A neighbour of murder accused Constable Noel Maitland has testified that on July 13, 2022, the policeman expressed concern about footage that was possibly captured by cameras mounted on his house.

The neighbour is the latest witness to give evidence in Maitland’s murder trial in the Home Circuit Court in downtown Kingston. Maitland is on trial for the July 2022 murder of his 24-year-old girlfriend, Donna-Lee Donaldson, who was last seen alive at the Chelsea Manor apartments in New Kingston, where Maitland lived in St Andrew.

Based on circumstantial evidence, prosecutors theorise that Donaldson was murdered inside Maitland’s apartment between July 12 and 13 in 2022 and her body disposed of. Besides murder, Maitland is also being tried for preventing the lawful burial of a corpse.

According to the neighbour, Maitland called him twice on July 13 to inquire about the camera footage.

He claimed that Maitland told him that he was up for a promotion at his job and therefore wanted to know if the camera had captured him walking by with a ganja spliff and whether the footage was stored. The neighbour said Maitland mentioned that the institution he worked for would do background checks on him and if anything problematic was stored on the cameras, it could jeopardise his promotion.

The neighbour said he told Maitland that the contents on the camera were saved but that he didn’t know how long they would be saved for. He told the constable that he would have to check when he got home.

He didn’t speak to Maitland again that day.

The seven-member jury in the case further heard that on July 14, while he was at home engaged in a virtual work meeting, Maitland knocked on his door and tried calling him on the phone. He said he sent Maitland a message on WhatsApp, explaining that he was in a meeting. He said the policeman stood outside his door for approximately 15 minutes.

Eventually, the neighbour said he managed to open the door. He said that having opened the door, Maitland told him that a girl who was by his place had gone missing.

The neighbour claimed that Maitland asked him if he could come inside his apartment to see the footage from his camera. He said he granted Maitland access to his apartment.

He told the court that when he went to check the camera system to bring up the footage from two days prior as Maitland requested, he realised that only footage from two of his five cameras was stored. He said the camera that was pointed to the parking lot which could pick up Maitland’s vehicle, as well as another camera in a passageway between Block A and B in the complex were recording.

The neighbour told the court that he saw footage on Tuesday, July 12, 2022 of a vehicle he said was Maitland’s come on to the complex.