Off The Ball stalker shock for author Val McDermid

Fife crime writer Val McDermid was left horrified on national radio after being contacted by her stalker.

The shocked author was appearing on BBC Radio Scotland’s Off the Ball show when she was asked to answer a written question by someone calling themselves Sandra Botham.

Botham was ordered to stay away from the novelist after throwing ink on her at a book signing at Sunderland University in 2012.

She later claimed that McDermid had got facts wrong in a book that she believed had referred to her husband’s murder in 1990.

The question was read out by Off the Ball stand-in host Graham Spiers, with the 59-year-old writer replying: “I’m not answering that.

“Sandra Botham has a restraining order not to come within 100 yards of me.”

The subject was dropped and the show continued.

Botham claimed the reference to her husband’s murder appeared in McDermid’s 1994 novel A Suitable Job for a Woman.