Murder accused Tasmin Glass has made an absolute denial she saw the father of her unborn baby on the night she is alleged to have been involved in his killing.
On the 18th day of an Edinburgh High Court trial, the 20-year-old singer said Steven Donaldson was a no-show to a meeting they had arranged for the Peter Pan playpark at Kirriemuir Hill to discuss their relationship and the supposed hand over of £1,000 she was due him from a car insurance payoff.
Co-accused Callum Davidson and Steven Dickie – who Glass was in a sexual relationship with at the time of the alleged murder in early June last year – have both told the trial Glass sped off from the scene just before they launched an attack on the 27-year-old Aberdeen oil worker.
His spinal cord was severed twice in a fatal attack and his beaten and charred body discovered beside his burnt out high-performance BMW at Loch of Kinnordy nature reserve, near Kirrie on the morning of June 7 last year.
Giving evidence on her own behalf, Glass told her defence counsel Mark Stewart QC, she had never been involved in any trouble with the police.
Referring to 19,000 pages of data culled from Glass’s mobile phone in the inquiry, Mr Stewart asked: “Did any of that infer you were willing to get involved in violence?
She replied: “I’ve never been involved with violence and I’ve never gone through a third party to inflict violence.”
Glass told the court Mr Donaldson had been texting and calling her during the evening of June 6 and she agreed she had told Davidson not to tell Dickie it was her ex on the phone.
“I knew Steven Dickie wouldn’t be happy,” she said. “Steven’s very huffy.”
She also admitted she heard Davidson make a phone call to a man called Colin Chalmers saying Mr Donaldson was coming through from Arbroath and was going to be given “a hiding”.
Glass told the trial: “I shook my head. I didn’t believe he was going to do anything.
“I thought Callum was being the big man.”
Glass accepted she had driven Davidson to his uncle’s house where, jurors have been told, a baseball bat was picked up, but she denied seeing that being brought into her car.
“If there was anything there I would have seen it and I would probably have made a sarcastic comment and asked him why he had got that,” she said.
She told the court she had asked Steven Dickie if he would be able to “speak” to Mr Donaldson.
“He was only going to speak to Steven if I asked him to, if I needed him to,” she said.
“I believe we probably would get back together, but I just didn’t want to argue,” she said.
She said she was trying to put the meeting off that night and also did not want Mr Donaldson to come to her home in Kirriemuir.
“We probably would have both played happy families, but my mum and dad thought I was seeing Steven Dickie so I didn’t really want another boy round.”
She also agreed she had indicated to Mr Donaldson she was on her way home from Glasgow, but had been in Kirriemuir throughout the time they were in contact that day.
“I couldn’t just say I was in Kirrie because I had to maintain that lie,” she said.
When Glass told her ex in a text she “had everything” for him to collect, she indicated that he replied: “I guess it’s over then”.
But she told the QC she believed Mr Donaldson was keen to talk about rekindling the relationship.
“He was more interested in seeing me than money,” Glass told he trial.
Mr Stewart said: “It is suggested, I think, you formed a plan with Mr Dickie and or Mr Davidson, both of them, either of them, to do harm by way of violence to Steven Donaldson on June 6.
“Standing here, in front of his family, your family, this jury, did you do that?”.
She replied: “No, I didn’t.”
The QC asked her: “For £1,000 would you enter into a pact to hurt somebody?”.
She replied: “No, I wouldn’t do that for any money.”
Charges faced by the three
Tasmin Glass, 20, Steven Dickie, and Callum Davidson, both aged 24, all from Kirriemuir, face a charge of murdering Mr Donaldson at Loch of Kinnordy between June 6 and 7.
It is alleged they assaulted him at Kirriemuir’s Peter Pan playpark, having arranged to meet him there, repeatedly striking him with weapons before taking him to Loch of Kinnordy, where they repeatedly struck him with a knife and baseball bat or similar and a heavy, bladed weapon and set fire to him and his car.
Dickie and Davidson face a number of other charges including two of threatening men by following them and presenting weapons on dates between 2014 and last year.
They are also accused of staring at a woman and kicking her car in the town of Kirriemuir between August 1 2017 and April 31 last year.
Davidson faces a further charge of assaulting a man between June 1 2017 and December 31 2017 at a house in Glengate, Kirriemuir.
Dickie is accused of assaulting a woman at the Ogilvy Arms pub in Kirriemuir between February 1 and 28 last year.
