A co-accused in a High Court murder trial told her mum she was still in love with the ex she allegedly killed, just hours on from the grim find of his beaten and burned body in an Angus nature reserve car park, it has been claimed.
As jurors heard Tasmin Glass had given birth to a baby boy since being charged with Arbroath oil worker Steven Donaldson’s murder, her mother, Wendy, told the Edinburgh jury there was “no way” her only child was involved in the crime.
Mrs Glass, 54, said she asked her daughter in the days after the Kinnordy discovery if she had played any part in the 27-year-old’s death.
“She said no – we believed her and we still do,” freelance magazine journalist Mrs Glass said on the sixth day of the trial against her daughter and Kirriemuir co-accused Steven Dickie and Callum Davidson.
From the witness box, Mrs Glass said she was currently looking after her daughter’s 13-week-old son, after Glass, then aged 19, said she was expecting just days after Mr Donaldson was found.
Mrs Glass told the trial she had first met the Arbroath man around October or November 2017 when he came to their Kirrie home, and described things between him and Tasmin as “just a normal, happy relationship”.
In winter 2017, Tasmin moved to Glasgow to be nearer the band she was singing in and Mrs Glass said there were then “quite often arguments” between the pair.
Asked about June 6, the day before Mr Donaldson’s body was found, the witness said her daughter had arrived home just after 11pm.
The following morning her daughter sent her a message wishing her parents a happy 30th wedding anniversary.
Around 4.30pm Mrs Glass was contacted by her daughter saying she was in the back of a police car near the road to Kinnordy, because they thought Steven’s body had been found there.
On the way to Dundee police HQ, Mrs Glass tried to reassure her daughter the body would not be Steven. “She said to me she had been supposed to meet Steven at the top of Kirrie Hill, but he wasn’t there. She couldn’t understand why he would be at Kinnordy, because as far as she knew he didn’t know where that was.
“She said to me ‘I think I still love him’,” the witness said.
The trial continues.
Charges faced by Glass, Dickie and Davidson
The charge faced by all three accused – Tasmin Glass, Steven Dickie and Callum Davidson – alleges that between June 6 and 7 2018 at the Peter Pan playpark, Kirriemuir, and Loch of Kinnordy nature reserve car park, they arranged to meet Mr Donaldson with the intention of harming him and assaulted him. Once there, they repeatedly struck him on the head and body with unknown instruments whereby he was incapacitated. Thereafter, they 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, then 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.
They are also charged with putting a kitten in a bag in Main Street, Lochore, Fife, during an incident between February 1 and May 31 2017, swinging the bag about and punching and kicking the kitten.
Another charge includes 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.
He allegedly pushed him to the floor and threatened 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.
He allegedly seized her by the wrist and neck and threatened her with violence.
This article originally appeared on the Evening Telegraph website. For more information, read about our new combined website.