A convicted serial rapist has been accused of running an “unhinged” hate campaign against late comedienne Janey Godley before she died. Aaron Stewart, 48, is alleged to have taken to Twitter to falsely portray Janey as a wealthy property owner who supported the IRA. He is also accused of mocking her by dressing up as her and posting a photo online.
Stalking accusations and trial background
Staunch Tory Stewart has also been accused of stalking others online, including comedian Scott Agnew, a close friend of Janey, who was 63 when she died of cancer in 2024. The trolling accusations against Stewart emerged after a trial at the High Court in Edinburgh, where he was found guilty of 17 offences against five women, including 10 crimes of rape.
The former wine waiter at Rogano restaurant in Glasgow rubbed shoulders with well-to-do diners, including politicians, lawyers, actors, and comedians. But his secret life as a serial abuser of women emerged in a trial which heard of a series of sex crimes committed in Edinburgh, Glasgow and overseas.
Comedian's account of abuse
Comedian Scott Agnew said he’d been regularly targeted on social media by ex-friend Stewart. He said: “Aaron’s conviction is shocking but not surprising. My heart breaks for women who fell prey to him and his horrific crimes. He spent 10 years abusing, harassing, and threatening Janey and myself online, across multiple platforms. It amounted to almost round the clock abuse at times. We sensed he was a danger but I don’t think we could have imagined such abhorrent crimes on this scale.”
Scott said he was appalled to be targeted on a day where it was revealed he’d had a heart attack and three cardiac arrests. He added: “He tweeted vile abuse while Janey was dealing with her terminal cancer. He only stopped when he was arrested and charged for sex offences, then he disappeared offline. He became obsessed with Janey and every public appearance or media coverage she got would prompt him into furious tweets serving insults or making baseless claims she was antisemitic or she raised money for the IRA. There’s a picture of him dressed up as Janey at one point too, recreating her online profile picture at the time.”
Scott claimed the attacks from Stewart were rooted in his pro-Union views. He said: “He was a member of the Scottish Tories, staunchly pro-Union and despised the Indy movement and the SNP – particularly Nicola Sturgeon, Humza Yousaf and Janey. He was cheered on and encouraged by the Unionist online mob. The day he was attending the birth of his first child he was still tweeting at Janey from the labour suite while wearing a T-shirt with #ResignSturgeon on it. That’s when you realise this was someone who had crossed a line into something much more sinister.”
Alleged tweets and criminal convictions
Scott said Stewart’s tweets were “unhinged and fantastical”. One, he claims, accused him, along with Janey and late comedian Stu Who?, of being leaders of a Communist cabal. He added: “It was utter nonsense. At one stage it got so bad Janey said she compiled a list of his tweets and was going to meet police.”
The comic said he’d met Stewart in 2003-4 when he managed a now closed gay bar in Glasgow called Icon. He added: “He became an unwanted acquaintance. He was a crashing bore that never shut up and your heart sank when you saw him coming and you dreaded getting stuck with him.” Scott claims the pair fell out after he asked staff to eject Stewart and a pal from one of his gigs, due to them being inebriated and disruptive. He added: “I heard nothing of him until the following year he saw an online picture of me in George Square. It’s then his campaign of abuse started before widening to Janey. We assumed all Aaron’s hate only existed online but it’s clear he was a monster in the real world too.”
Stewart’s alleged abuse was so bad Janey incorporated him into her live act. In June 2024, Janey tweeted a clip from a gig in Belfast, where she referred to Stewart’s claims her husband supported the IRA, which she denies. She entitled it “My husband and the IRA story live from Belfast.” In it, she tells an audience: “A guy on the internet said my husband was in the IRA. He went ‘naw, and I’ll tell you why. I don’t like a balaclava. I don’t like a fabric on my face’.”
The High Court in Edinburgh heard Stewart subjected a series of victims to rape and sexual assault between 2008 and 2024. Stewart denied a series of charges but a judge told him: “You have been convicted of charges of rape, sexual assault and indecent conduct against five young women.” Stewart told the court he worked at the Rogano as a waiter before being made restaurant manager at 21. He became an expert in wine and befriended well-off patrons of the restaurant, which shut during Covid.
Stewart indecently assaulted and raped his first victim at a Glasgow flat in 2008, choking her and pulling her hair. He indecently assaulted a second woman at a club in the city in April 2009. He carried out a sex attack on the woman and raped her in September that year at a flat in Glasgow while she was intoxicated and incapable of consenting. Another woman was subjected to repeated rapes between 2019 and 2021. And another victim was attacked in Edinburgh, Spain, and Morocco. One rape victim told the court that, during an assault: “He forced me to look at him, saying ‘look at me’.”
Lord Young put Stewart on the sex offenders register and remanded him in custody. He will be sentenced on November 6.
