The Steven Donaldson murder trial has heard the alleged victim told accused Tasmin Glass “If I can help you I will”, just weeks before his death.
Day 18 of the trial at the High Court in Edinburgh on Monday heard his pledge came after the then 19-year-old girlfriend, with whom he was trying to get back together, had sent a text saying she had f***** everything up”.
The court heard this was in reference to her falling behind with the rent for her flat in Glasgow, where she moved to in order to cut down on travel for rehearsals with her band.
The text was one of several jurors were told about during cross-examination by Crown counsel Ashley Edwards.
However, Glass told the court: “I was never with him for his money.”
She also said she would never have allowed Mr Donaldson to travel to Kirriemuir if she believed he was going to come to any harm on the night of the alleged attack last June.
Glass was initially asked by the prosecutor if she was “quite a confident person, someone that deals with stress quite well”.
“No, not at all,” she responded.
Turning to financial matters, Glass was asked if she was in “a little bit of conflict” with her parents about money by the period around April 2018.
She said: “A little bit. I had money troubles, had overspent on a credit card and that led to an argument.
“I know my mum and dad would have helped me. I just didn’t want to disappoint them,” she added.
The court heard Glass had begun seeing murder co-accused Steven Dickie at the beginning of May and Mr Donaldson had sent her a message telling her to transfer money she still owed him, or he would message Glass’s mum directly.
“I told him not to,” the accused said.
She said she still harboured a hope that her relationship with Mr Donaldson would continue.
It was put to her that one of the reasons for this was that money would not become an issue.
“No, not at all,” she said. “If I wanted the money I would have just gone to my mum and dad and they would have just given me it.”
Jurors also heard about another text conversation on May 22 in which Mr Donaldson revealed the “crazy money” he had been offered in a new job, amounting to a package worth around £135,000.
In response to questioning by the advocate depute, Glass repeated her position that she had known nothing about any weapons on the night of June 6.
“If I knew there was any chance of that, I would not let Steven Donaldson come through, especially with him being the father of my child,” she said.
The QC put it to her: “There was a plan for the three of you to act together.”
“No,” Glass replied.
She described June 6 as a “nice night” and said she had just wanted to go swimming with her friends.
“I didn’t want to argue with Steven Donaldson,” she said.
“I think me and Steven would have got back together. I still loved him.”
Asked about her vehicle movements in the minutes after 11pm, she said she had gone into the car park at the Peter Pan playpark and saw a red Ford Fiesta sitting there with a single male driver inside, but no other vehicle.
It was put to Glass that a period of around a minute which she said she spent at the junction on the road leading to the playpark was “a convenient lie” to account for earlier phone and CCTV evidence.
Glass responded: “Steven Donaldson wasn’t there, Callum Davidson wasn’t there and Steven Dickie wasn’t there.”
The advocate depute also asked if she had been in contact with Dickie on
June 7.
She told the trial they had discussed whether she was going to the Angus Show that weekend.
The trial has already been told that two days after the discovery of Mr Donaldson’s body, Glass went to a Marti Pellow concert in Fife with her boss.
When asked how she was, Glass replied: “Upset. I’d put a face on it. I wasn’t going to go crying all night. That wouldn’t have been very good for her birthday night.”
Glass “missed out lots” in statements to police
Tasmin Glass admitted she had been a “coward” on the night of June 6 last year when she failed to tell Steven Donaldson she did not have the £1,000 she was supposed to hand over to him at Kirrie Hill.
Under cross-examination by Dickie’s senior legal counsel, Ian Duguid QC, she also admitted she had “missed out lots” in witness statements given to police before she was charged with murder.
The first was taken on the day her ex’s burned and beaten body was found at the Loch of Kinnordy Nature Reserve.
She agreed she had told police Dickie – with whom she was having a sexual relationship – had been in her car for a river swimming trip to Cortachy that night, when he had in fact been riding his motorbike to and from Kirriemuir.
Turning to details of phone calls made around 11pm that night, Glass agreed she had spoken to Dickie within 53 seconds of stopping a phone call to Mr Donaldson, in which she said their alleged victim had told her she was “taking the ****” because she had not appeared at the Peter Pan playpark as agreed.
Dickie and the third co-accused Callum Davidson have both said they saw Glass and Mr Donaldson’s cars parked side by side there, but that she sped off before Davidson lunged at their alleged victim through his driver’s window.
“You can understand how these events look unfortunate for you?” said Mr Duguid.
Glass replied: “I can see what you’re putting in front of me.”
The QC added: “What do you say to Steven Dickie’s evidence that you phoned his phone and asked to speak to Callum?”
“Absolute rubbish,” replied Glass.
In response to questioning by advocate Jonathan Crowe, for Davidson, Glass accepted neither of her co-accused had known Mr Donaldson prior to June 6 last year.
Asked why she would have phoned Dickie to say Mr Donaldson was not at the car park, she said it was “the right thing to do, to let him know he wasn’t there and I was just going home”.
Mr Crowe put it to her: “You were there and you’re scared to venture there in case it implicates you in the murder of Steven Donaldson?”
“I was not there, Steven Donaldson’s car was not there,” she said.
Police questions led Glass to believe ex’s death was being considered as suicide
Tasmin Glass wept in the dock as she recalled receiving a message from Steven Donaldson’s sister which led her to fear the body found at Loch of Kinnordy Nature Reserve might be that of the boyfriend she had been due to meet the night before.
After going to work as normal in the café and takeaway where she had worked since being a Saturday girl there, the former Webster’s High School pupil also told Court Three of the High Court in Edinburgh that her initial involvement with police led her to suspect they were considering Steven Donaldson may have taken his own life.
Glass said she also became quickly aware of rumours sweeping Kirriemuir which linked her and the two co-accused to the killing, as well as suggestions that her father may have been involved.
She told her defence counsel, Mark Stewart QC, of going to work in Lee’s café in the centre of the Angus town as normal at 8am on the morning of June 7.
As news of the grim find began to sweep the community, Glass went to a police cordon set up on the edge of Kirrie at the road leading to the loch.
It followed a message from the deceased’s sister expressing concern that the family and none of his friends had heard from him and could not reach him on his phone.
“She asked me to ask about the registration of the car,” Glass said.
She said police confirmed a body had been recovered but they could not give her details of the vehicle involved.
“Basically they were putting it to me that it was suicide, the questions they asked me were to do with suicide,” the accused added.
THE CHARGES
Tasmin Glass, 20, Steven Dickie, 24 and Callum Davidson, 24, all from Kirriemuir, face a charge of murdering Mr Donaldson at Loch of Kinnordy between June 6 and 7 2018.
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.
Final defence evidence will be led on Tuesday, before summing up in the case gets under way.
