EMBATTLED police constable Noel Maitland, who was charged with murder and preventing the lawful burial of a corpse, reportedly told detectives that he and his presumed dead girlfriend Donna-Lee Donaldson had an argument at his Chelsea Manor apartment in New Kingston on July 12 before she went missing.

Donaldson was reported missing on July 13 by her mother, and cops theorise that she was killed on July 12 between 4:00 pm and 8:00 pm. Relying heavily on circumstantial evidence, detectives charged Maitland in August.

During a bail hearing on Tuesday in the Supreme Court, the prosecution said Maitland had indicated in a statement that he and Donaldson argued over a photograph of his child’s mother, which he had in his apartment.

Though there were no eye witnesses to a murder and a body has not yet been found, the prosecution said the absence of a body does not prevent them from asserting that Donaldson is dead.

“We’re being mindful that we have not passed that threshold of a year and a day,” the prosecutor said.

“Based on the evidence we believe that this is a strong circumstantial evidence case. While we can’t prove motive, there is evidence not just from friends and family members of Miss Donaldson, but the accused man has asserted that he was involved in an intimate relation with Miss Donaldson and another female with whom he has a child,” the prosecutor added.

According to the prosecutor, there is video evidence that coincides with accounts from Donaldson’s mother Sophia Lugg.

“There is video evidence of the accused arriving at his Chelsea Manor apartment after midnight on the morning of July 12, 2022. At the time he was driving his BMW motor car and a female is visible in the front passenger seat. This observation coincides with Miss Lugg’s account that it was the accused man who picked up her daughter on the night of the 11th and also coincides with the accused man’s account, given in his witness statement, that he picked her up at her home and took her to his. Based on these accounts and the video footage viewed by the neighbour and technician, the Crown is asking the court to accept that at this stage, that it was Donna-Lee Donaldson who accompanied the accused man to his home and arrived there in the early morning of July 12, 2022.

In court on Tuesday was Maitland’s father and Sophia Lugg, the mother of Donaldson.

When the session was adjourned for lunch, Lugg waited on Maitland to be handcuffed in the prisoner’s dock by police and as he was being led out of court she followed his every move with her eyes. With tears welling in her eyes she shook her head from left to right and told the woman who had accompanied her that she always treated him like her own son.