Murder accused Steven Dickie has told a High Court jury how he saw his teenage lover Tasmin Glass speed off in her car from an Angus playpark as his best friend Callum Davidson “dived” through the driver’s window of Steven Donaldson’s BMW.
Dickie took to the stand at the High Court in Edinburgh for the first time to give his version of events on the night the trio are alleged to have killed the Arbroath oil worker.
He said a plan had been hatched between Glass and Davidson to give 27-year-old Mr Donaldson a “roughing up” for “hassling” his ex-girlfriend over insurance money for a written-off car.
Tyre fitter Dickie, 24, denied knowing anything about Mr Donaldson prior to the night of June 6 last year, or taking part in the events he witnessed at the Peter Pan playpark on the hill in the Angus town.
Dickie, Davidson and Glass all deny murdering Mr Donaldson on June 6 or 7 last year.
Closing the prosecution case, Ashley Edwards QC deleted an allegation within the main charge that they had incapacitated Mr Donaldson at the playpark before taking him to Loch of Kinnordy nature reserve.
A charge that Dickie and Davidson had put a kitten in a bag and punched and kicked it in Lochore, Fife, between February 1 and May 31 2017 was also withdrawn by the Crown.
Questioned by his counsel, Ian Duguid QC, Dickie said he had been in a sexual relationship with Glass, who was aged 19 at the time, for a few weeks prior to June last year, but it was not “full-on”.
Prior to the events at the playpark, Dickie said he had gone swimming at Cortachy with Glass, Davidson and Davidson’s girlfriend Claire Ogston and that Glass had been “bubbling away” in Davidson’s house.
“Callum had mentioned that this boy was giving her hassle over money,” Dickie told the trial.
He added: “As the conversation progressed I started to learn he had been seeing her.
“Tasmin was to meet him, she was going up the hill on her own.”
The accused said he was “not bothered” about the planned encounter, but told the court: “Callum was going up to give him a bit of a roughing up, a warning to back off.”
Asked about the night in question, he said Glass had dropped him and Davidson off and they had walked up to the area of Kirrie Hill.
Dickie said he saw Glass’s Vauxhall Corsa and Donaldson’s BMW sitting side by side, with the driver’s windows facing each other.
“We received a phone call from Tasmin saying to hurry up. I answered the phone and put Callum on but by that point we were only metres away, you could hear the shouting,” he said.
Dickie said he did not get his phone back until around 1am the following morning.
Davidson started running towards the BMW and “lunged” in the driver’s window, he told the trial.
“I just sort of froze, just like, leave him to it,” Dickie said.
“As he dived in the window Tasmin just took off, she left, she’s away at that point.” Dickie said the BMW then went “shooting back” and the front end spun out.
“Callum was in the car by that point, through the open window,” the accused continued. Dickie said he was “left standing”, but did not see who was driving the car and he then walked to Davidson’s house.
“I sat on the sofa and had a tin of Tennent’s,” he said, adding that Davidson returned home around an hour to an hour and a half later.
The trial continues.
Charges faced by Glass, Dickie and Davidson
Tasmin Glass, 20, Steven Dickie, and Callum Davidson, both 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.
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