A lawyer accused of murder denied allegations of domestic abuse in a police interview recorded the year before the mother of his child disappeared.

Kamel Worrell told officers in a June 2019 police interview that he had called police multiple times after disagreements with Chavelle Dillon-Burgess escalated.

“If we get into a verbal argument, she simply cannot have an argument,” he said. “She has to get hostile, loud aggressive.

“I called police a number of times, always to have her leave the house.”

Confronted with allegations of assault in an incident earlier that month he denied that he had struck Ms Dillon-Burgess with a spatula and said he had suffered defensive injuries trying to keep her from taking their child.

“It was about her trying to grab the baby, and I said no,” he said.

Mr Worrell has denied allegations of murdering Ms Dillon-Burgess on an unknown date between April 10 and June 11, 2020.

He has also denied a charge of wounding Ms Dillon-Burgess and a charge of common assault related to an incident on June 1, 2019 and six counts of common assault related to an incident on November 14, 2018.

The Supreme Court heard that Ms Dillon-Burgess was reported missing in 2020 and has not been found.

Earlier in the trial, the court was read witness statements from Ms Dillon-Burgess in November 2018 and June 2019, in which she alleged that arguments about their child had escalated to physical violence.

In December 2018, Ms Dillon-Burgess made a statement withdrawing her complaints about the first incident, but she later told police she had “changed her mind”.

She told officers in June 2019 that a dispute over their son’s food had turned violent with Mr Worrell shoving her and kneeling on her back.

Ms Dillon-Burgess claimed that when he got off her, she grabbed a metal spatula and pointed it at him, but he disarmed her and struck her in the forehead, cutting her.

In a police interview recorded after the allegation was made, Mr Worrell said: “She has always been hostile. She has always been aggressive. I have never attacked her. I have only acted in defence.”

He told police that on the day of the altercation she was supposed to drop their son at his home but, after an argument broke out, she wanted to take the child and leave.

Mr Worrell said he could not recall what sparked the argument, but that he was holding their son in his right arm and used his left arm to keep her from grabbing the child.

He said that he did push her down and put his knee on her body, but got up when she said she could not breathe.

Mr Worrell also accepted that he did take a metal spatula from his hand, but denied that he struck her with it.

As the argument continued, he said she began to smash glasses and dishes, suggesting that her head may have been cut by a piece of broken glass that had ricocheted.

Mr Worrell said that while he was still holding their child, she grabbed a rock and threw it at him. He told the officers that he believed the rock had struck his left arm and then the baby’s face, causing a bruise beneath his eye.

The court also heard evidence from Chief Inspector Alex Rollins who spoke with Ms Dillon-Burgess in November 2018 to collect a witness statement about an earlier complaint of assault.

“Based on the information that was collected in the statement I recorded, I was satisfied that there was sufficient evidence to support the offence of common assault in regards to a domestic altercation the day before,” he said.

“I contacted officers that were on duty, and I asked them to go to the residence of Mr Worrell to affect and arrest for the offence.”

He said that during the interview Ms Dillon-Burgess came across as “meek” adding: “Her body language was shrunk and quiet.”

Mr Rollins said that while he spoke with Ms Dillon-Burgess, she received a series of WhatsApp messages, which she forwarded to him.

In the messages, Mr Worrell said he was sorry and that their son needed him in his life.

“We need to be in one place,” he said. “I promise I won’t try to put you out again.”

Mr Worrell also wrote: “Baby, please don’t go down this road. This might be the last chance we have to make things right. I realise that by hurting you, I hurt the baby.”

He added that while he had called police in the past to “calm the situation” he had never pressed charges.

Mr Rollins told the court that while he later recorded a withdrawal statement in which Ms Dillon-Burgess withdrew allegation of assault by the defendant, she did not say in the statement that she had lied.

Under cross-examination by Mr Worrell, who is representing himself in the trial, Mr Rollins said he had written his witness statement after he had left Ms Dillon-Burgess and did not take notes at the scene outside of Ms Dillon-Burgess’s statement.

He also accepted that he did not have a written note about Ms Dillon-Burgess’s demeanour during the interview.

Mr Rollins said he believed the victim had sent him a message on WhatsApp at some point during the investigation period and that he likely responded, but he could not recall what the contents of that conversation was.

He said it was common for people to reach out to officers involved in their case and that officers don’t like to leave victims of domestic assault “high and dry”.

“We want to continue helping them,” he said. “Sometimes that comes in the form of emails, WhatsApps, meetings.

“Police officers are not obligated to do it, but it’s something we do when we think there’s a serious challenge going on.

“Victims sometimes don’t know where to turn, so they look for a single point of contact and often that single point of contact is an officer that has been involved in their case.”

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