The Traveller accused of stabbing his sister to death allegedly attacked their sister Nadia with a knife four days before the killing, a jury heard today.

Jordan Johnstone and his co-accused Angela Newlands argued with Nadia Johnstone outside a flat in Coatbridge, the High Court at Livingston was told.

Craig Corrigan, 34, said Nadia – who was also known as Shabbana – had been staying at the flat he shared with his partner Toni McKinlay for a few days before the alleged incident.

He gave evidence that both accused arrived in in the North Lanarkshire town in Johnstone’s Ford Galaxy with three or four children in the back on May 6 last year.

He said Johnstone phoned Nadia from the car park outside his flat asking for her house keys, claiming they and their children had nowhere to stay.

When Nadia refused to give him the keys to a flat she had in Stevenston he said Johnstone “threatened to kill her and set her house on fire and all that sort of stuff.”

He told how he and Toni accompanied Nadia to the car park to make sure she was OK because she was of the “aggression” her brother had displayed during the phone call.

He said: “Jordan and Angela were aggressive towards Shabbana. There was a dispute between the three of them. 

“It was something about Jordan and Angela having nowhere to stay with the kids and they wanted to stay at Shabbana’s house. 

“He (Johnstone) wasn't calm, far from calm. I don't know how to describe it. There was a lot of anger. It was directed at Shabbana. 

“Angela was sitting cursing and swearing and threatening. Angela threw something like a milk shake or frappe thing from MacDonald’s – a cup of slush kind of thing – over Shabbana.” 

He went on: “Jordan jumped out of the car from the driver’s side went round to Shabbana at the passenger door then he took a swipe at Shabbana, a punch to the face. It was the right side on the face next to the eye.

“He had a wee black thing in his right hand about thee/four inches. I think it was a Swiss army knife or a pocket knife or a Stanley blade, that kind of thing. He got it in the car, somewhere in the door pouch or something. 

“Toni jumped in between them obviously, Jordan was cursing and swearing then he jumped in the car and drove away.

Under cross examination by Johnstone’s defence counsel Keith Stewart, Mr Corrigan said Nadia had seemed frightened by her brother’s threats.

He said: Jordan was getting aggressive over the phone and she was getting scared and upset. I could hear his nasty words to her.”

He rejected the suggestion that Johnstone had just slapped his sister. He retorted: “It wasn’t a slap. I know what a slap is and I know what a punch is.”

Johnstone, 25 and Newlands, 28, both prisoners at Edinburgh, deny murdering Annalise at a withch’s monument near Auchterarder, Perthshire on 10 May last year and attempting to defeat the ends of justice by trying to cover up the crime.

They also deny assaulting Nadia in Coatbridge on 6 May, pulling Annalise from a car in Beith, on May 8 and stealing a caravan and contents in Irvine, Ayrshire, on May 9.

Earlier the jury heard a recording of a phone call Johnstone made to police  reporting Annalise as a missing person and claiming he was “worried sick” about her.

Receptionist Robyn Taylor and her electrician boyfriend Nathan de Gernier, both 24, gave evidence that they saw a man burning clothing behind a parked car on a county road near Inchture in Perthshire shortly after Annalise was killed.

Mr de Gernier said: “We just thought it was strange. We didn't pay much attention to it.

“On May 22 I was travelling in that area and I seen a lot of police and I slowed down to stop and kinda see what was happening.

“Police were looking along the side of the road. It wasn’t until I put two and two together that I recalled what I'd seen so I stopped and spoke to an officer.”

The trial, before Lady Scott, continues.