A lawyer accused of murdering the mother of his child maintained that he had nothing to do with her disappearance as he detailed how she moved out of the house they shared.

Kamal Worrell told the Supreme Court yesterday that he and Chavelle Dillon-Burgess had an argument on the morning of April 11, 2020, about potentially separating.

“I was telling her we couldn’t continue like this. Our son couldn’t continue like this, not having a stable home, a stable life,” he said.

“She never wanted to talk about it. She never wanted to leave but we were always butting heads and it was not good.”

Mr Worrell said that during the argument, Ms Dillon-Burgess began to throw items into the lit fireplace including linens and sheets.

He added the items were still burning when she left the house.

“It was like plastic so it didn’t burn like wood,” he said. “She started that, but when she left it was still burning but it wasn’t burning completely.”

Mr Worrell said that he had boxes of paperwork related to old cases which needed to be destroyed, so he put some of the documents in the fireplace.

“Because I had a place with a fireplace, I would burn them,” he said. “I had a handful of papers from old cases and put them there so they would burn all the way.”

Mr Worrell said he did not know where Ms Dillon-Burgess went, but believed she went to a friend’s home.

He said he turned his phone to record and placed it on the fridge in case Ms Dillon-Burgess returned and the fight continued, but turned it off after around half an hour when she did not immediately come back.

Mr Worrell said she did return to the house that evening and eventually another argument broke out.

He said the argument did turn physical when she threw their son’s iPad and he threatened to call 911.

“It wasn’t a nice talk. You know her language. She told me how she felt. I said I had been through too much. I cannot continue like this,” he said.

“She was still upset about having to leave. I said we cannot live together. It just doesn’t work. It just couldn’t go on.

“She understood that but she was not happy.”

Mr Worrell said that he was innocent of all the charges against him, adding: “There’s no evidence, in my view.

“I have listened for a whole month. I have waited for three years. I say there’s no evidence.”

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.

Under cross-examination by Daniel Kitson-Walters, for the prosecution, Mr Worrell accepted that he had told police in May 2018, while Ms Dillon-Burgess was pregnant with their child, that she was “nothing” to him.

However, he said that it was not true and denied a suggestion that he had not told the court how he felt about the woman until yesterday’s hearing.

“She’s the mother of my child,” he said. “She is still the mother of my child.”

Mr Worrell told the court that Ms Dillon-Burgess had lied about him and that others had “regurgitated” the mistruths to police and the court.

“Unfortunately, I have to say Chavelle lied about a lot of things,” he said.

While he told the court he had never struck Ms Dillon-Burgess, he said he had restrained her to prevent her from attacking him, including during an altercation on June 1, 2019 in which he put his knee on her to hold her down.

Mr Worrell accepted that he helped Ms Dillon-Burgess pen a November 5, 2019 letter written as part of an effort to withdraw her criminal complaints against him.

He also accepted that at the time he had been ordered not to have contact with her as part of his bail conditions, but they were still living together.

“Yes, there were bail conditions,” he said. “Yes, I may have technically been in breach, but my child and the mother of my child are coming to my house. What was I supposed to do?”

Questioned about the events of April 11, 2020, Mr Worrell maintained that he had set his phone to record shortly after she left the property the first time in case she came back “hostile”.

Asked why he did not record her when she did eventually return and the fight resumed, he said the situation initially appeared to have calmed.

“It was hours after the argument and we were not in a hostile situation when she returned,” he said. “When she left it was a hostile situation. Hours passed.”

Mr Worrell said he had told officers the argument was physical only because Ms Dillon-Burgess had thrown items, not because there was a violent confrontation and that he had not called police because he felt the threat alone was enough.

“I never attempted to call 911 on that occasion because I had no need to,” he said.

He accepted that throughout April 11, he was in regular communication with his girlfriend but did not mention Ms Dillon-Burgess leaving the house at any time that day.

Mr Worrell told the court that Ms Dillon-Burgess loved their son and she was not the type of person who would abandon him.

“I don’t think that at all,” he said. “I don’t think she would ever want to do that voluntarily. No way.”

The trial continues.

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