Woman 'cowered' before man accused of killing her, trial hears

A witness has told a court that she she saw a woman "cowering" in the arms of the man accused of killing her on the night she fell from a bridge.

Daisy White said Kimberley Milne was "trapped" as she was being held by Lee Milne against the wall of a carpet shop on 27 July 2023.

White, 25, told a trial at the High Court in Glasgow "alarm bells" rang after seeing the interaction between Kimberley and Milne, 39, during a shopping trip with her boyfriend.

Kimberley, who was 28, died after being struck by multiple vehicles on the A90 in Dundee. Milne denies culpable homicide and a separate charge of domestic abuse at several properties in the city.

White said she first saw Kimberley and Milne near a slip road by a car that appeared to be broken down at about 21:30 on the evening of Kimberley's death.

White told how she and her boyfriend passed quickly in a car, but it appeared Kimberley and Milne were "arguing".

She said she initially thought they were father and daughter.

White then went shopping with her partner, but spotted Kimberley and Milne again later outside a nearby carpet shop at a retail park.

There, she told the court Milne appeared to be "holding her up against the carpet shop against the wall".

She said she was "concerned" for Kimberley's welfare.

Asked by prosecutor Alex Prentice KC what Kimberley was doing, White said: "She was cowering scared.

"She didn't really do much - there wasn't much she could do."

Prentice asked White if Kimberley said anything during the interaction, but White described her as "too frightened".

White added: "It was a man making a young woman scared - it's going to be alarm bells."

Mark Stewart KC, defending, put it to White that she did not know the circumstances of why they were reacting the way that they were.

She replied: "Yes."

Earlier, Milne's older sister, Felicity Dryden, told the court she spoke to Milne after he was held overnight by police.

Dryden, 41, said Milne claimed to have seen Kimberley "on the bridge" while driving down the Kingsway road.

She said he claimed to have taken a slip road to get to the bridge in order to assist her.

Dryden said Milne had told her he "could not hold on to her" and was "clearly in shock" after the incident.

She said her initial impression was that Milne "saw Kimberley, stopped his car, got out and tried to help her".

But Dryden said she had begun to "doubt" that version of events after speaking to Milne again.

She said his story changed and he claimed Kimberley was in the car and pulled the handbrake, causing it to crash.

Dryden had part of her initial police statement read to her, in which she said Milne was "scared to tell me the truth as he was bringing bother to my door again".

Asked if that was how she felt at the time, Dryden said: "Maybe not at the time, but when other things started coming out afterwards."

Kimberley's former partner Michael Thomson, 42, told jurors that he kept in contact with her after their six-month relationship came to an end in the middle of 2022.

Thomson said that he saw a bruise on Kimberley's eye in February or March 2023.

He claimed Kimberley told him Milne was responsible and stated that Milne called her about "20 times" within 30 to 60 minutes during their time together.

Thomson also claimed Kimberley told him she had "left" Milne as he was "hitting her and being abusive" six days before her death.

He recalled later visiting Kimberley and hearing a man shouting outside her home with "something in his hand."

He claimed Kimberley told him that the man was Milne.

The trial, before Judge Lady Drummond, continues.