Steven Dickie told police: “I never touched the boy” in a five-and-a-half hour police interview which ended in him being charged with the murder of Steven Donaldson.
As the trial of Dickie and co-accused Callum Davidson and Tasmin Glass entered its third week at the High Court in Edinburgh, the jury of eight women and seven men were played a lengthy recording of his interview with detectives at police headquarters in Dundee.
The session stretched into the early morning of June 15 last year – eight days after the discovery of the 27-year-old oil worker’s body at Kinnordy RSPB nature reserve.
On the recording, Dickie was asked about the night of June 6 and said he had walked to Kirrie Hill, where he saw co-accused Davidson “lunge” into Mr Donaldson’s white BMW in the car park.
When questioned about how he felt, Dickie said: “Sick”.
He told police Davidson drove off in the car, but he denied being personally involved and said he had watched from a path near the playpark, before walking back to Davidson’s home where he slept on the couch all night.
Asked by police who had hit Mr Donaldson, Dickie said: “I never touched him. Use your imagination.”
Detectives pressed him to say who it was and he replied: “I can’t do it, I’m not doing that.”
He was asked: “Was it a trap that went badly wrong?”
Dickie replied: “Yeah.”
He told police Davidson had taken Mr Donaldson to Kinnordy, but that he only learned that when his co-accused returned home during the night.
“He used some sort of bat thing with something sharp on the end of it,” he added.
Asked further about his involvement at Kinnordy, he told police: “I never laid a hand on him.”
Asked“Why are you still covering for him? (Davidson)”, Dickie replied: “Because he’s my best friend.”
Detectives said: “He (Davidson) is a bully. Do you think he would do the same for you?”
“I don’t know,” the accused said.
The court heard Dickie and co-accused Glass were involved in a physical relationship at the time of the alleged killing, and had sex days prior to the discovery of Mr Donaldson’s body at the rural beauty spot.
Dickie denied a suggestion that Glass had said he was jealous, insisting: “I’m not. It’s only been a few weeks. It’s far too early for all that.”
When asked by police what he was scared of, Dickie replied: “Just everything. I don’t want to go to jail.”
He was charged with the murder of Mr Donaldson just before 5.30am and responded: “I understand the charge. I did not murder him. I did not hit him.”
The trial continues.
THE CHARGES
The charge faced by the accused Steven Dickie, Callum Davidson and Tasmin Glass 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.
