A man accused of murdering the mother of his child told a jury that the case against him is built on a foundation of speculation.

Kamal Worrell, delivering his closing remarks in his defence, said there was no evidence before the court to show that he killed Chavelle Dillon-Burgess or disposed of her body.

“Speculation has no place in these chambers,” he said. “If that was the case, we could have trials on social media.”

Mr Worrell told the court that he loved Ms Dillon-Burgess and maintained that, despite the allegations against him, he was not a violent man.

“It’s unfortunate for justice in this country they have brought this case without evidence,” he said.

“It’s for the prosecutor to prove their case because from the start they didn’t have a case to prove. They didn’t even have a date when it happened.”

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.

Cindy Clarke, the Director of Public Prosecutions, this week warned the jurors to be wary of “smoke and mirrors”, arguing that the circumstantial evidence should leave the jury confident that Mr Worrell assaulted, wounded and eventually killed Ms Dillon-Burgess.

Ms Clarke suggested that Mr Worrell thought Ms Dillon-Burgess was ruining his career by pressing criminal charges against him for domestic violence.

Continuing his closing remarks yesterday, Mr Worrell said that while prosecutors appeared to focus on the date of April 11 during the trial, they had failed to pin down the date of the alleged crime beyond a two-month window before evidence began.

“You may think in a matter like this that’s pretty important,” he said. “When the prosecution alleges that someone killed someone, you may think they would be able to say as best they can when, where and how.

“Anyone accused of anything deserves to know exactly what they are accused of so that they can prepare, craft, build and set up a defence. How else can you defend yourself?”

Mr Worrell questioned how prosecutors could expect jurors to be confident in his guilt when they could not pin down when or how the crime was alleged to have taken place.

He also said that while prosecutors had alleged that he had disposed of her body after her death, there was no evidence of how, apart from a discussion with another lawyer years before about the disposal of a body in a different case.

“My learned friend is asking you to speculate that because I was so well versed in criminal matters I must have been somehow capable of disposing of a body,” he said.

Mr Worrell also criticised the investigation into Ms Dillon-Burgess’s disappearance, arguing that Jason Smith, the officer in charge of the case, ignored potential leads to focus solely on him as a suspect.

He said that the court heard evidence of tights found on Tribe Road No 5, which were never tested, and a phone found near Jews Bay, which appeared similar to Ms Dillon-Burgess’s but was never investigated further.

“You would think that no stone would be left unturned,” Mr Worrell said. “All of these efforts, but here we have an iPhone that the best friend of Chavelle said could have been her phone that was handed in.

“There’s a chance it could have been Chavelle’s phone. Jason Smith is acting like it doesn’t even matter.”

He also denied that he had attempted distract the jurors with smoke and mirrors, adding: “I can say that at the end I set out to bring out the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

“I did that. I cannot say the same about everyone else.”

The trial is expected to conclude next week.

• It is The Royal Gazette’s policy not to allow comments on stories regarding criminal court cases. This is to prevent any statements being published that may jeopardise the outcome of that case