A neighbour of alleged murder victim Ean Coutts watched a workman loading his wheelie bin into a parked car and joked to his wife he hoped Mr Coutts was not inside.
Kevin O’Donoghue told police he looked out a window of his Kinglassie home to see a tradesman “struggling” to get the grey waste paper bin into the back of a Volkswagen Golf.
The man had been doing work at Mr Coutts’ house – either fitting a new bathroom or laying new floors – Mr O’Donoghue said.
The skeletal remains of Mr Coutts were discovered at a mostly derelict business park near Glenrothes just over a year later.
Mr O’Donoghue gave evidence at the High Court in Edinburgh on the second day of the trial against David Barnes, who is accused of murdering Mr Coutts on September 3 2019.
It is alleged he used a wheelie bin to remove the body from Mr Coutts’ home in Main Street, Kinglassie, before dumping it at Unit 99 at Whitehall Industrial Estate and attempting to set fire to it.
Barnes, 33, is accused of using bank cards in Mr Coutts’ name to make several transactions between August 31 2019 and January 23 2020, obtaining more than £7,000 of goods.
Barnes denies all 36 charges against him, including 22 counts of alleged fraud.
‘Friendly neighbour’
Mr O’Donoghue, 48, said he was not friends with Mr Coutts – also known as Ian – but described him as a “friendly neighbour.”
He said: “He was always in his garden, chipping away, he’d always say hello.”
He said a man – “tall-ish, slim-ish and always wore a baseball cap” – had been at his neighbour’s home around September 2019 to carry out work.
“This was around the time Ean went missing,” he said.
Mr O’Donoghue, a duty manager at Edinburgh Airport, said he would not be able to recognise him now and could not see him in the courtroom.
Mr O’Donoghue described the workman putting a grey wheelie bin into the back of his car, a silver Volkswagen Golf.
“I thought he was getting rid of rubble or bricks.
“It looked like it was heavier than an empty bin.
“It was only later when I took the dog out that I realised it was my bin.”
The witness told Advocate Depute Alex Prentice he texted Mr Coutts the next day, asking: “Why did that guy take my grey bin yesterday?”
There was no response.
Mr O’Donoghue told police: “I joked (to my wife) that I hoped it wasn’t Ean in the bin as he was struggling to move it – but that was a joke.”
He told the trial the workman later told him Mr Coutts had gone on holiday to Morocco and later said he had moved to England “because he was owing a lot of money.”
Village gossip
Mr Prentice showed Mr O’Donoghue a scrap of paper with his printed bank details on it.
“If this piece of paper was found at Whitehill Industrial Estate, can you offer an explanation to how it got there?” the prosecutor asked.
The witness replied: “No. Not by myself.”
Under cross-examination by defence counsel Iain McSporran KC, Mr O’Donogue said people had been gossiping about Mr Coutts’ whereabouts and rumours he had gone to Morocco or England to live with his sister had been doing the rounds.
Mr O’Donoghue’s partner Ramona Puscasu, 30, told the trial she went downstairs to ask about the missing bin.
A man “on his hands and knees” answered the door, she said.
“He was either working or cleaning,” she said.
Ms Puscasu said he told her to take Ean’s bin instead.
She said she became “suspicious” her neighbour had gone without saying anything to her or her husband and took a photo of the man in his car parked outside.
Jurors heard that in August 2019, Mr Coutts was due to receive more than £2,000 in benefit arrears.
Mr Coutts’ skeleton was found by explorers at the industrial estate on September 27 2020.
But it was months before he was formally identified.
The trial heard facial reconstruction specialists put together an image of what the dead man would have looked like.
36 charges
Barnes is accused of murdering Mr Coutts – also known as Ian – by unknown means on September 3 2019 at either a property in Main Street, Kinglassie, in Lochgelly or elsewhere in Scotland.
It is alleged he then removed Mr Coutts’ body from the house in Kinglassie using a wheelie bin, before attempting to set fire to the remains at Whitehill Industrial Estate.
Barnes faces a total of 36 charges including accusations he stole his alleged victim’s bank card and went on a spending spree.
It is further alleged he posed as Mr Coutts at Wallsgreen Medical Practice in Cardenden to get Viagra and nicotine patches on prescription.
The trial before Lord Mulholland continues.
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