The tearful sister of oil worker Steven Donaldson has told murder accused Tasmin Glass urged the family to “stay strong” in a message sent hours after the 27-year-old’s charred body was found beside his burned out BMW at an Angus nature reserve.
Mr Donaldson’s younger sister Lori Robertson was giving evidence on a dramatic opening day of evidence in the trial of 20-year-old Glass and 24-year-olds Steven Dickie and Callum Davidson, all of Kirriemuir, at the High Court in Edinburgh .
She recalled the last time her brother waved goodbye to her the evening before his body was found in the beauty spot car park.
The jury heard it later emerged Mr Donaldson may have been setting off for a planned meeting with his girlfriend Glass, to which she said he never turned up.
Ms Robertson said she had been staying at her parents’ home in June 2018 with her young children. Mr Donladson also lived there.
She said they were a close family, telling the court her brother worked away from home for long periods, earning a “good salary” which had allowed him to buy cars and motorcycles, as well as two flats in Arbroath and another in Aberdeen, which he rented out.
On the evening of June 6, Ms Robertson said Mr Donaldson had been out playing in the garden with one of her children and was “fine, his usual self.”
“I remember Steven waving up and that was the last time I saw him,” she tearfully told the jury.
Ms Robertson was asked if she had met her brother’s girlfriends at the family home and said she had seen Glass there “a few times”, having originally met her in early 2018.
On the afternoon of June 7, a friend of Steven’s came to the family home to say no-one had heard of him since the previous day but they were aware from the news that a body had been found in Angus.
She said: “I spoke to the police. Police told me that if I thought he was heading towards Kirrie and was going to meet Tasmin Glass I should contact her and get her details.”
Ms Robertson made contact through Facebook Messenger that afternoon, telling the court: “She (Glass) told me that she had arranged to meet him and he didn’t turn up.”
The witness said Glass had told Mr Donaldson not to come to her house but go somewhere else. When she got there, he was not there, she had said.
“She said that they had been arguing recently. She said that when he didn’t turn up she assumed he had changed his mind or gone in a huff,” the witness added.
“She said she tried to contact him that day and hadn’t had any response, which she thought was strange.
“She said ‘Don’t cry, you need to be strong and she asked if I wanted her to come through to Arbroath and I said no.”
In another message later that day Glass said: “OK, love you all, please stay strong.”
Ms Robertson told the trial she subsequently went to identify her brother’s body.
Police officer tells trial of charred and mutilated body
Kirriemuir-based police officer PC Paul Hosking told the trial he had been in Forfar police office at 5am on June 7 when they received the report of a body being found.
He and a colleague were the first officers at the scene and he said he could see a male lying beside the burnt out car.
“He was badly charred,” the officer told the trial, adding that the man’s lower legs also appeared to be missing. The officer also noted large lacerations to the man’s back and neck.
“I went around the vehicle to check there were no other casualties,” he said.
“The registration plates were not there, I don’t know if they had been removed or were charred by the fire.”
PC Hosking said emergency protocol procedures were then immediately put in place, including an inner cordon around the car park and an outer cordon at the B951 junction in Kirriemuir which he went to man.
The opening witness of the trial told how she had come across the macabre scene of Mr Donaldson’s burned body lying beside his charred BMW in the car park of the Angus reserve just before 5am on the morning of June 7 last year.
RSPB warden Victoria Turnbull, 37, had gone to the Kirriemuir site for a bird survey and told advocate depute Ashley Edwards she initially thought the burned car might have been fly-tipped after similar problems at Loch of Kinnordy.
Jury shown images of burned-out car and dead body as nature reserve murder trial begins
The witness said: “Just as we pulled into the car park we realised there was a car that had been burnt out. We had had rubbish left there before and thought it was fly-tipping.
“When we pulled in further we realised there was somebody on the ground.”
“I realised the person was dead so I stepped away and started to call the police.”
The jury was show a 3D visualisation of the site, 360 degree photographic panorama and aerial footage of the car park showing the car and Mr Donaldson’s body lying beside one of the front wheels.
They also heard the brief 999 call made to police by Ms Turnbull reporting the grim discovery.
The witness said Mr Donaldson’s car was “very well burnt”.
A minute of evidence between the Crown and defence for the three accused has agreed that Mr Donaldson was the owner of a BMW 1-series, registered S73 VED, and Glass the registered keeper of an orange 13-plate Vauxhall Corsa.
It has also confirmed that Mr Donaldson died as a result of sharp force trauma to the neck, according to a post mortem examination.
The trial, before Lord Pentland and a jury of eight women and seven men, is expected to last 18 days.
THE CHARGES.
The charge faced by all three accused alleges that between June 6 and 7 2018 at the Peter Pan playpark, Kirriemuir and Loch of Kinnordy nature reserve car park, they assaulted Mr Donaldson and arranged to meet him with the intention of assaulting him, and once there repeatedly struck him on the head and body with unknown instruments whereby he was incapacitated, and thereafter took him to Loch of Kinnordy where they repeatedly struck him on the head and body with a knife and baseball bat or similar instruments, repeatedly struck him on the head and neck with an unknown heavy bladed instrument and set fire to him and his motor vehicle, registered S73 VED, and murdered him.
Dickie and Davidson face four other charges including one of behaving in a threatening manner towards two men between January 2014 and June 2018 by making threats, following them on foot and in a motor vehicle, presenting weapons and acting in a threatening manner.
They are also charged with putting a kitten in a bag in Main Street, Lochore, Fife on an occasion between February 1 and May 31 2017, swinging the bag about and punching and kicking the kitten; behaving in a threatening manner towards a man in St Malcolm’s Wynd, Kirriemuir and elsewhere between December 1 2017 and February 28 2018 by following him on foot and in a vehicle, and threatening him with weapons.
Both also deny following and staring at a woman and kicking her car in Kirriemuir between August 1 2017 and April 31 2018.
Davidson faces a further charge of assaulting a man between June 1 2017 and December 31 2017 at a house in Glengate, Kirriemuir by pushing him to the floor and threatening to punch him.
Dickie is also accused of assaulting a woman at the Ogilvy Arms pub in Kirriemuir between February 1 and 28 last year by seizing her by the wrist and neck and threatening her with violence.
