeared in court accused of a campaign of abuse against her.
Angus Milligan is accused of verbally and physically abusing 18-year-old law student Emily Drouet over a two-month period.
The last alleged incident happened on March 17 last year.
Miss Drouet was found dead in her Aberdeen University halls of residence the next day.
Police launched an investigation into her death, but there were no suspicious circumstances.
Mr Milligan appeared at Aberdeen Sheriff Court, facing accusations that he assaulted Miss Drouet repeatedly at the halls of residence.
The 21-year-old, from Edinburgh, denied the eight charges and will go on trial later this year.
It is alleged on two occasions, including the day before her death, Milligan grabbed his girlfriend by the neck and choked her, leaving her injured.
On another occasion it is claimed he pushed her to the ground, again hurting her.
The student is further alleged to have punched a mirror in the presence of another girl causing it to smash and cut her.
Prosecutors claim that from January 1 to March 18 last year, Milligan also repeatedly used offensive and obscene language when either speaking to or messaging Miss Drouet.
The charges emerged just as Miss Drouet’s friends prepared to mark what would have been her 19th birthday.
One friend, Blake Herriot, took to social media to remember her friend.
He said: “So, this Saturday marks the 19th birthday of our beautiful Emily Drouet.
“Over 10 months we have gone without our best friend here beside us, and none of it has been manageable at all.”
Mr Herriot said a large group of Miss Drouet’s friends had planned to mark her birthday by attending venues in Aberdeen where pictures of her were to be displayed for all to remember her by.
He added: “We all love you so much Emily, we miss you more and more every day.
“It will just never be the same without you.”
Following Ms Drouet’s death, Aberdeen students called for improved mental health services on campus.
They wrote an open letter insisting mental health issues could no longer be “ignored and underfunded any more”.
A university spokesman replied it worked closely with the students’ association and had a number of support services in place, including counselling and the Aberdeen Students’ Nightline.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here