A MAN accused of bludgeoning a woman to death with a hammer in Blairhall claimed today he was not criminally responsible for her murder.

Aaron Donald, 28, lodged special defences at the High Court in Livingston stating he was suffering from a mental disorder and diminished responsibility at the time of the killing.

He is one of two people charged with murdering Claire Turnbull, 36, in Blairhall on Friday October 5 last year.

Donald and co-accused Laura McMurdo, 30, whose addresses were given as Blairhall, were arrested following the discovery of Miss Turnbull’s body in her flat in Rintoul Avenue.

She was pronounced dead at the scene.

On the first day of the trial, graphic images of a woman lying in a large pool of her own blood were shown to the jury.

The shocking video footage and photographs showed Claire Turnbull lying on her back in the living room of her flat.

Advocate depute Bernard Eblett and judge Lady Scott advised jurors and people on the public benches in advance that they might find the material “distressing”.

Despite the warning Claire’s mum Heather remained in court, cradling her head in her hands and weeping as the video was played while her partner comforted her.

Recently retired PC David Matheson, 55, told the court how he and a colleague had found Claire’s body after other officers forced entry to the flat in response to a report by Donald’s father.

He said: “There was a female lying flat on her back with a large pool of blood around her neck. It was quite clear at that time that she was dead.

“At that point we just checked the rooms to make sure there was nobody in there. I looked around to find any kind of weapon that might have been used to cause the injuries to the female’s head but didn’t find anything. 

“She was the only person there. She had one training shoe on her right foot, a black training shoe. I noticed one in the hallway next to the kitchen door that matched the one she was wearing.”

He said paramedics who arrived shortly afterwards checked for an output with pads on her body but there was no sign of life.

Under cross examination by Donald’s QC Bert Kerrigan, PC Matheson confirmed he had phoned the accused’s father, Richard Donald, on the way to the scene.

He said: “Aaron had contacted him and said he’d hit someone on the head with a hammer.

 “I asked his father what was he saying and he said that he thought he’d killed someone. I thought his son had called him and told him that at that time but I now know that to be something different.”

Charles Weir, 39, from Dunfermline, who was Claire’s partner for two and a half years, told the jury she had a child who was staying with her mum Heather and was on Suboxone medication to help people with drug addiction.

On the morning of her death he said he had collected his methadone prescription from a pharmacy in Abbeyview then took her into town to renew her prescription which had run out.

He said they didn’t succeed because Claire drank a can of Dragon Soop on the way, despite being warned she’d be breathalysed before being given her prescription.

Instead he bought heroin and went to Carnegie Hall, an area not covered by CCTV cameras, to take it.

He said they then bumped into the two accused outside Coady’s Bar and both accepted an invitation to go and see Donald’s new flat. 

Donald and McMurdo bought a case of Strongbow, a bottle of Jack Daniels and a bottle of liqueur (Disaronno) from Tesco’s on the way.

Back at the flat he said Donald and McMurdo were drinking Jack Daniels and Strongbow, and playing loud music.

At one point he said he saw Donald pull McMurdo's top down exposing her breasts. He said: “She was embarrassed. He thought it was funny.”

However, he denied seeing Claire on top of McMurdo. He told the jury: “It didn’t happen. If it did there would have been marks and there were no marks when I ID’d them.”

He admitted he had drunk some Jack Daniels but felt ‘sick as a dog’ because he was suffering at the time from a gall bladder problem. He decided to go home.

He said: “I told Claire. I told her to get her priorities right because she needed her medication. She said she’d sort it out on Monday.”

When he left, he said Claire was sitting on the couch in the living room drinking.

He added: “I did go back. I tried the door but the door was locked. I didn’t understand why. I went  to the back and shouted up. It sounded like they were having a laugh. The music was blaring. 

“I went home because I didn’t expect my girlfriend to get murdered. Then, at 3 o’clock in the morning, the CID came. I thought it was Claire.

“They never told me she was dead. That’s why there were two statements. I didn’t want to get her in trouble eh.

“They never returned. My wee sister told me the bad news.”

In addition to murder, Donald and McMurdo are both accused are charged with attempting to defeat the ends of justice by hiding the weapon.

The Crown alleges that they changed their clothing; concealed the hammer in a bag; left the flat; locked the door; disposed of the keys and tried to hide from police officers.

The prosecution also claims that the pair falsely represented to detectives that they had lost the keys to 16 Rintoul Avenue, that Miss Turnbull and a witness had not been in the flat, and that the bag they had with them had been picked up from a locker.

It’s alleged that all of these actions constituted an attempt to conceal their guilt in the commission of the murder and to prevent the discovery of Claire’s body in order to defeat the ends of justice.

Both accused deny all the charges and are being tried by jury before judge Lady Scott.

An earlier hearing was told that a psychiatrist at the State Hospital, Carstairs, had assessed Donald as fit to stand trial.

In law, the statutory test for diminished responsibility is that the behaviour for which a person would otherwise be convicted of murder was, at the time of the conduct, “substantially impaired by reason of abnormality of mind”.

Friends of the dead woman, who was originally from Methil, described her as a “lost soul”, after her baby daughter became the victim of a cot death two years previously.