Martin Compston has revealed he was accused of sending illicit texts to a woman after an imposter pretended to be him. The Line of Duty star thought he was going to be attacked when he was confronted by an angry boyfriend in a shopping centre.
The man’s girlfriend was also present and told Compston her partner had read naughty messages between the pair. The actor was bemused because he had never met the woman before and it turned out someone posing as him had been sending texts to her.
He said: “I was in Braehead shopping centre with my mates and this lassie came up to me with this hardy boy behind her. She went, ‘He knows.’ I was like, ‘Excuse me?’ She said, ‘He’s been through my phone, he found our texts.’
“This boy was growling at me. I’ll be honest, I sh*t myself. I said, ‘I’m sorry, I have no idea who you are.’ She started getting the texts up on her phone and I was like, ‘That’s not my phone number’.
“The boy was getting edgy and he was ready to knock me out. My mates were not stepping in to back me up either.”
Compston, 38, from Greenock, managed to defuse the situation by getting the woman to dial what she thought was his number while he held up his phone. He said: “I got my phone out and I said, ‘Call it,’ and she phoned it and nothing happened, my phone didn’t ring.
“So somebody has been winding her up by pretending to be me. It was then just this really awkward stand-off of him being confused and still hating me but I had no idea who they were.”
He was speaking on the Restless Natives podcast, which he has launched along with broadcaster Gordon Smart. The podcast is named after the 1985 Scottish adventure comedy film, directed by Michael Hoffman and written by Ninian Dunnett.
It follows two Edinburgh teenagers, played by Vincent Friell and Joe Mullaney, who become local heroes and tourist attractions after they start robbing buses by motorbike, armed with sneezing powder and wearing funny masks.
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